It took me a long time to speak up
Back in 2023, I invited one of my closest friends to spend the weekend at my home. We had known each other for eighteen years. We shared history, humour, and that sense of familiarity that makes you think, maybe this could be something more. We had spoken for weeks about the possibility of taking things further. It felt like a safe and thoughtful step.
What I never expected was for that visit to become one of the most violating experiences of my life. Despite me telling him he was hurting me, despite me saying no, my boundaries weren’t just crossed but ignored for his own pleasure. He took what he wanted, not what was offered. My body didn’t respond with anger. It responded with silence. A deep, confused, paralysing silence. I remember standing in my kitchen after he left, staring out the window, unable to feel anything at all. Just empty. I didn’t cry. I didn’t rage. I just disappeared.
In the weeks that followed, I disappeared into myself. I dyed my hair red. I got lip injections. I drank too much. Not because I wanted to reinvent myself, but because I wanted to hide. I wanted to become someone else. Anyone else. I thought that if I could change the outside, maybe I could stop feeling like my body had betrayed me on the inside. It took ten months for me to tell anyone what had really happened. Ten months of pretending I was fine, when in truth, I had never felt less safe in my own skin.
Your body is not the enemy
After a trauma like that, it can feel like your body is the reason for everything that went wrong. I blamed myself for not fighting back. For not yelling. For not being louder. I felt ashamed of how my body froze. I questioned if maybe I was overreacting, or worse, if maybe it was my fault. That kind of thinking doesn’t come from nowhere. It grows in silence. It feeds off shame.
But here’s the truth. Your body did what it needed to do to protect you. Freezing is a trauma response, not a flaw. It’s a survival instinct. And the first step in healing is learning to speak to your body with compassion, not blame. I had to start looking at myself in the mirror and reminding myself that my body was not the enemy. It was never the enemy. It carried me through the worst of it.
Some days, that compassion looked like a long shower and a cup of tea. Other days, it looked like sitting in the sun with my bare feet on the grass, feeling the earth remind me I was still here. Still worthy. Still whole. Your body wants to feel safe again. And little by little, with gentleness and patience, you can help it get there.
Finding your way back home
There is no one-size-fits-all map for returning to yourself. Healing isn’t a checklist. It’s a quiet, winding path of remembering. Of reconnecting. For me, it started with soft things. Soft clothing. Soft blankets. Soft music. I needed everything around me to whisper, “You’re safe now.”
Movement became a big part of that too. Not exercise for the sake of fitness or weight loss, but mindful movement. Gentle stretches in the morning. Dancing alone in my living room when a song stirred something in me. Walking slowly around my neighbourhood and noticing the flowers I had stopped seeing. These weren’t huge acts, but they mattered. They reminded me that I was allowed to take up space again.
It was also about learning to say no, and mean it. Not just to other people, but to myself. No, I don’t need to be productive today. No, I don’t have to make anyone else comfortable at my own expense. No, I’m not going to minimise what happened just because it’s easier for others. Reclaiming your safety means drawing lines that protect you, even when others don’t understand them.
Start with what feels good
When you’re trying to feel safe in your body again, it’s tempting to push. To force healing. To demand that you get better already. But your body doesn’t respond well to force. It responds to kindness. So instead of asking, “How do I fix this?” try asking, “What feels good right now?”
Sometimes, what feels good is lying on the floor and breathing deeply. Sometimes it’s wrapping yourself in a robe you love. Sometimes it’s turning off your phone and sitting with a cup of tea. What feels good isn’t about pleasure in the big, performative sense. It’s about comfort. It’s about presence. And it’s about giving your body back the choice it was once denied.
One of the most powerful things I did during this time was creating a night-time routine that made me feel safe. A warm shower. Skincare. Soft pyjamas. Clean sheets. Low lights. No mirrors. Just me, being gentle with myself. It reminded me that I deserved care. That my body wasn’t just a thing to survive inside. It was something I could nurture.
Let others love you back to life
Telling my friends what happened wasn’t easy. I worried they wouldn’t believe me. That they’d say it was just a misunderstanding. That I should have said something sooner. But when I finally spoke the words, they didn’t meet me with doubt. They met me with love. And that love cracked something open.
It wasn’t just admitting it to my friends that helped me begin to heal. It was also sharing it with my then-boyfriend. We had met just a few months before the assault, and started dating soon after it happened. For months, I didn’t tell him. I didn’t have the words. But I could feel the weight of that silence creeping into our relationship, in ways I couldn’t explain. When I finally opened up to him, I explained that what had happened to me had left unseen scars. Scars that were quietly shaping how I moved through intimacy, touch, and trust. Saying it out loud was terrifying, but it brought a level of understanding and closeness we couldn’t have reached otherwise.
Of course, I didn’t need them to fix anything. I just needed them to listen. To say, “That wasn’t okay,” and mean it. Every time someone validated my pain, I felt a piece of safety return to me. It was like stitching myself back together with the threads of their care. If you have people in your life who love you, let them show you. Let them hold space for you. Let them remind you that you are not alone.
And if you don’t have those people yet, know that you are still deserving of that love. You are still worthy of safety, support, and softness. It’s not something you have to earn. It’s your birthright.
Final thoughts
For a long time, I felt like my body belonged to the memory of what happened. That every part of me had been stained by his choice. But over time, and through conscious, compassionate effort, I began to reclaim it. Not all at once, but piece by piece. Through breath. Through movement. Through choosing softness. Through speaking the truth I once buried.
It takes time, but healing is not about perfection or rushing to feel better. It’s about learning to stay with yourself. To honour what you’ve lived through, without letting it define you. The more I care for my body, the more I hear it whisper, “Thank you for staying.” And I respond, “I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”
If any part of this story echoes in your own life, please know that you are not broken. You are not alone. And your path back to safety and softness is already unfolding. You deserve to feel safe in your body again. And it’s not too late to begin.
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