"it's the internet get over yourself"
"it's the internet get over yourself TriGgErEd woMeN"
the cortisol levels rise, the limbic region activates, and you're back to square one after intensive therapy because a place you felt safe and didn't have to worry over reminds you of the violator, the rapist, your unbecoming. all the safety has been ripped from you.
it doesn't have to be that they are. it can simply be qualities they share, behaviors you witnessed before they pressed against your body.
logically they cannot touch you or come close to you across the screen but illogically you check behind you to see if the door has opened and he's come around again. to see if you'll have to be silent, to behave, to not speak, to not allow your lips to quiver.
sometimes you wake up with bruises in the morning that weren't there. sometimes you wonder if you never escaped. sometimes you spend many, many nights awake wanting to rid yourself of a body you didn't ask for. you wanted to rip your skin off. you are dirty. as if you bathed in shit. it doesn't matter how much you scrub yourself clean, he's still inside of you. waiting. slowly. he's never going to leave. nothing is sacred. you spend the nights wondering, god, why did it have to be you. why did it have to be your safety.
so you find safety in things, in little things, silly things. and then right there in your safe places, it comes rushing back because you see a man that reminds you of him, that has had similar history to him, and you can't run or hide and you're dirty all over again.
you will never be safe, you realize.
ever.
your body will never be yours.
that is what women go through. it doesn't matter if it's across the internet, this is sometimes the thought process of women (or men that have been abused similarly). they may not voice these thoughts out loud, may not be brave enough to, may not have the ability to push themselves to do it because they experience it all over again. they feel unclean. they feel unsafe.
i know you're likely going to complain and scoff saying again, that it's just the internet and to ignore it, but it doesn't make it disappear. it's something that hovers over you. wriggles in your brain like a worm. it isn't going anywhere because you know they're there, just out of sight.