How long were they there ?

 I am uneasy and I can't get her words out of my head.  A counselor that was supposed to help. 

The interaction went like this. 

Her: Well, how long were they there?

Me:  I don't know but it felt like a very long time. 

Her: (Legs crossed and laughing), "Well sex doesn't take that long" 

Me: (Just silence brutal silence) (I just wanted to shrink, fade away and forget I ever said anything. ) 

 I felt her disbelief in her question, and I felt so small. I answered her question incorrectly and didn't know there was a wrong answer.  I was finally trying to speak about the unspeakable, and she was making me a joke.  I want to get her words, her actions that laugh out of my head because it's truly haunting.  Even today, thoughts creep in, and I think I should have answered her question different; I should have known. I find myself judging like why you didn't look at a clock, why didn't you know, why, why, why.  And then I think, well maybe I remember everything wrong, and he wasn't there as long as I thought. That kind of doubting is so damaging. Then I think why is the time so important, what he did to me remains the same.   And there are all these things running around in my brain and I think great I was giving people a reason not to believe me, somewhere in my brain I should have been able to give her a more appropriate answer. Somehow, I should have given her an answer like well that rape only lasted a few minutes and somehow, I would have been treated differently. 

I don't understand her reaction, and I don't understand why it mattered.  Why in the world would she say something like that to me.  Well sex doesn't take that long; well, I am sorry I have been raped since the time I was five.  Can you please enlighten me, how long is a rape supposed to last? I want to make sure that I am able to answer all of your questions appropriately.  

I was in therapy, and I asked why she would say something like that, and he said there could be different reasons, but that none of them really matter.  Like the actual physiology, of it which makes me want to cower, the actual sex act doesn't take that long.  And then he explained that trauma brain and your brain isn't focused on the time, but survival.  And he went on how we understand so much more about what happens to a person when they are being assaulted.  Somehow, none of those things matter because I couldn't answer.   And in the last few weeks there are moments I find that disturbing statement on repeat in my brain and I want so much to have an answer.  out of nowhere it pops in my head and there is this panic trying to find the right answer. So many things that I should know and understand.

Then I think to all of the rapes and assaults some of them seem to last for such a long time, and I think am I crazy, like maybe somehow, they didn't last as long as I thought that they did.  So many negative thoughts in my head about myself and the things that I don't know that there was no way of knowing. I feel like an idiot, just add this to the list of all the things that I don't know and can't fully comprehend. 

I even looked up how long that sex takes, I was desperate to find some kind of an answer.  There was a part of my mind, that didn't believe it. Literally the article said 2-3 minutes sometimes longer, but 20 minutes at the most.  My mind goes to all of the assaults from my father to Albert to Don and them, Charles and I think, they hurt me for so much longer.  It felt like such a long time.  I find myself trying to replay and think well it couldn't have been as long as I think it was.  I just have to find some kind of reasoning in my head, and it just isn't working.  Often, I just went away, another place that was safe and waited until they were done.  Then I could come back and clean up pretending that nothing happened.  What a mind fuck. Even Charles, I knew as soon as he placed that pillow on my face, I knew what was going to happen and I left.  I keep trying to think, I must have looked at a clock, how long was he really there. I just don't have an answer.  I cannot answer this question ever in any circumstance.  I cannot go back and find the right time. I know right happed I was always left to clean up the aftermath and make everything around me perfect. Get rid of any evidence. Make sure that nothing was out of place, or disheveled. 

I hear rape isn't about sex, but I can tell you, in my mind they are one in the same.  All the assaults on replay.  So many, all the time.  With the 5 of them, I look at the facts and think two or three minutes, when they were all taking turns, but it was over and over, and I guess that explains the time that they left me alone at some points during the day.  I just feel stupid, so many things that I don't know, that I can't answer and no matter how hard that I try I don't have an exact answer.  It felt like they were hurting me for so long. It felt like forever, when you fight till you are exhausted and they get what they want anyway. When it was my father, I feel like he took forever, then I think I was just small and my body wasn't made for what was happening.  Often later, there was an understanding of what was going to be taken and I went away, somewhere I didn't have to experience the real-life moments that were happening to me.  I sit here and the F bombs are flying out of my mouth, what a fucking life to live.  The ones with Albert didn't take so long, I was always grateful that meant less pain.  

So much.  I have never written anything so raw. I hate the things that they did to my body. How they touched me. So many things that I cannot wrap my head around.  And so much of it doesn't matter, but yet her questions spins, her laughing at me like what happened was some kind of small thing that didn't take very long.  So, if it was just a few minutes it mattered but if it felt like forever, I was a joke, a laughingstock.  My heart is heavy, core hurt.  I cannot answer her question, and whether it was 3 minutes or 20 minutes or more, it happened, and I am so sorry that I can't give an exact time, I can't tell you for just how long that I was raped by so many different men all through my life.  

I heart your heart.