Dear Sunny

Dear Sunny,

Now that you’ve gone I feel very sad. Your brother Doyle is also sad. The little sociopath cat Pauli doesn’t seem to care but I guess he misses you in his own way. There is a big Sunny-shaped hole in our hearts. I wanted to write this letter to you to tell you how much you are loved and how missed you will be.

When I decided to get a dog I was young myself (for a human). I was only 21, which is barely an adult. I bought my first little flat and I knew I had a safe place to live for a long time, and so it was time to do what I had promised myself I wanted to do for forever, and adopt a dog. I didn’t want to go to a breeder and buy a puppy because I knew that there are lots of abandoned dogs needing a home, so I decided to go to the Edinburgh Cat and Dog Home to look at all the homeless dogs and give one of them their forever home. I went with my friend to the Cat and Dog Home, and in my mind I was thinking I’d get a small, older, female dog. I was open minded though to whatever dog I made a connection with.

The lady at the Cat and Dog Home showed me all the female dogs and all the male dogs but none of them were the right fit for me. We had three cats already, and so the dog we took home had to be able to live alongside cats. When we had seen all the dogs and there was nobody we could adopt I was ready to go home and try again another time, but the lady said that there was a puppy and would we like to see him. I hadn’t planned on adopting a puppy, I had no experience with dogs, let alone puppies, but I thought I’d go and look at him anyway. On our way to the puppy house the lady warned us that you were a handful. You had been an unwanted Christmas puppy and that you nipped when excited, that you had already had four homes before the age of ten weeks and just kept getting brought back. She also said that you were very full of energy and needed a lot of training and patience. She made you sound like a nightmare. She also said it was likely that you would grow to be quite a big dog, not what I had been looking for at all! I was thinking I probably couldn’t cope with you, but then when we got to the puppy house and I saw you I instantly fell in love. You were gorgeous and super cute. You ran to me straight away and tried to climb over my head! You gave me lots of excited little licks and I instantly knew you were the dog for me. I decided there and then to give you your forever home, and when I said ‘forever’ home I meant forever. No matter what, I would never give up on you. I didn’t take you home that day but I went back for you the next morning and we took you home. I don’t remember ever feeling as happy as I did back then taking you in our friend's car in a little plastic box, and I remember I brought a teddy for you to snuggle on the journey home, but instead you destroyed it in seconds!

They said your name was Rocky but I never thought it suited you and I wanted you to have a fresh start, so we decided to name you Sunny because you had such a bright personality and because your fur was golden just like the sun. Also you seemed so full of joy to be coming home with us. I also remember you had silky very floppy ears and massive paws!

It didn’t take me long to work out why you had been brought back four times. Honestly, you were a nightmare! You just destroyed anything you could. I had to take you everywhere with me in the flat because even if you were left for one minute you’d destroy something. You were hyper and I had to take you on lots of long walks and runs to try and calm your energy. I remember coming home from work one day and you had destroyed a huge tree that we used to have in the living room. I feel guilty now because I felt angry at you and I told you off quite badly. No matter what, though, I was determined to keep my promise that with me you had your forever home. We had a dog trainer when you were two telling us you were untrainable and should be put to sleep. I didn’t listen to him. It took you a long time to get the hang of toilet training. I had never had a dog before, let alone a puppy, and everyone kept telling me different things that I should be doing to teach you. It took two years! When you got there, I remember feeling so proud of you.

When you were two I adopted another puppy, a Staffy, whom we named Doyle. We were a bit worried about how you would react to Doyle, but you loved him straight away and very quickly you became best friends. From then on you and Doyle were barely ever apart. You did everything together, ate, slept, went for lovely walks, played with the ball, and snuggled. Doyle was your little brother and you really loved him. Now Doyle is missing you terribly but I hope he can sense that you are watching over him.

We went on many adventures. One of your favorite walks was through Colinton Dell, a beautiful woodland walk. You would paddle in the water and do lots of sniffing. One time you dropped your ball down a steep hill and chased after it, falling all the way to the bottom. I thought you would have really hurt yourself and was really worried but you just bounced back up and were luckily fine. Sometimes I would take you to a place we called the Happy Hill, and I would sit on top of the hill when you and Doyle played. When you were younger we would throw the ball all the way down the hill and you would have endless energy to go fetch it and bring it back. When you got older we sat together just being outside and enjoying each other. One of your last ever walks was a slow walk to the Happy Hill. We also had many walks along the canal and in fields so that you could run free. You also just loved snuggling up at home for cuddles and getting treats. Caroline, our dog walker, would take you out sometimes and you loved that too, lots of sniffing, you loved to sniff everything. She also loved you and was very sad that you would have to go to the rainbow bridge.

One of the things you liked to do most was swim. There have been many walks along the canal were you have jumped in for a swim. You also loved the beach and getting into the sea and having a little swim. You hated baths, though: you much preferred the manky water from the canal than a clean bath! You loved your ball and playing fetch, though you weren’t always great at giving the ball back once you had it! When you got older and sore it was hard to stop you running after balls, because you’d be so excited to see them that you would forget that you were older and sore now. I have so many pictures of you with a ball in your mouth. You loved to carry one back after a play but you always knew to give the ball back once we got home.

As you became an older dog your hyperactiveness disappeared and in its place came a very calm, dignified wolf. You became super gentle and sensitive. You were always loyal to me. I was often unwell myself because of depression and my mental illness. Many, many times when I considered suicide you would come to me with your sad eyes and nuzzle into me and I couldn’t do it because I knew I was your Mum and you needed me. You saved my life more than once. Sometimes when I was manic I’d take you for walks in the middle of the night. I’m sure having you there kept me safe. You would follow me from room to room; even when you were old and in pain you wouldn’t want to be apart from me for long. I would get frustrated at you and tell you to go lay down in one place but you would insist on getting up and following me from room to room, despite the fact that getting up and down caused you great pain. You weren’t a good guard dog though. Managing to sleep through a break in! That didn’t matter to me though. You were my best friend, my baby, my companion.

We celebrated 14 birthdays with you. Even though I knew that 14 was very old for a German shepherd–type dog I wanted even more birthdays with you. I wanted you to be around for a very long time because I loved you so much. Sadly being 14 means you were indeed very old. I could see that you were tired and I could see that you were in pain. I kept trying to fool myself that you were okay, but in reality you were in constant pain and your hips kept giving way on you leaving you lying in a very uncomfortable painful position. I’d pull you back up, which hurt you more. I noticed that you had stopped wagging your tail and that you were often panting heavily and pacing about in pain. We took you to the vet lots of times to get medicine to help you, and I was so sad when the medicine didn’t work, because I so badly wanted to ease your pain and keep you here with me longer. I think that was a bit selfish of me because you didn’t deserve a single moment in pain. Towards the end it was too difficult for you sometimes to even get up and poo or wee and you were just doing it lying down and looking really sad. I had to clean you up with baby wipes and reassure you that you weren’t in trouble. In the end I had to make that horrible decision that no dog parent ever wants to make that it was time for you to go across the rainbow bridge and be free of pain.

You always hated the vet but on the day you passed you didn’t fight at all. Our very kind vet agreed with us that it was time and she could tell that you didn’t have long anyway because your blood pressure had dropped seriously low. She gave you some medicine that would gently make you go to sleep. I sat on the floor with you stroking your head and under your chin just the way you always liked it and you lay down with me and drifted off into a very deep sleep. Howard was there stroking you too. You knew at the end how loved you were. Before you died the sedation made your body totally relax and the vet said that you weren’t in pain anymore. You died very peacefully knowing how loved you were.

I will miss you forever. Doyle is very sad to have his brother gone and I’m trying to give him as much love as possible so he feels loved. I’d do anything to have you back and I hope wherever you are now you are not in pain anymore and can run free and chase balls just like you love to do. I hope one day you come back to me, in another life or another form. The flat feels emptier and to no longer having you under foot and a tripping hazard is strange. I couldn’t even go to the toilet without your wee face popping through the door! I hope you are at peace and free of all your pain. I hope you understand why I let you go and that you know how loved you were. I miss you, dear old wolf, and I think I’ll always miss you. Thank you for giving me an amazing 14 years it was an honour to have you as my dog.

Let's talk about rape

I want to write a blog about rape, something that’s deeply personal to me. I’m very cautious about writing this because it’s something that just in general isn’t spoken about. It makes me feel very vulnerable, so please be kind. I think though that talking about it is important, so more women and girls can realise that they are not alone, that there are ways of coping with it and that life can get better. Some of you will know I have been sexually assaulted and raped over a period over my formative years and that it has had a profound effect on my life, outlook and mental health. However I feel I have taken lots of steps to overcome some of the obstacles that I’ve had to endure. I want to write some facts about rape and try and clear up a few misconceptions and hopefully give a little bit of knowledge about how to survive it, or how to support someone through it. Please note that I am writing this from the perspective of a woman or girl, because that’s what I know.

Fact 1. Most people know their rapist and many are groomed

I think when people imagine rape they imagine someone being grabbed on a dark night by a random man they don’t know. That happens but very frequently the woman/girl knows her assailant. Often she is groomed and very frequently it’s a primary caregiver. Being groomed is a process that can start young, is subtle, deceptive, and cruel. It makes you question everything your instincts tell you and it leaves you feeling tainted. Rapists may say such things to a child as: “You sat on my knee today and you bounced about, you wanted this.” “What would your Mum/Gran/teacher/sister think if they knew what you were doing now, you’d be in big trouble.” “Little girls like you get sent to children’s homes.” “You are scum for doing this, nobody would want you after this.” The main theme in my own experience was that I would be the one who would get in trouble if people found out.

Grooming in adulthood could consist of a rapist/abuser saying “If you love me you’ll do this.” “I just got carried away.” “You put the idea in my head by telling me not to do that!” “I’ll tell everyone you’re a whore if you don’t do this.” In both cases often it is wrapped up and disguised as a gift of love.

The abuse can often be subtle. It can creep up. It can start (in childhood and adulthood) with some inappropriate touching and very gradually build up so that by the time you realise that something very wrong is happening, you don’t know how to tell, because it’s gone on so long and how do you explain? Imagine being eleven and having to explain to your teacher/parents/grandparents that you think that someone is having sex with you, when just thinking about it makes you feel dirty. So it becomes a shameful secret. As an adult that kind of grooming can leave you feeling like it’s your own fault; in childhood, it’s even worse. In both cases all the shame that should be on the rapist/abuser is placed on oneself. It makes you feel like you gave consent even when you didn’t. Both types of abuse make you feel like it’s your own fault. Sometimes it starts so young that you don’t even remember it starting. It’s just something that has always happened and you don’t realise it’s wrong until it’s far too late for you to feel like you can do anything to stop it. Always, adult and child, with grooming it’s extremely difficult to tell anyone else what’s going on because there is so much shame.

Fact 2. Once it’s happened once, it is far easier for it to happen again

It’s true that children who are abused often go on to be adults who are abused. I have experienced sexual abuse in both childhood and adulthood. When I was an adult I fell into a relationship with an abuser. He made me think it was love. He told me that he had to warn me that once he started having sex he couldn’t stop so that if I consented to have sex with him I couldn’t stop it once it had started. Naively I thought this was okay, after all, men have always been unable to control their sexual impulses in the past and being forced to do things was the norm. I ended up in frequent situations with this man when I would be pushed into violent sex with him, where I’d beg him to stop and he would continue hurting me until he decided it was enough. He would even violate me by taken condoms off during sex without my knowledge. I had been groomed in the past to accept this kind of behaviour as loving. I felt that it was something in me, or about me, that made me turn men like this, rather than it be about them and what they do.

Fact 3. Rape and sexual abuse affects mental health

I remember aged eleven finally realising what was happening after having sex education in school and the topic of abuse being covered (not very well, I might add!) The reality of my situation really hit me. I still didn’t feel able to tell anyone what was happening and I just felt disgusted, and that disgust was turned inwards on myself. I remember the first time I self-harmed. I was doing homework, in which we were doing something with a compass. I remember dragging the compass along my foot – not hard enough to cause serious injury but enough that it bled. It felt like a relief. It felt like a punishment for being so dirty. From then on I self-harmed off and on. It started of with little cuts here and there where nobody would see. I would also bang my head against the wall and make myself sick. The sickness was to try and get the thing out my body that felt disgusting. As I got older and left home (at 16), I started to self-harm more often and cause more injury with my cuts. Now, aged 35, I have scars all over my body. I’ve cut to the bone. I only stopped cutting when, aged 31, I met Howard, and still even now I still think about it – not every day any more, but whenever I dwell on the rapes I get a strong feeling of disgust at my body and I want to hurt myself.

It’s no secret that I have a serious mental health condition. Would I have it if I hadn’t been raped? Nobody can know for sure, but the way my psychiatrist explained it is that some people have a genetic predisposition for some kinds of mental illness. Some people go through their lives and it’s never triggered but others have trauma or other stressful events and their mental illness is activated. Having PTSD is also a common reaction to rape and abuse.

I’ve been in the psychiatric hospital so many times. It’s amazing how when talking to the other patients the subject of rape pops up, and it’s no coincidence that many women that I have met through hospital have gone through rape and often childhood sexual abuse.

Fact 4. Women who are raped are often afraid of men

I am very afraid of men. I view every man as a potential rapist. In particular I am afraid of the penis because a penis has been used as a weapon that really hurt me. I am very rarely alone with male friends. When I go on dates the fear of being raped is at the forefront of my mind. Sometimes I can be reckless and put myself in positions where I might be abused (this depends on my bipolar), while at other times I’m extremely cautious. Usually I do pursue relationships and try and act like a “normal” person would, but at the back of my mind I think “he’s going to rape me”. I am anticipating it often years after I’ve been in a relationship with someone. I would say with Howard it really only has been this year that I fully trust him never to hurt me in that way. It’s extremely frustrating for my male partners to accept that I expect that at some point they will do this.

I have never been grabbed in the street and raped by a stranger. However I know that this can happen and I believe that most men are potential rapists, so I walk alone at night with my keys in my hand and with my phone ready to dial for help. My startle response, my fight or flight reaction is very high. I panic if there is a man walking behind me when I get off the bus at night and have to do the short walk to my flat. I am terrified of that happening. When I sleep alone in my flat I am afraid that a man will break into my flat and attack me. I am afraid that my past abusers will show up and hurt me all over again. I cannot go through that again. It would destroy me to have to go through that again.

Fact 5. A woman/girl can orgasm during a rape

This is something I find really hard to talk about but not enough people understand this so I am pushing myself to share. I had orgasms during my rapes. I had mini orgasms when I didn’t even know what an orgasm was, and when I realised what was happening I felt extremely distressed. This does not mean I “enjoyed” being raped, just more that my body reacted to the stimulus. If someone forced me to sniff pepper the chances are I would sneeze even if I really didn’t want to sneeze. This response is very similar. I have spent literally years feeling disgusted with myself and shameful about this. When I was old enough to realise what an orgasm was and what was happening to me I just felt disgusted. I remember his face up close to mine and him whispering “You want this, you’re enjoying this”. I would lay silent. I would try not not react to the sensations in my body. It made me hate myself and hate my body.

Now years later in my thirties I realise that it’s not abnormal for this to happen. There are many other women out there who have similar experiences to mine. My therapist was very reassuring about this – that it’s normal and common and it doesn’t make me disgusting or dirty, so if you have been sexually abused/raped and experience an orgasm, you are not dirty, you didn’t want it to happen and you are not tainted and the shame is on your rapist.

Fact 5. Triggers

I know that “triggering” is a word that is overused, but when you have gone through something as traumatic as rape or sexual assault there really are things that can be triggering. What I mean by triggering is that it provokes an extreme negative feelings. If I have been triggered through the day then I will more than likely have a flashback in the night, in fact just writing this blog slowly, bit by bit has caused me to have more flashbacks. I am sitting here in my kitchen writing this and having feelings of loss, shame, disgust and worthlessness. Logically I am in a place now where I can rationalise that I am none of those things, but the feelings are so ingrained and so powerful that despite my logic and the logic of people close to me I still feel it.

I can be triggered by reading about rape and sexual assault, seeing films, images … I have to be very careful what I expose myself to. Some days I can handle it a bit better than others. It depends on my mental state how much such things trigger me.

Fact 6. Flashbacks

Many people who have been raped/sexually abused will complain of having flashbacks. I have flashbacks. For me they present as nightmares, but unlike other dreams that are abstract and vague, these flashback nightmares are almost exactly the same as my memory of what happened. I often wake up screaming in the night thinking that I’m being hurt again. If someone is with me I can calm down, but if I’m alone I feel very afraid, with a ton of adrenaline running through my body and my heart pounding. Sometimes I feel like I can’t breathe properly and that I’m going to die or I’m being choked. My psychiatrist has recently prescribed me some diazepam for nights I can’t settle. Talking to the therapist in hospital about the details of the abuse has meant that whereas I used to have flashbacks a few times a year, I am now getting them a few times a week. On one particular night when Howard stayed over I had about ten in a row. I would wake up frightened and panicking and then go back to sleep, only when I fell asleep it would start again and I would wake up, rinse and repeat. On nights like this some diazepam might help.

For those who really struggle with flashbacks constantly in the night there is a medication available that really helps to stop them. For the moment I’m waiting to see what happens and not pushing for extra meds just yet. I have a feeling now the therapy is over they will settle back down. I’ll evaluate in six months. The diazepam might be enough, even knowing it’s there if I need it somehow helps.

Fact 7. Stolen innocence

One of the things I have heard around child sexual abuse and rape is the idea that the perpetrator “stole the child’s innocence”. Let me make one thing clear. Children are always innocent. I was innocent and even if they have been raped and abused multiple times, even with multiple abusers the child does not lose their innocence.

The whole idea of virginity really gets to me. I remember being a 17-year-old teenage girl and having my first boyfriend. For the first time ever I was enjoying my sexuality and exploring. When people found out that I was fooling around with him (not even full sex) I would get lectures about how I should keep my virginity for the right man/marriage, that I didn’t want to “lose my innocence or purity”. Imagine how that made me feel at the time! It made me feel sick to my stomach because in the conventional sense my “virginity” was taken long ago and not by choice. It made me feel even more tainted and dirty. As an adult I feel awful when people talk about losing their virginity because I never got the chance to choose my first experience and my first experiences were just ones of fear and confusion. I like to think that my experiences with my first ever boyfriend at 17, when I was sexual for the fist time through choice, was my awakening into womanhood and sexuality. The thing is, the concept of virginity is flawed. All it is, is experiencing something new for the first time – no different from riding a bike for the first time, or kissing someone for the first time or having pizza for the first time. The pressure around virginity is ridiculous and for a long time the idea that my innocence and purity had been stolen from me really disturbed me. I felt I was lacking something that other girls had, that it made me unworthy of love. What happened to me was wrong but it did not lower my value as a person. The only people that are tainted by rape and child abuse are the perpetrators themselves.

Fact 8. It is very difficult to tell people that you were raped/abused and even harder to report it

I kept my secret for a long time. When I was 17 I told someone (my boyfriend at the time) that something had happened. I kept it vague and I really played it down. I told him out of necessity because sometimes the sexual things we were exploring in a healthy and consensual way were triggering me and causing me to get upset and he needed to understand why. He never pushed me for details and I never told him who my abuser was. In my twenties I told some people close to me what had happened and got some negative reactions of people not believing me or just cutting off contact. It’s only really Howard who knows almost all of the story. It’s very hard for me to talk about this so publicly on my blog. I still feel so much shame, I’m aware though that by talking about it in an open and honest way it might help someone else that’s gone through it. I am finally starting to learn that the shame doesn’t belong to me, that I have nothing to feel ashamed of, it might just take a while for my heart to catch up with my brain.

When I was in hospital for five months and undergoing psychotherapy the subject of reporting my abuser came up. For the first time ever I seriously considered it. I looked into it though and I realised that unless someone else came forward then it would be my word against his and I’d likely go through the ordeal of reporting it without him being found guilty. They would rip into me, bringing up my mental health, past sexual behaviours, anything they could use against me would be used. I’m not strong enough for that, when the chance of getting a conviction is small. I would also have to tell every single detail to strangers. My entire family would learn the details of what actually happened and I’m not able to cope with that, not without becoming seriously mentally ill again. Also my abuser puts on a very happy, normal front to the world. There will be people who take his side against mine. It’s not something I’d say I would never do. If someone else came forward I’d certainly back them up, but now is not the right time for me to be making this kind of move, not when I’ve only just gotten reasonably well from a mental illness that has plagued me for ten years.

Sexual assault and rape are one of the hardest things to go through and overcome. It’s taken me 15 years to slowly begin to heal and stop blaming myself. I still need Howard to remind me that it wasn’t something I brought on myself. I still think about it and think, was I abnormal? Did I want it somehow? Does it make me dirty, spoiled, ruined, impure, disgusting? I still get times when I feel disgusting, like there is something dirty on or in my body that I need to get rid of. That being said there are more frequent times when I feel strong, proud that I survived that and that I’m still able to have normal functional relationships. There are more moments now when I think that it wasn’t my fault, that the shame isn’t mine to bear, and that I can move on with my life and heal.

I will be happy to talk to anyone who reads this who has experienced these types of things and wants to talk. Writing this has been scary but empowering. I am still very nervous of people’s reactions. As always any and all feedback is welcome, and I am happy to answer any questions.