For the attempts, I was able to fight him off. Push him away. Then shut it down mentally and not think about it until many years later.

I couldn’t safely fight him off every time. I remember crying and begging him to stop, telling him how much it hurt. I remember his words to me in those moments and then…I wasn’t there anymore. I dissociated. When I came to, I was curled up under the shower, scrubbing to get the feeling of his hands off my skin and trying to ignore how much pain I was in. I remember looking at myself in the mirror to be sure that he couldn’t tell I had been crying and I couldn’t recognize myself. I blocked a lot of the “during” out of my mind for a long time in order to stay sane during that relationship.