Healing In Nature

THE APPALACHIAN TRAIL: A PATHWAY TO RECOVERY FROM SEXUAL VIOLENCE

The doctor expresses the normality of this feeling. Diagnosing a "flight and fight response" [1] The human brain vouchsafes To stay alive during incidents of harm. All she hears is flight. Fleeing society. The problem. The undeniable tragic

Remains of a terminal world. Her eyes refuse to show agony, Reveal weakness, and open herself up, Vulnerable to those who target the helpless. Wolves are only raised to survive.

After he raped me, he rolled over and fell asleep in my dorm bed. That was the last night I spoke with him. I left my room and went to my friend's dorm, where I spent the night on their floor. A friend took me to the hospital the following day, where I underwent a rape kit and talked to a detective in the case. As an investigation unfolded, my rapist was called into the police station, where I was later told he confessed to the crime. The detective wanted me to decide if I wanted to press charges without being influenced by others or what my assaulter had said. Ultimately, I chose not to press charges, not because he did not rape me, not because he did not deserve to face the repercussions of his actions, but because I was terrified of having to stand in a courtroom and become the one on trial. I refused to have to defend myself for a crime that he committed. Julia & Michael and Three Pens I hiked to a shelter but did not go inside. Instead, I filled up my water and sat by the piped spring. Gold. While I was sitting there, a couple of hikers passed by, walking toward the shelter. I continued onwards and found a pleasant area to camp, a grassy site overlooking the Shenandoah Mountain range. I pitched my tent by the lookout. I cooked dinner and hung up a bear hang for the night. Little time had passed when an older couple with daypacks and a dog walked up. They asked if I was alone and okay with them camping there. I happily replied yes. That night they lay in a hammock, set up between two trees, and read a book out loud together. Concentrating on reading my book was hard as I became attuned to listening to theirs instead. [1] The fight-or-flight response (also called hyperarousal or acute stress response) is a physiological reaction that occurs in response to a perceived harmful event, attack, or threat to survival. Walter Bradford Cannon first described it.

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