VEGANGELICA

Hello WolfAtTheDoor,

Maybe my story will be useful in some way. I was a very motivated high school student who got perfect marks, never dated, and knew I wanted a career in the sciences or in art, both of which I loved. After graduating from high school I felt very confident. I had an opportunity to take a year off and live in Berlin before going to the college of my choice, which had accepted me and granted a deferment.

So, at age 17 I moved from a state with 3 million people to a city with 3 million people, where my life for the first time focused on relationships, since I didn't need to go to school. Living in Germany gave me a wealth of new life experiences, some very good, and some very bad. I fell in love with someone for the first time, someone who said he loved me, too. The day after our first kiss he raped me. That was a fundamental turning point in my life.

My self-worth plummeted. I felt I was worthless ("damaged goods"), and I reacted by no longer protecting my sexual boundaries with people, since I felt I had nothing left to protect anymore. Although I wanted to change my life direction completely by going to art school in Berlin, I ended up following the "safe" path of going to college back in the States as planned. However, I wrestled with the feeling that my self worth depended on people and things external to me (that is, I felt my self-worth depended on whether someone loved me or not, or whether or not I did well in school).

It took me around 8 years to finally realize on an emotional level that how others felt about me did not define me. Part of this realization manifested itself while I was in graduate school. I realized 3 years into graduate school, which involved me doing a lot of work with radioisotopes, that I didn't want to continue on that path. Rather than continuing to do something I didn't want to do and that felt harmful to me, I decided to stop with a master's and not continue with the Ph.D. This disappointed my major professors. That was a hard change for me...because I was no longer going on the route I felt I should follow. I changed career paths and started working at a domestic violence/rape crisis center, which was a job I loved. I still remember the feeling of freedom I had that I was stopping doing something I didn't want to do. It was such a relief. I eventually started working as a lab researcher during the days (which I continue to do) because I missed science.

I would never have thought of working at the domestic violence center if it hadn't been for my experience of being raped. Overcoming the aftermath of that experience resulted in me becoming a much more compassionate, brave, and forgiving person (toward myself and others). First volunteering and then working at the DV shelter helped me learn a lot about myself and others, and gain a perspective that I wouldn't have had if I had continued on the career path I started on.

I don't feel there has been or will be one "direction" in my life, but I do feel that over time my resistance to doing things I dislike has increased, and my awareness of what I love...what makes me feel more alive...has increased. I didn't take the exact career path I initially envisioned for myself back in high school, but I think it was wise that I listened to my "heart." While it is probably true that no job can fulfill everything you want out of life, hopefully you can find a career path that fulfills some of what you enjoy most. Part of "finding myself" has been due to getting to know myself better (my passions and insecurities) and learning to make life path choices that are meaningful to me, whether or not they are to other people.

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