My Story...

Palm Coast Observer
Opinion

Don’t go out alone at night, especially not down a dark alley. Check. Don’t dress provocatively. Check.

Don’t drink too much. Check.

Don’t be too flirty. Check.

Don’t leave your drink unattended. Check. Know who you are with. Check.

I watched the warnings on Oprah, read the warnings in Cosmo. I followed the “How to Not Get Raped” Handbook to the letter.

And yet, 13 years ago this month, I was raped.

He took my self worth. He took my sense of safety and whatever innocence I had left. He took my mental well-being. He took my panties. But he did not take my voice.

End of spring term 2007. I was so excited! My friends and I moved into a house at the beach. We were ready to take on finals, then summer term and get a killer tan. Well, that bubble burst. First, my roommates were way different outside the boundaries of dorm life. They threw wild parties while I mostly stayed in my room reading or crocheting. I didn’t know these people and it didn’t feel safe. (Remember that one from the handbook? Yeah, check.)

The weekend before finals there was no wild party planned. Perfect. I invited over six friends I had spent most of my time with over the last two semesters. Oh, and one new one. For the purpose of clarity, let’s call him Robert. I met him at a frat party at a local club. Sounds sketchy, I know. I thought so too, so I asked around about him. Great news! A bunch of my friends knew this guy and all vouched for him. Prior to the get-together we texted back and forth and hung out once.

Everything was fine.

Honestly, it was a fun night. We all laughed, had a couple beers, walked down the star-lit beach. I was doing cartwheels – literally. Robert and I even held hands, it was sweet. We made our way back to the beach house and hung out a bit longer. Before we knew it, it was 3 a.m. A little geographical background here — the streets at the beaches are narrow as are driveways and parking is very limited. There was a public park about two houses down, so anytime we had guests over we told them to park there. Robert was leaving first, so as I would have with any friend, I offered to walk down to the park with him.

Everything was fine.

We got to his car. He said, “I’ll just drive you back. I’m literally passing your house as I leave.” I weighed my options: walk in the dark by myself back to my house (that’s a big ‘no-no’ in the handbook) or take a quick ride with Robert. Easy decision – don’t walk in the dark alone!

Everything was not fine.

“Get in the back,” he said. I remember my body instantly freezing up. Did I have time to run? Did he have a weapon? We were in a car – there were so many terrifying possibilities. No one was around. He quickly removed my shorts and panties. I laid still in the back seat. He removed his own pants, and without bothering to use protection, raped me. I can still feel my head banging into the car door. My phone rang. I couldn’t reach it, but I tried. That might have been my saving grace, a chance to get out. He wouldn’t let me get it. While I was gone, my friends decided to call it a night. They told me later that as they drove past Robert’s car, they cheered and giggled when they saw our shadows in the back seat. They thought I was there by choice, that I had consented. Had they known what was really happening, they could have put a stop to it. It felt like every opportunity for this to end slipped through my fingers. So I waited.

When he was done, he gave me my shorts, drove me back to my house and left. I walked in the door to an empty house, drank whatever was left in any beer can I could find and got in a scorching hot shower to try to wash it all away.

I called the Rape Crisis Hotline. I was so confused. I followed the handbook; I did all the things I was supposed to do, but someone had sex with me without my consent. I needed clarification. I’ll never forget when the lady on the other end of the line said “Honey, you were raped.” What? No, that couldn’t be. I remember screaming into the phone, “BUT I DID EVERYTHING RIGHT!”

Let’s not forget this all happened the weekend before finals – I still had exams to take, a year to wrap up. Getting raped does not excuse you from life. Two of my best girlfriends (who were at my house the night I was assaulted) babysat me the entire week. They walked me to each exam, waited until I was done, and stayed in my house with me. I made it through. That first week after, as many times as I wanted to, I didn’t drive off the bridge I crossed each day. So, I counted it as a success.

As the days passed, my friends had to go back home for summer and I was left alone at the house that was just a few hundred feet from where my life was changed. I couldn’t do it. I decided to move back to the dorms. As I was getting settled, I found out that Robert lived in the adjacent building. Great. Now my rapist is also my neighbor. By this point, getting out of bed each day was a struggle. I was falling into a deep depression, constantly full of anxiety, chain- smoking my way into the next day. Late nights became early mornings watching the sun rise; it all blurred together.

I was tired. So. Damn. Tired. Not just physically, but mentally and emotionally. I was so tired of five minutes of my life controlling the rest of it. Have you ever seen the T.V. show “Intervention?” Almost every woman on the show who is struggling with addiction has a past riddled with sexual assault. I refused to be part of that statistic. I’m still not sure if it was bravery or stupidity, but I wrote Robert a letter. I told him he would no longer control my life. I told him that he could keep my panties but he would no longer keep the rest of me. I left it at his door.

I wish I could say that things magically got better and fairies danced around me and took my worries away. I hate to disappoint you, but this was just the beginning. As life went on, I threw myself into my school work. I made Dean’s List every semester but my depression and anxiety only got worse. Eventually my doctor and I decided to try medication. It helped a bit. I wanted to get better. I made an appointment with the counseling center at my University. I arrived just on time, hopped up on caffeine and spewed my story in lightning speed to my assigned counselor. She told me that I seemed “totally fine,” and wasn’t sure why I was even there. “You’re doing great,” I remember her saying. She was a professional, so I took her word for it. If that was great, I didn’t want to know what bad felt like. I kept on going.

Without making this a full length novel (I know it already is), I’ll say the next several years were NOT full of sunshine and rainbows by any means. Writing the letter to Robert was a step in my healing and medication helped, but it was no magic potion. I found myself in theater classes where I had a family of support and the best mentor I could have imagined. She encouraged me to write and produce a one-act play which was done under scholarship from the university. The play was literally painful to write. It explored the effects of sexual assault on all involved: the survivor, his/her friends and family and even the rapist. As I wrote it, I worked through some of the residual pain — picture me screaming, crying, cursing. Finding a way to empathize with a rapist was one of the most difficult things I’ve ever done. I was mad at God through all of this. How could He let this happen to me? What was I being punished for?

In time I’ve realized that God didn’t do this. Robert did. God gave me my voice. He gave me the strength to never shut up about it! I will always speak up and help others navigate their way through surviving sexual assault.

My play gave me an outlet to write and a means to reach out to others. It put me in connection with the Jacksonville Women’s Center where I helped out, which lead to me being on the Mayor’s Sexual Assault Advisory Council. I know, crazy to think that councils like this are even necessary. Working with police and law makers and feeling the support of the city was very empowering.

My voice was loud.

Still, it wasn’t all better. I was not healed. Maybe I’m still not, completely. Maybe I never will be. There were a few times my life just sort of exploded in front of me. I threw myself into whatever work I was doing to try to escape actual feelings. I thought very little of myself, if anything at all. I felt like a shell of who I once was. After one particularly bad “I can’t do this anymore” explosion, I moved back home. Super lame, I know. I went back to my high school job. I needed safety, security and that company offered an Employee Assistance Program. Even without health insurance I was eligible for low cost counseling. I found a local counselor and began Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. That was a real turning point in my healing. I learned to stop intrusive thoughts and how to explore worst case scenarios rather than fear them and get some control of my life back.

So, here I am 13 years later. I’ve made a lot of progress but some things still linger. I take small victories in my mental health – managing stress and triggers instead of having a panic attack, no longer counting the days, weeks or months since the rape occurred. I had to count backwards when I started to write this to figure out how long ago it was. I still struggle with my self-worth. A tear falls now and again.

But I am proud of who I am today. I am more than a survivor. I’m thriving. I have a beautiful child, a career that I love, my own home, a healthy relationship and an amazing support system of friends and family. If you told me 13 years ago that this would be my life, I would have laughed in your face. I couldn’t see myself making it 13 days into the future.

Most importantly, I wrote this because I want you to know this one thing — you and your life are worth it. I’m no different than you are. You will get through this. It takes work and bravery and exploring memories you want to remember. It’s hard. Really hard. But you can do it. Writing this reopened a wound, but it bleeds less now. That pain is worth it if after reading this you feel heard, more connected, a little braver. You are not alone. You are worthy. I am here - I see you, I hear you and I KNOW.