It was April 8, 2007 when something happened to me that would change my life forever. It took me years to make the decision that I wouldn't let it rule my life, but every year on this date I am reminded what was taken from me, and I think about all the other women who have been through the same thing and haven't come out of it the way I have.
I thought he was my boyfriend, he was coming over while my parents were in Arkansas to take me to my family's annual Easter get together where the little kids would hunt for Easter eggs, the other activities to keep the adults busy, and the big buffet to feed my very large family. I thought I was like a grown up, 21 years old I even made my own dessert to add to the dessert buffet like a grown up. I was going with a boy for the first time, and my parents weren't going to be there. He stayed the night, knowing that I wasn't ready or willing to take any steps in a sexual direction. He told me he respected me for wanting to wait, saying how if I wasn't sure he didn't want to pressure me...I believed him...I was wrong.
When I went to sleep that night he was asleep on the couch in the living room watching "The Departed"and by morning I awoke to a half naked dude wrapped up around me. I didn't freak out at first, I thought maybe he was trying to wake me up nicely by cuddling up with me. We lay there for a minute, but it didn't take long for me to pick up on his intentions. He was hugging and kissing me and the next thing I know he had lost his bottoms and ripped my off as well. I told him no, I begged him no, but he didn't listen, and I was too weak and afraid to overtake him. All I could do was crawl out of my head and try to go someone where else until he let go away of me. I ran to the bathroom and cried when I jumped in the bathroom to wash off the blood, everything hurt so bad as I heard him knock on the door asking if I were okay as if nothing happened. It took me two hours to get him to leave my house and I basically fell apart, and thought I couldn't tell anyone because who would believe me, it had to be my fault, I was now dirty.
My parents didn't notice I wasn't eating because of my anorexia I barely ate as it was, long sleeves covered up the cuts which weren't a surprise to my parents, but I was surprised they didn't notice I stopped sleeping in my bed. I would sleep curled up on my floor hating myself, blaming myself for what happened. I trusted him, that is why I allowed him to stay with me before we were suppose to go meet my family for Easter...big mistake. The hardest part was putting on a smile when my parents came home from Arkansas because I know they would some how not understand what happened to me, and it would be my fault. The weeks that followed sent me in a downward spiral...I wanted to die.
If God hadn't gotten involved and sent me to Columbia to stay with my friend Sarah who had invited me to a retreat for a weekend. I remember getting there and going to for a walk to the park. As we were swinging it all started to pour out of me, out of nowhere I said, "It wasn't my fault", and my friend began coaxing me to get me to tell he what had happened, and by the end I started blaming myself, saying that my no must not have been strong enough, I didn't fight enough. She immediately stepped in and made sure my doc found out that I needed to see him and by the next afternoon I was sitting in the good doc's office as raw as I have ever been in front of anyone.
"Did he rape you"? the good doc said quietly as I sat in the chair next to him not making eye contact with him or Sarah. When I finally told him what had happened I blamed myself and said I wanted to die. He had me escorted the ER, and eventually admitted me to the usually adolescent medical unit that I had been on for my eating disorder many times. He put me on suicide watch and anorexia protocol. Despite my trauma I had to eat my snack within a set time frame or I would be force fed. I wasn't new to this rule, but for some reason that night I decided it didn't apply to me, and each time the nurse asked me to take a bite for over a hour I just looked away. She quietly gathered up my tray, walked out of the room, and fifteen minutes later in walked in the on call resident. It was all too much for me that night, and I told them that tube was not going down my nose...a few nurses and docs later the tube was down my nose. I had fought them with everything I had to stop that tube from going in, but they won in the end, and I knew if I pulled it out then I would be strapped down and it would go back in.
For three days I sat in the hospital with a sitter in the room barely talking to people except the good doc and two very good friends. When I was finally stable enough to leave the hospital it was only the beginning of a very long road of healing. I was constantly on edge, I couldn't handle being around guys that I didn't know, didn't like to be alone, and finally I got the gentle shove from my friends to go to the police department. I shared my story, which was even more complicated because it happened in a different county, and in the end I was given a bed in the Women's Shelter and a restraining order was sent to him. The process they put rape victims through is rough, lawyers try to corner you and intimidate you into backing off, but I was lucky to have someone called a DOVE advocate who stood with me and went clean off on the dirt bag lawyer who was trying to intimidate me. In the end the restraining order was granted, but again that was just the beginning.
Before he was served with his restraining order the detective from the other county came down and had me to a cold call. I had to call this man that hurt me, all the while sounding calm. The goal of that call was to get him to admit that he heard me say no and he kept going anyway. We left that call thinking we had succeeded because he admitted to what he did, and I thought he would pay for what he did to me. Weeks later we sit in a room with the prosecuting attorney and a ton of other people, and they tell me despite the 'cold call' having a confession there was still no way to know for sure they could get all the jurors to believe that it was rape. I cried, fell apart thinking that it must have been my fault since they won't do anything about it. The therapists at the shelter tried their best to help me through, but I fell into a really dark place.
I lived in a dark place for a very long time, esp since only a few months after all of this happened my mom died. I essentially checked out. I didn't care about living....I was happy to let my anorexia have me, didn't care about cutting, and eventually didn't care about living. I became a walking zombie unable to really even show love to anyone, I didn't think I deserved to be loved, or that anyone could ever love someone as damaged and dirty as me. It was around that time that I attempted to take my own life.
People who have never been in the situation where you are so desperate that you are willing to end you life have no idea what it is like. You aren't thinking clearly, you are in so much pain, and you think that you are doing the world a favor by taking yourself out of it. I never wanted to hurt anyone, I just wanted everything to stop. I was blessed that a friend found me and the ICU docs kept me alive, and I realized that God didn't think I was damaged or filthy, He was meeting me where I was ...laying hooked up to all those machines in the intensive care unit. That was just the first steps in realizing that I wanted to live and that what happened to me did not have to define me.
Every year April 8 comes along, and though I have forgiven him for what he did I still find myself wanting to hide from the day because the wound never fully goes away, but it does mend. I spent years refusing to forgive him, but all that time the only person that I was hurting was me because my anger and bitterness wasn't stopping him from living his life, so I had to let go. As I let go, I realized I could breathe a little bit more, and a little bit more as more time passed. And, here I am now writing this, sharing something with the world that I never thought anyone could know or they would think I was some filthy, worthless person. I've learned people don't think that. I don't think of myself as a victim of rape, but a survivor. I am here with a beautiful little boy and a husband, not curled up afraid of him anymore...I'm living a life and he has no bearing in it.
If you are going through something similar please understand that it takes time and you aren't alone. I know that there are so many feelings and they come all over the place...one minute you want to cry and the next you want to destroy everything around you, and that is okay. Talking does help. My biggest issue was that I kept shoving it down deeper and deeper rather than letting it out, and I ended up almost ending my life. Please remember that what happened to you does not define you, you are still the same beautiful person you were before. Please keep fighting.
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