A woman who was 15 when she was sexually assaulted by Sofyan Boalag says she was a completely different person before she was attacked.

"The day before, I was a 15-year-old girl working at Tim Hortons and going to high school. I was living at home. I was happy. I had no fear," she told CBC.

"I used to go for walks almost nightly or in the morning before work, after work … I'd sometimes even walk home from work at 11 p.m. But after, that all changed."

I was scared to look behind me. I was scared to go to work, afraid that he would walk in and see me, or I'd see him. - Victim of Sofyan Boalag

Afterwards, she found herself frightened of the world.

"I was scared to look behind me. I was scared to go to work, afraid that he would walk in and see me, or I'd see him. I was petrified to walk from my door to my car, which would be parked right in front of my door," she said.

"I would look up and down the street before I'd even get into a vehicle that was just in such close proximity. It was just so hard to wrap my head around what had just happened to me. It changed me completely."

A victim of Sofyan Boalag says the serial rapist and his lawyer, Jeff Brace, argued that she shouldn't be allowed to have a screen between her and Boalag in court. (Cal Tobin/CBC News)

The woman — who can't be identified because of her age when she was attacked — said she came forward not because she's courageous, but for fear that if he wasn't stopped, he'd attack other people too.

"I came forward because I have two little sisters, and if someone had been sexually assaulted and didn't come forward and it had happened to them — I didn't want what I went through to be for nothing."

'Terrible' experience with legal system

Boalag assaulted her in 2012, and by October 2017 the case had still not finished working its way through the legal system. The woman said her experience with the legal system has been "terrible, to say the least." She praised the work done by Crown prosecutors, but said it's the legal system itself that is the problem.

"There's so much that could have been done differently, and there's so much that was done wrong. I swallowed 92 antidepressants, and I was in the ICU. When I woke up, the doctors did not know how I woke up. I seized for over 20 minutes. I'm alive — the only thing I have is a heart condition, and I'm lucky I'm not brain-dead."

One example: Boalag shouldn't have been able to fire as many lawyers as he has, she said, because that has drawn the case out with no consideration given to his victims.

Why would you make someone look at their rapist when they were raped as a child? - Victim of Sofyan Boalag

"I was 15 when it happened, and I had to be 20 when I testified. For that five years, that loomed over my head like a dark cloud, like I could never escape it because I wasn't done yet. I still had so much to do. I still had to testify, I still had to watch him be sentenced, I still had all this to do, five years later."

She dropped out of high school and struggled every day because she never knew when it would be over.

"He had all the power, and here we all were grasping at straws just to get through the day."

The woman praised the work down by Crown prosecutors such as Trisha McCarthy, but says the legal system allowed the trial to be dragged out much too long. (Cal Tobin/CBC News)

Another example: she had to fight, with doctors' notes detailing her PTSD, to have a screen in court to prevent her from having to see Boalag, even though that would have happened automatically if she had testified when she was a minor, which she was when she was assaulted.

"He wanted, him and his lawyer Jeff Brace, did not want me to have a screen," she said. "I don't know what they wanted out of that, honestly. Why would you make somebody look at their rapist when they were raped as a child?"

Two years after her rape, she attempted suicide, but after her second attempt, she said she was finally able to understand that she couldn't let him ruin her life.

Took hold of her life again

"Up until that day, he was ruining me. I was depressed, I dropped out of high school, I stayed in my bedroom almost all the time," she said. "My family worried for me daily."

Normal teenage activities like hanging out downtown were beyond her. She's grateful that she never turned to drugs or alcohol, as others might have.

"With me, the pain just consumed me. Instead of numbing it, I just let it consume me until I woke up from being in the ICU. And after that, I took a hold of my life. I went back to school, I got my high school, and I had a 98 average."

Now she's in university, and looking to the future.

"I took life, and I made it mine again, and I stopped giving him the power that he held over me."