six months ago, i was raped.

although there is no timeline for healing through a trauma like this, i feel as though i have closed one door and have opened another. i want to share my story. i started group therapy today. i was able to talk about my experience physically and emotionally, but maybe not comfortably. i will never be comfortable talking about the rape of my body and i will never talk about it casually or sound as if i have completely healed. whether it happened six months ago or five years ago- i will never lessen the impact of my rapist’s actions by hushing my inner voice and soul. nor will i ever feel the need to lie to myself and tell myself that i am fine even if i feel otherwise. i will never get over being raped. but what i will do is grow. i will conquer my fear and (seemingly unbeatable) inabilities as well as face the harsh truths that have clouded my mind and scarred my body. But this is all easier said than done.

i am not the same person i grew to be six months ago. And while i have tried with all my energy and might to get her back, to see her smile and share her happiness, or feel her presence- she is gone, may she R.I.P.

I am someone entirely new and I have changed drastically. my experience, like any other rape survivor’s, is not easy to write or speak about. my voice was stolen from me the night I was raped. months later, i have realized that it was not only the loss of my voice but also the frustration of not being heard that contributed to the severity of the isolation i experienced.

My senses have been awakened and I am now acutely-aware of this rape culture we live in.

The generic wikipedia definition states that : “rape culture is a concept that links rape and sexual violence to the culture of a society,[1] and in which prevalent attitudes and practices normalize, excuse, tolerate, and even condone rape”.

My experience of rape culture is nothing short.

For me rape culture was:

- the pregnant nurse at the ER telling me she was glad she was having a boy because “girls come with all this drama” as she motioned her hands up and down my bruised, shocked, and bloodied body.

- the relevance of asking what i was wearing and what state of mind i was in

- my friends and family assuming it was something i would ‘get over’

- the constant rape jokes i hear when i am surrounded by groups of boys at parties

- the pure silence of it all

Was it my fault? no, it wasn’t my fault but I never thought that it would happen to me. rape culture is the blame and the guilt. the idea that i should feel shame and guilt because i let my body be raped. It is the normalization and systematic nature that a boy or a man is entitled to take as he pleases without penalty.

I have no intention of victimizing myself by sharing this. Instead, I have every intention of clearly defining what a victim is. While I have never referred to myself as a victim, I am one. I was targeted, harmed, cheated, fooled, and injured due to the free will of another human being’s quest for satisfaction. I have suffered because of my rapist’s destructive actions. I have even strayed away from labeling myself a survivor, but in these moments and past six months, I realize that anyone who has ever been sexually assaulted or raped is nothing but a survivor.

If the feeling of being powerless and abused is not realized or enough to trigger the instinct to indisputably survive in the moment it happens…the days, weeks, and months after will come flooding with it.

The day after I was raped, I was in shock. 2 weeks later, I was still in shock. At first, my coping mechanism was to skip being sad and instead I became angry. I was angry all the time. My temper was so short and I felt uncontrollable. Mundane activities like walking across campus became the hardest part of my day. There were times when I would dart behind campus buildings to break down and kick and punch the living shit out of the sides of the cement walls. Large crowds triggered panic attacks and at a school of 30,000 plus, it was easy to feel drowned. All I could do was sleep once I was back inside the same apartment, in the same room, in the same bed I was raped in. And even then, it wasn’t sleep. It was months of surreal nightmares, flashbacks, and sleep paralysis. It was the feeling of dreams within dreams, not being able to differentiate from reality and falseness, and waking up sobbing and terrified. To say the least, I was exhausted. The rest of my fall quarter of sophomore year was spent watching myself painfully shrink and fade. I disappeared in mind, body, and soul.

By the time winter quarter rolled around, my depression had caught up to me. Suicidal thoughts didn’t seem suicidal to me. They were reasonable and desperate ways of achieving the feeling of relief. I became entrenched in a limbo state of mind- between extreme indifference and worrying about my lack of worrying for my well-being. I felt like I had gone crazy and I was living my own personal hell.

On top of my own personal toils, I was also dealing with the legal system. By going to the ER, the police were automatically reported of this incident. (And since it was the emergency room, I had to pay $25 for the medical bill. I was told that this would be reimbursed to me by the court later. Since the court never decided to respond to my case, in essence, the transaction for my rape was $25). However, I still had a choice as to whether or not I wanted to prosecute the case. I spent the entire day in the hospital and at a forensic collecting site. It wasn’t until I was ready to be examined by the forensic nurse that I had made up my mind. I was in the bathroom peeing in a test cup when all of a sudden my reality hit me hard (I had not cried at all that day except for when I called my mom to let her know I was in the ER. My disposition throughout the majority of the day was calm, collected, and clear minded- at least that’s what I had thought because I was undergoing severe shock ). The unbearable pain that caused me to cry while in the forensic bathroom was because my rapist had caused a 1 inch wide, ½ inch deep laceration in the inside of my vagina. I had not looked in the mirror since before the incident and when I went to wash my hands, I saw my reflection for the first time. My neck was covered in bruises and abrasions, my head was swollen from being smashed into my bedroom wall, but the worst part about my reflection was the fear and confusion that had settled on my face. So, I decided to prosecute.

The disappointment of not being protected under the law is one of the easiest ways to lose faith in security. I spent countless hours and days cooperating with detectives, police officers, deputy district attorneys, and etc. What I had to show for it was negligence and silence. With that said, reporting my case and deciding to prosecute did not go completely ignored. With all the work I put forth, I made it possible to bring an insulting justice to light - my rapist was one of the 3% of rapists that spend at least ONE day in jail. With two serious pending felony charges and a $100,000 bail later he was released due to lack of action taken by the district attorney.

To this day, I have an unofficially “closed/opened?” case. I have no idea where my case stands because the DDA stopped responding to me two days after my rapist was released. The case was not closed, it was abandoned.

The anger and wrath I have accumulated from this experience is what drives me to be able to share my story today. It is what drove me to report. It is what drove me to prosecute. It is what drives me to become an active voice and power for people who cannot share their voice themselves. I am not afraid to share my story because voice is power.

I am still healing and I will spend years of my life healing. But I am regenerated and am a new person at higher heights. I write this in hopes of spreading awareness because I just became one more person you know who was raped.