“Bury me in a blue blanket so God doesn’t know I’m a girl. Cut off my curls. I want peace when I’m dead.”

-Andrea Gibson

I have always had an issue forgetting the assaults (yes, plural). Out of all, I have only ever reported one; however, after that one reporting, I never wanted to speak up again.

The first time I was assaulted, I was a child. I think 8 years old, but I can’t be sure. I just know it was a part of my life and something I dreaded regularly. I still have nightmares. I can’t bear the scent of certain colognes. I can’t stand the sight of anyone with even a remote resemblance to him, with that awful Spartacus style chin dimple. I hate hearing a child say the name “PawPaw” because that’s who he was: my PawPaw.

When I finally came forward, it wasn’t because I wanted to report. It was during an argument with my step-dad. He was praising his father for being such a great grandfather and I just couldn’t take it anymore. So I told him. I was sixteen. I waited years and years and spent so many nights sitting awake at my PawPaws staring at my sleeping sisters, ready to pounce if he even so much as looked at them the wrong way. Luckily, they were spared. I wasn’t, however, and now I get to live with the destruction to my psyche forever.

Why didn’t I report it sooner? If it was that bad, I should’ve gone to the police right away…..right? Maybe he’s a different person now. That’s the kind of stuff I’m hearing so many people saying to discredit Dr. Ford and the others who have come forward in light allegations against a Supreme Court nominee. No, I didn’t go report the incident straight away. I remember the first time. I was on the computer on the love seat and my grandfather was sitting next to me. I was playing the Spy Kids game on KOL (yasss throwback!) and his arm began to circle me. I thought he was just “lovin’ on me” in the normal, grandfatherly way. Soon after, too late, I noticed what was happening. With a hand where it shouldn’t be, I froze and waited. Waited for it to just be over. Afterwards, I was forced to go wash. So I did as I was told. The fact that I was even told to do that made me think I was disgusting, that I was unclean. Obviously now I know it was an attempt to destroy any evidence, but my mind couldn’t comprehend that at my age. This continued for years, I began to avoid those situations in the only way I could think of. When he left a not on the shower that said: “Open to see,” I said I couldn’t read it and left the room. When he exposed himself in the bedroom, I pretended I was sorry for “accidentally seeing him like that.” He groomed me to be compliant. He told me “Now, don’t tell Grandma or your parents that you were over here by yourself or you might get in trouble. We don’t want them to find out that you missed school.” I believed him. I didn’t want to get into trouble. When he called it “lovin’ on you” to make me associate it with normal, family affection, I thought maybe I was wrong for being uncomfortable. On top of that, who’s going to believe me? Children are to be seen and not heard, or so I was told.

When I finally confessed, I expected backlash, but the biggest relief was hearing “I bet that felt like a huge weight off your chest to finally come forward. What do you need from me?” It was that moment that I KNEW my family had my back no matter what happened in the coming months. The next few months were absolutely awful. I spent most of my days in some office, with lawyers and detectives, pointing on a doll or rehashing the events one by one in painful detail. When time came for the trial, it was even worse. I had to face him, the demon of my nightmares. Worse even, was watching my grandmother and my uncle stand beside him. Firm that he could never commit something so awful. The trial lasted a week, I think. In that week, I was called a liar, a spoiled child, and watched as my grandfather played up his illness to seem incapable of committing such a crime. The defense painfully reminded me of the good times with him, like it made up for what he had done. They portrayed me to the jury as a bratty, lying, spoiled brat who made something up because I didn’t get my way. I went through all this, to be told that he was not guilty. When the verdict was read, I buried my head in my hands, helpless. I heard screams from the hall and went out to find my mother in hysterics because someone just got away with hurting her little girl. I will never forget her face, and at that moment I wanted to turn back time and never say a word of what happened just to make her feel better. I watched from the hall window as my grandfather, my PawPaw, got in his Suburban and drive away a free man.

I coped. Not well, but I coped. I did the exact opposite of what I would imagine someone in my position to do. I lashed out in the only way I knew how: sex. I began a series of meaningless and awful relationships and one night stands. I was emotionless. Numb. It was the only way I could make myself feel anything. Sex, pills, and eventually one failed attempt to take my own life so it felt like I deserved it when the next awful moments of my life came.

I was eighteen at a party. I had two beers. Two. I see a man staring intently at me, then, nothing. I remember hours later, the party over, and him hovering nearby as a friend tries to shove me into her car to take me home. I fought her, kicked her, because she said I apparently agreed to go home with this guy and she wasn’t having it. I couldn’t understand how two beers could do that to me, but I must have wanted it, right? To this day, this is the best thing a friend has ever done for me. Even though to this day, I tell everyone I “just drank too much and was stupid.” The truth is, I was terrified. I was so confused how I could drink so little and black out, how I could feel so groggy and intoxicated. Over the next few months, I tried to recreate that scenario with that same alcohol with the same food I had eaten with the exact amount of time it had been since I had drank last. I was coherent every time. I’m still speculating, but I think I was drugged. Who knows though, maybe some freak accident happened and the alcohol crushed me and I wanted it. Even still, I couldn’t consent. I was not okay, and someone nearly took advantage of my situation. The next day, I went shopping with my mom, sick as a dog, and let everyone think I was just being a drunk teenager. No one knew the fear I felt thinking “what if?”

Recently, I was reminiscing about the good old days with a long lost friend. I recalled a night my friend took care of me when I was way too drunk. I told him that all I remembered was spilling whiskey on his Xbox, crying in the shower naked from the waist down, and waking up in a soaking wet bed with a towel around my waist in some serious, telling pain, and the front door wide open. After laughing about how bananas I was, he said “well, you were fine the first two times I put you in your room. I can’t tell you after that.” This confused the hell out of me. What did he mean by that? When I asked all he said was “well (guy) went in there after I left and I don’t know what happened in there.” What? I still don’t remember, but I remember the shower, feeling gross and sobbing, I remember the pain I felt. A telling pain that I had had a rough night. I had to process. I left, went home and drank myself into oblivion. Did I consent? Could I have consented? I was just drunk. I’m still kind of processing this, honestly. I just don’t know, but I feel wrong.

Along with this, all of the countless #metoo moments in my life never were reported. The time a “friend” pinned me to a wall and assaulted me, the times I just laid there, numb, because I was drunk and I must have put myself in this situation.

So, let’s go back to all of these defenses I’m seeing nowadays on social media and in the news. Why didn’t I report sooner? Why didn’t I go to the police right away? I never wanted to go through the pain I went through the first time. I had absolutely no desire to give anyone the opportunity to victim-blame or drudge up anything possible to make me feel like I wanted it or that I was the problem. The culture surrounding survivors like me is disgusting. “Oh she wanted it she was drunk” or “well she slept around so obviously she consented.” What about “that was X number of years ago. People change. I’m not the same person I was.” You know what, people do change. Predators, however, are another story in my book. A predator needs prey to survive. Perpetrators of sexual assault are something more sinister than your standard eighteen year old DUI that you learned from. If there’s one victim, I bet there’s many. And even if it was i don’t know, say, thirty years ago at a high school party where a potential Supreme Court Justice allegedly assaulted a woman, I don’t care how long ago it was, that woman has to deal with the aftermath. She gets to have nightmares, and an aversion to certain colognes, and get a tightness in her chest when someone has the same name, and a disgust of similar faces. What does he get? A seat on the Supreme Court. If that doesn’t show you the kind of world we live in, then there’s no hope for you. People like the ones we see today is why we don’t come forward. Do I want to be ran out of my home, slandered, and painted as a whore who gets too drunk? Absolutely not. Think about it next time you feel like you were there and know what happened. Think before you defend a possible serial sexual predator. Let them investigate, because we should know for sure.