But the one approach that seems unanimous among psychologists is that the best way to start is to just write down your story. It allows you to safely process the emotions you are experiencing and seems to relieve difficult symptoms. When the memories are no longer trapped in your head, you can begin to see it as something of the past.

There are many beliefs and debates about how to overcome and heal from sexual assault. Some say you should go to cognitive therapy, join support groups, try meditation, hypnosis, read about others’ experiences, or confront your rapist. Others disagree about these approaches, and think they can make the situation worse.

As part of denying what happened that night, I’ve avoided researching or reading anything about rape my entire life. I’d even walk out of films if there was a rape scene. So the past few hours of reading have been enlightening. The most comforting thing I’ve learned is how normal my reactions and symptoms have been. The most maddening thing I’ve learned is how common rape actually is.

However, elementary school drama and bad ex-boyfriends don't remotely compare to what happened that night. This has given me the confidence to make Step 5 about him. But I am lost as to how to “forgive and forget” what happened that night. Part of me feels like I’m already over it. I rarely think about what happened and I feel no anger towards him. I asked my husband Zak about it, and he said he thinks I am in denial. He admitted that he always thought I might have some form of PTSD . But when I asked his advice on how to confront the situation, he seemed just as clueless as me. Generally when I don’t know what to do, I turn to the internet:

This step is about “forgiving someone who hurt us in the past,” so of course this step would be about him. But I am scared shitless about confronting these memories. Even thinking about thinking about it makes me anxious and nauseous. So I tried for weeks to figure out how I can make this step about anyone else. I made a list of all the other people who hurt me in my life, and I’m glad to say there are only a few:

Our minds can play elaborate tricks on us, and for the longest time mine wouldn’t let me fully acknowledge what happened that night. When the memories did come back it was easier to blame myself than to acknowledge what happened and blame him. My mind was too fragile to handle that reality. You may have noticed in the last step that I mentioned that I was taken advantage of sexually. What you don’t know is that today was the first time I was able to say three new words out loud with confidence: He raped me.

Part 2: The Longest 10 minutes of My Life

I was twelve when I left home and went to an all-girls boarding school. While many people I became friends with there had already dabbled with alcohol and boys, I never drank and had never been kissed. My unpopularity probably had something to do with my constant insecurity about being the youngest in my grade, combined with social anxiety that made me very shy, and an understanding that I was not pretty. A boy told me this in middle school when I had braces and a short bob haircut, and I believed it was true.

Plus, I felt most comfortable alone in my room on my computer, crafting HTML code and chatting in online forums, while most girls my age liked getting their nails painted at the mall and lusting over Justin Timberlake. But all that doesn’t mean I didn’t wish I was more popular. So when my friend took me along to a party with a bunch of college guys, I was excited and nervous. I had rarely been to parties, especially with the opposite gender. I didn’t know if older guys would find me interesting, or what I would have to say to them. I remember trying on too many outfits that night, putting on too much makeup, and plucking my eyebrows raw. Thin eyebrows were a thing back then, and I just wanted to blend in.

One guy at the party was particularly nice to me. He insisted he mix me a vodka tonic. I remember that first taste of alcohol, and how it made me cringe. I remember how I tried to hide that. I remember how the conversations flowed easier with each sip. I remember how he talked too much about how great college was: the parties, the booze, the drugs. I couldn’t relate but I smiled and acted interested and nervously made small talk back. I remember when my glass got low he insisted he pour me another. I remember how the conversation became harder to follow after that drink, and how things began to feel like a blur.

I remember feeling dizzy and telling him I needed to lay down, and him showing me to his friends bedroom. I don’t remember how he got my pants off, but I do remember him shoving his penis inside me without asking. I remember feeling shocked, and telling him to stop. I remember he didn’t. I remember how he pushed and turned me over and pushed my head down into the bed. I remember how he pulled my hair as he fucked me forcefully from behind. I remember feeling frozen, not sure how to react. I remember the tears that welled up in my eyes. I remember worrying irrationally about the marks my mascara would leave on the very white pillow. I never knew another ten minutes that felt so long, or another ten minutes that would have such a large impact over the next ten years of my life.

When I woke up that morning everything was numb. Time slowed. Nothing seemed beautiful or interesting like it once did.

I remember when he finished, how he rolled over onto his back. I remember his sigh of satisfaction. I remember my tears turning to sobs as I searched frantically to find my pants; I wanted to get away from him. I remember he asked me where I thought I was going, and how I told him I had to leave, that I wanted to go home. I only slept a few hours that night. When I woke up that morning everything was numb. Time slowed. Nothing seemed beautiful or interesting like it once did. I was devoid of my usual desires. Food lost its appeal and I wondered if I had lost the ability to smile or laugh. I curled up in a fetal position under my covers in bed for days, telling everyone I was sick. I remember taking sleeping pills every 4-6 hours, just wanting to fall back asleep, as if I might eventually wake up and realize it was all just a bad dream.

A few days later I got the energy to get out of bed and go to school. It wasn’t long after I arrived at school that my friend came to tell me about the rumors. He had been bragging to all his friends about how great it was to “fuck the shit out of a virgin.” I have never been so filled with guilt, shame, or disgust as in that moment. I shouldn’t have drank that night. I didn’t fight back. I let him have sex with me. It was my fault.

To make things worse, I found out through his cousin that he didn’t use a condom. I hadn't gotten my period yet, but I still remember worrying about whether I could get pregnant. I will always remember that very lonely and scary trip to Planned Parenthood to get tested. That was not how I was supposed to lose my virginity. From a young age, I was both a romantic and an over-planner. I admired stories of family friends who married their college sweetheart. I had promised myself at the age of nine that I’d wait to have sex until I found true love. I fantasized about how it would happen during my freshman year in college, how I’d wait until he said “I love you,” how amazing it would be to make love for the first time. A week after the incident I got the courage to tell my friend what had happened. I didn’t use the word rape but told her how the night unfolded, and she got the picture. The problem was, she was this guy’s cousin. She told me that if I ever told anyone what happened she would deny it and take his side. She told me that I couldn’t and wouldn’t ruin his life.

I just wanted someone to talk to, so her betrayal hurt almost as much as the assault. I wasn’t even planning to tell anyone. Why would I? I remember seeing a story on the news once about a woman who was raped. She was questioned in court and everyone doubted her honesty. She was attacked from every angle. In our society most often the victim ends up getting blamed for a variety of different reasons, and 97% of the time rapists do not serve any jail time. I had already lost my virginity and self-worth that night; I didn’t want to lose years in court battles that I had next to no chance of winning. I didn’t want that one night to define my life. I hated the idea that anyone might see me as a victim or treat me any differently. I just wanted to things to be as they were. I didn’t want my family to find out. I was sure that my father would track the guy down and murder him or my mother would lose her sanity.

Plus, it wasn’t really rape, right? Rape was what happened in back alleyways with strangers, when women fought back but wound up bruised and broken. I shouldn’t have had those drinks. I let it happen. It was my fault. That’s what I've gone on telling myself, all these years. I suppose it’s impossible to hold this level of shame and guilt inside without some sort of release. Over the next several years I tried all kinds of self-medication to suppress the pain. Anorexia worked for a while, but it wasn’t always enough. I tried binging and purging, smoking pot, drinking. Some nights the pain would boil up so intensely I couldn’t bear to be in my own skin.

One night, I was cutting out a picture to put in my diary. I redirected the scissor towards my thigh, pinched a strip of skin together, and cut my skin open. In the next weeks I would cut repeatedly. Whether it was razor blades or Exacto knives, on my arms or on my thighs, nothing compared to the high of the initial cut, or my fascination with the beauty of the blood that followed. It made me feel alive at a time when I felt dead inside. I liked the pain, and I truly believed that I deserved it.

One day, cutting wasn't enough either. I exhausted myself in a scavenger hunt of new ways to feel, or new ways to stop feeling. No matter how many cuts you make, how thin you get, or how many pills you take, the pain will still be there waiting. So I wrote a suicide letter, swallowed a bunch of pills with a bottle of wine, and went to bed. I don’t remember the exact details of the events over the next 24 hours, but I do know I wound up in a mental hospital. How I got there is fuzzy but the intake process is still remarkably vivid. A nurse was doing a psychological evaluation test as standard procedure for admittance. She asked me to remember four words: "bus, yellow, chair, cow.” I repeated them over and over in my head while she asked me other questions:

What is your name? What year is it? Who is the president? How long had I been depressed? How much was I eating? When did you learn to restrict? Did I take laxatives? How often did I binge and purge? Did I do drugs? Where was I cutting? How often? Why did I want to kill myself?

Around ten minutes later, she asked me to repeat those four words again. I rattled the first few off with ease “bus, yellow, chair…” The last word was somehow gone. Gone as quickly as I had lost my virginity, buried somewhere in my subconscious, destined to come back later. She looked concerned. She ticked off some boxes, and next thing I knew I was officially admitted.

I still wonder if it was because of the cow.

I was transferred to an outpatient eating disorder clinic shortly after, which allowed me the time and space to heal. But throughout the years, cuts, tears, and thousands of dollars of therapy, I never once spoke to anyone about what happened that night, not even a therapist. I was too afraid. It was almost a decade later when it slipped out. I was distraught over a breakup and I had been drinking too much wine and my mom called, and I told her about that night years prior. I made her promise to never tell my dad, and to never speak to me about it again. She hasn’t brought it up since, but life has felt a little lighter since that day. At times I think part of my insatiable creative drive comes from a desire to fill my life with beauty and color to balance the ugliness and darkness I still feel inside. To prove to myself that I am in control, in part to compensate for when I wasn't. I want to keep moving so far forward that hopefully one day it won’t hurt to look back.

Part of my insatiable creative drive comes from a desire to fill my life with beauty and color to balance the ugliness and darkness I feel inside.

I have not let that night define me or ruin my life. I am proud that I’ve become a strong, independent, and successful woman. For the most part, that night doesn’t affect me on a day-to-day basis, and I have a wonderful life and I am very happy. I wish I could say I am 100% healed and have completely moved past what happened, but I’m not sure that’s honest. It’s not easy to publicly admit that below the surface—and past my seemingly-confident façade—these memories occasionally haunt me. There are the months of insomnia that come and go. The anxiety and depression that resurface every couple of years when things get tough. The self-medication through too much alcohol and benzodiazepines. The reckless nights when I played with fire by taking too much Xanax with too much wine, musing that maybe I won’t wake up this time.

It's thankfully been a few years since those nights, but I do still have flashbacks. There are times I will be making love with my husband and the memory of my face pressed against the pillow will take over my mind. It’s a visceral and instantaneous reaction; I throw him off me while I curl into a fetal position and cry. It usually takes a few minutes before I let him touch me again.

Then there are the trust issues. I can deal with how I’ve turned my anger inwards but I feel bad about the ways I have projected it on those around me. It’s been difficult for me to become close or stay close with many people. I'm generally wary of everyone and constantly on guard, observing if they will try to use me or hurt me somehow. Even with Tim—the best friend anyone could be—at times I still question his motives.

I even find myself doubting my husband. The man who has filled my life with so much love, patience, and compassion. His love has helped heal me in many ways, and I am sad at times that I still question him. Some nights when he’s traveling and I am home alone, late at night my mind can wander to dark places. I worry irrationally that he will abandon me, cheat on me, or that maybe he is just using me. Then I feel guilty about these thoughts, and wonder how I deserve him or all this happiness I’ve found. I worry that one day I’ll do something stupid and this beautiful life I’ve built around me will come crashing down.