Day 42: The hardest one of all...

I've been stressing out about this post for days now...weeks even.  Hell - since I made this new year's resolution, I knew there'd be no way to skip over Day 42.  I'd have to face it.

February 11th.

It's a day that changed my life forever.  A day that many of you don't know about.  And if you do know about it, you probably don't know the details.

February 11th.

It's the reason I rarely drink.  The reason I look over my shoulder when I'm walking in a parking garage, or a stairwell, or anywhere at night...or...anywhere alone. It's the reason I sleep with my bed against a wall.  And the reason I wake up in the middle of the night...crying...screaming...and short of breath.

February 11th.
 
It's the reason I carry mace in my purse...the reason I'm slow to trust but quick to love...the reason I have a wall up that rivals the one found in China.

February 11th.

It's the reason I have PTSD...and battle it every day.  It's the reason I'm wearing all black today...and the reason I seem a little down.  It's the reason my phone will be off after work, and I'll be holed up in my apartment with a bottle of wine.


February 11th is the day I was given a cross to bear

It's the day that made me who I am.

It's the day I became a statistic.




Because 6 years ago today...on February 11th...I was raped.



It's just as hard to say that today, as it was when it happened.  It's not something that I talk about.  For that matter, I don't really think it's something most survivors talk about, and that's the whole problem.  Silence is crime's biggest advocate.  It perpetuates the issue and skews the statistics.  There were 64,080 women who were raped the year I was (http://www.rainn.org/get-information/statistics/sexual-assault-victims)...how many of their stories do you know?  None?  Well, by the end of this post, that'll change.


Because you'll know mine. 


I don't fit into any of those stereotypes.  I wasn't walking across campus all alone at night (I was at a friend's house with his two roommates).  I wasn't dressed like a slut (I was in pajama pants and a sweatshirt).  I wasn't all dolled up (I didn't even have one ounce of make-up on, and my hair was thrown up in a pony).  I wasn't on the prowl, wasn't looking to take anyone home...wasn't doing anything out of the ordinary.  But even if I had been...even if I was all of those things at the same time...all rolled into one...I still wouldn't have deserved what happened to me.  And neither did the other 17.7 million American women who bear this same scarlet letter.

I defied the stereotypes.  I was a 4.0 student, one semester away from graduating one semester early.  I was in an honors fraternity, an anchor for my school's television station, I read to the blind and volunteered with the disabled and belonged to half a dozen other clubs, groups and activities.  I was smart.  I was guarded.  I was tough as nails.  I was no one's victim.

And I'm still not.



I went to a friend's house that night.  Stopped in to say hi.  I had no intention of staying...no intention of sleeping there.  Three of the housemates were awake when I showed up.  The rest were sleeping.  They were playing a drinking game and drinking Natural Ice (I still can't look at that beer the same), and they asked me to join in.  I was 20.  I rarely drink now, and I never drank underage (true story).  I could probably count how many times I drank in college on two hands.  When I said no, they asked again.  When I said I was underage, they said they didn't see any cops.  When I said I drove myself and had to drive home, they said it was only one beer.  When I said I had no tolerance, they said I could sleep there, that they'd move my car into the driveway, and I had nothing to worry about.

I had everything to worry about.

I had one beer...then another.

I got up to go to the bathroom, left my beer on the coffee table and the rest of the night is a blur.  We played a few more rounds of whatever it was that we were playing...and then the crowd of four turned into a crowd of three...and then into a crowd of two.

And I started feeling sick...really sick.

The room was spinning...and I went from seeing double to triple to quadruple.  I felt like I got hit by a ton of bricks.  It was like nothing I had ever experienced before, and nothing I have ever experienced since.

Something wasn't right.

I said to the roommate that was still awake that I wanted to go to bed, that I didn't feel well, and it all went straight to my head.  When I laid on the couch, he told me that was dirty, and there was a spare mattress downstairs in the basement.  I couldn't even hold my head up.  I remember gripping on to the hand rail to the basement with both hands.  I remember thinking, "Don't fall.  Don't fall.  Please don't fall."

I slid down half a dozen steps.

I remember wondering how on earth I could have gotten this drunk off of a couple of beers.  I remember him picking me up by the waist...and guiding my down the steps, as I clung on to that rail for dear life.

I made my way to a mattress in the middle of the floor...he gave me a blanket and a pillow...and I remember thinking "Please just let me just fall asleep.  Anything has got to be better than this."

I was wrong.

He started making the moves, and the last thing I remember...is me saying, "I'm not that kind of girl.  I don't do this." 


And everything faded to black.


I woke up half dressed, with my clothes inside out and bloody.  I was sore.  I knew in a nano-second, something was wrong.  I remember peeing blood.  I got up, got dressed, and straightened myself up...and remember telling my one and only friend in that house that something was wrong.  That I wasn't trying to accuse anyone of anything, but something happened that night, and it wasn't right.

He didn't believe me.  I went home.  Scrubbed myself to death in the shower and tried to continue my day. A few hours later, my friend called, wanting to talk.  I went back to the house, he came outside and told me to get into the passenger seat.  And while we meandered through local neighborhoods, he told me that my escort into the basement that night, came home from work bragging about how I was all over him, and practically begging him to have sex with me.  He said I seduced him.  It was a moment of bravado for him in front of a kitchen full of chest pounding roommates.

To say I cried was an understatement.  I wailed. I screamed. Slammed my fists into the dashboard.

I spent the next six hours or so in the emergency room...alone.  A friend of mine dropped me off at the police station, I filed a report and ended up in a special unit at the hospital.  They stripped me naked, plopped me down on a cold metal table, and started taking pictures.  They searched through every hair on my head, scraped out the evidence beneath my nails, and documented, measured and photographed every scratch, knick, cut and bruise.  A cop was standing in the hallway complaining about how stale the coffee was.  I remember counting the holes in the ceiling tile above the bed, losing count and starting over.  I crumbled saltine crackers in between my fingers, letting the crumbs slip to the floor, just so I could feel something.  I cried, but there was no one to wipe my tears.  It was around 3am or so when they were finally finished.  They took my clothes and admitted them into evidence.  I was wearing scrubs and little girl's underwear, because that's all that was left in the drawer.  The cop was gone, my roommate was sleeping, and I remember calling the police station to ask for a ride back to my apartment.

I felt like there was no one else to turn to.


From that point on, nothing was the same.  My friend and I shared a lot of mutual friends, and I lost them all in the "friend divorce".  I went for days without eating, and then would gorge on anything I could find.  I didn't shower, didn't leave the apartment, didn't sleep a wink.  I was a zombie.  An absolute mess.  I thought about suicide, but chickened out.  And then I thought about it again.  I stopped going to class.  I wouldn't go anywhere alone, and couldn't even stand being in the apartment alone.  I barricaded my bedroom door with my own body.  I'd just lay on the floor and cry.  It's the closest I got to feeling safe.  The apartment became a revolving door of cops.  I gave my statement and ended up taking city buses downtown to go to district court and battle my way through the process.  I was admitted into intensive therapy three days a week with a lady named Alice. Given a cocktail of pills to take every day...pills to help me sleep, pills to help me stay awake, pills to make me feel, pills to make me numb.  I hated them all.

He hired a private investigator to follow me.  They hired lawyers.  They refused to talk with police.  The same police that made me deliver my own personal protection order (which never got delivered, because I didn't understand the point of having me go back there).  Officers eventually got their interviews -- with the roommates who were already asleep when I showed up at the house.  The case was turned over to the county prosecutor, who decided not to pursue it.  In his exact words, there's no way a "logical person" would ever "reasonably" convict him. They never even tested my evidence.  Not one drop.  It's all still in a crime locker at the hospital...my clothes, my blood, all the swabs from my body.  Never tested for the date rape drug.  Dozens of photos never even saw the light of day.  All jammed in an evidence locker...if they haven't had it incinerated by now.

He won.  He wakes up every morning and probably doesn't think twice about what happened that day six years ago.  He probably doesn't have any trouble sleeping, or getting into a car with someone he doesn't know.  His life is no different now than it was then.

I wish I could say the same.

I had a boyfriend once who asked me when I was going to "get over this".

My answer?  Never.

Every day I look in the mirror and see a huge scar on my heart.  A scar that no one else can see, but is more real to me than any physical scar that I've ever had.  It is a part of me.  A stitch in the very fiber of my being.

I know some of you will look at me differently now.  I don't want your pity.  I don't need to be handled with kid gloves.  I'm not doing this for sympathy or hugs or condolences.  I'm not doing it for attention either.   I'm not doing it so you'll tell me I'm brave, or strong, or special.  I merely got up one more time than I fell down...and there's nothing special about that.  I'm doing this, and putting it all out there -- because too many women don't.  Because too many victims say nothing at all, because they don't come forward, they don't report the crime.  Because silence perpetuates the problem.

And I'm tired of staying silent.

I did nothing wrong.  Will you look at me differently? Sure...but I have nothing to be ashamed of.  Nothing to lose, and everything to gain. What happened to me on February 11th was a defining moment in my life, but it doesn't define me.  What happened that night could have happened to anyone, and it's happened to more people than you think.  Someone is sexually assaulted every two minutes in America, and it's estimated that 60% of them are never reported.

I'm not a victim, I'm a survivor, and I lived to tell my story when so many women (and men) didn't.

So in honor of all those people who have not, will not or cannot tell their story...

I'll tell mine.

Because I'm still alive to do so.

Because I'm better, stronger, smarter, wiser and more powerful because of that night...and all the nights that have followed.

Because I'm alive...and well...and have held my head up high for six years...



And I'm thankful for that.