This is hard. I haven’t shared what happened to me with many people, but I feel like it’s time that I do. March 29, 2013, 6 days before my 16th birthday, I was raped. I’m still not over it and I probably never will be. I still get nightmares and I still constantly look over my shoulder. I still can’t go to a party without being in tears by the end of the night. There are times when my own boyfriend can’t touch me without me having a panic attack. I will never fully recover from what you did to me, but hopefully one day, I will be okay.
It’s amazing, you know, what the human brain will do to keep any small amount of sanity. For months, I couldn’t remember the attack and even now, over three years later, I still have pieces coming back that weren’t there before. I remember the first time details came back to me, they were still fuzzy and I still hadn’t told anyone what had happened to me. The last time details came back to me was the worst. I remembered every detail. It’s burned into my brain.
I see your face, I feel your breath down my neck, and your voice is forever ringing in my ears; “You know you like this, you asked for it.” I can feel the knife that you pressed to my neck as you told me if I screamed you’d kill me. I can see every speck of color in your eyes. I tried to look away but you wouldn’t let me. I remember rolling my head to the side and seeing him standing there. I remember silently screaming for him to help me. I remember realizing he was recording this, he was laughing.
I wanted to tell someone, I really did. But, I was drinking, no one would believe me. Even if they did, it was my fault, wasn’t it? I used to blame myself. I told myself, “I shouldn’t have drank so much.” “My shorts were too short.” I blamed myself because society blames me.
I didn’t drink too much, though, you spiked my drink. My shorts weren’t too short, I wore them to school all the time. It took me a very long time to see that YOU raped me. This was YOUR fault, not mine. You did this. You pushed me to almost ending my life. You pushed me to the edge. I had never felt the way that I did that night sitting on the bathroom floor with the bottle of pills in my hand, wondering how bad it would really be to end my life. You won that night.
You won that night and the night before and the night after. You are still winning today. Last night I was on my hands and knees crying, I had another panic attack. You won again. Six days ago I was sitting in Dairy Queen with my boyfriend and had to switch tables because I couldn’t see both doors. That day, you won. You win because you have ruined me. You have taken parts of me that I will never get back. You have made me fearful of everyone and everything.
You live hours away, yet I still fear running into you. I’ve blocked your Facebook, Snapchat, and phone number, but I still fear getting something from you. You texted me. March 29, 2016. You asked me “Hey, how are you doing today? It’s *Name” You used someone else’s phone, so I blocked that number too. I wonder all the time if you think about me. If you think about all the pain you caused me, if you feel sorry for ruining my innocence. If you are sorry for what you did. You aren’t. But, part of me wants to see you as a good person who just made a mistake. For this, I let you win. I tell myself, “it was a mistake, that doesn’t make him a bad person,” but it wasn’t a mistake. You knew what you were doing. But still, I let you win.
I let you win every single day that I think about you. You win because I let you control me. You win because I let my life revolve around what you did to me. You win because I am not okay.
And that is the truth. I am not okay. It took me a long time to admit that to myself. I’m not okay today and I still won’t be okay tomorrow, but one day, I will be. One day, I will wake up and I won’t worry about seeing you. One day, I will go to sleep without pills because I won’t worry about you being in my dreams. One day, I will be okay.
One day, I will no longer be your victim.
