I was only Seventeen

Sometimes your mind can be the worst possible place to be trapped inside of. I remember the day I was sexually assaulted like it just happened yesterday.

It was nearly six years ago. I can still smell the fire burning, and feel that cool nighttime fall air on my face. I remember hearing the lively sounds of people chattering filling the air. I had just safely arrived at the out-of-town high school party with my best friend from back in the day, Jason, and a few of our other friends from our smallish social circle in high school. I held onto my drinks the whole night.

I enjoyed the moments that I spent with my friends that night at the out-of-town party. I remember giving my perfectly safe ride home to a bawling girl named Jessica who was crying over her on-again-off-again boyfriend. I had spent most of the night listening to her relationship woes.

I remember why I gave my ride up way back then. Jessica was supposed to stay at my place that night because she was crying and in a fight with her mother. She was way drunker than I happened to be. After she climbed into my lap in the backseat of my friend Jason's car, we decided the smart move to make would be for me to jump into my friend Mark's car. I was so confused as to why she would not get into the vehicle full of guys we had all went to school with. I guess Jessica knew better than I did. Instead, I decided to make the choice to switch who was driving me home from that party, and she was safely tucked away in my friend Jason's red Eagle with plans for all of us to meet at my mother's house afterward.

That was the worst mistake of my whole life. That simple, small choice I made to get into a different car for a safe ride home has impacted me in so many awful ways.

I was sexually assaulted by a classmate in the back seat of my friend Mark's car that night with my ex-boyfriend sitting shotgun with another man in the backseat of the car with us.

He completely took advantage of me in my drunken state. I had only had three drinks. I was not inebriated to the point of unconsciousness. I remember saying, "No." more than once during that awful 20-minute car ride back home. He chose to ignore me. Multiple times. So did the rest of the people in the car.

My mind has relived that moment so many times. I still get unwanted feelings of anxiety whenever someone tries to touch me.

After we were safely parked outside my mother's place, my ex-boyfriend got out of the front seat and asked me very seriously, "Is it my turn now?"

I remember going home that night and bawling into the arms of my step-brother and his friends. The man who assaulted me went home and slept that night, passed out in a peaceful drunken state. But that's where my nightmare began.

The next morning I told my mother about what had happened and she blamed me. She blamed the alcohol. But you and I both know there were choices made on that twenty-minute drive home. Every single person in that car decided to choose to ignore what was happening to me in the back seat, except for the driver Mark. He sped the whole way home as he was powerless to stop what was happening. And now years later, as he is no longer with us, the only person who ever truly believed me is gone and I cannot change that. I don't even know if Jessica knows this story.

Going to school following my assault was even more painful because my traumatic experience that had taken place on the weekend prior was now being treated as the latest high-school gossip.

I still get blamed for my sexual assault by my mother, so I still like to try and blame myself for what happened. But the truth of the matter is this: I am not to blame for my sexual assault. There was a choice made there that night by the man who had assaulted me and it was the wrong choice.

Trauma is defined as a deeply distressing or disturbing experience. How trauma can show up and affect you in your day-to-day life is beyond your control sometimes. I still cannot get into a full backseat of people because of what happened to me. I am always on guard when I am drinking around other people because of my fears of the same thing happening to me all over again. I struggle with sexual intimacy and trust in my romantic relationships because of the damage. I do not enjoy being around large groups of people because of that night. What maybe seemed like high-school gossip to people surrounding me was my real life, and I lost a lot of pieces of myself the night that I was assaulted.

I will no longer be the small, silent victim. I am a survivor of sexual assault.

Me fucking too.