How Rape Changed My Life

I always knew, as a teenager, that men liked my body. I was a good girl, for the most part, but living in Hawaii, I wore bikinis a lot and I saw the looks and stares from grown men even though I was only 15 or 16. It made me uncomfortable to say the least but what can you do? I was 5'9" tall and weighted 124 lbs. My figure was a perfect 36/24/36 and I couldn't change that. It was who I was. I was ignorant at that point in my life. I wore clothes that showed off my figure and thought nothing of it. And why should I have, what I wore should not have defined what could happen to me. It was the mid 70's and life and love was wild and free, or so I thought.

I got married in May of 1977. I was 16 years old. Headstrong and stubborn I was determined to be on my own and that was the only way my parents would leave me in Hawaii when they moved back to the mainland. My dad was in the military. I was so stupid. Grandiose ideas about being married and having a place of our own. No idea how that was going to happen since my boyfriend at the time didn't even have a job. We got married in May and I graduated high school in June. On June 5th, my family left Hawaii and left me there to live my life. We lived with his parents in Waipahu, Hawaii for the first month. We got a one bedroom apartment the 2nd month.

It was on the 2nd floor of a tall apartment building and I thought it was the Taj Mahal. I was so proud to try to fix it up. Of course we had nothing. A bed, a couch, a tv, some pots and pans and the one thing all young couples need in Hawaii, a rice cooker. I'd like to say my husband loved me but I truly think he just knew he could control me. He dictated what I wore, how I looked and what I did. I had no control over him though. He was still living the single life, going out with friends, partying all weekend and some times leaving me alone by myself for days. We fought constantly. That should have told me something but I was determined not to admit I'd made a mistake.

It was Monday, July 25th and I had just come home to the apartment. Around 6pm, I made something to eat and waited on John to come home. He showed up around 9pm with a friend of his, Don. He told me he was going to Don's for a couple of days. I went ballistic, of course. How dare he treat me like this? He ignored me and left. I went out on the balcony where I could see them walking to Don's car and screamed all kinds of things to him. "Don't come back" was one of them I remember. I slammed the sliding glass door and went into the apartment crying. I wasn't really afraid or anything, just mad as hell. I didn't even have a phone to be able to call a friend. I sat and read for a couple of hours then decided to go to sleep.

The apartment had sliding glass doors with jalousie windows on each side of the door. It's Hawaii so it's hot and there are no air conditioners so all the windows stay open all the time. I locked the sliding glass door and went to lock the apartment door. It was one of those really heavy doors that would take a tank to get open if it's locked. I felt safe. I got undressed and laid down in bed and slowly drifted off to sleep. It was around 1 a.m.

I was startled awake by a loud noise around 4a.m. I jumped out of bed and went into the living room to find a plaque that had been hanging on the wall, a LEO zodiac ceramic plaque, had fallen off the wall and shattered. I was half asleep and decided to clean it up in the morning. I just figured the nail had come loose and it had fallen.

I crawled back into bed and went right to sleep.

The next 3 hours would change my life for 30 years.

I was awoke by a pain in my thumb and groggily looked to see it was bleeding profusely. I said, "John what have you done?" thinking he had somehow how come home and cut me. At that exact moment, a pillowcase was placed over my head and something tied around my neck. I won't go into details but I was violated and sexually assaulted for the next hour or so. I knew, for the first time in my short life, how it felt to think you are going to die. When he was done he tied me up on the bed, got me a towel for my hand that was still bleeding badly and told me he was sorry. He told me not to move for 30 minutes. I didn't. When I laid there I was terrified he was either still there or coming back.

I hadn't heard the door shut so I slowly got up. He had not tied me tightly so I was able to get the cord off my feet and hands easily and remove the pillowcase from my head. I crept out into the living room and saw my apartment door wide open.

My sister-in-law lived on the same floor on the other side of the building so I took off running to her apartment. I was totally naked. It still to this day amazes me that her 2 year old was able to open the door for me. She was very pregnant and still in bed. I rushed into her room and screamed someone raped me. I collapsed at that point and the next thing I remember was being in the ambulance. It is sketchy from that point to when I was in the hospital. I don't remember any of the exam or the doctor sewing up my hand. Or even speaking to the police. I know I did but I don't remember much of it at all. I was taken to a Sexual Abuse Treatment Center where I stayed for several hours before they released me.

The only time I ever went back to that apartment or stepped foot in that building again was later that afternoon. After my sister-in-law took me to find John and we told him what happened, we headed back to Waipahu. I wanted to go face what happened at the apartment. When I got there, there were police all over the apartment, dusting for fingerprints and doing whatever they normally do. My bed was covered in blood and there was blood, my blood all over the hallways where he tried to get it off his body. John threw the bed over the railing and I got some clothes and we left. Never to return.

John didn't believe in therapy so I didn't go. I was just expected to forget it happened and go on with my life. We got another apartment, this one above someone's house, which everyone thought would make me feel safer. It didn't. I wouldn't feel safe for a long, long time. I would totally freak out if I was left alone at night. I would hide in the closet until John came home. It drove him crazy to the point that in September of that year, he sent me to stay with my parents. He didn't want to deal with me. I can recognize that now but back then it was put to me that he thought I'd be able to re-cooperate and feel more comfortable with my family. That might have changed my life except for the fact that while I was in South Carolina with my family, I found out I was pregnant. Looking back, I don't think John would have tried to bring me back to Hawaii if I hadn't been pregnant with his child. So in January of 1978, I flew back to Hawaii. We were never happy together really but we had a beautiful baby girl on July 2nd. So I stayed with him. He was abusive and did all kinds of drugs and alcohol.

For the next 25 years, I fought against my fears. Twice during those years I got therapy for it but it didn't change the mind numbing fear I would feel if I was home alone at night. Especially if I was responsible for my child. I started to transfer that fear to her when she was about 6. If we were left alone, we would lock the door to the bedroom and hide in the closet, not even coming out to pee. It was debilitating. But I knew I had to get help so that I didn't hurt her. The therapy helped a little. I had mantra's I would say to myself but I would NOT fall asleep when I was alone.

By the time I was 35, I had gained so much weight that I didn't worry too much about men coming on to me anymore. I never realized it was a safety mechanism for me until I was in my 50's. In 2005, I lost 190 lbs when I divorced John. I had stopped the physical abuse many years prior to that and had become successful in my career of software development. The love of my life reached out to me in 2005 (the man I should have married) and I divorced John and ended up marrying him in December of that year. That's another story that is called True Love Finds It's Way Home in divorce on this platform.

I spent the first year of that marriage crying over everything I had allowed to happen to me through the years. It was cathartic and allowed me to release so much pain and sorrow. My husband was very understanding and listened for hours to my horror stories. He wanted me to feel safe. He bought me a gun and taught me to use it. There were many times over the years we have been married when I'm alone but with my gun by my side I feel I at least, have a fighting chance. As my career took off, I had to travel a lot. Most of the time by myself. In the beginning I was terrified to be in a hotel by myself at night. But I learned coping mechanisms and ways to make myself feel safer. I always stopped when I got to a city and bought wasp spray. Let me tell you ladies, wasp spray will take down a 200 pound man in a few seconds. It has a far reaching stream so you don't even have to be close to a person. Just aim for their face and spray. I kept a can by my bed and one by the door.

I have never lived again in an apartment with a balcony. This man climbed to the 2nd story and broke into my apartment through the balcony windows by slicing the screen and opening the sliding glass door. Any home I have that has a sliding glass door gets a hole drilled into the doors where I can put a screw that will deter anyone from getting that door open. I did the same to my windows. By making sure I am safe, it allows me to live my life with very little fear now. And the gun always helps. Would I shoot someone if they broke in my house? In a minute. I have no doubt that I could do it. Do I want to? No of course I don't. But you never put a gun in your hand unless you are willing to shoot it.

The man who raped me was never caught. Back then there was no dna and I have never been able to get the police in Hawaii to contact me about this cold case. I have spent my life not knowing who did this to me or even what he looked like. I am 61 now and for the most part, I am at peace with what happened to me. I know it wasn't my fault and I know I couldn't have done anything different than what I did. It didn't matter how I dressed or what I did in public, no one had the right to violate me. The 61 year old me gives the 16 year old me a break. She was just not confident in herself as a person.

Rape is an act of violence and anger. I pity the man who raped me as he will have to answer for that when he meets his maker. I hope he never hurt anyone else but I will probably never know. I am trying very hard to be okay with that. I could have died that day but I didn't. I am very blessed to have 2 beautiful children, 2 step-daughters and 15 grandchildren to love in my old age. Was my life changed by this event, it most certainly was but as I grew older I quit letting it define who I was as a person and put it in it's place as just another event in my life that happened to me.