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My September Awareness Story

TW: SUICIDE, ABUSE, ALCOHOL AND DRUG USE

By Sarah BattlesPublished 3 years ago 11 min read
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Hi, My name is Sarah and in light of this months awareness of Suicide Prevention Month I thought it would be a good time to tell my own.

November 11, 2017, I was sexually assaulted by someone I thought was a good friend, in my own dorm apartment which led me to make a suicide attempt on my life.

Going back to give y’all a little history. This individual and I had met on Facebook when we randomly added each other from the people that had gone to our university, that summer. Back then I was way more social on the internet before I met people in person, but we’d seen each other at sorority/ fraternity events and just never said anything. So, when we had started talking in the beginning of the summer. Before I left for my summer job in New Mexico, there I had a very traumatic medical emergency that left me a paralyzed and wheelchair bound for almost 10 months.

During that time, we chatted checked in on each other, binge watched shows on video chat and talked about what drinks we liked and just random friendly conversations.

August of 2017 came around and it was time to head back to campus to start my sophomore year of college. The first week during school is always my birthday so we had met that night outside of my apartment building and he had bought me a purple teddy bear with a ribbon around its neck and a Roku firestick which was very sweet but awkward to except because he had forced a hug on me. Which at that time still newly in a wheelchair physical contact was embarrassing and shameful to me at that time. So, I brushed it off and continued the visit. My best friend at the time had called me to come outside to I took him with me, so he didn’t just sit in my apartment alone. He gave me this possessive look and his voice changed an octave when he proceeded to say to me, ‘I just got here and you’re already going to leave to talk to your friends that’s kind of rude.” And that night was my birthday so of course I didn’t really pay mind to his opinion since I knew my best friend was coming to bring my birthday present and cake to me with some more friends. Eventually it got late, and I wanted him to leave so I had to have my friends fake put me to bed so he would go home. I should have taken the red flags but I ignored them to give him a chance.

Still casually texting throughout the months ahead Veterans Day was coming up, at the catholic former all military college we attended held half days so students and staff could attend the events around town at church and on the campus itself that day. Well, the morning of I got a text, he said, ‘hey I have to go to chapter for my fraternity tonight and I don’t want to drive home just to come back, can I come over and work on my homework until I go to chapter at 8:30-9ish?’ I said sure why not, I knew I had a event to go to that night with my roommates so if I got creeped out I would still be alright not being alone.

So, we are sitting in my room with the door open I’m sitting on my bed after transferring myself from my powerchair that parked right next to my bed for easy access to get up and go. I had been on one end of the bed, and he was on another, space in between and all. We started watching some tv on my iPad when we both fell asleep… So, I thought. Mind you we were still on opposite sides of the bed when we knocked out. During the time of us “asleep” ( since he obviously wasn’t for long) he managed to convince my roommates to leave without me and got up and locked the door. When I woke up he was assaulting me, he had managed to pin himself between my power wheelchair and myself. I was still paralyzed at the time, so I didn’t have the ability to kick or push him off me. So, I laid there, I DID NOTHING! Until I started crying and told him to please just get out! He kept saying disgusting things while I couldn’t move and then had the audacity to ask me if we could finish first and then asked if we were cool still after he was done. I wasn’t okay at all!

Days after all I did was cry and skip classes and sleep, I didn’t eat for a week, I couldn’t sleep in my room alone, I always locked the apartment door behind me, and I always slept with the door locked. It was my security for a long time. Because the people I thought would help me go to campus security or the police just told me to not overreact or just brush it off. He told me no one would believe the cripple over a retired military member and respected member of the community on, and off campus and they all really made me feel like he was right. I still remember the fear of even seeing him in public when he wasn’t there. My sense of self security was gone!

Later that month I left school before winter break to go to treatment in Jacksonville, FL to help try and get me walking again. I threw myself into this treatment because it meant being far away from my apartment, far away from him and way far away from feeling extremely unsafe. Eventually during my winter break I was able to relearn how to walk again and set in motion the plan to go back to school in the spring.

When I returned to campus in January of 2018, I was so scared and felt so alone and worthless. I went to class one day I saw him walk into my class before I got there, I turned around went back to my room called out of work and I took matters into my own hands. I thought I wouldn’t have to feel any of it, I wouldn’t have to see him or hear his name again if I was gone. He couldn’t hurt me anymore if I was gone. I was still so fragile and manic, and I didn’t feel like I was being heard. So, I took 2 entire bottles of pills with some Hawaiian punch and vodka from my roommate and went to bed hoping to not wake back up again.

I didn’t want to die but I didn’t want to live, and at that time my mind told me it was the quickest easiest solution to my problems. When I woke up, I was covered in my own waste and vomit, my eyes wouldn’t stop shaking, my body was cold, clammy, and weak. Like I said I was able to walk at this point but still most of the time with a walker for support help.

I woke up angry that I was still alive, so I called campus security and they called 911 and got me an ambulance. I told them what all happened but not ever why. The first security officer to come in walked me to the couch my adrenaline was so high when I woke up, I still didn’t realize I was covered in my own crap! It was both disgusting, sad and just shameful to me. First thing they did when I got to the hospital was checked my vitals, for some reason my body took all of those pills and rejected them, I had way over the limit of all the medications I took, but my body didn’t need charcoal it took care of that on its own.

So, they then asked if there was anyone they could call, so I gave them my mom’s cellphone, but I told them I didn’t want to talk to her.

When they took me to the psych hospital for my baker act days, I was emotionless, still in shock and very quiet. Because of why I told them I made the chose that I did, they put me in a all-women’s unit to keep me away from men. We ate first and alone only women; we went to rec and art just our units alone. And all our doctors were women.

We had group therapies and long conversations about how we cannot make these choices again.

I couldn’t sleep the first night and the floor supervisor that checks on us every 30 min and took our vitals every 4 hours at night had told the doctor that I needed something to sleep. There they started me on a medication that knocked me out super hard, when I was released, that dosage was fixed for clarification purposes.

Anyways visitation was only a couple days a week but the second day of my short stay my mom called. I ended up calling her back within 30 min during free time from the hall pay phone to talk to her, she asked if my previous stepdad and my grandpa could come with her to visitation. I said sure love you and hung up.

That next day when they called my name for visitation, I was shaking so bad, and it felt like my heart was in my ass. I walked into the room still in the same nasty clothes that stunk and the blanket they gave me when I first got to the emergency room, and I sat down and my mom just said I love you baby how are you doing?

And I broke down crying, my mental health was never a priority, in my family we didn’t talk about that kind of things like it was taboo. I told them what happened from start to finish. I cried they cried we all just had a moment. Then that quick visit ended.

The next day I got a paper that was a missed call note from my mom and it said have her call me when she can. So, I called, she told me her and my grandpa would be back the next visitation day. When we met up my mom had brought me psych ward appropriate clothes and shoes so I could throw these nasty smelling ones away and that if I wanted to go to the police or go back to school or go home, they would support me in that. So, I told them I wasn’t sure.

The next day I was going to be released got pushed back because I hadn’t seen the psychiatrist to release me yet. When I talking to a counselor there, she made me realize that I could save another girls life! Naturally, I called my mom and told her I wanted to go to the police if they could go with me and then that I wasn’t ready to go back on campus and wanted to move home.

That day I was released we went to campus to make a report, they called a police officer to come and take my statement and get a list of witness or people that knew about what happened. So again, I did just that, from there we went straight to my apartment and packed it all up to move home and let me say that was unfortunately the most heart wrenching thing Is to bring the people you love to a crime scene in there. Nothing was cleaned, my roommate pulled my blanket over the bed so no one would see anything if they walked by my room. It smelled like feces and pee. We shoved stuff in the car and dumpster and headed back to my hometown.

I share this story my story because I let my trauma run my life for two years. Now I live a happy, healthy and beautiful life with some of the most beautiful people. If my life would of ended that night I may never of met so many people, I would of never met the love of my life! I would of never created the close bond with my mother and grandfather that I did. I thought my abuser took everything from me, but reality is that trauma created a brand-new version of me. And she is strong, resilient, untamable, confident, smart, talent and a SURVIVOR!

One thing the judge told me that I will never forget is, ‘Survivors ALWAYS win LOUD!

No justice system, no abuser, no narcist, no hater could ever make you stop telling your story! Let me say that again, No one can stop you from telling your story! You are protecting and saving girls and women around the world that what happened to them matters. Your story is relatable to someone in this world, no story is the same, keep talking especially when you feel alone and like there’s no point in telling it! You may never get closure from your assaulter but you will by fighting back every time you tell the truth!

coping
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About the Creator

Sarah Battles

Shine Through Your Storm!

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