Surviving #MeToo

Content Warning: rape, sexual violence, and depression

I remember that moment so clearly. I don’t remember what day it was, just that it was shortly before Halloween of that year. I don’t remember what time it was, only that it was late. But I distinctly remember the moment he leaned back from me, looked down at me with wide eyes, and asked, “Did I just rape you?”

Did you just rape me? Yes, yes you did.

That is the moment that really sticks in my mind. It was the moment that everything started to sink in, where I started to realize that something horrific had just happened and that maybe I would never be the same again.

Let’s Go Back to the Beginning

That night, I had no idea that something awful was lurking just around the corner. I was alone at my grandparents’ house. They were out of town for the night. My parents were going through a rough divorce with constant mudslinging which made me feel confused, lost, and alone. I was just 17 years old and in my senior year of high school. I didn't know anything about the harsh realities of the world.

My once in-control anxiety had begun to get progressively worse, making me have panic attacks at school. On top of that, I was just beginning to realize that I might have this thing called ‘depression’ – something that I thought would never happen to me. In short, I was really struggling.

I had friends, but only one really seemed to understand the struggles that I was going through. Let’s call him John. John and I used to hang out all of the time. We would text and call each other. I could trust him.

We had been friends for almost a year, and for a short time back at the very start it seemed like we might have been more than that. We were having sex until I found out that he was dating someone else. I quickly ended it. But like the naïve teenager that I was, a few months later he sneaked back into my life as a friend – and that’s how he stayed, as just a friend.

Now, back to that night. I was feeling especially low. I wanted someone to talk to. I needed someone there with me. The empty house was swallowing me whole and I felt desperate. I texted John and he immediately replied. He was drinking at a house party, so I drove to pick him up.

Even then, I wouldn’t have guessed what would happen.

We talked for a while. He was buzzed, but not drunk. His infectious smile and cheerful attitude lit up the dark house and I felt better. I felt the weight of the divorce and my anxiety slide off of my shoulders and disappear for a little while. We put on old westerns and laughed at the horrible acting and wonky animation. As time ticked by, I forgot more and more about my troubles and eased into comfortableness of just being with my friend.

As we talked, he poured me a drink. I remember that it was vodka and sprite. I took one sip, it wasn’t strong, before I invited him out to use the jacuzzi. The days were just starting to turn cold, and the hot water from the jacuzzi seemed like the perfect place to strip my remaining stress away. I threw him a pair of long shorts to wear as a swimsuit and quickly went and got changed myself.

We walked out into the chilly late-night air onto the deck and I lifted the worn jacuzzi cover. I dangled my fingers into the water, expecting it to be steaming hot, but instead found it cold to the touch. It wasn’t working! I tried to adjust the temperature, but nothing I did fixed the problem. Disappointed, I looked at him and asked if he’d like to a take a bath instead. After all, in our swimsuits it would be the same thing anyways, wouldn’t it?

Well, back then, I thought it would be.

We shifted to the bathroom and I ran the tub, we sat opposite each other so that we could face one another and talk. I never took another sip of my drink. It sat forgotten in the living room. But he kept drinking his noxious swirl of rum and coke. Everything seemed fine. I remember being happy. I remember thinking that John was such a great friend and that I was so lucky to have someone in my life who would join me at a moment’s notice just because they knew that I was sad.

It was when we got out of the tub that everything changed.

I went into my bedroom to change into my pajamas. I shut the door behind me. Just as I was slipping out of my swimsuit, its wet material sticking to my body, I heard a bang on the door. I jerked. My head swung around as I pressed my hands firmly against the wood to keep the door shut.

“Don’t come in! I’m still changing.”

I honestly thought that would be the end of it.

From here on out, everything comes in flashes. I remember the door being forced open and the shock as he shoved his way in and pushed me down onto the bed. I remember the confusion as he worked to take off the last piece of my swimsuit and being just aware enough to think ‘What is happening?’ I remember that he grabbed my breast and it hurt. I remember that his hand was down where I didn’t want it.

I remember saying no again and again and again.

No, no, no, no, no.

I remember him flipping me over and forcing himself into a second place that had never been touched before. I remember begging him to stop.

Just flashes. Flashes of moments that destroyed my teenage years. Flashes of moments that forever changed my perception of reality.

At the end he just leaned back and asked that question.

“Did I just rape you?”

I didn’t react the way that I thought I would. I had been an avid fan of Law and Order: SVU and I knew what I was supposed to do. I was supposed to call the cops. I was supposed to go to the hospital and have a rape kit done.

Instead, my world went numb. I couldn’t process anything. The only thought that inhabited my head was that I was dirty and I needed to get clean.

I had to wash him off of me!

Later that night I sat in the bath, the water going icy cold, as I hugged my knees. I couldn’t cry. I just sat there, in shock that my friend had just raped me.

According to RAINN, eight out of ten rapes are committed by someone who the victim knows. When we are young so many of us don’t realize this. We think that for something horrible like rape to happen, it must be done by someone that doesn’t know us. We think that only strangers would do something so horrific. But the truth is, more often than not, it is someone we know, someone we maybe even trust, that hurts us.

The Quicksand

Now, here is the part that is even harder for me to talk about than the rape, because no one I have ever met has understood what I did next. I don’t understand what I did next. All I know was that I wanted to forget. I wanted to pretend that it didn’t happen. I wanted to hit rewind.

So we met up. I drove out to an abandoned parking lot and he got in my car. I sat there frozen, suddenly paralyzed just by being near him, which is not how I thought I would react. He cried and mumbled how sorry he was, how it was all a mistake, how it was just a misunderstanding, and asked if I could please not report him to the police. Again and again, he would tell me that he cared for me, that I was his friend, and that he didn’t mean for it to happen.

He’d ask me, “Are you sure it was rape? After all, we had sex before.”

I was a bruised apple, tender to the touch, and easy to smash. I thought that I would be stronger. Instead, he assaulted me again. I felt powerless. Completely out of control. I just sat there in the backseat of the car as he jerked himself off while simultaneously telling me how everything was better now.

All I wanted to do was cry. I felt trapped. I didn’t know how to escape.

The few people that I have told that part of the story to always question me. They ask, “Why didn’t you just get out of the car?” Or they say, “Well, you shouldn’t have met him in the first place.”

I knew what I had done hadn’t made any sense. I knew that, logically, I could just step out of the car and run away. But at the time, it really didn’t feel like I could. My body felt like it weighed a million tons, immovable, frozen by fear, confusion, and a festering sickness.

I threw up later that night. I was so disgusted. But what was even worse was that I wasn’t disgusted by him. I was disgusted by myself.

After all, it was my fault, wasn’t it? I invited him over. I asked him to take a jacuzzi and then moved to the bath when the hot water wouldn’t work. I met him again after what he had done. Didn’t that make it my fault? I had sex with him a year before it happened, so how could it be rape now when it was consensual before?

I despised myself.

I disappeared into myself. It was like quicksand, the burgeoning depression that yanked me under. I felt lost in a wave of self-hate. At random, I would burst into tears, unable to control myself. While at other times I’d be completely numb, something I’d eventually come to refer to as my ‘zombie’ state.

I remember the moment that I told my parents. I drove out to an empty field and I called my Mom. I don’t know if anyone can really appreciate how difficult a moment like that is unless they have lived it. I called her, and then my Dad, and told them that I had been raped. I just sat there in my car and cried.

I didn’t know what else to say. I didn’t know what else to do. I could hear the pain and anger in their voices, but I didn’t have the space to deal with their turmoil. I was locked off, departed from the real world and shoved into this alien space where I didn’t know how anything functioned anymore. Up was down, and down was sideways. Nothing made sense.

Trying to Report It

Eventually, I did report it. I went to the hospital. They put me in one of those crinkly dressing gowns where you feel completely exposed and vulnerable and proceeded to tell me that it wouldn’t even be worth doing a rape kit. The looked at me with judgmental eyes as I told them that I had taken a bath. I could feel the blame and disbelief radiating off of them.

Even though they wouldn’t do any tests, they still called the police. She showed up at our front door, cornering me into a bedroom all by myself. I squirmed, instantly feeling that sense of fear pressing down on me again. I wouldn’t tell her anything. I wouldn’t say who did it. It felt like I was betraying him. My brain was still having a hard time fuly grasping the depths of his betrayal. I wanted to believe that he was a good person. So I watched as she shrugged and pushed what had happened aside.

I never saw her again. The police never looked into what had happened.

I still couldn’t understand how my friend could do this to me and no one else could either. As friend by friend stopped by my house to see why I wasn’t coming to school, I told them that John had raped me.

They didn’t believe me.

He was the most popular guy at school. If he wanted to have sex with someone, surely, he could do that with his girlfriend or any other of the many willing girls?

I never knew how to respond to that.

All of those friends stopped talking to me. It happened nearly instantaneously. A rumor spread at school that I was seeing people crawling out of walls. I don’t know who started that rumor, and I don’t want to know.

When I returned to school I told my teacher that I had been assaulted. She just gave me a pitying look and handed me the work that I had missed while I was gone. She never reported it as far as I know.

As I got older, telling other people didn’t become any easier. Boyfriends either didn’t believe me, thought that I should be over it by now, or straight up told me that I was partially to blame. The sad thing was is that I believed them.

I was still processing the trauma myself. I wanted to ignore it, to push it to the side and forget that it had ever happened. But the more that I did that, the more the quicksand swallowed me whole.

It took me years to fully understand and process what had happened to me. It took me years to find friends who would truly listen to my story, not judge, and simply be there for me. In reality, it took until the #metoo movement for me to really confront my own trauma.

The #MeToo Movement

It is only because of the #metoo movement that I have gathered the courage to share my story with you today.

That movement opened doors. For the first time, I saw that other people had gone through what I had been through. I could hear their stories and see my own reflected within their words. I realized that I was not alone and I could finally see my trauma for what it really was – a complete and utter unforgivable betrayal.

If reading my story helps even one person to speak up, to reach out for help, or realize that they are not alone, then writing this was worth it. I have never been this vulnerable in writing before and, truthfully, it is terrifying.

We all deserve to know that we are not alone. We deserve to know that there is hope, that there are people out there who understand you and what you have gone through.

We are not alone.

We are survivors. We are fighters.

At times, it may feel like the quicksand is pulling us under, that it will win the fight. But we are stronger than our attackers. We have more heart and more courage than most people will ever know. We are not their victims, but the victors. We will overcome. We will fight for a world where this no longer happens to our mothers, daughters, or friends.

According to rainn.org every 73 seconds an American is sexually assaulted. However, only 5 out of 1,000 perpetrators will be sent to prison.

The #metoo movement finally drew attention to this issue and how it is systematically engrained in American society. Even when we work up the courage to speak out, all too often we are dismissed, judged, or the perpetrator is inherently believed. We see this happen time and time again. When will it stop? When will we finally be believed? When will the people who commit these atrocities finally be punished?

Rape and sexual assault have seeped into the very fabric of this country. It is time for us to stand strong together and scream it from the rooftops.

Me too.

Me too!

Me too!!!

It is time for this country to change.

Reaching Out is a Sign of Strength

You are not alone. If you need someone to talk to, reach out to RAINN. Call 1-800-656-HOPE (4673) to get help 24/7. It is not a sign of weakness to ask for help, but a major sign of strength.