I AM A SURVIVOR

I don't think that there are any words that could describe how terrifying that night was. Talking about something that happened 24 years ago,seems like it was a life time ago. My name is Adriane and this is the story that changed my life forever. I was a young girl and a new single parent. I had recently split from my sons father, and was living alone for the first time in my life. And I was enjoying my new found freedom maybe, a little too much at the time. I was living in Clovis, New Mexico I had found a small duplex for me and my son to live in. I met my friend April she lived in the same duplex. We quickly became friends she had two kids and I had one son. I didn't know anybody in Clovis, I had just moved there. So April's friends also became my friends. At times we would have wild parties, there would be lots of drinking that would last through out the night. It was at one of these parties that I met James. He for some reason took an instant liking to me . The feeling was not mutual. I was dating someone else at the time, and he just made me feel uncomfortable. The fun parties keep taking place and you could say I was living the life of a wild child . James would show up on occasion and express interest in me, but for whatever reason I didn't want him around me or my son. I tried to keep my distance from him. I didn't want him to think I was leading him on in any way , because I had no interest in him.

Eventually, I moved me and my son from the duplex into a Trailer Park. We lived there some what quietly and the parties started slowing down. In fact that night there was no party going on at all. At about 11:00 p.m. I changed into my pajamas and me and my son settled down to sleep on the couch. A couple of hours later I felt something fall on me. My couch was right next to a window in the trailer. I woke up and James had broke in my trailer through the window.He told me he had a gun and ordered me and my 2 year old son into the bedroom. I was so scared. I do not think scared was the word for it. I wasn't so much scared for myself as I was for my innocent 2 year old baby. He made me and my son lay down in the bed and proceeded to rape me while, demanding I kept my baby quiet. After it was over he forced me to get into a shower and kept demanding over and over again that I made sure I got myself really clean. After I was allowed out of the shower he ordered me to lay on the floor. He told me he was gonna leave and that I was to count to 500 before getting up. And he would be watching and if he saw me leave the trailer or try to do anything to get help he would come back and shoot both me and my son.

I laid on that bathroom floor completely terrified for what seemed like forever. I was completely scared to death. After what seemed like an eternity,I got up and ran to the bedroom to get my baby. I wanted to make sure he was gone. The only thing I could think to do was run to my friend Jackie's trailer. I told her what happened and she took me to the hospital.

At the hospital they did a rape kit and Victims Services came out. Charges where filed and the police where on the hunt for James. As it turned out James was a habitual rapist who had raped two girls before me. Life after the rape in the beginning was not fun. It took a week for the police to find and arrest James. Thankfully at that time, I was out of town with my parents. I had such a feeling of being alone. Like nobody was on my side. The woman from Victims Services told my mother that if I had not been hanging out with the type of people I was, the rape would have not have happened to me. I find it amazing what kind of comments people make and the questions people ask after a woman is raped. What was she wearing , where was she at. Really I was wearing pajamas sleeping on the couch with my son. And it doesn't matter what a woman is wearing or where she is at when she gets raped. No means no, there is no excuse for a man to force himself on somebody. No woman anywhere deserves to be raped. I was terrorized by James's family after I came back home before the trial. His brother saw me on the street and demanded that my ugly ass leave his poor brother alone. One night James's brother and other members of his clan hit my trailer with baseball bats all night long. I remember standing in the middle of the hall terrified.

James eventually took a plea bargain that gave him 10 years in prison. After that life went on as it does. But it wasn't the same . It look me a long time to actually deal with the rape. I tried to pretend that it didn't happen and got deeper and deeper into drugs. Until the day I put the drugs down and sought help for my issues, and my life got better . Today you can say my life is pretty good . But it was a long road and took a lot of work on my part. I call myself a survivor today because I refuse to go through life being that man's victim. I am a survivor today because even though what I went threw was horrible, it doesn't shape who I am today. Today I don't have to live with the shame and pretend that it didn't happen,another reason to call myself a survivor. I can say that it did happen, and be proud of who I am and how my life is today.

dD