The Sexual Assault Hurt, but Not Being Believed Almost Broke Me

There are some things I can talk about now that I couldn't have talked about when they happened.

Not because I've found some perfect way to explain them.

I haven't.

But because I know there may be another woman sitting somewhere right now asking herself some of the same questions I asked myself at 18.

Was it really rape?

Was it partly my fault?

Did I somehow allow it?

Should I have fought harder?

Why didn't anyone believe me?

And maybe the hardest question of all:

What am I supposed to do with this now?

I know those questions because I've asked them.

I Was 18, and I Thought This Would Be My Choice

I was 18 years old when I went to a party and had a few drinks.

I was still a virgin.

At that point in my life, I thought I would probably wait until marriage to have sex.

Or maybe I would eventually meet someone I loved and trusted enough that I would decide I was ready.

I didn't have every detail of my future planned out.

But I knew one thing.

I thought that decision would belong to me.

That night, it didn't.

A friend raped me.

Even writing those words feels very different from the way my 18 year old mind understood it at the time.

Because I didn't walk away from that night with everything neatly labeled.

I walked away confused.

I had been drinking.

I knew him.

He was my friend.

And because of those things, my mind started looking for ways to explain what had happened.

Maybe I shouldn't have been drinking.

Maybe something I did gave him the wrong impression.

Maybe I wasn't clear enough.

Maybe this wasn't what I thought it was.

Except I remembered saying no.

I remembered telling him to stop.

I remembered not wanting what was happening to me.

And eventually I had to stop asking whether I had behaved perfectly and ask the question that actually mattered.

Did I want this?

No.

I didn't.

Drinking didn't turn my no into a yes.

Knowing him didn't turn my no into a yes.

Being at a party didn't turn my no into a yes.

And being confused afterward didn't somehow erase what happened before.

I wish I had understood that sooner.

Sometimes We Question Ourselves Before We Question the Person Who Hurt Us

This is one of the strangest things I remember about that time.

Something had been done to me, yet somehow I became the person I kept questioning.

I examined my own behavior over and over.

What had I said?

How much had I had to drink?

Could I have done something differently?

Was I remembering everything correctly?

Meanwhile, the much clearer fact kept getting buried underneath all those questions.

I told him to stop.

Sometimes I think when something painful happens with someone we know, our minds almost try to negotiate with reality.

Because accepting that someone we trusted could intentionally ignore us is awful.

It can feel easier to find some gray area.

Maybe he misunderstood.

Maybe I misunderstood.

Maybe it wasn't really what I think it was.

But there are moments in life when we have to stop building excuses for somebody else's behavior at our own expense.

Consent isn't something another person gets to assume because you're dating them, married to them, attracted to them, drinking with them, went home with them, kissed them earlier, or said yes to something else.

You can change your mind.

You can say stop.

You can freeze.

You can be too intoxicated to consent.

And your body having a physical response doesn't mean you wanted what happened.

Those things matter.

I needed to know that at 18.

Maybe somebody reading this needs to know it now.

Then I Tried to Tell Someone

A couple of days later, after I began realizing what had actually happened, I reached out to him.

I told him I had said no.

I told him I had told him to stop.

Eventually I told him I was thinking about going to the authorities.

And then his mother got on the phone.

She told me I could tell whoever I wanted.

Nobody would believe me.

There was no proof.

It would be his word against mine.

I wish I could say those words didn't get inside my head.

They did.

Because when you're already questioning yourself, somebody confidently telling you that nobody else will believe you can make you question yourself even more.

And I was already scared.

I didn't feel like I could talk to my parents.

I didn't have a huge group of friends I trusted enough to tell something this personal.

I felt embarrassed.

Ashamed.

Confused.

And incredibly alone.

So eventually I became desperate enough to tell a few of the people who were friends with both of us.

I thought maybe they would listen and be there for me.

They didn't believe me and they were not there for me.

Then they stopped talking to me.

They continued talking to him and hanging out with him.

That hurt in a way I wasn't prepared for.

What Happened That Night Hurt Me. What Happened Afterward Nearly Broke Me.

There's the pain of what someone does to you.

And then there's another kind of pain that can come when you finally gather enough courage to tell someone and they make you feel like you shouldn't have said anything at all.

That's the part I don't think we talk about enough.

I was already carrying something I didn't know how to carry.

Then I started feeling like nobody cared that I was carrying it.

The people I reached toward didn't reach back.

And eventually my thoughts went somewhere very dark.

I remember feeling like if nobody believed me, nobody cared, and I was this alone in the world, then why was I even here?

I reached a point where I thought maybe I shouldn't be here anymore.

I took a bunch of pills and I called to say goodbye to one of my friends.

That friend was worried and called my parents.

My parents rushed me to the hospital, and I got the help I needed at that moment.

I can look back now and understand how much pain that 18 year old girl was carrying.

She wasn't asking anybody to have all the answers.

She needed somebody to believe that she was hurting.

She needed somebody to stay.

She needed somebody to take her seriously.

I have to say after I finally told my parents what happened and why I felt this way, they listened, said nothing and never spoke about it again even until this day.

Again, I felt like it didn’t matter.

If Someone Tells You Something Happened, Be Careful What You Do Next

I've thought about this a lot over the years.

When someone tells us she has been sexually assaulted, we may not know exactly what to say.

That's okay.

You don't need a speech.

You don't need to become an investigator.

You don't need to start asking why she was there, why she drank, why she went with him, why she didn't scream, why she waited to tell somebody, why she didn't call the police immediately, or why she's still unsure about what happened.

Sometimes the first thing a person needs is incredibly basic.

Listen.

Believe that she's telling you what she experienced.

Ask what she needs right now.

Help her get somewhere safe.

Stay with her if she doesn't want to be alone.

Because I know what the opposite feels like.

I know what it's like to finally say something out loud and watch people choose their comfort over your pain.

We have to be better with each other than that.

If This Happened to You Recently

I especially want to talk to the woman who didn't come here because this happened twenty years ago.

Maybe it happened last night.

Maybe this morning.

Maybe you're reading this from your bathroom, your car, your bed, or somewhere you finally got a few minutes alone.

You don't have to decide everything right now.

If you're in immediate danger or badly injured, call 911 or get somewhere safer if you're able.

You can also seek medical care even if you aren't sure whether you want to report what happened to police.

A hospital or medical provider can check for injuries you may not be able to see, talk with you about pregnancy and sexually transmitted infection risks, and help you understand your options.

If the assault happened recently, you may also be able to have a sexual assault forensic exam, sometimes called a rape kit.

That exam can collect evidence even if you're unsure right now about whether you want to involve law enforcement.

If you think you may want a forensic exam, getting one sooner can help preserve evidence.

If possible, avoid showering, bathing, changing clothes, brushing your hair, or cleaning yourself beforehand.

But please hear this part too.

If you've already showered, changed your clothes, gone to the bathroom, cleaned yourself up, or done anything else because you were scared or just wanted to feel clean again, please don't assume it's too late to ask for help.

Still go.

Still call.

Still ask what options are available to you.

RAINN's National Sexual Assault Hotline is available 24 hours a day. You can call 800 656 4673, text HOPE to 64673, or use their online chat.

And if what happened has taken you to the kind of dark emotional place I reached all those years ago, you can call or text 988 in the United States.

You don't have to be at the point of attempting suicide to contact them.

If you're struggling and need somebody right now, that's reason enough.

The Choice That Was Taken from Me Didn't Take Me with It

For a long time, part of what hurt was knowing how I had imagined my first sexual experience happening.

I thought it would be something I chose.

Instead, somebody made that choice for me.

There was grief in that.

There was anger.

There was embarrassment that never should have belonged to me in the first place.

And for a while, what happened affected the way I saw myself.

But I understand something now that I couldn't understand at 18.

What someone did to my body didn't decide my value.

It didn't get to rewrite everything I believed about myself.

It didn't turn me into something less.

And it didn't make the rest of my life belong to that night.

There are still things I wish had happened differently.

I wish somebody had believed me sooner.

I wish I hadn't spent so much time questioning myself.

I wish that frightened 18 year old girl had known there were people in the world specifically trained to answer the phone when someone was carrying something this heavy.

I can't go back and give her that.

But I can say it now.

And maybe another woman will hear me.

If something sexual happened to you that you didn't want, you don't have to talk yourself out of what you know you felt.

If you said no, that matters.

If you said stop, that matters.

If you froze, that doesn't mean you agreed.

If you were drinking, that doesn't make someone else entitled to your body.

If the person was your boyfriend, husband, friend, coworker, relative, date, or somebody everybody else thinks is wonderful, what you wanted still mattered.

And if the first person you told didn't believe you, please don't let their reaction become the final word on whether you deserve help.

Tell somebody else.

Call somebody who is trained to listen.

Walk into a hospital.

Send the text.

Make the call.

Say as much or as little as you can manage.

There was a moment in my life when I genuinely thought I was completely alone in this.

I know what it feels like to believe no one is coming.

But sometimes the person who finally listens is just one conversation away, and I hope you give yourself the chance to find them.

#EvolvingWomanhood

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