2016 is the four year anniversary. You can’t say one day is because it happened so many times. And when it happens so many times, you stop believing it’s something to note. I never told my friends, I never told my family. My body told my next boyfriend.
Last year, he asked me out and my hands started shaking. I put them under the table. My voice wavered, and I couldn’t tell why. He was wonderful. This was great. I was still shaking though. My hands were wet with sweat.
Weeks later, he tried to hug me on my way out of the common room. My entire body shuddered and I couldn’t raise my arms to hug him back. He was hurt. I felt guilty.
A week later, my friend hugged me from behind in the dining hall. I simultaneously leapt up and felt my knees buckle, my breathe rush out of my lungs. I waved it off when I saw her face. When I saw that she was female, I relaxed.
I didn’t know what any of this meant. I was a happy, smiley person. So why did I have what couldn’t be described as anything other than triggers?
That’s a horrible way to find out you were raped. None of it felt “mental” - it was in every sense physical. My body had hit a road block. I could force it forward, but it wouldn’t stop the shaking.
One year ago I realized that I had not shaken off the sexual harassment and violence that I’d experienced. It would always come back. I had toughened up, just like they said. That didn’t stop the symptoms. Instead, I had accepted that what had happened was normal. It’s normal for a man to follow you for years, not to take no for an answer, and romantically bribe you with money for what you need most. It’s normal for someone you had consensual sex with once to demand a blowjob and then hold your head down as you choke. Relationships are scary for everyone.
They were right. I could move on. I went to school every day; I overachieved and competed with a smile on my face and the taste of his foul semen in the back of my mouth. I never felt like I could wash it out. Everyone would talk about how happy, how helpful, how kind and sweet I was. I would do anything anyone wanted me to do. I was just so considerate.
Then, one day, he held me up with hands on my waist and told me I had love handles. Even as a sexual object, I wasn't a desirable one.
Those words have never left me. Over the past three years they’ve developed into an eating disorder. I feel better when I’m losing weight, growing smaller. I feel better when I see my ribs.
My worst moment last semester was going down on a new boyfriend. He is wonderful. He is thoughtful. My vision swims with the distinct images of blue tile and cold floor and all the memories of the past oral rapes. I gag, but I can manage that. I’ve done so, before. But he had touched my head just for a second, lightly, lovingly, and that’s all it took. I spent the next hour in full panic attack, struggling to breathe, curled up, immobile, tears streaming down my face. I didn’t know why and I couldn’t stop my body from tensing and rebelling.
Four years of uncertainty, of guilt, of self-doubt and self-hate before I knew for sure this was rape. I just wish I had some validation that this was not normal. I wish rape would never fly as “normal.” Normal doesn’t tear apart your life this way. Don’t let this be normal.