I still have the hospital gown from the time I tried to kill myself. It’s in my bottom drawer, with my pajamas and long underwear. It had been about two weeks since that night.
He was my ex; he came over to help me not pass out in my own vomit, because, well, it was my first time out sophomore year and I still didn’t really know how to drink and that night I didn’t keep count. I wish I had kept count.
So he came over, and then we had sex? No, that’s not right. I don’t remember. I don’t remember leaving the party, or having my RA find me stumbling home, or having her tell me I needed someone to come take care of me so I didn’t get TEMSed, or calling him to take care of me, or him showing up, or my RA telling him I was too drunk to consent to anything, or him taking my clothes off, or him violating me, or my RA coming in and telling him a second time I was too drunk to do anything and then leaving us alone. I do remember me screaming and crying for him to leave, but that’s all.
The RA reports it. I go through that process. I read my ex’s version of events. Well, I guess that’s what happened to me. Sounds bad. I don’t remember that. Was I conscious? Was I passed out? Was I asleep? When did I start crying? Did I fight him? I hope so, but I don’t think so. I just don’t know. He says I didn’t.
So, again, back to that night, about two weeks after. I was out with friends, at a party on campus. He shows up. I didn’t want to see him. But there he was; he was everywhere, everyone. When I turned around, he was just beyond sight. When I didn’t turn around, I felt him there. He was in my bed again. He was there when I was sleeping—I would wake up and wonder, did it happen again? Did he sneak in and rape me again? Can I use that r-word about what happened to me? Is he here?
leave the party, and go back to my room. I couldn’t sleep; he was there. I couldn’t be awake; he was behind me, in front of me, inside me. I couldn’t be living; he was living near me, on me, in me.
I called the cops on myself. They would protect me, from him, from me. They took me back to the station. I was in my pajamas. There I was in the station, waiting for the ambulance to come and take me away for a little while.
I couldn’t be there. He was there, too. He was in my head, and I couldn’t get him out. So, I took the closest thing to me- a phone. I try to knock him out of there, out of my head. I tried to knock me out of there—us out of there, out of this earth with this pain and this hurt. The officers grab me, stop me, tie me down, restrain me from myself, from him.
My head hasn’t fully healed; it never will. I mean, yes, I do have a welt there. I always will, now my head is just a little misshapen. But you can’t notice that. Maybe you can notice how my brain hasn’t been the same since he came in that night? I don’t know, to me it’s obvious. But maybe that’s just me? Maybe it’s all just me?
The thing is, I loved him. I can finally use the past tense there. How long can you love your rapist? A little over a year, I found out for me. A year of not speaking, of hating and loving and crying and hitting and cutting.
I ended up spending five days in McLean Psychiatric Hospital in the beginning of my sophomore year, on suicide watch. I want to go back every day, and never again. I emailed my professors and rescheduled an interview for an internship, after one of the orderlies secretly let me charge my phone. We weren’t allowed to have cords, for fear I’d choke myself. Joke’s on them, I also smuggled in my rosary.
Someone asked me in a group session there, “Well, I hope you fought him off.” How do I answer that?
Now it’s been a year and a half since that night. A year and a half removed from my rape—I can use that r-word—a year and a half from that hospital, and half a year from loving him. Did you know all that, looking at me? When I talk in class? When I bump into you when I’m not paying attention? When we meet at a party? When we’re dancing? When we hook up? It’s written all over my face. It’s in the little bump on my head you can’t see. Sometimes I forget about the bump, but I never forget about him, and I’ll never forget that night that I cant even remember.
I still have my hospital gown from the night I tried to kill myself. A really nice lady sat in my room with me- that’s what suicide watch is, someone sits in your room with you and makes sure you don’t try to kill yourself again. He’s not around and in me as much anymore. I never get a full day to myself, but one time I made it six hours without him rearing his head. A few nights a month I sleep through without seeing him. When I wake up, the first thought I still have most mornings is whether or not it happened again. I don’t remember the details of the first one. What’s to prevent that from happening again? They gave me sleeping pills for my insomnia, but I can’t take them because then I worry I’ll sleep too heavily and he’ll come back and I won’t be able to get away again.
So, almost every night for the past year and a half, I’ve fallen asleep to the face of the man who I dated, who I loved, who raped me. Almost every morning I wake up, fearful it happened again- that I slept too heavily or had one too many drinks or actually took my sleeping pills for once, and somehow he showed up.
I’m scared of him. I’m scared of men. That means I’m scared of myself. I’m scared of my head, what it will do to me, that he is still in there somewhere. But, for the past year and a half, that hospital gown has stayed in my bottom drawer, and hasn’t needed to be taken back out, and I haven’t gotten any others to add to my bottom drawer. I don’t love him anymore, but I’ll always have the hospital gown to remember him by.