Three years one month and twenty five days. That’s how long it took me to come to terms with my rape.
I was sitting in the Tisch basement, procrastinating an assignment (per usual) when I decided to knock an item off of my senior bucket list and post on Tufts Confessions. YES. TUFTS CONFESSIONS.
I had been toying with what would be my first and only submission for quite some time, but in this moment of brain-dead procrastination, something within me sang. No, it screamed. My fingers typed slowly but surely as my mind wandered vainly towards the response my post would get. How many likes!? How many comments!? When my mind finally settled on the words on the page, my heart sank. I immediately texted my best friend, “Hey, something weird just happened and I really need to talk to someone.” She got on Facebook and I sent her the words on my screen:
“I feel that if the current environment of consent and sexual violence awareness at Tufts had been around three years ago when I was a freshman, then one of my not-so-pleasant encounters would have probably been considered assault instead of laughed off. Though in my mind the only way to move on is by telling myself what happened was acceptable, I am glad Tufts has evolved and developed a dialogue about hook up culture and sexual assault. I feel like it's too late for me now, but hopefully it won't be for someone else.”
We gawked at the words. She had been there that night, she took care of me after I got home barely cognizant, half dressed, and bawling. Every night after that, we laughed it off. Three years later, in the Tisch basement, I broke down. I held my face in my hands and tried to keep myself together. Oh no, Oh no, Oh no, Oh no. I could feel myself slipping. Oh no, Oh no, Oh no, Oh no. This is my SENIOR SPRING. I need to graduate WITH A JOB. I need to finish my internship(s)! And my classes! And my senior project! Dear god, I have to graduate!!! I have to party!! And my birthday is next week!!!!! I can’t fall apart now. I can’t.
But the storm of emotions I had been repressing for years was far stronger than my insistence to keep them below the surface. I fell into a deep depression. I was utterly powerless. Was it my fault? Part of me thought so, while the other valiantly stared at the blaming pointing finger and said, “My drunkenness didn’t give him the right to use my body for his pleasure. MY BODY WAS NOT MADE FOR HIS PLEASURE.” I hated myself for laughing it off right after it happened. For apologizing and feeling shitty three years ago when I found out he had a girlfriend. For taking so long to open my eyes to a reality that had been written on my skin with his hands and his cum. For allowing this fucker to make me powerless. For not being able to do anything about what happened—he graduated long before I did so he would walk away scot-free. And worst, for not wanting to.
The rest of my semester, of my senior year, was a blur. I reached out to my Dean regarding my situation, and was met with so much love and support it shocked me. I was one of the lucky ones—I was never stifled, never questioned. My exams took ages to complete, every assignment I touched was submitted late. I was fired in the cruelest way from my on-campus internship by a staff member that simply didn’t know how to deal with mental and emotional state, but miraculously managed to complete my off-campus internship unscathed.
Social situations were a minefield for me. I was raped at a frat party. In one of their “fuck rooms.” Every frat-looking senior pub night, every scent or image of that night made me trigger. Before my realization, I had been unstoppable. After, I was paralyzed at the mere scent of alcohol. What had once been friendly even funny advances from my guy friends now felt threatening, and there were many I could no longer be around.
My ability to gauge my emotions and control them disappeared. My relationship with my parents deteriorated as a result of me reacting to every little thing like a child. There were just some things I couldn’t joke about, some things I couldn’t handle. I told them, of course. All of the important family members, at least. No one knew how to treat me. No one knew what to say.
Every day was a struggle. I felt isolated from the fun and hookups/boy dramas all my friends were having as well as from the academic and professional achievements the people I loved were receiving. I felt isolated from my family. It was nothing short of a miracle that I graduated. Granted, I didn’t leave Tufts with a job, and instead of having a summer of fun and last hoorahs ahead of me, I spent my summer visiting my therapist once a week.
Today, I am a much stronger woman than I was a year ago when I first came to terms with what happened. My emotional range has expanded tremendously because I now know depression intimately, the floating feeling of being physically unable to focus, and the paralyzing pang of a trigger. I am much more sensitive and empathetic than I was a year ago. Those that remain in my life after hearing my story are closer to me than they were before—it’s because of them that I’m strong.
But I’ve lost much. What I once saw as an innate awkwardness with the opposite sex that developed after my freshman year, I now know is just a front for various walls I’ve put up since my rape. I don’t care how nice and sweet and caring and wonderful and attractive a boy that’s interested in me may be—I don’t trust him. I don’t want him to touch me.
I somehow managed to lower the million walls I have up for one guy. I had known him since my freshman year, and he knew my story. It took us months to even kiss. He was (is?) one of those perfect boys.
We had sex. It was my first time after declaring myself a survivor. And this survivor didn’t take it well. He was a good friend then. We haven’t spoken in months. I don’t think he can even look me in the face anymore.
According to various fact-less sources, the last person a girl thinks about before she falls asleep is who she loves. Each night, I fall asleep asking myself, what now? Who’s going to want you? You can work on your appearance all you want, my subconscious says, but you can’t change that you’re broken inside. You can’t lower the walls when a boy approaches, no matter how hard you try. And they’ll never have the patience to break them down; they’ll never have the patience to love you.
Though my friends assure me that I’ll “find someone,” my romantic future doesn’t even look hazy, it’s a black hole. I often imagine what it would be like if my random crushes expressed interest in me, and then my practical brain kicks in and lays out the well-prepared speech I’ve written in my head warning them: “I had a not-so-consensual experience in college (sidenote: if you say the R word, that tends to send a boy running) and uhhmmm, because of it, I’m not the easiest person to date. It takes me a while to get comfortable being physical and odds are I’ll push you away…” Who’s going to go for that? Part of me asks, while the judicious side of me replies, “They need to know what they’re getting into. This isn’t something they can just stumble into, something that “just happened.” We can’t do that.”
And she’s right. I can’t do that. It’s been a little under a year since I’ve known, four since it happened, and I still can’t do that.
So every morning I wake up and I stare at myself in the mirror, long and hard. I try to fill myself with all of the positivity and love that my subconsciousness sucked out of me the night before. Sometimes I feel like I’m grasping for thin air, but I do it anyway. In the random moments that I trigger, the one time one my guy friends stopped talking to me after I told him my story, when I giggle away the various inquiries about my love life from coworkers and acquaintances, and every other shitty moment that brings to the forefront the emotional scars that son of a bitch embedded on me skin when he raped me, I mentally repeat: I am not what happened to me. I AM NOT WHAT HAPPENED TO ME.
I may be a coward for not being louder about my rape. I’m a millennial and I have a social media megaphone in my hand called an iPhone. Yet here I am posting to my story anonymously. I feel shame and embarrassment in my silence. But in moments like this I remember: I survived the incredible anguish that follows rape. I lived after counting the ways to end my life and months of wondering daily what the point of it all was. My mere act of breathing right now is an act of courage.
I take comfort in those thoughts. And use that comfort and courage to quietly change the culture that allowed my rape in the first place. Because my rapist may have ”gotten away” with what he did, but I’ll do everything in my power to make sure no one after him does.
I am not what happened to me. And I’m not letting this happen again.