It Can Happen to Anyone, and You Have to Survive

It took me a while to get to a point where I wanted to write about this. That's why I haven't blogged in a while.

At 4:30AM, December 31, 2011, I was raped (I just now noticed the last blog entry is dated December 30. That night basically). This wasn't some random attack. This was a guy I had enough trust in to be alone with at his home. I had known him for around 6 years. We weren’t super close, but we were friends, or so I thought.

I’m not going to sit here and explain all the gory details of the event. The short version is we went out for dinner and a couple drinks the night before. We ended up at his house. Chilled some doing nothing particularly exciting. He decided he wanted something I didn’t want to give him, so he took it. Then I went home.

The first person I told was my best friend Carmen. After eating a slightly late birthday lunch with some family and acting like nothing was amiss, I went over to her place. I’m glad I did. She was amazingly supportive. She did all this spiritual healing stuff. We hung out & talked for a few hours. She made sure I was emotionally & physically comfortable. I felt safe and knew I was ultimately  going to be OK. I can’t begin to express how much I appreciate it all with a reasonable amount of words, but I’ve never had anyone take care of me on that level. I already had plans to go to my best friends’ Crystal & Jerry’s New Year’s Eve party. By that point I was functional & just needed to have fun with people who love me. I had to speed myself up a little due to lack of sleep, but I made it. I told Crystal at one point, & otherwise didn’t let it ruin my night. She was also nothing but amazing and supportive when we discussed it more after the party. I didn’t tell anyone else for a week, which is a while for someone who usually just throws it all on table no matter what.

When I came out more publicly about this, people were overwhelmingly supportive & even protective. The circle of great friends I have has made this all something I can heal from. I’ll quote what Carmen wrote on my Facebook page on January 7 because the post meant the world to me:

“I 'like' the fact You are BRAVE enough to sate Your violation. Rape is an act of violence. To empower the WEAK and corrupt of mind. Mine remains unsolved and has impacted Me to this very day and I swore I would treat anyone brave enough to ever 'come out' and talk about it ever happening to them as I wish I were treated. I give out what i expect back and kharma is real and so Is the love and care I showed and will continue to show You, Doll. The COWARD that hurt You will pay for his deeds and no one else will ever have to face that kind of shit ever again from the perp. I will always be there and Will NOT rest until justice is served or peace of Your mind is found. Rape is rape. No means NO. Friends mean being there. That is I did. A TINY act of humanity. There is no end to my apology on behalf of the world's debt This piece of trash owes You. You are strong, brave and deserve only the absolute best. 'Nuff said. ♥ s forever. Time heals almost all wounds. But wounds don't hurt perps;) As long as You are My friend, You are safe. You have a friend for life, like it or not!:)”

There were some who just stayed away from the topic entirely. There were a very few others, however, who asked what I think are pretty common stupid/irrelevant questions people ask rape victims. 1“Did you say no?”  2“Were you clear?”  3“Was it a man or a woman?”  4“Did it hurt?”  5“Were you fucked up?”  6“Don’t you like it rough though?”  7“Did you try to stop him?” I even had someone say “That sucks,” as if I stubbed my toe or burned my shirt with a cigarette or something. In case anyone reading this doesn’t have the clarity you want, here:

1. Of course I said no.
2. I’m fucking clear about EVERYTHING.
3. Man, but the perpetrator’s sex is not relevant. Any one can rape.
4. What do you think? Rapists are gentle & loving?
5. Not particularly, but if I was, do you think I deserved it?
6. Yes, but not relevant. There is consent or there is no consent. It’s 1 or 0. There is no “.5” If I say stop, it means stop.
7. Most men are considerably larger then I am, & it’s a little difficult to fight someone if you’re being held down from behind. If I was able to stop him, I most likely would have never discussed any of this with anyone.

Bonus. Here is a video about the dumb shit some people say when someone they know gets raped: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rg1ocXCYUjQ.

That brings me to this concept people have that certain types of people somehow “deserve” it more, or that certain people simply can’t be raped. This is a big reason why rape is grossly under-reported, especially in marginalized communities. Transgender people, prison inmates, prostitutes, drug addicts. This was posted on Facebook recently. You can find idiocy by going through the comments. It does not matter who you are or what you do. If a person says says no, and you don’t stop, you are a rapist. If she was raped, it’s unfortunate that law enforcement will not take it seriously. She’s a prostitute, so who cares? When I called the cops, they were respectful enough to my face, but nothing ever got done. I wasted my time talking to them. I received numerous offers for handling this off the books. I opted to handle it “legitimately,” even though he didn’t do me that courtesy. Now I don’t have either option. Reporting it got me nowhere. Can’t do it dirty because reporting it means I’d be the first suspect if anyone figured anything out. So he gets off free & clear. Fail.

As hard as I may seem, this event took a toll on me, as is fairly normal from what I hear from other friends who have gone through the same thing. I don’t eat or sleep when I’m stressed. Even when I could convince myself everything was fine over the past couple months, other people could tell I wasn’t fine. I lost nearly 10 pounds, hardly slept, & had nightmares when I did unless I got good & fucked up and armed myself to the teeth first. I think I failed to acknowledge this would require a significant healing process. This doesn’t go away in a few days or a few weeks. A piece of me is gone forever, but I’ve finally come to terms with that. Once I was more open about my emotions (depression, anger, feeling weak, feeling unsafe, aversion to sex), & ultimately spent a few days in a psychiatric hospital, I’m finally making significant progress. It isn’t something that goes away quickly. I don’t care how hard you are.

I’m lucky. This all made it real fucking clear who I could count on and who really wasn’t worth my effort. After throwing out the trash, I still have a large circle of REAL friends who are the reason I made it through this. Now I even have a great girlfriend. She understands this issue & my emotions. She watched my shit and kept my other friends updated when I was at the psychiatric hospital. She makes me feel nothing but loved & safe, & that’s the only way it should ever be.