Journals of a sexual abuse survivor o5

I know, it’s been a minute since I’ve written on here. I’ll be honest, that last one took A LOT out of me and if you read it, I am sure that is understandable. In the last month, a few people have told me “you have to write a new post.” Or “why haven’t you posted a new blog in a while? Honestly, the answer is this: something of this nature absolutely cannot be forced. I tried to sit down and write a few different times, but the right words just would not come to my mind. That being said, I am just going to continue to bounce around and get my story across. Like I said, that last one took a lot out of me. I relive these memories almost on a daily basis, but not necessarily to the extent of explaining each day in depth, so bear with me on this journey.

Probably, one of the most degrading and hurtful experiences of my life was when I was ‘textbook raped’. By that I mean this; ‘unlawful sexual intercourse or any other sexual penetration of the vagina, with or without force, by a sex organ, other body part, or foreign object, without the consent of the victim.’ Unfortunately for me, I literally remember the day like it was yesterday.

I was at a cabin in the middle of nowhere past Mandan- at least 35 minutes from my house- after my high school had just won the girls state basketball championship my sophomore year. I was just 16 years old. I was there with my best friend at the time and a few other people. P was there, though we were not on speaking terms at this point. That being said, he was rude to me all night and tried to pretend like he had no knowledge of who I was. Of course he was two grade levels older than me so obviously I was too cool for him. That being said, I wanted nothing to do with him. I ended up going to sleep in a bed with this other boy- not P. Though P was definitely not happy when he found out.

I was sleeping- literally just sleeping and all of a sudden someone is waking me up at 6:30 in the morning. The person that woke me up was indeed P. He tells me my friend needs me in the bathroom. I had just been woken up from my sleep so I walk into the dark bathroom til I hear the door shut behind me. I ask P where my friend is because she was not in the bathroom. He cornered me and shut the door saying she’s not in here. I became confused and unsure why I was woken up at 6 in the morning if my friend didn’t actually need me. He began to tell me how pissed he was that I didn’t go to sleep with him the night before. Because instead I went to sleep with someone else, he was unhappy. Despite P being mean to me all night long- he was mad. Lol the irony is unreal. I know that you’re probably thinking it sounds like he wanted me all to himself- correct, but he “didn’t want to date me”. Looking back on it, that’s a poor excuse if you ask me now.

I remember the exact words that came out of his mouth in the bathroom, “I’m so pissed at you, we’re fu**ing right now.” I tried to tell him I didn’t want to, but he didn’t care. He proceeded to pull my pants down and force himself onto me. I won’t go into specifics, but you can imagine how it went because again, he did not do anything for me, it was all for his pleasure only, even after I explained how badly I did not want this right now. It was miserable. I wanted out of that bathroom so bad, but I had no strength to fight him. I was at a loss. No one ever really realizes what they would actually do if they were presented with the type of situation that I was presented with in that moment with P. He ended up texting me later that day. You know what he said? He said, “how was that, this morning?”. I just there like ????? wdym??? Do you mean when you RAPED me this morning? Oh no yeah it was great. psych. It was horrible to say the least. He didn’t even realize what he had just done to me. Rape.

Though after this, I did stop talking to him for a few days, if not weeks. It was the one thing that finally made me realize that maybe this wasn’t a healthy thing to be a part of. I told one person what had happened. The fact that I was even telling someone about it made me realize how bad it was. This was when I knew I had to end things, which I did. This was an event that really messed me up.

When my school resource officer brought me and my parents into the police station that initial time in July, he did not have knowledge of this event. I ended up breaking into tears right there in the conference room telling him the story of what happened that day. He asked me if I wanted to follow through and press charges. It’s really complicated to explain, but basically since it occurred outside of my county, the rape charge would have had to go through a whole different district court system, and it would have been a whole separate trial. On the other hand, there wasn’t much proof due to the fact that I waited about 5 months to tell the authorities- bad on my part. Going through a second trial with different prosecution just didn’t seem very pleasant. That being said I decided to just drop it and let it go. Although it will stick with me forever.

It has now been over 3 years since that morning, but to me, it’s as if it happened yesterday. I remember exactly how I felt when he cornered me into the bathroom- like I had lost my breath. I remember exactly how I felt when he disregarded my attempt at telling him no- hopeless. Even now thinking back on it, I find myself having a harder time breathing- anxiety. My anxiety absolutely sky rockets just thinking back on it. Disregard age, or gender, it’s something no one should ever have to go through. It absolutely wears a person out. Although I think that’s a whole other conversation for another day.

To this day, the fact that P was not actually charged for this particular situation that I just told you all about- breaks my heart. Sure, he was convicted and put in prison for a bunch of other bad things that he did to me, but he’s not living the consequence for raping me that day, and I wish he was. When the jury made their decision to convict him or not, this wasn’t even in consideration. How sad is that?