Living Unapologetically
“There’s a lot to my story, but I guess to start off, I didn’t grow up in the best household.”
Her parents had a difficult relationship. Nothing physical manifested, but there was verbal and emotional abuse. Growing up, she was always told she couldn’t do anything right, she always “screwed anything up”, she was dumb and stupid. Her father often took out his aggression on her mother who in turn took it out on her. Due to her experiences, she didn’t have a close relationship with her family which “plays into later parts of this story”.
When she started college, she was thrilled for a new beginning, a chance to get away from everything she experienced growing up. No one knew her and she didn’t go to college with any people from high school. She didn’t have many friends in high school because many were scared of her father, so she pushed them away. She never had friends over because she couldn’t trust her family. College was a chance to get away from that.
She barely dated during high school and began dating a bit in college. She tried to have fun while being a good student and meeting new people and enjoying her newfound freedom. During her 2nd semester her Freshman year in college, she met a guy who asked her out. They went to dinner and hung out a few times. During one of the time they hung out she ended up meeting one of his friends who was from near her hometown. They grew up in the same area and shared a common experience. One night after that they went to dinner and she went back to his room to hang out with him and the new friend. After a drink, her date left to go to a fraternity party, so she and his friend were going to get ready and then meet him afterward.
She didn’t drink a lot, but she suddenly felt everything get fuzzy. “I don’t remember a ton of stuff, but I remember being half passed out in the hallway.” The RA on the floor told him to get her out of the hall or the police would be called. “I was in and out. I remember hitting my head on the bed frame, they were steel bunk beds. The next thing I remember is coming to, on the floor and he’s trying to pull my pants back on. Obviously you know something bad happened”
“I didn’t know what to do. Most of my friends had left school for the weekend. They were home or visiting other friends and I was kinda on my own” She didn’t know what to do because she didn’t have anyone to call. She ended up back in her dorm and was freaking out. She finally decided to tell a good friend’s brother. He came down and they talked to her RA. They knew what happened even though she couldn’t really say it. “They finally convinced me after a while to go to the hospital.” She didn’t want to go at first because she was afraid they’d tell her parents who would blame her for drinking. A friend offered to pay the hospital bill so that she didn’t have to use insurance so her parents wouldn’t know.
She didn’t have the best experience with the police. They treated her as if the entire situation was her fault, acting as though she was pretending she was raped because “I cheated on my boyfriend and I’m being remorseful”. She was already upset and emotional and she eventually just began to scream at the officer telling him to get out, she wanted to go home because she couldn’t face anymore of the accusations. They finally got him out there and brought in a rape advocate who was able to calm her down and they did the rape kit and “it was horrible. You’re violated again pretty everywhere” Her friend was in the lobby of the hospital and could hear screams during the exam.
She finally got back to her dorm after hours in the hospital, wearing the ugly hospital sweats because they had to take all of the clothes that she was wearing, arms filled with antibiotics and the morning after pill “just in case.” “In the aftermath of that I became a mess because I couldn’t tell my parents, only some of my friends knew for sure what had happened, more had seen the police around and the gossip mill was working in overdrive. The police were terrible, the administrative people from school were terrible. The residential housing person was an alum from the same frat as him so he told me it was consensual so that’s that and ‘we’re not going to do anything’”. Despite the fact that he was in clear violation of the rules of conduct of the school and the RA was able to substantiate her story that she was incoherent at the time, the only thing that happened to him was that he was told to stay away from her dorm building and anywhere that she may be.
She began drinking a lot and partying a little too much but it was the only way she could deal with it. It was easier to just forget what happened to her rather than deal with it. “I missed a lot of classes and still passed the semester but sometimes I look back and think I don’t even know how I did that”
The police were still involved and eventually there were back in contact asking if she wanted to continue to press charges. She didn’t want to do anything about it because of how terrible the initial interview was and she was afraid the court system would be the same thing, they would blame her for what happened. She still couldn’t tell her parents, she couldn’t afford a lawyer, she didn’t feel like she had options.
She would have horrible panic attacks if she saw him on campus. Some days she couldn’t go to class or even get out of bed. She’d hear the whispers of people around campus calling her a slut. She thought about transferring, but ended up deciding to change her major as she couldn’t keep up with her physical therapy major.
She did succeed at graduating in 4 years and just wanted to get out and get away from Peoria and her school.
A few years later, she re-met her ex boyfriend, the love of her life from high school. She knew he had some problems and he was an angry person, but she always justified it by thinking “he’d never do that to me, he cares about me. It’s just these other people who’ve wronged him and pissed him off. I’ll be safe”
The relationship moved really fast, but looking back she sees all of the red flags.
Within a few days of reconnecting, he told her that he loved her, but started to control who she talked to on the phone. He insisted on being in the room all the time, making sure she never had any along time. He began to control what she was allowed to wear and how she groomed herself. “I realized that when I had plans to go out, even if they were to go out with friends with him, he’d always start a fight. On holidays, he would pick a fight before we went out trying to, you know, make me change my mind and not go out. We would cancel plans and we wouldn’t go and everything would be miserable”
He proposed to her not long after that and she said yes because she was convinced that no one else would want such a broken person. At that point he had already gotten so much in her head, he would tell her things like “No one else will love you like I do. I care about you so much, you’ll never find anyone like me. He liked to use my rape against me, telling me that it was my fault and I deserved it. Looking back, I hope I don’t ever meet someone like him, I guess he was right about that!”
She got married and the day that was supposed to be the happiest day of her life was horrible. He was already trying to start a fight on their wedding day and she woke up the next morning to him screaming at her that she ruined the wedding, she was horrible and needed to make it up to him. “I had no idea what I even did”.
They went on their honeymoon and it was miserable. They went to the Bahamas, which was supposed to be paradise, but she spent most of the time in the bathroom crying while he repeatedly attacked her. “That’s not how it’s supposed to be. We came back home and it never stopped. It just kept getting worse”.
He would leave for days or weeks at the time without telling her. She had no idea where he would go and she was constantly on edge when he was gone. She never felt safe because she didn’t know when he would show up again or what mood he’d be in when he came back. He verbally, mentally and sexually abused her. “I always thought that no one would get it because he wasn’t hitting me. I still didn’t have the type of relationship with my parents where I could tell them what was happening because I knew that they would turn the blame to me, I was isolated from my friends and didn’t have anyone to confide in”.
July 2nd he disappeared again. She went out to dinner with her friend and was able to tell her what was going on and she was very understanding. “I told her that I wished he would just hit me so then I could explain because people would understand me leaving because of that. They’re not going to understand that he would drag me by the hair and violate me all night long, but if he hit me, that’s abuse that people could accept. Somehow it sort of came true”
The next day he came home and she told him it was over. She would deal with the fall out with her family as they were only married for a year. She told him she couldn’t do this anymore and said he could come get his stuff, but she was done. He came by after work and it turned into a vicious fight which ended with him deciding that he was going to slit her wrists and kill her, but everyone would believe it was a suicide because he’d tell them she was crazy. She fought for her life and finally got him out of the house. She will never forget the look in his eyes while he was saying that he wanted to “spit on her dying body”
Luckily he left and that was the last time she ever saw him. She was terrified being in her home, he still had keys to her home and she never knew what he was going to do or if he was able to come back. She put bars on the windows and extra locks on the door. It took months to get the divorce finalized as he would refuse to sign the papers. He would try to manipulate the situation by signing some documents but not all of the documents, he wouldn’t appear in court, he’d do anything possible to drag it out. After the divorce went through, she thought she’d be free of him so she changed her phone number and she was done.
After Effects
She thought it was over, but mentally it wasn’t. “I have PTSD from it, still even though this was back in 2008, almost 10 years ago. I still have nightmares.” She wakes up covered in sweat or has trouble falling asleep. She hasn’t had a relationship since then. “I still kinda don’t trust people.” She’s very quick to see one red flag and determine that’s it, ending the relationship. “It’s just easier to be alone than deal with that again. Luckily I have a friend who convinced me to join Meet Up” She met an amazing group of friends who have been very understanding and supportive of her experience.
2016 Election
“With everything that happened with the election a year ago, I finally decided I was done being quiet.” None of her family knew what happened to her so she decided to post her story on Facebook. “Maybe that wasn’t the best way, but I put it out there, not in detail, but I said I’m a rape survivor and domestic violence survivor and this is not ok.” Her family responded like she expected them to. Her mom called her screaming for the longest time that her rape was only a “misunderstanding” and a “difference in opinion”. Her mom told her that she put her (meaning her mother) and her grandmother in danger by putting that information on Facebook and all she could think was “you believe he’s dangerous enough to retaliate against you, but you don’t believe me that it happened. That I didn’t get”
Her father told her she needed help, and kept posting about “snowflakes” and crybabies on Facebook. He called her a child and told her to lose his number. She wasn’t surprised because he was a staunch Republican Trump supporter. She hasn’t spoken to her father in a year because of his reaction “I don’t need that. If you can’t support me, then I’m strong enough to stand on my own at this point. I always kinda pretended that I was just trying to be the perfect daughter, the perfect whatever, whatever you wanted me to be. My dad’s family was very Republican and I never spoke out favorably or against. I played the perfect little Catholic girl. No more. This is me, this is my truth. It’s out there and if you don’t want to believe me then it’s your choice not to support me. Just because you’re my parents or whatever, that doesn’t mean I have to have you in my life. Some of my friends have become more like my family.”
“I finally have said I’m going to be me. If you don’t like the real me, you don’t need to be in my life. I’m not going to keep quiet or pretend or live the life you think I should be. If you don’t like what I have to say, then you don’t have to listen to me, but I’m not going to not say it because it doesn’t fit with who you think I should be.”
Working Through Trauma
“Therapy. Lots of therapy. I’ve been in therapy on and off since college. Usually I can be ok for period of time, but when things get bad, I’ll go back to therapy. I’ve kinda gotten into Eastern Meditation. One thing I use is prayer beads. Usually I use those for breathing exercises and mantras.” When she’s stressed she uses them like fidget spinners since they’re smooth.
Photo Location
“This is where we took the after wedding photos. I actually pulled them out the other day. I haven’t looked at them in a long time, but you can tell when someone is smiling when they’re not really smiling, it’s fake and they’re not truly happy. They’re pretty pictures, but I was miserable. It wasn’t a happy day. When you asked me to think of a place, I wanted to go back and reclaim the space and have some pictures where I’m happy, truly happy.”
Advice
“Well I mean it’s a part of me now. I mean with everything that’s coming out with stories of assault, I think people are believing things more whereas maybe before they weren’t. Don’t isolate yourself. Find someone you can talk to and tell them because you can’t do it alone”