Perception Is Reality

2014

L began as a Freshman at UIC in 2014. “My parents were kinda strict. I never really went out when I was at home so coming to UIC and dorming was like freedom to me.”

“I remember meeting him (perpetrator who will be referred to as M for anonymity) through a few friends. I had a small get together in my dorm room and that was the first time I noticed him.”

Fall semester passed and she was meeting many new people and going on dates. As spring semester rolls around, she was seeing a different young man we’ll call A to maintain anonymity.  She really liked him, however they had their problems. She always feared that he was cheating on her and her friends even mentioned how they thought they weren’t good for each other. They said that they were two very different people.

Spring semester began and she had a class with M. They became good friends as they had multiple class projects, so they were constantly together. The more she was around him, the more she began to see how different he was compared to everyone else she had dated. There was something about the way he carried himself. “It was scary but something I liked because it was different.”

“I always say I should’ve known it from when I first saw the signs, but back then I guess I was just immature and I just saw somebody who I could benefit from a relationship with”

M was constantly asking her questions, trying to get to know her better.  Whenever she asked him questions, he would change the subject or find some way to avoid answering them. “I remember him saying that he wanted to do so many things. He didn’t really have his mind made up about anything.  He looked at me as if I was someone who knew exactly what I wanted to do and he admired me that way”

Casually they began having sex and even then, she recognized that he was very different from other men. “He was really into biting and hair pulling. It didn’t hurt at all. I didn’t really enjoy it, but it was something different. I don’t know really why I continued to see him, I guess I just liked him as a person. Being with him took my mind off of things”

When she wasn’t with A, she was with M. She liked them both and was torn between the two.

February 21, 2015

It was a Saturday morning and she had planned on hanging out with A which they had texted about the night before. However, that morning he didn’t answer her texts and she began to get worried. She decided to go to the movies by herself and watch 50 Shades of Grey.

When she finished the movie she got a text from M who asked what she was doing and if she wanted to hang out. She told him she was on her way back to campus from the theater and agreed to meet. When they met in person, he asked her if she liked the movie and “I told him ‘It was alright, but a little frightening. I feel like Mr. Grey had sort of a mental imbalance.  It was just kinda scary the way they portrayed him in the movie’ and M just shrugged those comments off”

As they talked about school and their classes, he asked if she wanted to go up to his room which she agreed to. His roommate was there, playing video games with his headphones on so he was unable to hear their conversations and wasn’t paying attention to them.

M was looking around the room and finally asked her “Do you want to do something dangerous?” “He’d always play these games with me, asking me questions like do you want to do something cool or dangerous which basically meant do you want to do something you’re not supposed to do. The last time he said do you wanna do something dangerous, we went up to the inner circle and sat on the ledge of the building. We just sat and talked. So when he asked me that, I said it depends on what it is”

Unlike other times where he’d respond with his suggestion, he remained quiet and continued to look around the room. He eventually called over to his roommate and asked him “Aren’t you hungry?” His roommate shrugged and said yes then left to get food.

“I don’t exactly remember how it happened. I remember the major things because it’s one of the things I don’t really think of that often. I think a lot about what happened after. I guess I can start with him asking me to move a few things from under his roommate’s bed”

She moved his roommate’s game console, table and chairs then retrieved some things from his closet including a few belts. “I knew what he was trying to do. We had never done that before so I thought ok this is a new thing, maybe I’ll like it this time. So he found a skull cap, covered my face with it, then tied a red tie around my face and stuffed it in my mouth”

After he did this, he took the belts and tied her wrists to his roommate’s bed, which was lofted so she hung there and he took her clothing off.  He bound her ankles with belts.  She remembers there was just a lot of silence the entire time.

“I didn’t know what to expect and I was getting kinda panicked but I didn’t say anything because I kept trying to think maybe I’ll like this. I trusted him. He started hitting me with the belts and maybe the second or third time, I started crying and he liked it. He said things to me like ‘Why are you crying? You shouldn’t be crying. If you keep crying I’m going to hit you more’ and he did. I started saying no and stop, please stop but it was hard to speak and he wouldn’t listen.”

She started struggling, trying to get her wrists unbound and he kept asking what she was doing and he would tie her wrists tighter. He would hit her legs, chest, arms, back and many other places.

“There was one time that he said stop swinging or I’ll hit you with the other end of the belt, the buckle, so I just kinda hung there. I kept crying. I felt so helpless.”

She’s estimates about a half hour went by and that’s when she finally gave up and let him hit her.  

“Eventually he did untie me from my wrists and pushed me over the bed and grabbed my hands again, brought them behind my back and that’s how it happened”

She believes it only lasted about 10 minutes and she stood completely still. After he was done he picked her up and pushed her onto the bed toward the wall. She pushed the hat off her head so she could see and took the tie out of her mouth. She began to undo the belts around her ankles and that’s when she noticed there was a belt there at the foot of the bed. His back was to her so she quickly grabbed it.  

As he heard her move, he turned around with a confused look on his face and said “What do you think you’re doing”

“I didn’t know what I was going to do. I just kept crying. I thought about putting the belt around his neck and strangling him. I think he could see that in my eyes and he got scared and started backing away from me. I undid the belt at my feet and got my clothes and slowly started to put them on. I was crying my eyes out and he just kept looking at me. He didn’t know what I was going to do. He didn’t know what he did either. I just put my clothes back on and said to him ‘I’m gonna go now’. His roommate was outside, trying to come in and I ran. He didn’t know what happened and I just ran past him, crying.”

Her mind was all over the place and she couldn’t process what happened. She was trying to head back to her dorm but was so upset and she got lost. She stood there and cried in the hallway.

Eventually she made it to her room and began texting A, telling him something happened and asked if he could come to her dorm. He said he’d be over in a few minutes.

As she waited for him, she locked the door and took off her clothing.  She felt as though her body was burning. She looked into the mirror and all she was was red everywhere. She threw her clothing back on and heard a knock at her door. A was there and she explained what happened as best as she could.

“He looked at me and was like ‘so he did that to you and you didn’t want it, right?’ and I said ‘Yeah’ then he said ‘then he raped you’”

She couldn’t process the word “rape” and she didn’t believe him at first.  She kept asking him over and over if he was sure and he told her she needed to tell someone about what happened. She was in such shock she didn’t know if she could even recall and retell what happened to someone else.

He began crying and after he calmed down, he told her she needed to call the police.  At first she was hesitant because she knew her parents would find out and she didn’t want that, but she trusted A and took his advice.  

“I remember sitting by my room window and hearing the ambulance getting louder and louder. A was on the phone with the dispatcher trying to explain because I had blanked out when I had spoke to them.”

She watched the ambulance from her window as they pulled up. They came in and there were police everywhere. They asked her to tell them what happened and she did the best she could, but felt stupid she was having trouble remembering what happened. She told them a short version and they took her to the hospital. There, she was met by an advocate, a doctor and a nurse who looked at her bruises and took a rape kit. The police asked for the description of the perpetrator and found him very quickly on campus. They brought his picture to her to confirm this and she broke down and said “I can’t believe this is happening.”

After the hospital, they headed to the police station. Her family was notified and they headed down to meet her. Her parents weren’t allowed to see her until she finished with police questioning.

“The police were really nice and did as much as they could”

They were at the station the entire night and she said A could leave but he stayed by her side until her family was able to see her. The next morning, they took her home.

Sunday, February 22, 2015

She expected everything to be fine. She expected to just head back to school on Monday and continue on with her life as it has been before the assault.

The next day, on Sunday she woke up and a friend texted her. They asked her if they heard that M had raped someone and she just responded that she did and asked why. He sent her an article. She opened it up and read the title “Fifty Shades of Grey Inspired Student's Sexual Assault, Prosecutors Say”

She just started screaming and couldn’t believe what was happening. Her parents saw the article and her mom became frantic. Her brother-in-law tried to talk to her, but she could barely listen or comprehend what he was saying. She turned on the news and it was everywhere.

“I was back in shock and I still couldn’t believe it”

Even though she wanted to go back to school, her parents told her to stay home for the week.

When she returned to school and work, she was paranoid. She didn’t feel safe and felt like everyone knew it was her even though her name was never published in the news. She kept thinking she saw him in different places on campus even though that was impossible. She was having anxiety and panic attacks all the time. When she would start getting goosebumps, she knew it was a panic attack coming on. “I felt like I needed my outsides to hurt because my insides hurt more and my body would just go numb. I’d be crying and scratch myself or I’d’ pull my hair.  I lost weight. It was a really hard time.” Sometimes he felt as if she wanted to die and most of the time she felt like she was dead already. Her parents were constantly calling her asking how she was and she would be screaming at them saying that they didn’t understand.

She stayed in her dorm room a lot and began skipping class. She’d stay in her friends dorms and found herself drinking and smoking a lot just to try to cope. She had to drop one class because it was too stressful and even began having difficulties maintaining friendships.

A no longer wanted to see her anymore and he left her the day after her assault.  She met another man who was interested in dating her. Once she trusted him enough to tell him what happened to her, his behavior completely changed and “I knew he didn’t like what he saw anymore and he just kinda cut me off. I was so mad at him”

Working Toward Healing

She began seeing a therapist at Rape Victims Advocates and that helped.  She felt like she had no one else to talk to, so she would hold everything inside until she saw her therapist and let it all out. She didn’t understand what was happening to her, so she started doing research about the after effects of trauma and PTSD. She began finding ways to work through her anxiety and talking to her therapist worked really well for her.

The RA at her dorm came up to her and said there was someone who wanted to talk to her about what happened, that she thought she could help. She was introduced to this girl who ended up living a few rooms away and they visited often, sharing stories and talking through their trauma. Eventually this girl slowly separated herself from L and didn’t want to talk anymore.  “It was a year since her assault but she was going through things that I didn’t understand and I was going through things she didn’t understand”

Eventually she met a man who is now her current partner. She decided to tell him right away about what happened to her and was afraid he stop talking to her too. “I don’t know why, back then I had dark humor so I treated it like a joke”. But he didn’t treat it like a joke. Instead, he didn’t mind talking about it and he never changed his opinion about her. Even now, he is someone she could go to when she is having trouble and needs someone to talk to.

She also reconnected with a friend from grammar school. This friend became very active in women’s rights on her school campus and she was even in the news as being an advocate for victims of sexual assault. L decided to reach out to see if she could talk to her sometimes and now they have become the best of friends again.  

Not Over Yet

The school year ended and she went back home. Shortly after, she received another call from a detective who said “I wanted to know how you’re doing. I don’t want to rush you, but I need to talk to you asap. Would you be able to come down to the police station? I need to ask you a few questions”

She went down and there was just the two of them in the room. The detective told her she looked further into her case after the initial charges did not stick due to lack of evidence. She wanted to wait to share this information with L until school got out. They discovered that while she was blindfolded, he had taken photos of her naked which he sent to his friends. She didn’t know he had done that and broke down. The detective had to show her the photos.

“I remember seeing them and thinking How could someone do this? I saw pure evil in them. He even took one photo as a selfie as I was hanging there from my wrists from a bed and he was smiling at me. I’ll never be able to forget those pictures”

The detective said they were going to try to press charges again based on a new law that was just approved stating that perpetrators couldn’t photograph victims without their consent. The media found out about this new development and once again had a field day, plastering it all over the news. Unfortunately, when that was brought to court, those charges were dropped as well because the effective date of the new law was after the photos were taken.

“I felt like I was going to go backwards again. Coming back from that was really hard. My parents told me I couldn’t go back to UIC anymore, that I had to go to community college.”

Title IX

UIC eventually contacted L asking if they could pursue a school investigation. She agreed and worked with the Women’s Center on campus to prepare her for the hearing. Andie worked with her, helping her through the entire process. “She went through everything with me. She was really helpful”

She remembers getting ready to attend the hearing and how nervous she was. She read all the reports and had written her own statement. Her boyfriend came with her to support her, but all she could think about was that she had to see her perpetrator again.

Everyone filed into the room and she remembers trying to look at him. Before it started, he was speaking to the panel, having what looked like a light hearted conversation. She remembers thinking “Wow. He didn’t change at all, he’s the same person. I’m over here, completely different. I feel like if he had looked at me, he wouldn’t have been able to recognize me.  Even though I looked the same on the outside, I’m a completely different person than when I met him.”

They began with introductions, explained why this hearing was being held and went right into statements. Her statement was 3 pages long which she found it easier to write than she had expected. She wrote how she felt, trying to get the panel to understand what it was like and what she has to deal with. “I felt like if people weren’t survivors, they wouldn’t really understand it”. In her statement, she asked them to put themselves in her shoes for a moment and asked each one of them how they would feel if they found out that there were pictures, even if you couldn’t see the victim’s face, what if there were pictures of your friend or daughter or sister or mother. “Yeah, it’s not going to be in the media or anything, but just the fact that these pictures show what happened and remind me of what happened. It was the worst part about it.” After she finished her statement, the room was quiet.

After she was finished, they asked her perpetrator if he wanted to say anything about her statement and “It was so weird, like all of the sudden he didn’t have any words. I still don’t know if it was the statement that made him speechless or if he just realized that he couldn’t win in this situation. This is why we were here in the first place. This is how my life is affected and his life wasn’t affected at all. When they asked him if he had questions, it was like he didn’t hear them.”  The rest of the hearing went by fast, Title IX and the UIC police spoke truthfully and even had L’s back every time she hesitated a question she didn’t know how to answer. On the other hand, her perpetrator’s attorney kept getting angry with him because he wouldn’t speak.

She felt good after her statement and a week later they decided his punishment was expulsion.  She knows she still needs some time and will finish community college, but she’s excited to eventually finish up her degree at UIC. She still feels paranoid sometimes but UIC was so supportive of her that she still feels safer on campus than anywhere else. She is excited to continue healing and moving forward with her life.

Advice for Journalists

“I read a lot of articles and I understand that they have to be fair to both of us, that they have to think about if I wasn’t telling the truth, but I think they focused on that a little too much, they focused more on the fact that his life could be ruined”

L felt that there was a much greater discussion going on about how his life could potentially be ruined as opposed to how her life would be changed and altered forever by rape. They also included every detail of her assault which she doesn’t think was necessary. She was glad they did report on it to get the story out there, however the amount of detail journalists went into was intrusive.

Experience with the Police, Hospital and Court System

She had no negative experiences with the police or hospital staff. Everyone was very accommodating and didn’t treat her as if something was wrong with her. They treated her like a patient or a victim.

She had a much different experience in court. The state's attorney made her feel as though she just wanted to get this over with and move on to the next case. When they entered the courtroom, the judge focused on the well being of the perpetrator much more than her. The judge asked her what she was doing, why she didn’t say anything, why she did it in the first place, which is a question she was asked frequently. L kept trying to explain she was scared and felt helpless. The judge never asked the perpetrator why he did this. In fact, no one in the courtroom asked the perpetrator any questions at all. L felt as though it was more of a slap on the wrist when the judge said “If you ever do this again, I’ll see you back here” and then closed the case saying there wasn’t enough evidence to continue.

Advice for Other Survivors

Perception is reality