Resilient

“It’s not entirely associated with my particular assault but more with the word that I really feel represents what happens to me which is resilience.”

Since childhood she has always pushed herself to be strong. She pushed herself to be something other than abuse and growing up, she maintained her incredible work ethic by striving to become the best friend, sister, girlfriend she could be

 “I’ve had down moments and hard times to get through and being strong throughout my life didn’t really even prepare me for this event in my life”

June 2015

She had been talking to the ex-boyfriend of a close friend of hers.  He was openly flirty with her and she told him that she was only interested in being friends.

One evening she was at a dance showcase with a good friend.  The guy who she’d been talking to asked if she wanted to go to a concert in Wicker Park and she said sure.  Heather asked him to send her the address and she took an Uber out there.  The address turned out to be a house and he was walking down the street as she pulled up.  She asked him what was going on and he said he just wanted to change and then they would go to the concert.  She didn’t think anything of it because in a normal situation it wouldn’t be a big deal.

His roommates were in the living room and they went to the back of the apartment.  She was sitting in his desk chair and he opens a beer and gives her one as well as they chatted.  He started making advances and she told him no, that wasn’t going to happen.  The situation escalated very quickly and became violent.  He threw her down on the bed, choking her so she couldn’t scream.  She was trying to get him off of her and say no.  Even though his roommates were in the next room, they didn’t do anything to help her.  Fortunately there was one moment where she was able to pull her leg in and push to get him off.  She grabbed her purse and ran out so fast she didn’t even put her shoes on.

It was nearly 2am and she had a long wait for an Uber.  She was standing outside, in the rain waiting.  His next door neighbors came out to ask if she was ok and she said “I think I just got raped”

“It’s funny because I remember saying those words but I didn’t really understand what happened.  You know everything you’re supposed to do like don’t take a shower, keep your clothes, go straight to the hospital but you don’t do those things.  It’s like you’re in a zombie state”

She sent 3 text messages that night to her roommate, boyfriend and best friend saying “I think I was just raped” She went home, took a shower and stayed up all night.  “My brain just stopped working.” She sent a text to her employer saying she was raped and wouldn’t be in the next day.  “The reason it was funny now is that it wasn’t like my words, but no matter how irrational I was, I was still responsible enough to text work”

Many of the supporters in her life, like her significant other, best friend and roommate, interjected their opinions and she felt very pressured, almost bullied into making certain decisions.  People were getting so emotional over her experience, she didn’t have the time to get emotional herself.  “I felt like I was trying to make jokes, that I was trying to console them when in reality I didn’t know how to handle this.  I felt like I had lost my mind to be perfectly honest”

She finally called Rape Victims Advocates and spoke to a counselor over the phone.  It was the first time she felt like she was being heard.  After about half an hour on the phone, they asked if she wanted to talk to the police.  She was terrified to report because her perpetrator knew where she lived and worked, they had mutual friends and she was afraid of retaliation.

She did go to the hospital for a rape kit. “My memory from that is really two things.  One of which is the staff was so beautifully trained with how to deal with someone in this situation.  That was very interesting.  The other take away from that was I felt was in a one-act comedy show.  I was constantly making jokes to make everyone else around me feel better about the situation.  I remember they were looking at the bruises on my neck and I was like ‘Isn’t that a lovely shade of purple? I should turn that into an eye shadow’ like I was trying to make everyone feel at ease. The rape kit was almost more invasive than the assault.  I don’t know why they can’t come up with a better method”

The next morning, her perpetrator texted her saying “Why the fuck were you talking to my neighbors” She told him to lose her number and what he did was wrong.

“I’ll never forget this, but he was a total stereotype and texted me saying ‘your mouth said no but your body said yes’.”

“I’ll never be the same person I was before that.  Unless you go through that, people will never understand what you mean.  It’s like a club.  It’s not a club you want to be a part of but it is a club.”

After effects

For several months after, she dealt with traumatic experiences.  It was almost as though one horrible moment piled on top of another.

When she went to the hospital, she received the standard tests which include testing for STI’s and pregnancy.  Whether you’re positive or not, they put those tested on a prophylactic for HIV, which is a 30 day prescription.  Many people have negative reactions to these pills and Heather experience just that.  She was throwing up all the time and couldn’t keep food down.

She was forced to take a few weeks off of work, her job putting her on unpaid leave, refusing to let her work at all.  She kept asking over and over again if she could work, even suggesting to work remotely from home and they kept refusing.  As this became a greater problem, she approached her director who said they needed an official diagnosis from the hospital saying that what she experienced was in fact sexual assault.  Heather informed them that this was illegal.  After her attempts to work with the director had failed, she went to the owner of the company to let them know the problems she was facing.  In the end, they let her go.

She was also afraid to be in her apartment because her perpetrator knew where she lived as well as the fact that her roommates ex-boyfriend had broken into their apartment.  They had to alert the police and she felt if he could break in, so could her perpetrator.

She was now at a point where she lost her job, she didn’t feel safe in her own home and her landlord was making it difficult for her to break the lease even after she left to find another place to live.

“It was a tail spin of me just drowning”

She had been going to counseling at RVA and the person assigned to her was “quite possibly one of the most amazing people on this planet”. They told her what her employers did was illegal and put her in contact with CAASE to help her remedy her employment discrimination and fight for her rights with her landlord.  The legal battle with her former employers has been going on for over a year now.

Dance

Dance has always been healing in her life. “It’s the only reason I had any self-esteem, self-worth, anything.  At this point, I felt disgusting, worthless, dirty, damaged, ugly…I literally did not have any positive feelings about myself.”  Even though she has support from friends and family, it was hard for them to relate to her.  Dance was what helped her bring her back to herself, but her choreography had changed completely.  “The stuff I was coming up with was different, like I was a different person”

She doesn’t remember what her turning point was exactly, but she was renting a space at the Athenaeum theater to teach classes and choreograph.  Roughly 6 months after her assault she asked RVA if there was any type of movement therapy in Chicago and they said there wasn’t anything in this area.  That triggered something in her and she felt such a need to figure out how to bring movement therapy to abuse and assault survivors Chicago.

She truly felt the strong urge to share this with others and that was what led her to create the goal of opening a nonprofit Dance Company: Ascendence.  She began working on this in April, trying to figure out all the steps she needed to take.  She wanted to create a space where people could overcome whatever traumatic issues they faced in their life and “be a phoenix, rise up from the ashes, be reborn and rise from whatever traumatic issues happened in your life”.

“We feel shamed or it’s a taboo thing that we’re not supposed to talk about.  I wanted to create a company that addresses those issues and raises money for those groups that helped me so much, like CAASE and RVA”

30 days later it happened.  She had a board of directors and they were a company, planning their first showcase.  They began planning their first steps they’d need to take to create a free movement therapy class where survivors would have the support they need.  Heather is working to make connections with movement therapists from other areas so she can create that environment.

“Everyone should have a creative outlet in which to grieve and dance happens to be mine.  It’s utterly amazing to me the amount of healing I’ve been able to do within a year, even from last January.  I feel like I was able to take this experience which was very negative and traumatizing and bounce back in a way that I’m a better person and I’m doing better thing.  I’m trying to be in a place where I can help others”

“Part of me will always think that I’m ugly and worthless and damaged, and that just come with the territory.  It will take time to see the good things in myself.  The people in my life remind me that I’m beautiful and good and worth something.”

She hopes she can inspire others to rise above and up out of those negative places and find the beauty in it.

Advice for Supporters

“It’s hard to say what they should have done differently.  It’s more the feeling I got from the situation.  I felt like I had to make the feel better.  I knew they were upset but it felt like they were taking on this burden for me.  I was spending my time making them feel better because they were torn up about what had happened to me, it just prolonged my time to heal.  I’d just say put your own feelings on the back-burner and be there for that person”

Survivor advice

“Find something that make you feel good about you and make sure that’s part of your daily life”