I Found My Voice

I found my squad after that, as well as my voice. My fire. It makes sense, right? You need fans to fuel the flames sometimes. I knew who I could tell, who was my friend. I had a lot of uncomfortable conversations made bearable by the fact that I had tried to ignore the problem, or at least to stay quiet, and I couldn’t. I wasn’t doing that anymore. I told a few professors I trusted. I told people I had known for years, for months. I soon always had a crew with me, and I felt safe, as safe as I could since he was still within a few miles of me at all times. My strength grew with every voice that told me, “I believe you.” That’s not to say I had a great time though. For a long time, I could barely look in the mirror without crying. My own body disgusted me and made me cry – the idea of him touching me, of him being inside me. A small voice inside told me that it was wrong to give him that power, that it’d been my body way before I’d even met him and it would be mine long after I forgot his face. I repeated that to myself over and over, for months. I stopped crying, but still struggled to face myself, and that made me angrier – angry that he could make me feel that way about my own body. I kept repeating it was my body, and it was washed of him forever, and it was sexist and wrong to think he owned it just because he violated it. Now, I don’t have those problems. I love the way I look, even when I don’t workout or have a food baby. I don’t think of D touching me. I took back my body.But for a while, all the facts didn’t matter. I still remember how horrible it felt to be reminded when I did something as simple as look in the mirror. My heart and my mind were broken.A Facebook post my mom put up of a photo of us when I was young made me cry and shake, wishing I could be that innocent little girl again, and wishing I didn’t have to tell my parents that I had been raped. It’s not like me to get sad at photographs; it’s not like me to be afraid. But, I was afraid to tell my parents. I knew I couldn’t keep it from them, this dark secret that was affecting everything about me. On the logical side, I would be getting letters from the school over the course of the investigation. I didn’t want to concoct a lie. I wouldn’t have the energy or will to maintain it, anyway.I went home the weekend after I reported it, the weekend before I was interviewed. I meant to tell my parents at once, or to tell my dad first since I was closer with him. But, as I sat on the couch next to my mom one night, I couldn’t focus. This feeling of dread clawed at my stomach, and minutes seemed like hours. I began to fear I never would tell them, that I would let the weekend pass and miss my chance – I had to go back to school on Monday. I didn’t want to tell them over the phone.I asked my mom to pause the television, because I needed to talk to her. I don’t remember what all I said after that, a jabbering of words and tears, although the tears were few. I mainly looked at my hands. I had a hard time looking at her face. Fortunately, she didn’t slut shame me, like a part of me feared she would. She didn’t yell. She didn’t not believe me. She was angry for me, and said, “Well, he’s a guy, and men are fucking stupid. He doesn’t think he did anything wrong, I guarantee it.”(I’m not even going to bother to say “#notallmen” because I think many a woman knows exactly what she meant: a lot of men do not understand that assault is not just holding a woman down against her will in a dark alley somewhere.)My mom only said she was disappointed I didn’t tell her sooner, because I had to go through the aftermath alone.In short, while my mom and I have a lot of problems, she was there for me when I needed her most. Eventually, the topic turned to my dad. I was scared – not because I don’t think my dad would love me, but because I knew he would be angry. She knew too: “We have to talk about your dad, because I am serious: he will want to kill him. I can talk him out of it. Do you want me to tell him for you?” I said no.So the next morning, my mom and I waited for dad to finish his coffee. I said I needed to talk to him, and mom told him, “Turn off the TV.” Somehow, it was even harder to tell him than my mom. I had a hard time looking at him. When I did, he was staring very intently ahead, slightly downwards, his “listening pose” as I call it. His face was inscrutable. When I was done, he didn’t yell either.I don’t remember all the details. I know my dad took D’s name, and said he would “run it by some people” to see if D had done “it” before. My dad asked what was next, and I told him what the school said would be next, and that I wasn’t reporting to police. He said that would probably be a good idea.I think he was right, even though in the coming months I would question it for a while – should I have reported? I know now that, while there was no wrong decision I could have made, I made the best one for my mental and emotional health by not reporting, because the police would not have done anything. Even if I had the best detectives in the world – and “if” is one of the biggest words in the world, as my dad says – they likely would never have gotten a conviction. What would that have done to me?After I told them, while nothing could wash away the pain or the anxiety, I had one of those brief moments of peace, of relief. I knew now I could lean on my dad and my mom in the coming months - and I knew I would need to. They didn’t slut shame me or call me a liar, or question if it “really” was a rape. They didn’t tell me to just drop it. My mom said she would get me counseling if I wanted it and I said yes. That in itself was a huge relief, to know that my mental health would continue to receive treatment. I knew how important it would be, even then. I went from hiding my secret to telling my friends, professors, parents, and the school, which were big victories for me. I’m so grateful, even now, of the people who are in my life. No question, I would show up in the dead of the night for any of them to hide a dead body if they called, because that is how deep of a debt I feel I owe them.That brings me to this blog. I hope this helps someone. I hope I can pass on that relief, that wonderful feeling that someone believes you when you tell them about the darkest period of their life.And it was dark. I didn’t report to the police, but I did to the school. It ended up doing enough damage.On the bright side, we’re finally getting to the part where I really fought back.