My writing is rusty, but I wanted to share this story (my story) regardless. It’s on the longer side, so please open it when you have a few minutes to spare.

Content Warning: Graphic Sexual Violence.

Semen and blood sat milky-pink in the tissue I held.

Wad it up. Throw it in the trash.

I resisted the urge to vomit as I dabbed another tissue between my legs, wincing. My own touch felt like a hot brand imprinting itself into my skin.

What. What just—. He just—. Did that just fucking happen?

I blotted at the moisture between my legs. Every press returned less ejaculate, but more blood. It nauseated me, the vibrant dots of fresh blood against the stark white of the toilet paper. A birth control implant meant I hadn’t had a period in years, which made the crimson-stained paper more jarring. I didn’t even know where the blood was coming from—everything hurt.

“Hey, I’m going to head out,” a voice said through the bathroom door. “It’s late. I’ll text you about our next date, okay?”

I responded with a garbled noise that he took as affirmation. As he walked out the front door, I sat on the toilet, body trembling, as a small amount of pink, blood-tinged urine trickled into the bowl. Later, my OB/GYN informed me that the interior layers of my vaginal canal had, essentially, been sheared off due to friction and a lack of lubrication, and that there was substantial tearing near my vaginal opening, which had gotten infected.

This happened in October 2016, after our second date. Dinner. Movie. A cute walk around some shops. A chaste kiss on my forehead before driving me home. Then, rape? It hurts to say the word. It feels harsh. Typing it feels stranger, as if “rape” printed in black and white somehow worsens the ordeal.

But it happened. Rape. I was raped.

Here, I would transition to the graphic, dramatic, this-is-what-he-did retelling of events, but I can’t. The passage of time paired with the swiftness of the assault leads to an insurmountable blur of memory. All I remember are feelings. I remember feeling large hands groping at my underwear as I pushed them away, not understanding how or why they were there (I had said goodbye and already took the first steps back into my home). I remember stiffening in confusion and terror. His six-foot-two, 200-pound body immobilized me with its sheer size and weight alone. The violation of my space, my body, and my home felt completely alien and I froze under the lack of familiarity. I remember that I tried to choke out a word, but a hand covered my mouth before the first syllable became realized.

Then I recognized the feeling of the waistband of my jeans, yanked down my hips.

Then there was the pain.

Good Lord. The searing pain.

I wanted to scream.

Then I wanted to cry.

Then I wanted to die.

There was no foreplay. There was no make-out. There were no probing fingers or slow caresses. There wasn’t even eye-contact. I don’t remember seeing his face in the moments immediately before my rape, nor during it. Absent, was the, “You good? Are we doing this?” expression that seems ubiquitously shared during first-times with new partners. Absent, was a condom, asking if we should use one, or any inquiry about birth control in general. Absent, was consent.

It probably ended as quickly as it started. I wouldn’t know. It lasted a handful of thrusts, at most, but using “thrusts” as a measure of time (and thereby as a measure of an assault’s severity) is perverse and irrelevant to what transpired.

After the fact, I did as a lot of assault victims do: I downplayed the event. I jumped through mental hoops to convince myself that, no, it wasn’t rape and, yes, I must’ve been giving mixed signals that night—though I can’t recall a single moment from our date when my words could’ve been construed as innuendo or my actions could’ve alluded to an act of which I wanted no part.

That said, I avoided calling it rape or sexual assault. Using those words put me on the defensive. I felt pressured to justify my word choice as if it convincing others of my story’s legitimacy was part and parcel to saying “rape” or “sexual assault” in the first place. No, I hadn’t been drinking. Yes, I was modestly dressed. No, I didn’t report it—why? Because I never wanted to see or think of his face again. Thinking of him made me viscerally ill. He repulsed me. I wanted to move on. I wanted to feel like myself again. I wanted my home to feel like my sanctuary instead of the set of my own violation. Drawing out the healing process, defending myself against scrutiny, trying to make sense of events that I fundamentally didn’t understand while simultaneously attempting to articulate it all in a coherent manner to someone? No thank you. I’ll pass.

My life afterward reflected desperate, superficial attempts to placate my anxiety and feel “normal” again. I focused on exercise (to the point of developing an eating disorder). I cut my hair. I went blonde. I involved myself in many pseudo-relationships with men who I knew didn’t care about me.

Mentally, I unraveled. My desperate attempts to self-soothe and feel in control actually lead to another assault. It was January 2017. I was in bed with a different man when I felt an old abdominal strain act up.

“Wait,” I shrieked. “Fuck, my ab! Wait! Ow! FUCK! WAIT! FUCK! STOP!”

He didn’t stop. He didn’t wait. Close to finishing, he leaned over me from behind, pressed my face into the mattress with one hand and held down the back of my neck with the other. He transferred his weight to his hands to keep me still. I couldn’t breathe.

One-thrust. Two-thrust—

My abdomen tore on “three.” Specifically, he tore my rectus abdominis (the muscle group comprising the “six-pack” abs), my transverse abdominal, and my interior and exterior oblique on my right-hand side. He also sprained my inguinal ligament, which passes through two of my surgery sites. When it happened, I yelped, went limp and whimpered into his sheets, crying.

He continued pumping until he came and, once again, “thrusts” became my measure of time.

“Fuck, sorry,” he panted, out of breath after finishing. “Shit, that was good. You okay?”

The injury was so bad that I couldn’t get off the bed by myself. I needed help standing. I needed help walking. I needed help putting on my shoes. I couldn’t sit down, just lie flat on my back. I couldn’t rotate the leg or foot on that side of my body. I couldn’t twist my torso. I couldn’t expand my stomach enough to take a full breath. The doctor said I faced a nine-month recovery, minimum, since the area had a history of trauma (e.g. the prior strain and surgeries).

Later, my friends would jokingly admonish me, “Anne! You’re so injury prone! Take care of yourself more!” I laughed with them, not wanting to dampen the mood by screaming, “I TRIED TO, BUT HE DIDN’T STOP WHEN I SAID, ‘WAIT!’”

Now it’s 2018 and what’s comically naïve is that I thought this trauma was behind me. I truly thought I recovered emotionally from rape. I didn’t—and I know that now because reality slapped me across the face recently and demanded my attention.

A few weeks ago, I walked into my gym, my second home, and saw him there—the one from the first assault. He’s not a member of my gym, but he was working out with someone and must have used a guest pass.

I bolted up the stairs next to me as quickly as I recognized his face. I didn’t think about the action; my body moved on its own. A panic-attack set in as I frantically texted friends for help, for advice, for anything they could give me, but I couldn’t leave—that required walking down the stairs again, passing him to get to the door. I was stuck. Hiding in the second-floor spin bike room, I cried—softly at first, then heaving sobs. Like the assault itself, all I could do was wait until he was done.

I didn’t want to draw attention to my distress, so I hopped on a stationary bike and pedaled. I pedaled until my face distorted less from the emotional pain of seeing him, but more from the physical pain in my body. I pedaled until the sweat dripped from my chin, nose, and elbows. Like this, the tears streaming down my face became indistinguishable from the sweat coating my body. I pedaled for hours, until I couldn’t anymore, slumping off of the bike and sliding onto the floor like a viscous liquid losing its container.

I stayed on the floor another 45 minutes until I felt brave enough to peer over the railing to see if he left. He had.

I cried on the drive home and again in my shower. Then, I cried at my friend’s house, into a book I was reading, and into my friend’s clothes. Eventually I returned home, out of tears for the day, and slept for the next 13 hours.

With that, we’re now at present day, but I’m torn on how to end this story. There is no beautifully neat wrap-up. There is no ultimate “fuck you” or “I forgive you” ending either. I’m not a stronger person because I was twice-raped. I’m not a better person because of it. I’m certainly not thankful that I endured a trauma so intense that the glimpse of a face sent me into the fetal position on a gym floor—even if that moment proved pivotal in forcing me to confront the reality from which I fled. I’m still sporadically crying on occasion, especially when touched, and I very-obviously have not “recovered” from my past. Hell, I’m not even sure that I’m “okay.”

But, you know, I will be. And I guess that’s all that matters.

—

If you made it this far, thank you for reading. I know it’s long, but it’s not meant to be a work of art. It’s catharsis. Writing this is my way of acknowledging and accepting what happened while posting is my way of taking ownership of it. With a byline, it’s no longer a story; it’s my story.

Now, onto the next chapter: healing.

-Anne.

Update: If you’d like to view responses to this story, you can view them here.

 

Resources for those affected:

National Sexual Assault Telephone Hotline: 1-800-656-HOPE (4673)

National Dating Abuse Helpline: 1-866-331-9474

VictimConnect: 1-855-4VICTIM (1-855-484-2846)

Resources on consent:

https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/sex-and-relationships/sexual-consent

https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/sex-and-relationships/sexual-consent/how-do-i-talk-about-consent

https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/sex-and-relationships/sexual-consent/what-should-i-do-if-i-or-someone-i-know-was-sexually-assaulted