#metoo

Over the past year as the #MeToo movement has emerged to become a conversation, I’ve been very conflicted about how I’ve felt on the subject. The situation with people like Brett Kavanaugh and now the VA Lt. Governor aren’t helping the matter. The question of should a woman who has been sexually assaulted feel comfortable coming forward has never been an issue for me. But the timing and severity of some accusations have left me wondering where it stops. Does an accuser always deserve the benefit of the doubt? Should a person’s life be ruined because he played a little “grab ass” 25 years ago in college?

Let me rewind to the background to give you a basis for my conflict. In high school I was the definition of a goodie two shoes. (Those of you that have only known me post-high school pick yourselves up off the floor - I have witnesses!) I didn’t drink, I didn’t smoke, and even though I had a steady boyfriend, I didn’t have sex. Even though I was in a committed relationship of several years and I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that this boy loved me, sex was not something I wanted to enter into the equation. Lucky for me, neither did he. About the worst thing I ever did in high school was go out with friends to watch other people doing “bad stuff”. I was a virgin and proud of it. 

Until one night in the summer of 1997. I was 16. And I was out with some friends and some older boys I didn’t know. And one of them put his hands around my throat and held me down in the back of a pickup truck and took my virginity. I remember screaming, but no one could hear. And I remember tears sliding down my cheeks because I knew in that moment I was losing something I would never get back. I remember praying for it to end. And I remember most of all feeling ashamed. And dirty.

I came home that night and showered and immediately went to bed. I didn’t tell my parents because this world that we live in had conditioned me to think that rape doesn’t happen to “people like us.” My dad was a prominent businessman and what would his clients think. I was a straight A student at the top of my class, and what would my teachers think? Would anyone believe me? The idea of having to tell my parents, let alone the police, was overwhelming. And embarrassing. And what if I told someone and they didn’t believe me? Or worse, what if it went to trial and I was put on the stand and they blamed me? After all, what was I doing with those boys in the first place? So I kept it a secret. Which was awful because I had the kind of loving and supportive relationship with my mom where we shared everything. She would have believed me, but she couldn’t control the world... 

Almost every single night in the beginning I had nightmares. I couldn’t close my eyes without feeling his hands around my neck. Without seeing the pleasure in his eyes, knowing he had taken something from me that I could never get back. The shame followed me everywhere I went until it was almost unbearable. 

A year later I wrote a letter to my boyfriend that was never sent. I vaguely made reference to the event. A few weeks later my mom found the letter. I remember being at a friend’s house and getting a call to come home. I drove home, almost sick, because I knew that the truth was finally unavoidable. I told her and we cried. I begged her not to tell my father, but of course you can’t keep something like that from a parent. As a parent now myself I can’t imagine the pain they must have felt knowing what had happened.

The next day mom took me to get tested for HIV and a myriad of other STDs. It was one of the most degrading moments of my life. Because it made that feeling of being dirty come back all over again. And though I had begun to heal, the wounds were all ripped back open. For years I struggled with nightmares and a lot of anger and shame over being the victim of rape. Over someone else taking my virginity. But after almost 21 years and a good therapist in Atlanta, I finally own my feelings about it. There are still moments where it comes flooding back, seeing the same car he drove, watching certain scenes in a movie, it really isn’t a feeling I can control. But those moments have become much fewer and far between. Something terrible happened to me, something unforgivable, but I will no longer allow myself to fall victim to what that man did to me. To what that man took from me. 

But now here we are, in the middle of a polarized society, where everyone feels it is their right to judge the actions of total and complete strangers. And I can’t help but wonder, what effect does it have on our daughters when the news media accuses the women of lying? Or our government officials? I’m not saying these women are telling the truth or not. But when congressmen berate women that have accused someone of sexual assault and it is covered on national tv, what affect does that have on our children? What kind of society is it creating for them to want to tell the truth in the future? Or maybe you have had discussions with your husband or wife about these women. Did your child overhear it? Are you teaching her or her friends that women who come forward about rape, even 20 years later are liars? That is me, right now. No I am not naming him, but this is the first time I have publically shared this information. 21 years later.  Are we as the adults of this society perpetuating a view where we see “these women” as the kind of victims that we pity, but if they had made better decisions maybe it wouldn’t have happened? I’m not saying that all of these women have been truthful, and if they haven’t been, shame on them. Peoples lives have been ruined on both sides of the table. 

Regardless, this is one of the hardest things I have ever put into writing. But I did it for several reasons. I have felt a tug on my heart for several months now to make what happened to me all those years ago matter. To me, this is how it happens. By sharing my story. By maybe changing the face of the conversations happening around me. Or by helping someone else to know they are not alone. That first year after my rape was the most alone I’ve ever felt. And I didn’t have to be. I had two parents that loved me and would have gotten me the help I needed much sooner had I felt ok enough to tell them. If that is you, my door is always open. We can laugh, or cry, or punch the couch pillows until we feel better.  Or maybe it is that someone that sees this will get help. For a long time I fought the idea of therapy. Therapy was for the weak and I had to prove that I was strong enough to overcome this on my own. That decision almost ended me. If you walk away from this point with anything, I hope it is a new understanding that the statistics on sexual assault do not lie. There are probably women who you see every day that have been raped or assaulted. Be the kind of person that makes them feel ok in whatever leg of the journey they are in. I promise our world will be a better place for it.