CONTENT WARNING: Rape and Sexual Assault
This post is related to the HYMN TO ERINYES category, in support of and for the benefit of RAINN.
When I was in my first year in junior high, I had my first “serious” boyfriend. We dated for a few months, and I came to realize that while I liked him, I wasn’t in love. Over winter break, he went on vacation with his family, and since this was back in the olden days before cell phones and Facetime, we didn’t talk at all during those two weeks. When we came back to school, I’d decided to break up with him. I was very up front and honest, and was as kind as I could be. I explained that I cared about him and that I wanted to be his friend, but that I knew that we both didn’t have feelings for each other beyond that. He was very cool about it, and very understanding, and he agreed that we should just be friends. Later that day, I saw him in the hall as we were walking to class between periods. I smiled and waved, and he smiled back. Then he smashed me in the face with his backpack full-force and I went to class spurting blood from my mouth.
I lost my virginity to an assailant that left me bedridden for a month after a hospitalization. I couldn’t bring myself to tell my parents, so I lied to them and said that I had an accident riding a friend’s bike and that’s why I was hemorrhaging. My father found me on the grass in front of my school sliding into shock.
I was sexually assaulted by my next boyfriend, and it didn’t end until I broke his rib.
Years later, I went to use the restroom at a fast food joint late at night, and was trapped there by an employee who refused to let me leave until he watched me pee. I was terrified but I refused, and even though I was stuck in there for some time, I was lucky that things didn’t escalate.
At a party, I made friends with a guy who had the same interest in music that I did. I made it clear that I had a boyfriend, and he told me he had a girlfriend, too. We had tons of mutual friends at the party, and between that and the reassurance of him saying that he had a girlfriend, the whole situation seemed really safe. He offered to give me a ride home after the party because I’d had a couple of beers, and I accepted. While we were in the car, he asked if it was cool if he stopped at his place to grab a cd that he wanted to lend to me since it was on the way. My alarm bells went off, but my ridiculous reflex agreeableness kicked in. We stopped at his place, and he tried to assault me. I clocked him on the side of the head with a rotary telephone and was able to escape.
There are other stories… tales of “friends” in elementary school that called me “Tits” because I was one of the first girls to sprout boobs, ignored catcalls that resulted in screamed insults, declining to date men who retaliated by spreading stories about me being a “slut” or a “whore”… and there are stories that I may carry to the grave because I can’t seem to make my throat speak the words out loud.
To my sisters and brothers out there that have endured assault: I see you, I hear you, and I believe you. I am here with you, and I will stand by you. You’re not alone, and I believe you.
Your narrator,
Elizabeth