I Am Not a Victim

Today I will ruminate on a prompt from "The Pocket Muse" by Monica Wood. The prompt states "Write about an ordinary ritual that goes horribly wrong." This is a statement of my life.

I am not a victim. I was raped on the night before my wedding. I had everything I knew and thought I was stripped from my essence. I lost my voice. I lost my sight. I lost my footing. Only now, does the world even begin to make sense again. I have known one thing, even since that night: I am not a victim.

As a recipient of sexual violence, you are told by your family, your peers, your counselors, your loved ones, figures of authority that it WAS NOT YOUR FAULT. And you might know that in your head. But you cease to believe it. You are told you didn't do anything wrong - and you don't believe it. You let it happen, the voice in your head screams. You did it. You could have avoided it. You should have fought back.

I did fight back. I fought back against that stupid little voice in my head that nagged me about everything I did wrong. There isn't exactly a handbook on life, and there isn't exactly an instructional booklet entitled "So You've Been Raped" or "Handling Sexual Assault for Dummies." There are a thousand and one self-help books, designed to step in after the fact. There's nothing, save cheesy drama television, to help you recognize what steps to take BEFOREHAND.

Watch any episode of Law and Order. You go to the police. You scream. You make a scene until someone sees you, believes you. You talk to the nice understanding policemen and you suffer the ministrations of the kindly hospital workers, poking around at what's already been poked.

It doesn't happen like that in real life. Then again, nothing happens in real life like it does on television. I went back to the dorms. I talked to my would-be husband. He was afraid of being caught with me in the room because I had been drinking....it's an offense you could be expelled for. He sends me to the showers. I cry. I jump at every noise. I can't get the sounds out of my head, the smell out of my nostrils, the feeling off of my skin. I'm pretty sure he cries, too, while I'm gone.

I go to the police. They tell me to write out a statement. I wait for months. They tell me there's nothing they can do because everyone else was drunk and high and no one was willing to stand up to Mr. Charismatic Who Said He Was Gay.

And that's that. No hospital visit. The police never suggested it. Not even so much as a kindly counselor provided by the school. Sexual violence doesn't exist here in Southeastern Ohio. And when it does, it's a lie. It's the girl's fault. Just ask that poor woman who had her mattress taken into custody as evidence. Ask her what happened when the defense attorney made her re-create her position on that very same bed she was violated in. Go ahead and ask anyone around here who isn't a "radical" of some sort whether or not sexual violence is an issue. How many rapes are prosecuted? How many end in sentencing?

The day of my wedding I was in shambles. My husband was lectured because he was an attendant at the dorms. He was told to control me, not let me go out drinking, my behavior reflects on him, I'm too wild. I'm on the verge of getting kicked out.

If you only knew. I wanted to SCREAM. If you ONLY KNEW what happened. Of course I have more sense than to come back to a dry campus drunk. Of course I knew what that meant. I was crying in my head that night, begging for someone, ANYONE to confront me, catch me. But there was not a soul in sight. No one to stop me from self-destructing. No one to lend an ear. If you only knew. I pray you never do. Reprimand me for being hurt. Real sympathetic.

I watched it tear apart my life.I watched it tear apart my family. I watched it glaze over my husband, ineffectual and seemingly untouched. I was sad. I was hurting. I was not heard. I was ANGRY. I was MAD AS HELL.

And now, almost four years later, I am still all of those things. But mostly I'm just angry. My family and i got into an arguement over it. I know it wasn't meant to hurt, they didn't know how to cope either. But now it's brushed under the table as if nothing ever happened. I never got to talk to my mother about it - when I needed her most. I never got to talk to my husband about it - when I needed him most.

No matter what anyone tries to say - sexual assault is something you go through completely and utterly alone. And it's maddening. Like trying to put together the pieces of a broken mirror. You might not ever get all of the shards back in place. And if you do, everything melts back into place like liquid quicksilver. And you're stronger because of it. I don't know if I've put the mirror back together yet. I'm too afraid to look. I'm not afraid of my shadow - I'm afraid of my reflection.

Even so, for all the anger and hurt in my heart, I am not a victim. I was violated. But I was not destroyed. I was hurt, but I am alive. I was knocked down, but I'm mostly standing up. I was kicked back, but I am still fighting. There was nothing I could have done to change the course of events, though gods I wish there were.

I am not a victim. And the next person who tells me I am gets a boot to the skull. Because I won't tolerate being made the victim. And I won't tolerate anyone viewing me as such. It's another piece of my mirror, another part of my story. But it isn't WHO I am and it doesn't define ME.

I was raped. I am not my rape. And if you ever found yourself in the same situation, you would understand too.

But I hope you don't. Because you're not a victim either.