4 Years Ago

4 years ago when I was 19, during my first year at University I met a guy through my friend. He seemed nice enough, he was a bartender at one of the local bars that we frequented because my friends liked it. We went out to go dance/drink at the bar one night. He kept buying me drinks, I figured was just as friends. He bought me about 7-8 mixed drinks, all drinks with both alcohol and energy drink (that he was making), I figured it was fine. After all he was a friend, and a bartender. Him and I danced a few times. Then my friends and I left to go home. When we got home he started texting me, he asked if I wanted to watch a movie, I said yes. When he got back to the dorms I was still really drunk. We started watching watching Euro trip and just a few minutes in he was touching me and pressuring me to have sex. I was too drunk to say no. About half was through I came to a bit. Realizing what was happening, I was on top (which makes me question if it was rape..) once he was finished he drug me to the shower to “get us clean”, looking back now it was just to wash away the evidence.. After that I stumbled to my room and fell asleep. For the next week’s he continued to stalk me and try to pressure me into a relationship, one that I really didn’t want. I was ashamed to have slept with him, it was something I never wanted, the whole scenario seemed off.

It wasn’t until the next year, when sitting at a mandatory lecture on sexual assault that I realized when had happened to me, but at that point too much time had passed and I couldn’t turn him in for it.

This year a friend of mine started a survivors group at school, she was one of the few friends of mine who knew about my story. She called me and said that a girl had come to the meeting with basically the same story as mine.. It turns out it was the same guy, and that he has done this to at least 7 other women. Except this girl realized what had happened and went to the ER. They did blood tests and found roofies in her system..

It was sad how much relief I felt when she told me that.. It was a moment I won’t ever forget. I realized it wasn’t my fault. He’s a predator, who sought me out as a target..

Everyday I still have a hard time with this, only my friends at school and my boyfriend know this happened. I don’t have the strength to tell my parents.. And I still have thoughts that I deserved this and that it must have been my fault. I had a friend tell me it was my fault because I was drunk.. It’s just a hard thing to struggle with. But I know it’s making me a stronger person, I am now standing up to rape culture, and the people who support it.

— Survivor, age 22