Best Friends Brother

My rape happened from my best friends older brother . He was the average jock . He was a junior in college and I was a freshman in high school I was only 14 and he was 21 . I wasn’t very close with him like I was with his sister . She didn’t talk about him much either . He would snapchat me but he’d be away from college and he just would be like normal just say stuff , some stuff he would say was weird but not a lot .. one day since he’s a football player and he graduated from my high school he got to lift at the weight room and he told me to come down there and I wouldn’t and wouldn’t and finally he said something like he needed me to so he could tell me something. I was 14 and I didn’t know him very well so of course I know it’s weird and I should’ve known that but I was like well he’s at my school and he doesn’t really seem weird so maybe something’s wrong with Allison .. I went down there and he was standing outside the door and motioned me in. I said what? He said I need to talk to you..shhh and so I went in and he locked the doors! He had a key!!! I had no clue and he just started kissing me and I didn’t kiss him back and he backed off for a moment and said “what’s wrong you don’t want to do this?” And I said “no I haven’t done anything like this. I don’t want to” and then he just came on stronger and I just froze I couldn’t do anything I was shaking and scared. I knew I couldn’t run because he was big and I was afraid he’d hurt me .. I couldn’t scream because no one would really hear me down there. I didn’t know I just had to let it happen. I did pull away and try to clench my legs together but he got what he wanted and I went to the bathroom and threw up after. I didn’t tell anyone what had happened and soon I was partying sneaking out getting drunk and having sex with random guys I didn’t even know . I started having pseudo seizures every time I went to school and I was really scared. My whole family thought I had a brain tumor or some bad condition where you have seizures and lose your memory because I wouldn’t remember things and I went to like 3 different neurologists and they never saw anything. I stayed in the hospital for a week getting test ran on me .. being miserable. The doctor said I may have had something happen to me or something that is in me that I won’t talk about and recommended therapy. That didn’t work either because of course I wouldn’t talk. I started feeling super suicidal and I got sent to a psychiatric hospital which was the most terrible but yet the best thing that happened to me. My parents had my cell phone when I was in the hospital and the guy who did that to me tried to contact me and my parents found out. They came in to visit me and asked me about it and I lashed out and tried to say it never happened because I was ashamed that I had went down to meet him that day .. I felt like it was all my fault .. they called the cops and stuff started moving along. He called my house begging for my parents not to press charges but they of course didn’t care and when I came back home things were still so hard. Actually even harder because I had to talk about it with a lot of people .. then a little while later I tried to overdose .. I went to school and I thought maybe if I act like I’m taking a nap they won’t know that I’m really shutting down because they knew my situation and knew I could take naps so I laid down. Keep in mind I took 20 of my anxiety pills and mixed it with like other medicines in my meds cabinet . I started to just feel like I was floating and my best friend came to see me and she knew something was wrong because I was sweating and she saw my heart going really fast and she ran and got someone and they called the ambulance I remember being so tire d just trying to go because apparently I had taking sleeping pills too. I remember them handing me waters and telling me to not go asleep and they were holding me trying to talk . I remember all my family coming to see me crying telling me if I had died that there lives would never be the same but I was so miserable and hurting it didn’t hurt my heart as much because I had become a self destructive monster. I had changed. Become so self oriented because of my pain. I went to another hospital and there were two guys who told me I was worth more and really cared and talked to me . I got grounded for a while because I got caught sneaking out and drinking vodka so bad with my anxiety meds and they took me to the hospital because they thought that the guy I was with had drugged me .. but he didn’t. After that last stay in the psychiatric hospital I’ve been a lot different. No sneaking out and having sex .. none of it. The only thing now is my good friend Allison hates me because she doesn’t believe what happened. I mean I know she knows her brother is not the best kind of person and she thinks he would do that but I know it’s hard and because of how well known and accomplished her brother is nothing is going to happen to him because who cares that he raped me. It’s just sex and I’ll get over it. they said I waited too long even though there is text message evidence and different types of evidence. it just sucks when I run into him because I sink back into that hurt and feel like no one believes me . Which we both know what happened and I know that’s all that matters but I feel like I’ve been failed.

— Katelyn, age 17