My Story of Rape

i was raped when i was 17, six years ago. i was going through an extremely dark time in my life and was so desperate for love and affection and to feel like i was worth something that i snuck out of the house and walked six miles through a blizzard to this guy’s house who my friend introduced me to through facebook a few days before. we talked for a few days and he told me how beautiful i was and that he wanted me to come over to his house for “sexy time.” i knew what that meant but didn’t have any intention of having sex with him,. i just wanted someone to kiss and hold me and make me feel beautiful. i had been called ugly so many times and up to this point had never been wanted by a guy and i was desperate for physical affection and male affirmation. when i got to his house, i got my first kiss, and then he told me to go inside.

when i was inside, we kissed a bit and then i don’t remember the details of exactly how it happened but i ended up laying down on the floor and he started taking my clothes off. i kept telling him to stop but he didn’t listen. i tried to stay calm and pretend that i was enjoying it when he started doing sexual things to me but i couldn’t feel any pleasure and the last thing i wanted was to have sex with him. when he took all my clothes off i started freaking out and crying and telling him to please stop but he didn’t listen. he started raping me and i didn’t understand what was going on. i asked him what he was doing and he didn’t answer and he became more brutal. the physical pain was indescribable especially since i was a virgin and after that was taken from me i just froze. i wanted to scream but he covered my mouth with his mouth and his hands. i was in so much pain and crying uncontrollably and begging him to stop but he kept having his way. i remember that he seemed to be getting a lot of pleasure out of it. at one point i ended up on my stomach and he sodomized me and then he kept raping me and i remember wanting nothing more than to die and feeling like i couldn’t breathe and was going to die from the physical and emotional pain. i believe that is when i disassociated and i remember feeling myself floating near the ceiling outside my body and i may have looked down and watched myself at one point but everything is just a blur at that point. i returned to my body as he finished raping me and i remember asking while he was doing it, “are you wearing a condom?” and he said yes but when he was done i realized he lied and he said i’d be fine because he pulled out. i remember he asked me if i was okay and i said no. we dressed ourselves in complete silence and he told me i had to get out, back into the blizzard. i asked him if he would help me and he said no. i called a friend who couldn’t help me, my rapist made me leave. i remember putting my jeans back on that were my favorite that i had gotten for christmas and they ended up being covered in blood.

my process of healing is still continuing. i needed to get my full story out with the graphic details of that night for the first time. i believe i’ve suppressed a lot of emotions from the rape. i am in so much pain and completely numb at the same time.

— alison, age 23