“Trust me, take a chance”

So where do I start…. 3 years ago I was raped. Saying this as always still feels like a lie to me as my brain has worked so hard to block it out that I feel it never actually happened to me. I’m guessing this is because I’ve never dealt with it properly.

I was just out with a friend on a normal night out in my home town, naturally I’d had a few drinks but was far from being drunk. When in the one and only club in our town, this charming and very attractive guy came up to me and started stroking my ego nicely with all sorts of compliments which, being female, I naturally lapped up. He even told me he thought I was an excellent dancer and he was sure he could get me a job working for his entertainment company! All of this I now realize was just a very clever, well rehearsed plan of manipulation. I’ll be honest though, I had a great night with him and couldn’t believe my luck thinking I’d finally found someone who liked me for who I was. I decided that I would get his number so I could keep in touch with him. He planned for more then this though.

When nearing club closing hours, he started asking me to come back home with him. Amazing right? Gorgeous guy who I like actually wanting me to come home with him? I know most people would of probably jumped at this but me, I didn’t do that sort of thing, never once had I gone home with a stranger or had a one night stand. So I said thanks but no thanks thinking this would be the last of it. Unfortunately that was not the only time that night that he didn’t take no for an answer.

The words that I remember most were “trust me, take a chance”. He told me all he wanted was to spend the night with me and was shocked when I suggested I was worried he wanted sex. So I took the chance, I trusted him. Fair to say it was the stupidest mistake of my life!

You can probably all guess what happened next…of course it wasn’t just cuddles he wanted from me. Pretty dumb and naive of me to think that! I can’t even remember how many times I said no, tried to fight him off, even curled up in a ball with the hope he’d stop. Of course he didn’t, he told me the only reason I wanted him to stop was that I was embarrassed so he obviously wasn’t deaf to the word no. In the end I gave up fighting and left him to finish the job off. Worst part of it was having to lay in the bed next to him until the morning when he could drive me the half hour back to where I lived.

Any of you who have been through rape will know that the humiliation doesn’t end there. Going through every detail of the event with the police whilst on camera, then having a stranger swab you in all the most intimate places which you’d planned on never letting anyone near again. The nightmare continues! I do not regret reporting it to the police however and would encourage anyone who this has happened to to do the same. It wasn’t a successful result for me, months and months of waiting only to hear that it couldn’t go any further and he’d claimed “accidental penetration” to the police!!! But even if there had been the slightest chance that he could of been sent down for it, that I could of seen his face as the judge said he was guilty, that I could of stopped him doing it to another girl…then it was worth it.

But I didn’t get to stop him doing it again. February this year, I got an unexpected call from the police saying he had raped another girl. Up until this call I had stupidly believed I had started to deal with what had happened. The uncontrollable tears that came as soon as I got off the phone however told me otherwise. I guess you can put it all in a box and pretend it didn’t happen but it stays with you and changes you in ways that you don’t even realize, gradually eats at you until you’re no longer the person you used to be. I got told I may of been needed to give evidence in court to help send him down this time. So again I got my hopes up, all the time picturing that day I got to look him in the eyes as he got his justice. But after 3 long months of waiting I got the call to say again….you guessed it….there wasn’t enough evidence!!

This has affected my life so much, I’ve battled with depression and anxiety for the last year years. My self-esteem and self respect is non existent and when trying to let my brain play back that night, my thoughts are filled with the nagging feelings like I was somehow to blame for this happening. But I will not let this rape define me! I am stronger then that and I will not give up! I have finally started to win my battles 🙂

— Alex, age 26