Victimization

I went to San Francisco to help a friend move. Afterwards we grabbed a beer. I didn’t even finish half of my beer and I don’t remember much of what happened. A man named Oleg started chatting with my friend and I. I told him I was married and had a child and he seemed interested in my friend. My guard was down. My friend says I started acting funny and she took my purse because I was so “out of it”. I said I had to go to the restroom and she waited by the door but she didn’t know there was another door. He did and I had been drugged. She waited, had my purse and didn’t know what to do. My only real memory of that night is waking up on the floor and he was standing over me in a white bathrobe. When I woke up in the morning I was under a chair naked. I was so confused and was able to grab something to wrap around me before running out the front door. I was so confused. I didn’t have my anything with me so I just started walking to my friends apartment. I walked by a cop and he looked at me and I said that I think I had been raped and he just kept driving. When I finally made it to her place, I fell apart. I couldn’t stop crying. I didn’t even remember what exactly had happened to me after I had been taken but she was able to tell me more about what had happened. A few days later she saw the guy walk into an apartment complex and tried to confront him but he hid while his roommates said he wasn’t home. I became very depressed. I was in a happy marriage, had my precious 3 year old and couldn’t make sense of what happened. Eventually I went to a counselor and he said that I was lucky because I didn’t have to remember it. I am now just realizing how angry that makes me. I went to him to get help and he said I was one of the lucky ones because I couldn’t remember it?!?! I didn’t tell anyone and it almost ruined my marriage. Now, 8 years later, my husband knows and has supported me through what happened. To know someone thought they had the right to drug me and take away my rights as a human being makes me angry. I feel for all the other victims out there. I just saw the Brave Miss World show tonight and it touched me. We should all speak out. Why are we so afraid? Why are the people closest to us afraid to talk about it? I am lucky I have been able to move on and live a normal life but that night will never leave me and I am forever changed because if it.

— Survivor, age 35