When It’s Personal

Rape awareness is at an all time high in this country. But most people only see half the story. There is a lot more to rape than most think about. Or even know about. Or can even understand. But I can. I do. I’ve seen it. I felt it…..

Hollywood glam and media spin has led rise to most Americans when they think about rape to associate rape with white college males, university scandals, drugged girls, drunk girls, girls that “asked” for it, and teen guys that go to far. To say any of this is a misnomer is flagrant. These types of acquaintance rape and date rape and assault are very serious problems with devastating impacts on its victims. But that is not all there is to rape. While definitely the most common, it’s not the only way a woman can be raped. And isn’t even close to the worst.

Rape is not just about sexual pleasure. That may be its most common driver, but isn’t the only one. Rape can also be a weapon. A punishment.a targeted act of extreme violence that uses sex to reach levels of torture, sadism, and just pure evil unimaginable to a sane human mind. It can be done for power, enjoyment, or revenge. The last of which is the reason I was targeted. I was payback.

I’m going to save some of the details to shorten up and just generalize the situation that created my fate. My mother was a high ranking and influencial member of the University staff at my college. There was an incident that spilled some MAJOR drama and involved some of the more elite students, a lot of whom I knew closely. The scandal really had it all. Drugs, sex, money, and last names that make news reporters drool. The University was very good at containing it as much as possible. Law enforcement was told only what the needed to be and the media almost totally oblivious. But my mother was the main proponent in a charge that the University make examples. After all the Conduct Code and Ethics investigations, my mother and other board members placed several students on academic probation, some were stripped of grants, some lost scholarships, and even expelled a few. And like I said, some of these kids had last names that aren’t used to facing consequences. By all meaning, the discipline started a wild fire. And my mother was blamed for lighting it.

For the most part I stayed off any certain side and as low key as I could through the hearings. I couldn’t turn on my mother, and called several of the involved students my friends. Not to mention I wasn’t exactly innocent myself and close enough to the matter that it wouldn’t take much digging to bring my name up. But it never did. That along with my mother’s role in it all made me a target to some of the loses in this. One particular was X. He was the main focus in the investigations, the first student expelled, and the only one facing criminal charges, a son of a prominent South Texas family, and an all around bad ass to boot. I had been very good friends with his girlfriend before any of it and hadn’t spoken to either since the ball dropped. The hearings were nearing a conclusion and she texted me asking if we could clear the air and set some stuff right. I jumped at the chance to. So eager to make amends that I completely missed the giant red flag I shou ld have seen when she asked me to meet her out at her family’s cabin on the lake. I nice secluded private setting. I pulled up to the cabin was greeted by my friend. We went inside and sat. The situation was awkward to start but immediately noticed that she wouldn’t make eye contact with me. Before I could ask why I heard the door being opened again. The second I saw X walk through the door, seen the leering smile on his face, I had a pretty good idea what was going down and knew I was in serious trouble.

X told my friend to leave, never taking his eyes off me as she briskly walked out the door and I watch him shut it and lock it. To this day I still get a bemused smile and wonder why of all the things to go through my head at that moment why I had the thought that I did. Out of nowhere my mind started remembering a scene from The Butterfly Effect when Ashton Kutchers cell mate gave him the advice that “When they come for you, go someplace else in your head”. I’m not going to cover in explicit detail the violence inflicted on me over the next few hours. Large portions of it are gone altogether. The doctors told me that I didn’t suffer any significant brain injuries that could cause sever memory loss to the extent I did. They said it’s more likely that I was conscious through every second. My brain is just protecting me from whatever evil I went through again. I remember clearly enough the beginning. It started with a beating. An open hand smack that separated me from my senses. Being kicked, thrown around the room, my clothes violently ripped off me. And most of all being face down on the floor with his shin pressing his weight on my neck and back pinning me down while he handcuffed me. I think that’s the moment I checked out. Everything gets really foggy from that point. The last remotely lucid memory I have of any of it is being propped up against the couch and choking when he violently forced his well above average member on me orally. That’s where the memories stop. At least the memories like we normally remember things. It’s like my life became a photo album. A collection of snapshots. Singular instances frozen in time. I can see just a glimpse of what was happening to me. Accompanied with strong recollections of extreme pain, or a sound. Sometimes his voice, sometimes my screams. The clearest snapshots are those of his face. Seeing his enjoyment from my suffering and torture. The only faint recollection I have during the assault is towards the end, right before the worst part. I have a vague, clouded memory of being on the floor. I can’t tell where. I just know I’m on the floor. My entire body feels numb while and on fire at the same time. I can’t seem to move. Anything. At all. Right as some starts coming I black out again and the next snapshot is the one that haunts me the most. The singular instant of it all that I have to face every day of my life. It’s the exact moment that I realized my body was layer on my stomach over a table, he was behind me right as he began to forcefully sodomize me. And each time I remember this picture in my head it replays the loudest, most horrific of my screams and recalls feeling pain so bad……. I can’t even describe with words the pain in that instant. It makes me shudder to imagine what that whole moment of time was like. I was violently assaulted physically, mentally, and emotionally. Brutalized on a level that requires a kind of evil ordinary people don’t have and can’t understand. After he was done he dumped me bloody, naked, and half dead. I regained consciousness 2 days later in a hospital that didn’t even know my name. I had several broken bone and bruised organs. Internal bleeding in various spots. Sever trauma from oral, vaginal, and anal penetration. I suffered permanent damage to my colon and uterus. The last of which means I can never have children. All of that so some spoiled punk could make my mother sorry. No more. No less. But I didn’t give him that satisfaction…..

I never told my mother. Or anyone. Any of it. Not at first at least. I refused to sign the information release at the hospital so they couldn’t tell my family I was there. To cover having to be in therebI told my family that I needed a break from everything and left town for awhile. I refused, at first, to make any official statement to the police. I felt a fury inside me of incredible magnitude. I would not allow him the satisfaction of hurting my mother or my family. I cannot change what he done to me. But I will not allow him to enjoy his ultimate prize.

When a person faces exposure to evil on that level, it never goes away. A piece of it stays with you. Imprinted on you. A piece of hell fragmented to your life. You’re changed by it. Influenced by it. Aware of its presence inside you and can feel the ungodly rage and fury it gives you. And the capacity for pure hatred. You’ve seen just how far things can really go. How personal things can be. He planned on changing my life forever. I don’t think he ever planned on the changes that he made. I’d most certainly think if he had known what the endgame was, he wouldn’t have played the game.

All of this happened 7 years ago. I’ve almost completed my parole now. My sentence was commuted after I successfully passed a state psychological evaluation. And in another semester I’ll finally complete my college degree! Life is almost came full circle. It’s been a long one, and a dark one. But can honestly say that I’ve put everything behind me. Some things can’t ever truly be gotten over. But their impact can definitely be marginalized. I’m happy with life now. I’m content. I’ve made my peace.

— Survivor, age 29