Why did this happen to me???

In 2010, I was out with friends drinking. I got separated from them and couldn’t find them. I was drunk so I decided to walk home which wasn’t a far walk so that’s what I was going to do. Well, while walking, I felt like I had to go to the bathroom and there were lines everywhere except for the pizza parlor so I figured I’d go there. I went inside and walked to the bathroom and I walked into it but it was the men’s bathroom. It was a one stall bathroom so no big deal, right? So I hear banging on the door about 2 minutes after I was in there. I swing the door open and there is a group of people in the hallway. As I walk out the bathroom, this guy says to me, “don’t I know you from Facebook?”, next thing I know, I am being pulled out the back door and he is pulling my pants down and after that, I blacked out. When i came back to, my pants were down and i was laying on the grown, confused and scared. I got home and just went to bed. When I woke up the next day, while talking to a friend, I decided to tell what happened and he advised me to call the police so I did.

I went through the rape test kit at the hospital and it was just as bad as what happened to me. It made me feel disgusting. I still feel disgusted by what happened. I still don’t understand why it happened to me. I was a nice person just trying to be my happy self and have a fun night out with friends. I wasnt a bad person. So why did this happen to me?

I blamed myself for many years and sometimes still blame myself. I always think that if I wasn’t as drunk or if I even went out at all that night then maybe it wouldn’t have happened to me. I know that you can’t help what happens sometimes but I feel like this is my fault.

I spoke up and nothing good came from it. Which made me feel like maybe it was supposed to happen to me. Maybe I deserved it?? Because I didn’t get any justification for what happened. Because I lost friends because of this. Which i know that they weren’t good friends if they can just drop me because I spoke up against a disgusting monster.

After everything, I found out who did this to me because I couldn’t remember who he was. Come to find out he was a Facebook friend and his lawyer confronted me with a paper and a false story saying he was from the District Attorney’s office and needed me to sign this to start the trial so I signed it not thinking and what I signed was an affidavit saying that it was consensual so the charges were dropped against him and picked up on me. So I had to then hire a lawyer and fight the charges brought up against me. So it got worse after being raped. I won my case and the charges were dropped but this was only the beginning of the hell that I have been through.

I had to go through life feeling sad,angry, scared and paranoid most of the time. I suffer from PTSD and anxiety. So every day is a struggle. It’s very hard to date anyone without feeling like they’re going to raped me. I feel very mad when I think about it because he ruined my whole life. He turned me into this mad, scared person. I used to be happy and friendly to everyone but I’m not anymore. I used to trust everyone but I can’t bring myself to trust anyone anymore.

It’s like how does someone get over this?? How to you move on from this? How do you not completely hate this person who did this to you? Why does this happen?

— Survivor, age 33