Just a Child

I am twenty-four, and have the unfortune of stating that I was raped twice. The first time i was thirteen years old, just a child, a virgin, with dreams of becoming a writer. I had my first boyfriend. He too was 13. A lot of the girls & boys at my school were having sex, a few of the girls were pregnant. I knew what sex was and knew that i was not ready. But even my protests were ignored that night. He….the boyfriend destroyed me that night. Pushed himself on me, pressing his entire body weight heavy on my tiny frame. I still hear the sounds of my underwear being ripped from my body, the disgusting grunts he made as he invaded my virginal body.

After it happened, I never told anyone. Not even my mum, dad, siblings or friends. I knew what he had done. I felt….scared, fear. Above all the shame, disgust that I began to later feel. Fear was the constant.

After it had all happened, I returned to school and he broke up with me the next day. Immediately I was being called a whore, slut, slag. He had told everyone that I had wanted it to happen. My fear and shame heightened. I lost all my friends and became the victim of bullying. Everyday after school, I would return home, lock myself in my room, cry, cut myself, and cry some more.

I was twenty-one the second time. I don’t remember much of it, except waking up in the midst with him raping me. What made it worse was that he was my best friend. He knew all about what had happened when I was thirteen. I trusted him and he did that.

The second time happened whilst I was at university, after it had happened, I quit and went home.

It took me 3 more years to pluck the courage up and tell my family what had happened to me. Over the time that I kept it hidden inside, denying that it had happened. I became very ill, very ill. I was later diagnosed with BPD = Borderline Personality Disorder and ASPD = Anti-social personality disorder. I would regularly mutilate my wrists, legs, thighs whenever I would hear their voices.

I am now twenty-four and can say that not only am I a survivor of rape, but I am a survivor of an illness that I will suffer with for the rest of my life.