This week marks two years since the day I was raped. I remember waking up the day after thinking that what happened couldn’t really be that bad because, after all, he was my best friend. I’ve never been more wrong in my life.
The last two years have simultaneously been the longest and shortest of my life. I often felt that as I reclaimed what happened to me by speaking out that the healing would follow- that the sleepless nights would end, that the spontaneous bouts of crying at seemingly random times would cease, that the lingering question of whether someone could ever love someone as damaged as I am would fall by the wayside. But they haven’t. And as much as I’d love to pretend that I am healed and that what happened to me doesn’t define me, I often feel that it does because the trauma I’m still working through dictates decisions I make in my every day life.
Don’t get me wrong, I am proud of who I am now. I am resilient and capable and brave. I will never stop fighting for myself. I am a completely different person now than the girl I was when I woke up two years ago, but it hasn’t been easy. It’s hard to reconcile loving the person I’ve become with the reason I became her. I’m not thankful for what he did to me and I wish every day that it never happened. This internal battle has plagued me since going public in September: how can I be proud of the girl who stood up and spoke her truth in the national spotlight while wishing that I was never put in the position to later become that girl.
In the days following the release of “There’s a Brock Turner in all o(UR) lives” my Facebook inbox was flooded with messages:
“You are a survivor and an inspiration to me and women everywhere.” // “You truly represent what it means to be a Spider.” // “You are the voice of silent stories, of cries that have been muffled... I cannot express my gratitude.” // “You’ve done something so powerful and wonderful and I wish you every blessing and strength with the rest of this ongoing, uphill battle.” // “I will forever be grateful towards you and the discussion that you have started on campus.” // “You are single handedly changing the lives of college women everywhere.” // “I never had the courage to come forward about what happened that night, and I wish I had. You are strong, CC. You are brave. Your voice is a courageous, powerful force for change.” // “I graduated with you in the Spring... I just wanted to describe how proud many of us (myself and fellow graduate friends I’ve spoken with) are of you... you’re absolutely doing the right thing, and so many of us are cheering and supporting you.” // “Your words matter.”
It reaffirmed that going public was the right decision. That speaking truth to power, no matter how much my voice shook, was important. That there were women (and men) across the country who needed someone to speak up and look to as the national conversation over sexual assault was dying down. But all of the affirming, positive, and uplifting ways that I was described from the outside looking in didn’t ring true to me.
I struggle on a daily basis because 99.9% of the time I don’t feel like the girl who called out her college administration and didn’t back down when they called her inaccurate. More often than not, I feel weak for not having faced much of my trauma and I live every day terrified that I’ll never be able to move past what happened to me. I don’t think I’m courageous because I stood up for myself and I still can’t grasp what is inherently brave about speaking my truth. Moreover, while I can allow myself to be vulnerable in order to talk about what happened to me, I don’t feel as “healed” as I think I should be by now.
How is a 23 year old who has spent the last two years sleeping with a night light on courageous? How is that same 23 year old brave when she can’t bring herself to develop a relationship with any man who is not either gay or married? How can she be fearless when anything that raises her heart rate enough sends her body into a panic attack because it thinks she’s in danger? How is she gutsy when it’s been two years and she still cries on an almost daily basis about what happened to her? How can she be a “survivor” or a “warrior” when all she’s done is talk about what happened to her instead of facing the deeper traumas that resulted from that night? What about any of that makes me an inspiration or strong or brave or worthy of gratitude or pride?
Rape is over in a moment, but the healing process lasts a lifetime. And healing is hard. “Healing doesn’t have a distinguishable end. Healing is irreconcilable pain. It is instability and loss and grief and fear. It is shame so deep it mars your soul with scars that never fade. It is trauma that sleeps under your skin, only to manifest in ways you could never imagine, in ways that will stay with you your entire life. Rape is not a singular thing, it doesn’t exist in a vacuum and it will never just be, something that happened.”
I am not writing this for sympathy. It is not my intention to devalue the kind words strangers and friends have shared with me throughout this journey. It is me trying to get across the point that rape isn’t just “20 minutes of action” the way some people would like to think it is- it is life-long trauma and we don’t talk about it enough. Rape can lead you to question everything about yourself and your place in the world. It is the ultimate betrayal of trust. It is a violation so severe that “victims of sexual assault are 3 times more likely to suffer from depression, 6 times more likely to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, 13 times more likely to abuse alcohol, 26 times more likely to abuse drugs, and 4 times more likely to contemplate suicide.”
On Tuesday, it will officially be two years since the day I was raped. In the 732 days that have passed since July 18, 2015, I’ve dealt with depression, anxiety, and PTSD. In the months immediately following my rape, I destroyed myself by abusing drugs and alcohol to try and numb the pain. There wasn’t anything I wouldn’t do in order to try and forget, even if it was just for a moment. I thought casual sex with strangers would help me find control and forget what happened, but it only made the memory more vivid. There were a few moments where I genuinely thought ending my life would be easier than trying to keep on fighting. My rape took away my innocence, it changed me in ways I could have never anticipated. I am here today because of the support system that stood by me and lifted me up in my darkest hours. I am not perfect, I am not healed, I still have a lot of work to do to overcome the trauma resulting from that night, but I know how to speak my truth.
I will continue to share my story in the hopes that it helps at least one person better understand the complexity of sexual assault and, maybe more importantly, in the hopes that it helps at least one person know that they are not alone in figuring out life after rape.