We live in a victim blaming culture that holds victims responsible for what others choose to do them, we act as though victims were asking for it. As a result, when we are victimized, we blame ourselves. People ask about what WE did that led to what happened to us, and because feeling powerless is unbearable, we convince ourselves that it was our choices, that had we done something different, it wouldn’t have happened. We also convince ourselves that what we went through was not trauma and we are fine. We are ashamed that we didn’t keep it from happening and so we often don’t share it with others, it festers in the darkness that we push it into. We teach our kids that if they are bullied or harassed, it’s because it’s something about them they need to change; that somehow if we do everything just right we won’t have bad things happen. We live in a world where someone who runs a music sharing site is sentenced to 3 years in federal prison while a man who rapes an unconscious woman is sentenced to 6 months in county jail, and only serves 3 months. So we tell ourselves we’re fine, that it was our fault, and we push it as far away as we can.
This post is going to be the most vulnerable I have written and for some may be triggering (I have tried to put page breaks if you need to skip over some parts). I have chosen to share because we need to speak it, we need to take the power from it, we need to be able to put the shame down…
While it begins almost 14 years ago, in a lot of ways, for me, it just began Monday. This Monday, I went to dinner and drinks with my best friend to meet the new person in her life. We played games and got to know each other and had a lot of fun. I woke up Tuesday and text my friend to see how the rest of their night was, sending a playful gif of Ryan Reynolds smirking only to get back a very short response of “Yeah. Just hung out.”, a very uncharacteristic response. Does her person not like me? I start to try to think back to what may have went wrong. And so began several days of working to piece together the night. My friend shared that I had been very “weird” and “aggressive” at the end of the night, ultimately sharing that I had basically tried to fight her person. If you know me, you know that even when I’m aggressive, I’m not aggressive. I have never been in a fight and am an expert peace keeper. I didn’t remember this at all, I only had two drinks and I don’t remember feeling upset. As she began to share things, I realized that after I grabbed my second drink and sat down, I have zero memory of the rest of the night aside from 4 still frame flashes. Even Tuesday, until about noon, was so foggy that I couldn’t remember even taking my kids to school that morning. All of Tuesday I felt off, I talked to my husband and he shared that I was out of character but he hadn’t thought much about it.
To make a long story short, saving you the pieces of the puzzle, it turns out that my drink was likely spike with Ketamine. I never leave my drink or the bar when I order one, but for some reason, Monday I did. I went to put my ID and credit card back and while I can’t be certain what happened, I do know my frosted glass had been placed on the bar while the bartender made my drink and their was a man sitting at the end of the bar next to it (which is weird as the whole bar was open and as a former cocktail waitress, I know that people don’t usually sit where drinks are ordered and made unless the bar is full because it’s far from peaceful). He could have quickly slipped something in the bottom of the glass unnoticed.
I am lucky, despite the fact that by my behavior, I wouldn’t have blamed my friend and her person if they would have left me, they would not let me Uber home, which had been my original plan, and drove me home. So that part of the story, luckily ends there, while something much, much worse could have happened, it didn’t. I do have to explain to her person that who she saw that night, was not me, nor does it represent how I feel towards them, but that’s a pretty minor thing. While the experience was scary, it is not the experience itself that has spiraled me this week into a depression I don’t really recognize and anxiety I have never experienced.
Trauma is a funny thing, it lives on and even after being dormant for a lifetime, fueled by shame, guilt and avoidance, it can come back to life or in my case for the first time, triggered after years… As much as I am great at identifying others’ trauma and helping them work through it; removing the shame and helping them find empowerment and words; making sure they know that it isn’t their fault…turns out I’m not immune to telling myself my own stories. After 14 years, my trauma, which I thought I didn’t really have and dealt with last summer, came back to life with a vengence following Monday night. It wasn’t until about 2 years ago that I even acknowledged that what I went through when I was 18, was not okay, but this week, I have had to face so much more.
In italics will be the arguments I prepare for and said to myself after because our culture says it’s my fault, it became the story I told myself.
14 years ago, I was a server at pub and grill in my home town and going to school full time. I had a great relationship with my customers and loved (as I still do) getting to know people. There was a group of three guys that I knew pretty well and that came in regularly. I had shared with them that I love games and one night they invited me over to play Cards Against Humanity, it sounded fun and I didn’t have anything going on after work so I agreed. *As a woman, what was I thinking going by myself? I should know better.* One of the guys was a Sheriff’s Deputy and I had known the three of them for a while. I tend to assume and see the best in everyone, so it felt safe. I went over that night and was having fun playing the game, talking, and I had two, maybe three, Woodchuck Apple Ciders. Mike would grab my drinks for me from the kitchen around the corner. *You should never let someone else get your drinks, and you were drinking underage.* I am naturally pretty flirty and love to joke around. *Maybe I led them on.*
—-This next part may be triggering for some, so make a choice if you’re okay with that, otherwise I will make another page break when the details over.—-
I remember sitting at the table playing the game, having fun, I don’t even remember feeling tipsy. The next thing that I remember is throwing up on myself laying in my own vomit. Mike, one of the guys was, on top of me. I was laying down, I remember white walls, his face, feeling him between my legs and then nothing else. In the morning, I woke up, still laying in my own vomit. I was on a futon, I saw stairs so it must be in the basement. I tried to think of what happened…all I can remember is that one flash. My mind is racing. I can’t believe I threw up on myself..and slept in. I feel so embarrassed. I’ve never not thrown up in a toilet…ever…even as a kid. What would he think of me that I threw up on myself? I planned to go home, what happened? I have to do the “walk of shame”. I don’t know where stuff is to clean up the futon, what will John(deputy whose house it is) think? I must have drank too much. How could I let this happen? Did I want to have sex with him? I must have. Why would he continue as I’m throwing up on myself? It was my fault, I can’t blame him. I shouldn’t have drank so much… I quietly get up, find my pants, put them on and sneak up the stairs and out the front door.
—-Trigger over—-
I was ashamed, I didn’t tell anyone. I felt like a “slut”. I told myself that I just drank too much and it was a choice I made. I was at a police officer’s house so obviously it had to have been my choice, he wouldn’t have let something happen. I also realize looking back, that he allowed an 18 year old to drink underage in his house so from the start his integrity as a police officer may have been questionable. I convinced myself I was not a victim, it wasn’t his fault, it was mine. I was so determined to prove that I was not a victim that I even went back to that house, I ended up having a brief “fling” with John…he was 35. It’s hard for me to call it that because I didn’t like him but it was my way of telling myself that I was in charge of what I did I was not a victim. I was not powerless. I could laugh off a stupid night when I drank too much but deep down, I knew better, I just couldn’t let myself acknowledge it.
Last summer, I finally did some EMDR around it after something triggered that nigh and nightmares I have had for over a decade stopped. Dreams where I can’t scream, I can’t fight, I can’t call 911, I can’t run. It makes sense now, in my dreams I was immobilized, just as I was that night. I acknowledged that I may not have been able to consent and something may have been in my drink but I still blamed myself in some ways. It was just a messed up situation.
Fast forward to this week. Monday marks the only other time in my life, aside from 14 years ago, that I have absolutely no memory of a part of my night. It’s not fuzzy, it just doesn’t exist. 14 years ago, I don’t remember letting myself feel much about it, I just stuffed it far, far away. I look back though and realize that since that night, I have never let someone other than my parents or my husband make or get me a drink; except at a bar/restaurant, even then I have to watch my drink being made and I wait at the bar for it (except Monday). For years and years after that experience, I was always the DD because I didn’t trust not being in control but I wasn’t quite sure why. Since Monday, the thought of walking back into that bar takes my breath away. When I think about drinking, I start to shake. I’m supposed to go to Las Vegas on Monday for a long awaited and needed trip away, and I feel panicked. There are too many people, too much I can’t control. When I try to sleep, despite being exhausted my body won’t let me sleep, I realize it’s afraid of what will happen if I’m not conscious. I have hardly been able to eat and I just keep crying. So Thursday, I had my husband do some EMDR for me around Monday night.
—Trigger warning again—
As we started EMDR, it immediately went back to when I was 18. As I said, trauma is a funny thing. Even what we don’t consciously remember something our mind and body does. During EMDR, I begin to feel so many sensations. I can’t breathe, I can feel a hand on my throat. There is pressure like I am being held down. I feel like I’m going to throw up, like I can feel it coming up. I feel the weight of someone on top of me and the pressure between my legs. I feel pain like my leg being squeezed. My body remembers what happened and it’s telling me. I realize it was worse than I realized, than I’d let myself know. I think I fought back. I know it wasn’t okay. I know that I was drugged. I know that there is no way the cop could have not known what happened. I realized that the story I’ve told myself for years, that our culture tells us, the story I know is not true for so many others I’ve talked to…it isn’t true. For the first time, I finally say the words, through tears…I was raped.
—Safe to read—
It has taken me 14 years to admit that, to begin to truly heal from it. It has taken me 14 years to begin to believe what I know is true for every other person that has been victimized. It is not my fault. Even if I had “drank too much”, I did not ask for that to happen and I could not have consented. And if he was too dense to realize anything else, the point at which I was throwing up, it was clear. I am not responsible for what happened to me. It doesn’t matter if I was drinking, if I went by myself, what I was wearing, whether I flirted or not…I do not control the choices of another person. I know that there are things I can do to make myself more safe but it infuriates me that it’s on me…that others aren’t responsible for being decent human beings.
Think about it…even our dress codes say that young women can’t show their shoulders with spaghetti straps because it may be “distracting” to peers; rather than teaching our kids that they are responsible for themselves and their actions and responsible for keeping themselves on track. We pepper victims with questions around all the things they did or didn’t do rather than acknowledging that no matter their choices, the person who hurt them is responsible for what they did. I am angry that I have yet to meet someone who doesn’t have a story…
It isn’t just about sexual assault…it’s trauma. Part of what gives trauma the power it has over us is the shame, the silence, the self blame, the blame from our culture and those around us. I spent 14 years telling myself that I was fine, that it didn’t happen, or that if it did, it was my fault and only now am I beginning to heal from it. The cool thing is, I do know that I can heal from it. Monday was scary and thinking about what could have happened to me or someone else (and does happen to others way more frequently than we know) turns my stomach. It also has, in the most unpleasant of ways mind you, given me a chance to own my trauma, to name it and to finally heal through it. I plan to do more EMDR, and even that one night, has given me a clarity I’ve been missing. I’m not feeling as scared, the nausea is gone, I’m sleeping again and I even ate like a normal person yesterday.
Trauma is a funny thing…it needs to be heard and if we don’t listen, it will make sure that we do, at some point, this was mine (or at least one of them).
You don’t have to tell yourself the stories or own those that we hear in our culture. Find someone who is safe enough and has earned the right to hear your story. Put down the blame, shame and responsibility. Know that you are not responsible for what another person does…ever. You don’t have to keep carrying it. Find your healing. If you haven’t tried EMDR or don’t know what it is, look into it, find a therapist that does it…it is incredible. While not the only way to healing, it is the fastest I know.
Hear me…it is NOT your fault. You are NOT responsible for what someone has done to you, they have their own free will and choices to make (refer back to influence versus control post). You deserve to heal.
I will keep healing…I will finally put this down, I don’t have to carry it any longer.