Exploring Womanhood > Tough Issues > Rape & Sexual Abuse > Personal Stories
Rape & Sexual Abuse
Taking that power back
I don't remember any more how old I was when it started, although I
do know I must have been old enough to be at home alone for short
periods, so I must have been 10 or 11. My mother and stepfather were
both at work, and I was at home after school, with my older brother.
I had one of those older brothers that no one ever wants - the kind
who gets a kick out of terrorizing you.
The details are still sketchy in my head, but I do know he came into
my bedroom and ordered me to take my clothes off. I did because I
was afraid of him. He spent a long time touching me, and trying to
get me to touch him. When I wouldn't, and also wouldn't allow him
to penetrate me, he kicked me very hard "down there" and left. I was
not close to my mother and couldn't bring myself to tell her what
had happened, or that it kept happening. It was always the same, except
he started to find ways of forcing me to touch him. I always said
no, but I was always forced to. It always ended the same way, with
me refusing to let him penetrate me, and then him hurting me and leaving.
I lived in fear of my brother for a long time, enduring the hell he
put me through many times, for about 3 years. He told me that if I
ever told anyone, he would "shut me up forever."
I was never able to tell anyone while it was happening because I was
so scared of him and so sure that no one would believe me. That changed
when my brother was arrested for sexually assaulting someone in my
extended family, and sent to a juvenile prison for several weeks.
I tried to bring myself to tell my father, who I was by then living
with exclusively, but somehow, I could not get the words out, and
I was still scared.
When
I was 16, I saw my brother for the very last time. I was heading out
of the house for an evening with a friend, my father was out and my
brother was grounded. My brother, who had been becoming increasingly
violent, lost it when he learned I was going out when he wasn't allowed
to. He held me up against the wall with a knife to my throat, and
screamed that he was going to kill me. I somehow managed to fight
him off, and I got out of the house as fast as I could. I called my
father, who came home and took my brother to be committed to a psychiatric
ward. I have never seen him again. I hope that somehow he is getting
help, but forgiveness is another matter, one which I work on every
day.
Wanting
escape from the turmoil of my home life and the recent breakup of the
boy I had lost my virginity to, I started going out more. Through
a group of friends, I met "Jeremy," who seemed nice and who had a
lot of the same interests I did. He wasn't long-term material, but
I wasn't looking for anything other than someone to have fun with.
I wasn't particularly attracted to him sexually, but then, I wasn't
planning on having sex with him. He and I saw each other for about
5 weeks, over the course of which I got more and more worried about
my relationship with him. It started out with what I at first saw
as small things - he wouldn't respect my boundaries, like calling
when I told him not to call because I was going to sleep, or touching
me more than I was comfortable in public. I quickly learned that these
were danger signals I should not have ignored.
By
the time I had worked up the courage to end my relationship with him,
I had decided not to do it in person. He lived fairly far away, and
I was scared enough of him that I was frightened of what his reaction
might be. He was starting to become obsessed with me, and I was worried.
I ended the relationship on a Thursday night, and went out on Friday
with some friends, to relax and enjoy myself - something I hadn't
been doing a lot of. Jeremy turned up at the club we were dancing
at, and began to follow me around, not saying a word to me, just staring
at me and following me wherever I went. A male friend of mine took
me out of the club and for a walk, and we heard footsteps behind us
all the way.
I
went home, only to find several messages on my answering machine from
Jeremy, accusing me of finding a new boyfriend already, and declaring
his undying love for me. Unwisely, I know now, I called him the next
day and agreed to meet him to talk things out at a coffee place. The
talk went surprisingly well, and I left feeling better - he seemed
to have understood me. To clear my head after I had left, I went for
a walk through a park, not finding out until too late that he had
followed me. It was dark by this time, and he grabbed me from behind,
pulled me behind a tree, and raped me. I screamed "NO!" at the top
of my lungs, but either no one heard me, or no one wanted to get involved.
I wanted to get out of there with my life, so I went rigid and pretended
the whole thing was happening to someone else.
Afterwards
he cried and told me he couldn't understand why I didn't love him,
and why I couldn't see how much he loved me. Then he threatened to
kill me if I ever told anyone what happened. I got out of there as
fast as I could, but I was too shocked and scared to tell anyone what
had happened to me.
It was echoes of my brother all over again, and I spent a long time
in my bedroom, crying and wondering what on earth it was about me
that made men do this. Jeremy still called me, managed to get my phone
number even after I had changed it, and turned up at my school. That
finally ended when he moved across the country with his parents.
Healing
has been a long, rocky process, and in some ways, has been harder
than the assaults themselves. What I finally realized was that rape
is an act of power and control, that these people who had hurt me
were trying to control me, and to control who I was and what my life
was like. Long after the assaults were over, by allowing the feelings
of guilt, shame and disgust to continue to wash over me, my life was
still being controlled. These people who had been out of my life for
months and years still had the power to reduce me to a flood of tears
on a daily basis. I developed a "don't let them win" attitude, and
refused to let them continue to have power over me, and to affect
my ability to lead a happy life.
Now, 5 years on from the last time I saw my brother and Jeremy, I
think of what happened not with fear of them, but with pride in myself
for surviving, for being strong, and for turning my life into what
I wanted it to be. Looking back, there were so many warning signs
that I didn't know I should be looking for, but maybe if I had, things
would not have ended so badly. I wish I had told someone about what
my brother was doing, I wish I had realized how dangerous Jeremy's
behavior was.
So
often this kind of violence escalates, becoming worse than you ever
thought it was possible. Sexual assault is so common now that I think
people shut their eyes to it, not expecting to ever see it so close
to home. We really need to keep our eyes open, to listen to our inner
voices, and to speak out when something is wrong. No one ever really
noticed that something so horrible was happening to me, because I
was so good at hiding it. I know now that it was never anything I
did, or anything about me, that caused this to happen. This is done
by weak men trying to be powerful men by taking our power from us.
If there is one thing I have learned, it is that we owe it to ourselves
to take that power back.
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