thats my story,
"zake"
When I was 18 I moved across country (to a place I didn't know anybody)
with my boyfriend of 1 year. We lived in an apartment and he worked 12
hours a day 6 days a week. I worked part time in a video store. His cousin
(Mike) lived in the same apartment complex and didn't work (his girlfriend
worked). On my days off I would spend the day talking to Mike so I wouldn't
have to be alone all day. Mike tried to touch me a couple of times and
I would push his hand away. One day when I was at work he came into the
store and said he wanted to talk to me so we went into the office. I can't
remember who closed the door but I know he locked it and turned off the
light. I was very scared and didn't know what to do so I just let him do
what he wanted. He then raped me. I felt very guilty about what had happened
so I didn't tell anybody. I didn't have anybody to tell anyway. I felt
as though I had cheated on my boyfriend. A few days passed and I was at
home by myself and I heard some fireworks outside. It was Mike trying to
get my attention. I looked out the window and he said he wanted to see
me. He went to the security door and I buzzed him in. He came through the
door and before I could say anything he had me on the couch and raped me
again. He told me not to tell anybody about what happend. He left and his
girlfriend called me looking for him. I was scared and I told her I saw
him outside but I don't know where he went. She asked me to come over to
her house so I did. He was there and I felt very guilty. I thought if I
just didn't say anything to anybody it would just go away and be forgotten.
A few months went by and my boyfriend and I spent alot of time at their
house. His girlfriend got pregnant so they got married. One day when I
was over at their house Mike tried to touch me again and I told him no
and that it would never happen again. He never tried to touch me but he
would tell me that I was sexy or that he thought about me. I found out
that I had a bacterial infection so I went to a doctor and got it cleared
up. As soon as it was cleared up I got pregnant (by my bofriend) so we
got married and the stupid creep was the best man. During my pregnancy
I noticed it was very painful to be intimate with my husband. My doctor
said wait until after the baby is born. After my beautiful daughter came
I was very depressed and it was still painful to be intimate. My husband
and I thought it was from the pregnacy and birth. 2 years passed and I
was still very depressed and my husband and I were growing far apart. I
decided I needed help and started seeing a therapist. I've been seeing
her for almost 3 years now. I was having very strange nightmares that wouldn't
make sense. My therapist said I was frightened of something. I was at a
halloween party just this past halloween and we were down in the basement
of this house that was decorated. My husband said to me "look Mike's here"
I turned around to look and there was a dummy with a mask. It looked just
like Mike. I was so scared and I knew that he was what was haunting me
in my nightmares. I told my therapist everything that had happened with
Mike. I told her I felt very guilty and I was afraid to tell my husband
because he might leave me. She told me that I had been raped. I brought
my husband with me to my next session and told him what Mike had done to
me. It's been 3 months now and I am finally beginning to heal. I am still
very angry at Mike and I always will be but I am learning how to deal with
the anger I am starting to forgive myself and I will get passed this and
enjoy my life with my husband. I hope other survivors will read my story
and realize that they can heal too.
My name is John and I'm a survivor of rape. I was raped by my best friend, Pat, when I was a junior in high school. He was gay and took advantage of me being understanding and accepting of him.
Pat asked me to spend the night at his house. I said okay. We went up to his room and hung out. He was on the phone and I was looking at mucle magazines or something to that extent. Pat layed up against me like I was a pillow. I didn't think anything of it at the time. It was not threating or sexual at all. The next thing I know he pinned my arms above my head and started to kiss me. I said " No" " Stop" but he didn't listen to me. He kept kissing me until I stopped fighting him. Then he pulled down my underwear and beformed oral sex on me. After he got me hard he sat on top of me and started to anally penetrate himself. He did this until I had orgasmed. Then he tried to anally penetrate me. I didn't let him do this.
After that he went up to his bed and slept. I stayed on the floor and curled into a ball. In the early morning I got up and went home. I went into my room with out waking my parents and cried myself to sleep. I never ad mitted this until 7 years after it had happened.
I'm now 25 and an Ohio Universtiy senior. I have volunteered for a sexual assault advocate program here at school for the last three years. Since, October I have become the Coordinator of the program. I do presentations to classrooms and detention centers, dorms, frats, and other organizations about my sexual assault. This is how I help myself and others. Talking about it has helped me deal with all the pain and hurt that I feel on the inside.
I want men to realize that it does happen to them and also to let guys out there know that there are places to go for help. There is life after the assault!! I have recovered and I have moved on with my life. It is still part of me, but I have learned to live with that!
If you are interested in talking to me or if I can help you at all please feel free to email me. My email account address is johnh@frognet.net
"from VICTIM
to SURVIVOR
through
EMPOWERMENT"
This is really hard for me because I have never really talked openly to anyone about things that have happened to me. I decided to write to you because I saw you on 20/20 and, also i am amonymous so um..Here goes. First of all, I have had a couple of really painful sexual experiences during my 21 years here on this planet. With different people so for a long time a figured that is was just something about me. The first incident, i have never told anyone, ever. I don't really remember it too clearly but I don't know if it's because i was so young or because i don't want to. When I was really little, before i started school even i used to go to a friend of my mom's house a lot.She had a son that was quite a bit older than me, so if I was 4 or 5 he was probably 7 or 8. i don't remember much. except that he used to touch me a lot, and that i think he made me touch his penis. I remember he used to put his fingers and other stuff into my vagina. I don't know if there was ever any intercourse involved, except one time we were outside and I think he was going to rape me, i was older then maybe 7 or 8 and he was 12 or so, but my mom came outside and she was calling for me, and he ran away. She never knew what was going on. I don't think i knew what sex was all about at that point so i didn't know what was going on, and i just remember knowing that it was bad. I never saw him alone again after that incident, but we went to the same school, so i saw him there, but i never talked to him. I see him once in a great while, and I always get shakey and weird but have never told anyone. So, time goes on, and instead of becoming sexually inhibited, I become very uninhbitd. I always had boyfriends, and eventually lost my virginity when i was 14.The second incident occured when I was 15 or 16, I'm not really sure. I went to a private school, and used to go to my friends house a lot for vacation. She lived pretty much by herself and we used to party a lot. I was also involved with her brother sexually, but not in a relationship. He was not very nice and told a lot of his friends that I was slutty etc. Which I wasn't but anyway. So one night my friend and i were at this party. There was this guy there who liked me but, i didn't really like him in that way, but i was nice to him anyway . I drank a lot that night and smoked a lot of pot. And remember being really fucked up. THe house we were at was huge, really nice, there were lots of people there. I went down stairs with a friend of mine, who had kind of noticed this guy was being weird to me all night. The friend was male, and he said he would kind of watch out for me. I fell asleep on the couch and Mark fell asleep on the floor beside the couch. I guess we both had too much to drink. because he didn't wake up to help me. I remember waking up and someone was on top of me. I didn't know who, I could't see, it was so dark. At first I thought it was Mark, just because he was down there with me, and I thought that guy had left. But then I realized it wasn't mark. I was so small. I couldn't get him off. I don't remember everything, just that I couldn't move, I was being suffocated. I kept slipping in and out of conciousness.I figured out who it was, and said no and get off, but I was too messed up, and too weak. I don't remember most of the rape. I don't remember how long it was or anything. I woke up the next morning naked from the waist down. I remembered what happend. I didn't know what to do.THe guy left immediately after it happened i guess. I didn't tell anyone what happend. But he told everyone that we had sex, everyone thought i was a slut anyway because of my friends brother so i just kept my mouth shut. It wasn't until just recently that i admitted it was rape at all. The silence about this has been hard, and it is hard to talk about it but, i have told quite a few people about it since then. I finally opened up about it because, I was having problems with my current boyfriend, whom i have been with for 4 and a half years. We had been having somes sexual problems, because of this incident. And my boyfriend thought that it had something to do with him. So i told him that i had been raped before we got together, he was very upset. I can't even imagine how hard it was for him to hear it. He loves me so much. He was so angry. He wanted me to tell him who it was, but i don't remember, and he wanted to kill the guy. Mike, that's my boyfriend, doesn't even know the whole story because he can't deal with it, but i talk about it once in awhile to a few of my really close girl friends. The worst thing about all of this is that , i didn't even admit it was rape until this past summer. As for the first incident. No one knows. I am even more afraid to tell anyone, especially those people who know about the more recent rape. I am afraid they will think i am either a. making everything up or b. way to messed up for them to deal with. I also don't want to tell anyone who the person was that molested me when i was little because a lot of people know him. And he could just say it didn't happen. THeses incidents have really messed me up. I have had serious eating problems, fluctuating vastly from too thin to overweight. I had like no self-esteem, I have problems with depression and anxiety/panic disorders. None of which i have ever sought profession help for. I have just started to get back on my feet, with school, and things have never been better between my boyfriend and I . I know that the main reason for that is because i admited it. I just wanted to say thank you. I feel like someone threw me a life preserver.
One... two... three.. four five six seven eight.... my voice begins to drone softly as I count off the number of stories in a low breathy whisper for only me to hear.... I can't cry. Its been so many years and I can't cry... not yet.. My story is the same. My pain is all mine but shared by so many other women. How can this be that we can feel as if this was something to be brushed aside.. I should have stood on a rooftop and screamed insanely into the winds that fought every breath I took for the past twenty years. I should have protested but it was my very nature that kept me silent. My docile sweet innocent nature. The feminine quality that is a charming asset but yet a curse for many of us. I am that paradox...
I don't know my attacker.. that suave clean smelling gentleman who drove up to me supposedly to ask for directions as I sat at a bustop.. I was cutting school again.. I just couldn't face the day in that classroom where I knew I could do better but I never did better. So instead I planned a trip to the mall to be followed by evening jaunt to the local teenage Disco. I loved to dance and meet boys.. It made me feel special the way the fell all over themselves to woo me while I tossed my silken blonde tresses flirtatiously. I had worked so hard at dairy Queen to buy the coolest cloths. Expensive fabrics and designer labels.. I was a star... a baby Disco Queen. So.. here I was Miss Disco dressed up in a getup that was way beyond my years. Sheer Black Crepe..long flowing skirt that would really accent my dance moves. and the shoes yes.. PLATFORMS the original ones... My mother so appropriately labeled "fuck me pumps".. She would complain and I would roll my eyes.. She didn't know what was kewl .. as I strutted out the door on my disco stilts.that added five inches more to my already sleek muscular young legs...
I have drifted off from the story... so...now we are back to HIM... I see that car.. RED and shiny.. it looks hot.. A million thoughts flash through my teenage mind.. "Wow expensive" was one of them.. He rolled open the window and leaned forward I could see a briefcase in the passenger seat... He smiled up at me and asked me about some street.. It begins to get fuzzy here.... I know I am attracted to the car.. like a good little teeny bopper I smile at the car.. never noticing the hormone driving it. He asks me if I want a ride... I KNOW BETTER... I just know it but damn it if I am not still smiling at that frigging red Porsche. I say no at first.. shyly demure.. just as sweet as sugar.. He sees the flash in my eyes as I struggle to do the right thing... And he.. sees... his prey... He is smooth he stalks me .. suave... assuring.. easy going he slowly gets me off guard with his banter as he leans out towards window. a breeze catches a waft of Polo cologne My higher brain is abandoning me now as I see how NICE he is.. He is so friendly.. He has a hot expensive car.. he looks clean-cut.. He is in a suit. He isn't a hood...THESE kinda guys want to date you but they don't hurt you.. they have too m uch to loose.. Bad guys drive vans and smell bad and don't shave.. they have tattoos.. there hair is greasy... I go through the list... My mind starts trashing the red flags even before I see them.. I KNEW BETTER I still say this to myself for YEARS after the incident.. I cannot bring myself to call it by its ugly name.. That mirror is a tough one to look into.. No tears for me... No tears to cry yet.. I want to but I can't I try to force out a fake sob and it sickens me.. I disgust myself.. week week week stupid stupid stupid I chant to myself.. Get over it I say.. and I march foreword never looking back.. until now. He,, with his shiny balding head.. older.. but nice haircut I take note again... Not so attractive but heck look at that car I say...He leans foreword and smiles at me.. his lips curve upwards knowingly as he opens his briefcase as if he is going to get something.. I watch.. and I see... and I see his hand reach in.. its so fast I don't even have much time to puzzle over why he needs something in his case now.. I see it shine.. Oh yes.. I see something I have never seen in my life until this moment.. a shiny black piece of metal.. It is not a toy and he points it at my pretty blank face and asks me again if I need a ride..I shake my head no.. and he says.. get in.. I will take you anywhere you want to go.
he pushes the door open.. and I slide into that car in a surreal liquid movement of Black Chiffon... and legs.. As he compliments me on my dress I mindlessly babble about where I had purchased it and how much it cost and some inane story that was so pointless but seemed to be numbing me like novocaine. I become every perverts fantasy all in one breathless idiot moment I become the vapid blonde teenage over dressed tramp. Flipping my hair like the valley girl I was and chattering a mile a minute in some attempt to put him at ease and perhaps make him change his mind because he would feel pity for me because I just didn't get it.. How could he hurt a sweet little airhead who didn't even realize she had been highjacked.. But I knew very well what the point was.. I got it.. and fast..and I was the village idiot plotting my escape.. He couldn't feel like I would be trouble to handle.. I didn't want him to know I had a mind and I could maybe actually by some chance get out of this.. trouble.. I was a deer with my eyes wide open in the glare of the headlights... I knew I was getting hit and I was plotting an escape but I was out of time.. too late SMACK!!! He pushes the gun into my ribcage and pokes at the side of my breast.. lewdly jabbing at my soft flesh as I wince.. still chattering.. a tear rolls down my face.. and I say to him.. It wont do any good for me to ask you not to hurt me will it? and he says no.. it wouldn't but I don't want to hurt you . I wont hurt you if your a good girl and do as I say.. His voice was liquid and masculine.. and frightening.. I felt REAL fear.. I never felt such fear... as he drove me into the hills of Los Gatos. He puts his h gun away.. sort of pushes it into the case and smiles at me.. He asks me questions.. Like we are on a damn date!! I am outraged but fearful.. I talk nice... I am a good girl yes.. I am a good girl.. stupid stupid stupid...
I look and consider jumping from the car and decide its not a good idea.. its so peaceful now.. If I defy him he may just shoot me in the back.. I am a good girl... I cry inside.. I feel fear I wonder if I am going to get home alive.. damn it if I don't wonder if I am going to get to the Disco on time.. This behavior may seem odd but I am closing down to survive.. I feel what I am in for and I know. .. I don't want to think about what is going on.. He pulls up to the house.. God its beautiful.. I tell him so.. But I cant imagine he would take me to his home.. I start to wonder what is going on.. and I do make a week attempt to dart away when I get out of the car but he grabs my arm hard and forcefully leading me to this house.. beside the nice house.. a sort of guest house thing.. not an elegant guesthouse.. it looks like it was a garage shed but its set up like an apartment.and he shoves me inside of there.. No one lives here you can tell its used to store the junk a large house must acquire throughout the years and they shove it in here.. he tells me to strip.. slowly so he can take pictures..
I do what he tells me because I am a good girl.. I may live if I am a good girl he is constantly reassuring me he just wants me to do as he says and I will be fine.. he asks about my boyfriends.. he wants stories.. so I tell him anything he wants to know.. he reaches inside my head and gets intimate.. forces my mind to open up and he talks to me.. as I strip for him and turn and pose as he chats like I am his little freak model I feel surreal.. I feel cold I feel naked.. stripping my soul I feel him raping my mind before he ever touches my body.. then I realize for the first time in my life ever.. I feel HATE... It is as passionate as love.. only more volatile.. I feel hate for him it pours from me.. and I hate him for making me know this experience.. I hate him and through this I survive as he proceeds to use me.. I see a sword on the wall and wonder if he will use this to kill me.. I think of the Loud gun.. and I lay back and become his puppet.. He pulls my strings and I move and dance for him.. My body is numb and I feel nothing... He uses me and then he gets up.. and dresses slowly.. I watch him and he become so ugly and hideous to me.. his suave is erased his aged body slumps a little his shoulders are stooped just a tad... Nothing can make him better in my mind.. I try to make it nicer.. I talk myself into it.. I sooth myself but my anger rages....... More happens... lots more.. but in the end I get to the Disco.. I stop at a drugstore for a soda and to get some lipgloss.. I use the hundred dollar bill he handed to me.... I get in a photobooth and slip quarters into the slot and I stare into the mirrored glass.. and it flashes into my already blind eyes... and it spits out my nightmare... four colorless pictures of a sixteen year old girl with blank eyes. and a shattered soul. I walk down the street to the Disco.. looking like a teenage streetwalker in my finery.. and that fresh fucked look.. So the police pick me up ask me where I am going and I tell them to the Disco... so they call my Mother and ask her where I am and she says after school I was going to my girlfriends house.. and probably to the Disco.. So they drive me to the club Studio 47 and I pay my way in and proceed to dance.. I left out the middle of the story.. the physical part of the rape was nothing.. I wasn't their when it happened I left in the beginning of the whole thing.. It took years for me to return... I walked and talked like me but there was something missing for a long time..
I still cannot face it all.. its like I saw it in a movie.. It wasn't me.. but You know I still have those photos...
