September 28th, 2018. Trigger Warning, Sexual Assault/Rape on…
Tags: Me Too Movement, College, Sexual Assault, Sexual Assault Awareness, Rape

(1)

The sun started peeking out from over the stadium about an hour ago.

Its light slicing through the blinds, casting mini mountain ranges of shadows along the imaginary constellations that I’d been tracing in the popcorn ceiling the past three nights, as it poured rain. Unfortunately, counting these made up constellations proved as ineffective as counting sheep.

I can’t bring myself to tell them the whole story, so they think I’m just imagining it. That it’s all an elaborate excuse for my grades tanking.

I just wish I had the words to portray this truly inexplicable feeling of being trapped in my own head as my anxious thoughts run circles around me at a dizzying speed, only pausing long enough every once in a while for me to force myself to eat something. Yet, never reaching a complete stop for anything or anyone.

I wish that I could just ‘get out of my head’ as easily as those words can flow from my fingertips.

I wish I could tell them how his voice haunts me anytime it gets quiet enough for me to think, or how much worse it gets when I can hear my breathing grow shakier and shakier until it finally matches the ragged, frantic gasps that left my lips that night.

I wish I could tell them how each drop of rain that pounds against my window amplifies his whispers as they echo through my brain, instead of drowning him out like I prayed they would.

(2)

I wish I could tell them that every time I close my eyes, I open them to find myself in the alleyway where any feeling of safety I may have had on this campus, in this world even, was brutally ripped from my grasp. Leaving behind the shell of a girl who once thought that she could, and would conquer the world and any tribulation thrown at her. A girl who didn’t think of three different ways that her actions could cause her world to crumble at her feet before doing it.

I wish I would’ve called them just to hear a comforting voice all those times when I found myself curled into a ball in the middle of the night as my mind replayed his words on loop, scared of where I may find myself if I so much as opened my eyes.

I wish I could tell them that the real reason I missed classes wasn’t because I had a migraine, or that I had ‘accidentally’ slept through them; but that every time it rains I’m scared that he’ll find me again.

I wish I could tell them how as soon as it gets dark outside, I can feel his eyes burning into me anytime I pass a shadow that he could even possibly be hiding in.

I wish I could tell them that I had found good friends to go out with, who I could trust to have my back, who would look out for me.

I wish I could forget the feeling of utter helplessness and shame that consumed me as the cold, wet cement dug further and further into my back with each moment that passed.

(3) I used to love staring at the night sky until I saw how clear and empty it was once he and the rain no longer found entertainment in tormenting me.

I wish that I could tell the world that I was not a part of the statistic.

Most of all I wish I could ask God what it is that I am supposed to learn from this.

I wish that I could understand, so that I can help them understand why I came back so different. But saying any of these things would break them, so I can’t. They would feel as if they failed to protect me and see the solution as pulling me from school and making me move back home.

I really wish I had told someone, anyone, about this before I found myself sitting against the back wall of a party room for so long, that someone called my best friend to come get me and carry me home because I was too scared to move. This happened all because it had started storming outside, and I thought I was distracted enough to avoid being taken back to that place in my mind.

The place where the thunder blends into the muted bass of the music from the club that resided on the other side of the brick wall I had been thrown against. The place where each flash of lightning is mistaken for the headlights of a car passing by, what at that point, could’ve just looked like a couple arguing.

My friend carried me out to their car, took me home, and all but added locks to my door in an effort to make me feel safe again.

(4)

Regardless of the countless times I said “I’m fine. Really it’s okay, you can go.”, they refused to leave until I “got it off of my chest” and explained to them what just happened.

But how exactly do you tell someone who you’ve shared most of your deepest thoughts with, that you completely broke down because a rainstorm kicked up?

I still struggle with the aftereffects of that night, but I’ve learned how to deal with the anxiety and circular thought process that comes along with it because I survived, and I’m okay.

Tomorrow, the sun will rise in the East just like every other morning passed, as well as every morning that’s yet to come, and my life will continue.