Dear... Any Girl Who Has Been Assaulted
Only just recently, over a year and a half after this incident happened to me am I just now accepting it and telling other people about it.
I’ve sat with it for this whole time pretending that in some way it was my fault. That it was my fault for being dumb enough to take a sip of a stranger’s drink on my first night out in a new city, that it was my fault for being dumb enough to wear something revealing and that it was my fault to trust people I had just met at my school and thought were friends.
Let me tell you a secret that those kind of people don’t want you to know: none of this is your fault. It is not your fault that people go out of their way to drug your drink, it is not your fault that you dress how you want to and that people think that gives them the right to take advantage of you, and it is not your fault that they betrayed your trust.
It is entirely on that person who took advantage of you. You are not in the wrong and you should not have to feel ashamed of what someone else did to YOU, that is not you, that is them.
Over a year and a half ago, the first night I went out for a night out on my study abroad in Prague, I was raped. That the first time I’ve ever typed that out in concrete way. That’s the first time I’ve ever seen the line “I was raped” and I’m referring to myself.
This entire time I’ve spent making excuses for it. I told myself I was making things up or that I was too drunk to know anything for sure, but there were flashes of that night that have haunted me until this day. All I remember from the night, after I took a sip of this man’s drink, are flashes. Flashes of him forcing me to leave the club then to tell him where I lived. Me not remembering how to get there since I had only been in the country for 10 days. Him ripping my phone out of my hand and going through contacts and messages to find it. Him forcing me upstairs and locking to door behind him. Him telling me that “It’s okay” and that I should stop struggling and panicking.
All I remember is being terrified. I remember not even being able to use my words. I had heard of and seen these things on TV, but I never expected that I would be the one. That I would be one of those girls who lays there, not being able to speak and having it happen to them.
What I’m trying to say in all of this is to help any other girl who is stuck in that period of thinking that it’s all in their head. That it was their fault somehow. That they are somehow in the wrong for the abuse that they encountered.
It can be anyone. It could be a lifelong friend, a boyfriend, a stranger you met that night, anyone. Never feel like it is your fault that they abused your trust and took advantage of you. That is on them.
Take your time to heal, take action legally, or anything that you need to do. This is something that happened to you. It does not define you. It does not restrict you. You are you, and someone took advantage of that and thought they could control you with it.
Really what I’m trying to leave you with is this: Stop making excuses for someone else’s actions. What they did to you is not your fault. Take all the time you need to heal and don’t feel the need to apologize for it.