In summer 2016, me and one of my old school friends (going to call her Gina for this - not her real name) met for a catch up in one of the local pubs. This eventually led to us going on a night out and going clubbing.
We met a small group of guys as Gina knew two of them very well. The night went along and was a good night, when eventually we got asked to go back to one of their houses for an after party where they was all staying.
More drinks where consumed and some drinking games where played when eventually everyone decided to go to sleep. I slept on a sofa as everyone there knew that I had a boyfriend (who wouldn't have minded me staying out as at the time, we had a very relaxed relationship). I fell asleep and I cannot stress enough how drunk I was.
From there on, all I remember is waking up to him sexually assaulting me. I do not want to go into details too much, but all I can say is me asking what he was doing and telling him to stop did not work. I will not lie and say that I pushed him off, because I didn't. I was too drunk to do anything other than lie there and tell him to get off and make very poor attempts at moving away from him. Once again, I cannot stress enough how drunk I was.
The next morning we left and I had blurry memory, and I was sat at Gina's house when I knew that my memories where real and I broke down. I told my boyfriend, who banned me from going out and eventually broke up with me as he thought I was a liar who was trying to find an excuse for cheating on him. I have never cheated on anyone in my life and what hurt me more than the experience was that no one believed me. I haven't spoken to Gina since. I was diagnosed with depression and anxiety, I had multiple nightmares about it and would take a different route to work as driving past his house gave me panic attacks. On a daily basis I considered suicide, and attempted it twice.
It has now been almost two years, and I am preparing to go to university. I have realized that the person I loved was wrong in not believing me and that he also put me through a lot of emotional and occasionally physical abuse which also was a factor in my mental health deterioration. It took me a long time to come to terms with the fact that it wasn't my fault in any way and that I wasn't a cheater.
I was asleep/unconscious, no consent was given.
I have spent the last year focusing on self-improvement and although I am not 100% perfect right now, I understand that I don't have to be. I am a work in progress and even standing still is still personal progress. I have surrounded myself with amazing people and who have helped me so much on my bad days and been there to celebrate my good days.
All I want to say to finish this off is that it does get better. I still have bad moments now, but maybe for one hour every month, instead of 24/7, and I still have a lot of progress to make, but it can happen and you will honestly be shocked at how far you can go.
Anonymous