Last New Years Eve, my boyfriend, some friends and I went to the local bar to celebrate. Our son stayed with his grandparents at their cabin for the night, and I remember he didn’t really want to stay out there. He wanted to go home with us, but I got him to sleep and we headed back to town to join up with our friends. I remember feeling like maybe I should have taken him home, what if he wakes up in the middle of the night crying for us and we can’t pick him up.
So we get to the bar, and we’re all having a good time. We were playing pool and just enjoying New Years. However I was pushing everyone to take shots all night. (Not the best idea, I’m a lightweight) So my boyfriend has had enough to drink and heads home. I stayed and awhile later 2 of my friends leave. Then that’s when I blacked out. I do remember at some point I came to and was leaning over to snort something white up my nose, I remember it burning and then I was gone again (I’ve never done or wanted to do drugs) I came to one more time before I woke up and it took me a long time and a lot of sleepless nights to fully remember what happened. I remember I thought my boyfriend was on top of me, and he was trying to get inside of me, and I was so drunk and I was so dizzy I was repeating his name and it sounded like it was echoing inside of me. Like I was empty. Then he looked at me and said why are you calling me by that name. And then I was gone again.
I woke up the next day in a unfamiliar bed, completely naked, and laying next to someone I only knew by name. I’m pretty certain I was still drunk because I felt sick and my head was spinning. I looked into the mirror in the bathroom and my neck was covered in bruises. At that point I’m bawling my eyes out and he woke up asking what was wrong. I told him I don’t know how I got there and I don’t know what happened. So he calls me a cab and I went home and slept for 2 days on and off trying to wrap my head around that night.
On the second day I took myself to the hospital to get myself checked for anything. Because it was the holidays I had to go to the emergency and I spent 5 hours waiting to be seen, then they did a rape check on me. The doctor who was seeing me stopped dead in her tracks when she walked in and saw my neck, I told her I didn’t like hickies. She looked at me and said those aren’t hickies, they’re bruises. So they do what they have to do, then they inform me that it looks like I started my period, which was weird because my IUD completely stopped my period, but I was so tired and hungry I didn’t mention that. I was told to wait until a police officer came, and that took another hour and a half. He took my statement and I met up with the officer who took my case a few days later. I spent the next few months calling her for updates and contemplating suicide. It was the hardest 3 months of my life. Finally she called me and she talked to my rapist who claims that he doesn’t remember what happened either, so after the waiting and the counselling sessions and the ptsd episodes and more waiting, all he had to do was claim he didn’t remember and he was off the hook. She told me that the rape kit wasn’t back yet and they were having the pictures of my bruises sent out to a professional to be examined. And after maybe another 2 months my rape kit finally came back with nothing. It was clean because I had showered and bathed before I went to the hospital and I regret it every day. Then after a few weeks she calls me back and informes me that they did not in fact look like normal bruises. So she tells me that I can’t press charges, and that if I wanted, she could arrange a meeting with him before she went on vacation. Unfortunately I made my decision too late and she was gone.
It’s been just over a year now. I’ve stopped going to my sessions because I don’t really have the time to go anymore, I’m on anti depressants, and I take it day by day. However, I don’t go a day without thinking of what happened and what I wished I had done instead. I know it isn’t my fault, and I know that I shouldn’t blame how much I drank that night. But I still do. I still wish I had just taken my son home with me, I wish that I had gone home when my boyfriend left the bar. I wish I had gone to the hospital when I got into that cab, but there’s nothing I can do to change that, so I live with it. I’ve learned to believe a woman who says she’s been assaulted, I’ve learned to speak up a little more about assault and to speak up against those who joke about it. I try to keep what happened to me close to my heart so I can be more considerate of others who are going through the same thing I did.
I’m glad I am sharing this with you but I don’t consider it my story, because my story isn’t over yet. That was a chapter in my life, and I’ve learned from it. And I hope someone can learn from mine.
B. Kowana