The Long Story: Part 2: Dehumanization

If you haven't already, please first read the introduction,
Strength comes from refusing to be shamed.

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24 years ago, when I turned 16, I had yet to hold hands with a boy, skip a class, take a drink, or get in any sort of trouble. A few months later, I was raped.

It was my first experience with alcohol, and it was in an uncontrolled environment. Read: I was drunk off my ass at my first party. The last thing I remember before blacking out is how the bourbon tasted like water as I guzzled it straight, and how very little was left in the bottle.

I recall nothing until the cold night air hit me, where I had the sensation of being carried by several people, horizontal, face-up, and feeling completely limp. I heard someone say something like “get her out of here” or “I’ll get her out of here”, recall the sound of a car door opening, and seconds later I was out again.

This is when I ceased being a person.

The next thing to bring me slightly into consciousness for a brief moment was the sensation of an unfamiliar pain in my vagina. I was on my back, someone was on top of me, and I was somehow able to mumble, “stop that hurts” before going out again.

Later, I regained consciousness for good to find myself in the back of a moving vehicle with no clothing below my waist and some strange adult male driving the car, ironically just as he was driving past a police station. I realized what happened, and all I could do was instinctively find a way to get the hell out of that car in the least-confrontational way possible before he “realized” I knew and did something about that.

From that moment, the next several months was a swirl of simply reacting. Reacting is not much of an exercise in free will. I didn't have the time to absorb what happened and take control of my life.

I eventually got out of that car without further incident, and before I had time to absorb or get over the shock enough to be proactive, I found myself being admonished by my dad for being drunk. That now became what I was reacting to. By the time the hangover was gone, it was time to go back to school. Even though I never said anything about that weekend, I was the talk of the place for two weeks (so much so that all I know of the talk is what I overheard and was not directed at me but about me. It was that prevalent). That talk, of course, was that I was a whore and a slut. The whole time was like still being beaten down before I had the opportunity to get back up. No one ever, ever, said "what happened" or "are you okay?"

No longer was it an isolated incident. I didn't have the opportunity to deal with it in that manner yet, in some neutral environment. Now it was everywhere, and I was worthless as a human. After that weekend, I stepped out into the world, and the world rejected me.

So, the guilt and the shame and the overwhelming feeling of meaning nothing to no one quickly led to the reaction of drinking, drugs, skipping school, and sleeping around. This was the only world that accepted me, that didn't slam the door in my face when I approached. It drew me in because it valued the only thing I had of value any more: my pain, the opportunity to numb it, and my value as a fuckable object. I never knew at the time that it's not an uncommon reaction to sexual assault. I don't know why I reacted that way, personally. Was it self-punishment? Were the drugs to numb the pain of the experience? Was the sex some way to mimic the situation and claim control, to bring it to some sort of conclusion? Was it a combination of all of these things? I still don't know. All the same, it was reacting, even if I didn't know it at the time.

All I did know is that I felt like a completely different person. On autopilot. Looking for acceptance in places where it could never exist.

I also didn't know how all that behavior contributes to your vulnerability, and the cycle can continue. Or maybe I did, but refused to see it out of self-hate. I still don't know that, either. So, after several months of skipping school, promiscuity, getting drunk, stoned, tripping, speeding, and doing whatever else I could get my hands on, one day I found myself skipping school. I was drunk, stoned, and physically limp but mentally somewhat aware. I didn't much give a shit about anything at the time, so when some guy climbed on top of me, I just let him get it over with because I didn't have the energy to roll him off, or the energy and self-worth to care.

And so it went for a few more weeks. My behaviors didn't change, even when I was late and went to a clinic to get a pregnancy test. The little sheet I walked out with said the results were positive. All I saw was a piece of paper, nothing more.

One night in particular I was out with friends, and we stopped to visit others who decided to camp out for the weekend. I decided to hang around, and walked the few miles back home the next morning along the railroad tracks. My father met me at the door and said that if I came in, he was going to hit me. "Fine," I said, and walked back to the campsite, where I hung out and partied the rest of the weekend. I did not know what I would do beyond that, nor did I really care. At the time, I was just going to hang out as I normally did, perhaps sleeping at the camp site, getting the $300 out of my savings account, and shoplifting from the mini-store nearby when the money ran out. The piece of paper played no part in my weak scenario.

By the middle of the week, I was located and taken home under threat of police involvement. During my absence police had searched my room, and along with stashes of alcohol and drugs they came across correspondence that revealed not only my "wild" activities, but the results of my pregnancy test. I heard myself referenced as a slut and a whore a lot at school after I was raped, but I never heard these things said as often, or in so many ways, as I did that night from my parents. It was the first and only time my father did hit me, drawing blood from my nose as I cowered, hyperventilated, and endured more yelling. Yelling about what a cheap cunt I was, and yelling at me to stop hyperventilating. I wondered if I should have let the police pick me up, after all.

When things settled down I was asked what I was going to do about the pregnancy, and for the first time I made a decision without being pressured. It was very uneventful and matter of fact. It was not questioned or judged or doubted. It was the only thing I was sure of, and it was accepted.

The abortion was the first time I truly had control of the situation. Because of this, it ended up having the effect of halting much of the reactive behavior of the past several months. I fully believe that abortion saved my life, and I do not feel compelled to apologize to one person about that. Deal. It allowed me, for the first time, the freedom to finally start to "get back up" and take back my life.

It doesn't end there, of course. Life is too complicated for that. It takes a long time to "get back up" and find yourself, stumbling along the way.

The next few years went by in a haze of emotional numbness and disconnect where I was just going through the motions. I suppose I needed that long to separate myself from all of it, emotionally and mentally, before I could start to grow again. When the numbess wore off I began by reflecting on that period. It was a reflection that had me recalling, for the first time, the hazy memory of being molested at six years old, It was a reflection that resulted in much of what I've written here.

At that time, I could only tell myself that while the initial incident was rape, I was drunk after all so don't I feel all guilty about that. I also accepted all guilt and blame for subsequent reactive behavior. I would still "slip" with one night stand behavior and not only feel like absolute shit, I worried that I was regressing somehow. That shame and guilt-filled behavior was followed by anxiety. I just kept finding a a new way, it seems, to keep on suffering.

Know what? I'm tired of suffering.

I decided I needed to get all radical on my own ass and place blame where it belongs; to stop letting it find new ways to eat at me. It has been an ongoing process of confidence building for my own good, wherein I place blame for that entire period not only at the hands of my rapist, but also to those who stood by and allowed him access to an unconscious teen, to those who gladly fucked me when I was wasted, and to those who didn't know me and called me a slut. It may sound harsh and inflammatory, but this is my personal battle, how I regain total control over my life, how I stop reacting and become proactive.

Accountability or lack thereof can be laid at all of our feet. It doesn't matter if someone did the deed or just stood by while it happened or used it as an opportunity to trash talk or get an easy lay down the road. All of it contributes to the overall atmosphere of the "rape culture". All of it adds to the shame and guilt and destruction of the person. All of it is accessory to the crime.

last updated 3/26/06