Random Thoughts on a Saturday Night

I've been having a weird night and just felt like writing all of this stuff down might make my head stop spinning.

I was watching Easy A earlier which is one of my favorite movies ever! I watched it for 3 weeks straight last year when it was on Netflix. Why did I watch it so much? Because while my world was being flip, turned upside down (if you caught the Fresh Prince reference there you get major brownie points!) Easy A remained funny. As stupid as it sounds, that movie was my constant. Emma Stone was still hilarious no matter how many times I watched the movie and I loved the fact that I was able to remove myself from my problems and concern myself with the problems that arose in the movie. 

You may be wondering why I'm even talking about this movie. See, the thing is, while I was watching the movie today it brought me back to the worst time I've ever had in my life. I could remember (in great detail) being raped, going to the police, telling my roommate, telling my parents, and being ripped away from everything that made sense and taken back to NY. Looking back I guess nothing made sense at all, but I didn't want to go back to NY all summer. I hated my parents for bringing me home (I felt like I had been pushed into it...when I had talked to my Dad on the phone it sounded like I didn't have a choice).  Even though I know now that going home was the best thing for me, all the feelings of doubt I had came rushing back today. 

I don't resent anyone for any decisions they made, or pushed me to make...I really don't. Honestly I couldn't have done better at the time! My brain was a pile of mush if I remember correctly. I couldn't function, I was running on little sleep and I thought that if I just denied anything ever happened I would be able to live normally like I always had.  My parents and the people who stepped in right away actually probably saved me from myself and I just refused for a while to see it that way.  Looking back, getting an hour of sleep a night, refusing to eat, and locking myself in my room most likely were not helpful to me at all.  I remember one night I baked banana nut muffins at 3am and couldn't eat them. So instead, I took the plate outside, walked over to the train tracks and threw them at a fence. Cause that was healthy and safe.

I had to meet with the police a lot back then too and that sucked. Remembering it was worse.  I was the one being interrogated (at least it felt that way).  There were parts of my attack I couldn't remember (I still to this day cannot remember....things come to me in pieces, but I'm pretty sure out of sequence) and the detective kept pushing and pushing for me to remember. So I finally made something up. Do you know what he said to me? "Is that what actually happened or did you make it up so I would stop asking you?" Seriously dude if you're going to work in the Special Victims Unit you need to get your act together. Don't you DARE treat me like I'm the one who did something wrong. Let's not forget I was the victim in all of this. Law and Order SVU lied to me, detectives aren't that nice....they kind of suck. Well at least the one I had to deal with did. I may have called him some rude names after he said that to me....it was kind of a knee jerk reaction.  That was how I was protecting myself.  Don't pass judgment on me when you don't know what I've been through, and you better not pass judgment when it's your JOB to find out. 

I remembered going to the ER.  I remembered the Sexual Assault Nurse I had to put up with. I liked her at first until weeks later when I figured out she skipped over a crucial part of my exam so she wouldn't 'traumatize you again'.  It's her job to take some more invasive measures than she did to see if there was any forensic evidence she could use against a rapist.  She didn't do those. I hadn't really ever needed to go see a girly doctor (I'm only calling her that so I don't have to look up how to spell the correct name haha) and the tools this nurse was supposed to use are things that would have been used in a typical exam there. She told me that it was unnecessary to do that because she wouldn't be able to find anything anyway since I had showered several times before hand.  I found out 3 weeks later from my normal doctor that if she had done what she was supposed to she could have found something (the evidence they needed would not have disappeared because of a few showers) and it may have been able to create a case against the guy who attacked me. I was livid. This was 2 days after I found out the charges had been dropped.

I remember being judged by people.  I remember being judged by the nurse before my STD screening. I remember being judged by the woman taking my blood for an HIV test.  They looked so disgusted, like I was the nastiest thing on the planet.  I shouldn't have had to defend myself or explain, but I did anyway.  Do you know what it feels like to have everything taken from you, to have everything you've ever known not make sense anymore, to feel violated and alone, to feel desperate for an answer to "why", to feel like scum because people make a choice to judge you based on someone elses' actions?  It freakin sucks.

I chose to blame myself for a really long time. I still do. Even 2 days ago I was thinking about it and thought "maybe if I hadn't been drinking this never would have happened..." "maybe if I had stopped being friends with ---- this never would have happened".  The thoughts go on. If I hadn't gone upstairs, if I had fought harder, if I had just gone home before anything got serious.....  Maybe I never should have called the police. Maybe I shouldn't have agreed to press charges.  Had I overreacted? Maybe I had wanted it to happen and just freaked out at the last second.

Those are all things that have gone running through my brain time and time again.  I know in my heart that nothing I could have done would have stopped him, I know that I wasn't overreacting and that I NEVER wanted anything to happen. It just sucks that I have to live the rest of my life being judged for something I had no control over.