warrior.

warrior.

noun. a person engaged or experienced in warfare;

a person engaged in some struggle or conflict

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before: i was content, i was unafraid, i thought i had it all together.

after: i was fearful, i was ashamed, i was worthless.

now: i am strong, i am empowered, i am worthy. 

in the summer of 2016 i thought i had it all together. i knew exactly where i was going, what i was going to do, and who i was going to be with. i had been dating the same man for several years, i was in school studying something i loved, and i had great friends by my side to support me and help me overcome any obstacle in my way. my life was good, and i didn’t think anything would ever alter that. i was wrong. 

going into the fall of that year, i fell into a bit of a depression, and started to question everything i was close to, and everything i once loved. the life that i had created for myself suddenly seemed uninteresting. i didn’t know where i was going. i reached out to many people for guidance, but couldn’t shake the feeling that i wasn’t headed where i was supposed to be. 

during that time, things began to change with the man i was with. for the sake of this story and my choice of being anonymous, i will call him craig. in the beginning years of our relationship, craig and i were inseparable. we loved hard, and we were crazy about each other. as we settled into our relationship things began to change. that same passion and obsession with each other turned to a form of comfortability and insignificance that i hated. his friends and work became more important than me; and while i desired to save our relationship, my efforts only led him further away. we agreed to take a break and go our separate ways. 

during this break, i met brandon*. brandon pursued in me in a way i had never felt pursued. he took interests in my interests and gave me a confidence that made me believe i could do anything. i felt as though we connected in a way i had never connected with anyone. in that moment, i made the choice to pursue him back.

since i had only been with one man in my younger years, i had also only been fully intimate with one man. sex was something i held high and mighty. craig and i had waited three years to share it. we thought if we didn’t, we might ruin our relationship. so when we finally let our guards down and shared it with each other, it was beautiful. i felt like it had made our love magical. sex was my view of physical love, and that’s the way i thought that it would stay forever. 

my view of sex was one of the first things i had mentioned when i began to pursue brandon. he told me he admired it, and felt the same way. i was so elated to have found another man who saw it the way i did. then things began to change. 

one night, a friend of mine and i went out for drinks. we danced, we took pictures, and we did our fair share of embarrassing lip-singing. we also met up with brandon. brandon was not nearly at the level we were, and i didn’t mind. brandon made sure i had a sip of every drink he got, and kept continuously giving me drinks of my own. something i didn’t think much of at the time.

as the night grew older, i grew more and more tired and knew i was not able to drive myself. brandon offered to give me and my friend a ride home, and i gladly agreed. we dropped her off at her apartment complex, and that’s about the last thing i remember in that 20-minute drive to his empty home. 

i got out of the car, dizzy and unstable, and grabbed a big t-shirt that had been laying in the backseat. i was too drunk to try to comprehend why he didn’t drive me home, too. i remember walking to his room in the basement, and him walking back up the stairs. i made sure i changed when he was upstairs because i didn’t want him to see. after getting into the t-shirt, i climbed into the empty bed, and passed out. 

the next minute i remember is the one minute that i won’t be able to forget for the rest of my life. it didn’t feel much like a minute, it felt like a lifetime. i was face-first in a pillow. i couldn’t feel much of what was going on other than his hand on my head pushing me further and further down. and the weight of his body crashing down on my small-frame. what is happening to my body? i hear him grunting. i hear him say “come on, COME ON!” what is he talking about? what is he doing to me? then it hits me, all at once. i try to move, i can’t. i try to turn over, i can’t. i try to make a noise, i try to say no, i scream in my head and yet nothing comes out. he has full control, he is the power, i am nothing. i can do nothing. i black out again. 

in the morning i wake up, panicked, confused. my head hurts, my body hurts, why is he still sleeping?? i wake him up. “what happened last night? what did you do?” he tells me we had sex. i gather my things, i leave his house and i pick up clothes at my house for work. then i head to my job, the day is the same. i am the same. nothing happened to me. we had sex, he said. i’ll be okay. i wanted him, the same way he wanted me. it’s okay.

the days and weeks that followed are ones that i wish i could take back. i continued to speak with brandon. i needed to feel okay, i needed everything to be okay. i made up a story in my head that it never happened, and whatever happened was okay and i continued to speak with him, i continued to flirt with him, i made plans to see him again. he became nasty to me, he told me i was worthless, he told me i would be nothing. i still wanted to be his friend. he was the second person i had ever had sex with.. he had to be special to me, right?

it took me way too long to realize what he did to me was wrong. what he did to me was a violation. what he did to me was sexual assault. i was raped. when i began to reach out to people about it, they all reacted in a way that made me sink smaller and feel hopeless. some were angry at me, some didn’t believe me, and one girl told me i had made a drunk mistake and i just need to get over it. i began to think she was right. this was my fault. i got into his bed with just a t-shirt on, anything that happened after that was fair game. i did this to myself. 

after informing three of my close friends about it, i decided to tell craig. i was confused, i thought he would be the answer and would make everything okay again. he would understand. he was still my best friend, and the one person on the Earth i felt closest too. i told him my story. he wept, he begged me for a name, and he told me he’d kill the guy. natural reaction for somebody you’re still in love with. i was relieved. later that night he went through my phone while i was asleep. i woke up to him slamming my bedroom door and running out of the house. 

i ran after him and start yelling for him to come back.  “where are you going? why are you doing this?” he ignores me and walks down the street. i chase him. “you didn’t get raped”. he tells me. he looks furious. he tells me he read messages on my phone of me talking to brandon. of course, it looks that way, i start thinking to myself. what normal person would continue talking to someone who assaulted them? 

as time went on, i started feeling worse. craig began telling me that no one would believe my story.  i drifted further away from my friends and family. sex meant nothing to me. i dropped out of classes because of a lack of focus. i did things i’m not proud of, i drank to feel some sort of happiness, i pursued therapy. at the start and end of every day i felt completely and utterly alone. 

i’m not quite sure what exactly began to change that, other than time. i knew that if i didn’t move fast, this would define me for the rest of my life. i couldn’t let that happen. i sought to find things that i love. i needed to find passion again, and i did.

i found it by doing good deeds. i found it by admiring those who do good, and not focusing on the ones who cause pain and misfortune. i found it by pursuing fitness, so my physical strength will be a reflection of my mental battles. i found it in the smiles that strangers give, and the way the sun continues to rise every day. i found it by realizing that this is my life, and nobody will ever take that away from me.

i am now a warrior. i have my scars and i wear them proudly. it doesn’t matter if other people don’t believe my story, because i know what happened to me. it doesn’t matter if someone looks down on me, because i know i am strong. i want to gain power, and to become an advocate for those who have experienced similar situations. 

some days are harder than others, and all my negative feelings come back. on those days, i put my effort into the things i love. i remind myself that i can do anything.

my rape does not define me. it is not a reflection of my character but a reflection of a monster’s. i am the one who survived. i am the one who will not let him win. 

[warrior]

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if you’ve been hurt in the same or similar way that *warrior has, 

she has offered to talk to you about it.

she wants to help you heal.

she wants you to heal.