I had written out my story in detail a few days ago. I fell asleep on my laptop, woke up to an alarm going off, and ran out the door to go to work.
It didn’t save, and that’s ok. The summary of my story is, I was “stealthed” by an ex in 2016. Meaning, he secretly removed the condom during sex, intentionally came inside me, with the goal of trapping me into a relationship. I’m 31. Prior to this, I have been sexually assaulted two other times in my life. I will briefly mention them here.
When I was 18, I was raped by a co-worker. I was a virgin. This was when I learned about the apathy towards women in my situation. I reported it to my employer. I reported it to the police. Nothing happened. No one did anything except pity me and the man is walking around freely and has been since that day.
It seemed like everyone around me felt awkward and distanced themselves from me, because no one knew how to really address these situations. My pastor, my parents, my siblings, my friends…I learned to just put a lid on it and move on. Be happy.
Fast forward ten years. One night, in 2015, I was drugged while out with some friends. There was a new person hanging out in the group. The group came back to my apartment downtown, the designated drivers had left their vehicles at my place. It was convenient. The next thing I remember, I’m naked on the floor of my apartment and it’s morning. There’s a stranger there. It was the new person in the group, that everyone vouched for. He’s leaving. I remember thinking to myself, I had been so careful.
Due to my first experience in reporting these things, this time I didn’t say anything. It seemed a waste of my time. I let a friend know I had been drugged and asked for her to be with me that day but I didn’t mention anything else. I went back to work the following Monday. I’m strong. I didn’t have time for a setback.
2016 comes around. I’m covertly impregnated. I’m tired of this shit. I’m so tired of this shit. I find out early, I go to the one clinic nearby. I have two friends on call to help me recover, and be there for me. I still feel suffocated, in that I do not feel like any good will come out of me trying to report that man. As I am typing this, there is a baptist/catholic group marching outside of the clinic protesting women’s access to abortion care. It’s absurd. For the record, this guy confessed to me that he had tried the same thing with two other women that year. He said, verbatim, “Why doesn’t anyone want to have my child?! This is the third abortion I’ve had to pay for this year!” I had only been dating him for two months. Believe it or not, people in my community respected him. I wonder if they would still respect him if they knew more about him. I asked him why, why did he do that to me? His response: He would get a higher payout on his military pension if he had a dependent. I’m speechless. He did try to threaten me, he threw his family’s connections and power in my face. At the end of the day, I feel safer and I would endure the trauma of the procedure again if it meant denying an asshole power and control over my body.
One last thing: the state I’m from made it a point to limit women’s clinics resources, in order to make the experience as traumatic as possible for the women getting the procedure. They are only allowed to offer ibuprofen, valium, and phenergan in pill form to the patients prior to the procedure. I was awake and lucid for the entire thing. When I found out that other states allowed patients to be sedated, my heart broke. When I try to communicate the absurd bullshit that women have had to endure, especially to men, I…find myself speechless. They either get really upset or worse, they imagine I am over-exaggerating and that it cannot possibly be THAT BAD.
I’m so tired of this shit. I hope things change.
