My Story – The ER

This has been a little harder to write about than I thought it would. I took a little break from it, but I think I’m finally ready to start back up. Forgive my horrible writing style. For now, it’s taking everything in me to just get the words down, but it’s very important to me to get my story out.

My mom, dad and I arrived at the ER and they checked me into a room. They asked me if I would like someone from the Sexual Assault Resource Team (SART) to come and speak with me. They also asked if I would like to report the rape. I said yes to both. The woman from SART was wonderful! I cannot thank her enough for being there with me! However, the detective they sent to question me about the rape could not have been further from wonderful.

He started by asking me what happened. I told him with a lot of hesitation (remember that this guy was my friend before. I was nervous to report it because I didn’t want to lose my friends). Instead of realizing that this was an extremely traumatic experience for me, this detective decided that the rape was my fault.

He came up with an explanation for everything when I was trying to tell him that I was violated. He told me I was wearing some awfully tight clothes and that because they were so tight and because I was drinking that I was asking for it. When I told him that I was a virgin he scoffed at me and said, “Hmmf, a 23 year old virgin! Who’s still a virgin at 23? You clearly wanted to lose your virginity and then regretted it so you told your parents you were raped.” He told me I need to drink less and be more careful about the signals that I send to men. I was asking for it.

Thank God for the woman from SART. I was trembling after my conversation with the detective. I started to believe that it was my fault. She reassured me that it was not and gave me the phone number for a counseling center in my area.

So not only was I victimized by the rape, but I was re-victimized by the detective.

PLEASE! Always believe a woman when she says she was raped! She is going through something extremely traumatic as it is and it will only make it worse to not believe her. Most women who actually go through a sexual assault do not even report it. So PLEASE always believe a woman is she comes forward to you about it.

I could never even convey to you the damage that detective did to me. It took years of counseling to get me better. More on that at a later time!