Survivor > Victim

1 in 3 women and 1 in 6 men worldwide experience some form of Sexual Violence.

Less than 50% report these crimes.

I am one of them.

With April being Sexual Assault Awareness Month, I felt it finally time to share my story. I've always been very private and closed off when it came to discussing this story. In fact, it took me almost 2 years to even share my story with my sister. To this day there are parts of this story I have decided to just keep to myself. Take to the grave. I spent many years feeling nothing but shame, disgust, and sorrow. Damaged. Not worthy. It has taken me many years to understand that I am not a victim of Sexual Assault......I am a SURVIVOR. I have been permanently changed because of this event. It will always be part of me. But it isn't all of me. I am here. Alive. Breathing. Capable of love and trust. Yes, this experience altered my life.....but I am ALIVE.....when I thought I was going to die. And for that.......I am forever blessed and grateful.

As many of you already know, I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder in 2006. Keep in mind, this episode was the first episode my family and I had ever experienced. At the time when all of the erratic behavior started, none of us had a clue as to what it could be. To be honest, my family started to question whether or not I was on drugs. My speech was rapid and pressed. I was dropping weight rapidly. I would go days without sleeping. I had so much energy. I was moody, agitated, aggravated, emotional, distant. It was a very taxing and traumatic time for my mother, father, sister and I.

The night of my actual breakdown.....February 19, 2006, was by far one of the WORST nights of my entire life. A night I kept hidden from family and friends for years. A night I refused to ever acknowledge or address in my years of therapy. A night that, up until recently, I blamed myself for. This was not only the night I was arrested and admitted on an involuntary 5150, but this was also the night I was raped. The night my innocence and virginity was taken from me. This was the night that I truly believed, without a shadow of a doubt, that I was going to die. This night changed my life forever.

My mind wouldn't stop moving. I was cluttered with emotions. I remember an argument with my father in which we exchanged some not so pleasant words, and he (rightfully so) kicked me out of our house. He told me not to come home that night. I fought with my then-boyfriend and his family, who kicked me out of their home as well, accusing me of being on drugs. I remember not even giving a shit. I could do fine by myself. I didn't need anyone or anything (that was the mania talking). In the midst of all of the commotion and the arguing at my boyfriends house, I rushed out. Leaving behind my glasses. Anyone that knows me knows I am blind as a fucking bat. I got in my car and got on the freeway. It was POURING rain and I couldn't see anything at all, so I pulled over on the side of the freeway. I sat in my car crying. Alone. Scared. Wishing that the noise in my mind would just stop. Semis would pass my car, violently shaking it. I started to believe that if I didn't get off that freeway, one of these semis was going to plow into my car. I didn't have a way to call anyone since I also left my cell phone behind in the rush. I couldn't shut my mind off. So many thoughts. Just racing. Paranoia. Nervousness. Fear. All I wanted to do was make it stop. Make all of the noise and commotion in my mind stop. But I couldn't.

I got out of my car and attempted to flag a car down. Anyone I could find to just let me borrow their cell phone. Maybe give me a ride. Anything to take me back home. All I wanted in that moment was to just go home. Go to sleep. Make the pain stop. Get my mind to stop racing. Finally feel some peace. But no one would pull over. No one seemed to care. The delusional thoughts and paranoia were at an all time high. I started believing that I was going to die on the side of that freeway that night. I threw all of my personal belongings on the side of the freeway......my attempt to leave parts of myself behind for my family to find. I had convinced myself that something horrible was going to happen to me. I became desperate. I took off all of my clothes, sat on the trunk of my car naked, in the rain, and waited. In my mind I thought this was a great idea. Someone was BOUND to pull over for a naked girl right? Someone would just pull over to ask if I was ok, I would ask for a phone, call my parents, and end this horrible nightmare. The idea seemed so right in my head.........little did I realize how wrong I was.

Someone eventually did pull over. A man. I rushed to his little four door car crying and asked if he had a cell phone. He told me to get in his car so I could "shield myself from the rain". I got in his car and asked him if he had a cell phone I could use, or if he could please give me a ride back to my boyfriends house. The next thing I knew the man had a knife to my neck and told me that if I didn't do what he said he would kill me. My mind just went blank. I fucking knew it. I knew this night was the night I would die. I'd like to say I put up a fight. Pulled some heroic move and ran for my life. Fought for anything at all. But I didn't. In that moment I was so numb. All I could think about was my family while this man pulled me into the back of his car and violated me. I didn't cry. I didn't blink. I just stared. Stared at the rosary hanging from his rear-view mirror. Here was this man....robbing me of something I would never get back. Violating me in the worst way possible. Forever altering my life......and he had a rosary hanging from his mirror. Go fucking figure. When he was done he got back in the front seat. leaving me in the back. I honestly thought this was the point when he was going to kill me. Leave my body on the side of the road. Drive me somewhere to kill me......and then he looked at me in the rear view mirror and asked

"Where does your boyfriend live?"

I sat for a second. Unable to speak. Unable to move. No response. I didn't even know how to react. I didn't know what to say or do. Had I heard him correctly? Am I dreaming? This couldn't be real......could it? 

I directed him on how to get back to my boyfriends house. We never spoke or looked at each other. He just turned left when I told him and pulled over when I instructed him to. I sat in the back seat crying. So many emotions were flooding through my mind. My heart was racing a mile a minute. Am I actually getting the option to live? Is this not where my story ends?

I remember looking out the window at that residential street in Chino. Tears of joy rushed down my face when I saw my boyfriends house. This nightmare was finally over. I could go home. Call my family. Get help. I yelled for the man to stop. I got out of his car, still naked, and asked the man if I could please have his jacket as I obviously had nothing on and it was pouring rain. The man....after having already taken everything he possibly could from me...looked at me and said "No. I'm cold"....and drove off. 

I'd like to say that is where my disastrous evening ended....but it wasn't. When I got to my boyfriends house they refused to open the door. They called the police, who showed up and began questioning me. I explained to them that I was his girlfriend and that I had just been in their home. The Chino Police stood with me and questioned the family, asking if they knew who I was. They all just stared right at me.....looked into my eyes.....and said they had no idea who I was. Told the police they had never seen me before. I just remember screaming at them, and the next thing I knew I was being cuffed and placed in the back of a cop car.....where I was later shuttled off to a psych ward to undergo psychiatric observation. I sort of remember lots of yelling and crying when I arrived at the hospital. Being super combative with the staff and eventually being sedated......so in the end I did get what I wanted.....for my mind to just stop.

I've spent years of my life contemplating what I would do to that man if we ever crossed paths. Would I torture him slowly? Tie him up? Shoot him execution style? Slit his throat from ear to ear? Cut his dick off and make him choke on it? The ideas of all the ways I could kill him have danced around in my head. But then I remember.....that no matter how sick and twisted that man was....no matter how badly he violated me...no matter what he took from me.......he let me keep the most important thing. My life. And for that I will forever be grateful to the mystery man on the 71 freeway. He saved my life......I'll never know why. But he did.

No one ever truly recovers from Sexual Assault. It is life altering. It changes you. But the lucky thing in my case is that I was allowed to live. I have been able to move on with my life, process my hurt, and regain a sense of "normalcy". I don't talk about this night often. More often than not I like to push it down into that box of shit I don't like to discuss.....but I'm still human. I still, and always will struggle with this. Memories, flashbacks, triggers. The memory doesn't go away. This night will always be part of who I am.......but it doesn't control who I am.

I have, shockingly enough, come to peace with my reality. When I think of the man, his eyes, his voice.....I don't become angry. Quite the contrary. I am thankful. I send a little prayer up. Thanking God for choosing me. For allowing me to live. For seeing something in me. I think God knew my life was just beginning. He knew I had so many things I wanted to say and share with the world. That night was never meant to be my end. It was actually meant to be my beginning.

Not everyone will understand my views. Why I have chosen to reconcile this situation in my mind and in my heart. How I could ever be forgiving of someone who did something so violent. The reason is.....that I just don't wish to carry hate in my heart. It was a traumatic moment in my life that I will never forget.......but I am alive when I could very well have been dead. Another headline. Another body found.

As far as I am concerned God gave me another chance to live. An opportunity to enjoy every single SECOND of this life here on Earth. To love my family more each day. To laugh even harder with my friends. To hug the man I love tighter and shower him with kisses every day. And for that I am eternally grateful and blessed.

It's been 9 years..............9 years of living. 9 years of laughter and love. 9 years of growing, developing, blossoming into the woman I am now. While I may never forget, I have learned that for my own peace of mind, body, soul, and heart......I have forgiven.

I have chosen to take back the night. Take back my life. Make this life (which we only get to experience once) the BEST FUCKING life possible. To no longer allow myself to be chained up or confined. To not allow Sexual Assault, Bipolar Disorder, any of this shit to define who I am. I'm better than that. I'm a fucking SURVIVOR. I'm alive. I'm here. Able to share my story. Able to show the world you can be anything you want and do anything you want if you want it bad enough. To show people that living with love and forgiveness in your heart really makes your journey that much easier.....at least for me it did.

This whole process allowed me to accept that I am an amazing woman. One who is not defined by situations that have happened in her life. A strong woman who was dealt a shitty hand and still managed to walked away with the jackpot. Don't EVER let a situation define you. Always remember that YOU are the only person who writes your story....and you are the only person who paves your own way. Eleanor Roosevelt said it best: No one can make you feel inferior without your consent. This is YOUR FUCKING LIFE. Own every single second of it. Always stand tall.....and ALWAYS be proud of who you are....and what you have had to endure to get to where you are.

"Forgiveness has nothing to do with absolving a criminal of his crime. It has everything to do with relieving oneself of the burden of being a victim - letting go of the pain and transforming oneself into a survivor" - C.R. Strahan