Let's not do that again

Two weeks ago I received an email from the local law enforcement saying there was not enough physical evidence to prosecute a sexual assault I was subjected to in April. I've begun to think of that assault as more of a hostile takeover, especially as 

Please note that email is NOT how most people are informed. But after several days of trying to synch with my rape advocate and the investigating officer (who wanted to hold the meeting at my house - no thank you, I said had immediately. I don't feel I need to host that tea party. We can meet someplace neutral or they can just email their news.)

On a rainy Sunday in April, I met someone for a coffee and the afternoon ended in sexual assault. Time slowed in the moments of the assault and after. Was it worse being assaulted this time fully aware of what was happening and that if I tried fight back I would very quickly find myself with severe internal organ damage? Was it worse wondering in the five scalding showers and dissection conversations afterwards where I had misstepped? At least when I was sexually abused as a child, the predator had initiated his attack whilst I was asleep. At least at university, it was down to Rohypol that I found myself terrified, confused and shaking. 

That time, I did report the incident, only to have the head of campus police ask me if I was sure and could I blame the guy? 'After all,' he had said, leaning across his desk to pat my hand, 'You're so pretty.'

This time, I was older - 46. I'm more self-aware than that 19 year old, than the 8 year old. But was I? 

I had invited the rapist into my home. I had washed the items. I had scoured my body and tried to shake off the increasing roiling nausea and agitation. My children came home their co-parent's house. I made dinner. I read stories. I showered again and again after the children went to bed. When I came out I'd the third shower, my eldest was waiting in the hallway. 

'Something's happened,' she said her deep blue eyes narrowed. 'You're not right and I don't mean weird. You're always weird.'

I took a deep breath and tried to smile. 'Yes. Something happened today. I was hurt today.'

'Hmmm'. She folded her arms. 'It was bad. I heard you talking to Aunt C.'

'Yes.' I swallowed hard, closed my eyes. 'It was bad.'

'I don't know what has happened but she's right. You need to tell the police.'

'Oh, I don't know...'

'MOM! What did you do when someone hurt me?' I 

blinked, looked at my hands. 

'We went to the police and filed a report.'

'Excactly. Stop thinking that you are not worth the same care and fight. No one should ever hurt you.' My 13 year old grabbed my shoulders. 'Sort it. We need you.'

It took me another two days to file a report. Did you know you can do that online now? On the Thursday, a 'Thank you' card arrived from the rapist. Shaking, I put it in a plastic bag and set it high on a shelf, just in case the police did actually come round. They did, 10 days later. A dead friend sat with me during the interview. I gave them a bagged pillowcase that I hadn't washed and the card. I explained how the day had unfolded, about how I had been up late the night before, had thought about cancelling but didn't because I could hear my grandmother's voice in my head saying 'A lady doesn't cancel on the day,' forgetting that being lady-like has done me very little service in this lifetime.  

The decision to press charges was not one I came to easily. I was worried that my past issues with depression, the darker aspects of a my failed marriage and CPTSD around my mom catching on fire, the dead first kid would all be used to discredit me. It's what a good defense attorney would do, I knew, if the case ever made it to court. I also knew I hadn't done the police or potential prosecutor any favours washing everything and not getting myself examined at A&E. I had called the GP - the assault wasn't conventional, if rape can ever be called that - and I was worried about irreparable physical damage.

I already knew there would be psychological damage. 

Shoving myself into those containers of expectations has never worked out well. I don’t know that I am any better at it now, but I have actively tried to date more consciously, be honest about who I am and my desires, and to discover and own my sexuality. So, when my first serious foray into online dating was an unmitigated disaster, I decided to take a more strategic, old-school approach: I hired a matchmaker. Spoiler: the rapist did not find me via the matchmaker. I got tired of waiting and decided I should try vetting for myself again. 

After the assault, the matchmakers came through with a match and I met with him. Unsurprisingly, we were not a fit, not in the least because I was ‘guarded.’ My ethos in that moment was simply ‘I will not allow myself to be afraid of men simply because of this situation.’ But after that, I did put myself on pause with the matchmakers and I did perhaps the most ‘white chick with privilege’ thing I could do, I took myself off to an Ayurvedic yoga retreat in Madeira (Moving from our own home to Post housing was a transition, to say the least.  It wasn't all terrible. Once the decision had been made, the worst of the fights concluded and my parents slipped into a 'Let's just get through this and see,' fugue. The major downside is the loss of my tennis coach, Coach Harding. 'I'm sad to see you go, kiddo. You really have something there. If you keep at it, I can see Junior ATPs.

The duplex we moved into had been build in the 1940s and I loved it. I loved the arched doorways, the parquet floor, the original bathroom with its tile work.  We only had one bathroom now as opposed to 3 and the rooms were smaller but I honestly felt closer to my parents and brother there.

As compensation for moving on to Post - something we had never actually done in all the years my dad did not climb the military ladder - I was allowed to have a television in my room.  American Movie Classics became a mainstay, back when AMC showed old school cinema.

The walls of my room were clean and white. Bliss, after living in a pink tea cozy of a room.  I love a good William Morris print but to be surrounded by it...Yeah. I can see why it would drive someone mad, even without lead and arsenic. ‘Let's peal off some wall paper,’ my brain would whisper. 

What did I watch? Everything I could. THE MAJOR AND THE MINOR, MR BLANDINGS BUILDS HIS DREAM HOUSE, PALM BEACH STORY, THE HAUNTING, BRIDGE ON THE RIVER KWAI...the list went on and on. I would leave the television on at night, a low ghostly hum, so I could hear the dialogue and film scores.  I dreamed my way through Otto Preminger's LAURA before I ever saw it, the score sending shivers of deja vu down my spine.

The television  also provided me with the cover I needed to slip outside.  It was November when we moved into the South Dietz housing area.  IOU sweatshirts, leather bomber Jackets, and layered socks were the rage.  At 13, I am already knee-deep in an affair with Bulimia courtesy of a 6th grade research project into Eating Disorders but I am also curvy.   I prefer skirts or wide-legged trousers, Peter Pan collars and cardigans.  I use babysitting money to buy Victorian night dresses and I wear sweat pants underneath them, jumping over the gate into the copse of trees at the back of the housing area, to sit in the small cemetery left from before the Military laid claim. 

At the other side of the copse was a fenced know area with a small wooden frame chapel a cemetery of 23 graves.  One of the graves was a of a 14 year old.  I would spend hours by her headstone, reading to her and gossiping about the world.  She had died of influenza, an every day tragedy.  The Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings were on CNN and I spent a lot of time in the school library, watching them. And hiding in plain sight.

I don't remember exactly how it came that I brought the dead girl home for a sleepover.  But I did and we watched ARISE, MY LOVE, with Claudette Colbert and Ray Milland.  I remember very clearly my dad knocking on my door on his way out to PT.

'Girl, what are you doing awake??  It is 4:30 in the morning!' We muffled our giggles.

'Just reading, Daddy. It is a very funny story.'

I made a friend at school: Becca. She lived a few houses down from us. Her dad had original recordings of Adrian Cronauer in Vietnam.  Garth Brooks 'Shameless' is on the radio every 7th song.  She asks where we've moved from and I say 'Vine Grove.' 

'But that's just down the road!'

'Yeah.' I unfold the tale. I share all of it, too much. I'd never told anyone All. Of. It. Not why my dad still slept on the couch sometimes, why he had gone back in the Army, why my brother had a limp.   I was so grateful to have a friend, so un-nuanced in friendship , I laid it all out.  And on Monday morning, I walked into school and they knew: I was officially the Court-martial girl.  And it only went downhill from there.

My mama took me on a girl's trip and we do what we do best: we bargain shop. And we go to see _THE PRINCE OF TIDES_. ‘I wonder if Pat Conroy knew your dad’s family,’ my mom muses. Somehow, I manage get her to an Art Museum, telling her about Mapplethorpe’s flowers. Her shock over the rest of the exhibit is still the stuff of legends. 

One of the heads of THE school clique - Caitlin , of course - is the Post Commander's daughter. And she already knew the story and the rumours. 'My dad says he stole, like a lot more than $810, that he probably steals other things.' I'm hiding in one of the stalls, trying desperately to poop quietly.

I walk out of the stall, wash my hands, raise an eyebrow at Caitlin in the mirror. I’m willing myself not to cry. She smirks at me in the mirror. ‘New clothes, Rach?’

‘It’s Rachel. And don't talk about what you don’t know to be true Caitlin. It's all about narcotics these days. Don't you listen to Steve Earle?’

By the time I left for a retreat in Madeira, I was  frazzled to the point where even my co-parent was nervous. I came back, more or less in tact (although, I could have stayed for a year and probably am still there in a parallel timeline). 

I came back to several emails and phone calls from the police and decided that actually, I did need to make use of the rape advocacy services and THAT decision has been one of best decisions my support network cheered me on to action. What spurred me to seek the solace of advocacy was two-fold: a flagrant violation of data protection and the police calling me to ask my opinion on whether they could lift the bail restrictions on the person under investigation. They seemed taken aback at the vociferousness of which I said ‘Hell no.’

The point of this post isn't to garner pity or sympathy. The point is that I will not be silent, hide in shame, or fear because I was sexually assaulted. I know the justice system is beleaguered and flawed, I know that most of us are just trying to do our best day to day. I know that I am in an incredibly fortunate situation to have rape advocacy and support on my literal doorstep and I need for more survivors of assault to know those resources are available for them if and should they need them.  I know there are more resources available but here are few starting points, two in the UK and one in the US. 

https://247sexualabusesupport.org.uk/

https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/sexual-health/help-after-rape-and-sexual-assault/

https://www.nsvrc.org/find-help

And I hope this post helps other assault victims find the support they need.