Renee - macrame artist and rape survivor
I was 18, and he was my best friend. I had known him since sixth grade, and when I moved away right after my freshman year, he was the only person that wrote to me. I would receive a letter every week. Then we moved back, and I trusted him. So I never saw this coming, and I was a virgin at the time, so I really was very naive about it all.
He had asked me to come over to his house, because he knew I was going to school for art. And he asked if I could come in and critique some of the work he had done. And I’d gone over and hung out all the time down in his bedroom in the basement , so -- no biggie. I go to into his room, and he closes the door.
Next thing I know, I’m pinned down on the bed, and he’s groping me, and I’m freaking out and screaming. And he kept saying, “You want this, you want this, I’ll be gentle I promise.” I left with bruises from chafing, from his hands holding both my wrists down. And I bled for three days, cause he had torn my hymen, and he had also raped me from the behind.
And I didn’t understand what had happened. I didn’t tell anyone, and I was in a complete panic for weeks. I got tested for STDs every week, got a pregnancy test every week for almost six months, cause I was just that freaked out. And no one could touch me. I wouldn’t let anyone touch me for almost a year.
Six years after it happened, I went to “Take Back the Night” (an event that supports survivors of sexual violence) and I decided -- you know what? I’m going to face this. I’m having panic attacks regularly, I still do. I have nightmares; I have flashbacks, but now I’m facing them and seeing them for what they are, instead of the shame.
It took me going to a mental hospital twice for suicide attempts to face that I’m not a victim. I had to change my way of thinking; I’m a survivor. I am a rape survivor. I’m not a victim anymore. I’ve done artwork, and it’s been very cathartic. And a lot of people don’t like the artwork cause it’s offensive, but the act itself was offensive. And so I speak loudly about it. I see no shame in what happened; he should be ashamed, because he showed that he’s not human.
One thing that’s helped me with mentoring is I found out that I actually saved a girl. She was thirteen-years-old and considering suicide. She’s part of the online support group that I help in. She was considering killing herself because her brother, just two years older, had raped her over and over and over again. And when she saw some of my artwork and read some of the things that I had written, she realized that it’s not her fault.
She told her mother; she told her father. They didn’t believe her. And so she got a little camera with night vision; she put it in her room, and it recorded her brother raping her, violently, while her parents were asleep down the hall. And she was put into a mental hospital for three weeks; her brother was arrested. He’s in prison right now. She said that I saved her life, because she faced what happened to her. She had someone listening who wasn’t judging her.
When someone tells you this happened to them, believe them because you could save a life.
