Kate - activist and rape survivor
It was at a New Year’s Eve party that we had at our apartment. It was a friend of my roommate’s, and he had been to a few of our parties before. I really wasn’t expecting it. I hadn’t had that much to drink, but I was pretty sloppy. And he was kind of hitting on me; at one point, he wound up in my room. It was just uncomfortable the entire time, like, “When is this going to be over?” It was kind of like an out-of-body experience.
There are bits and pieces that are missing. There was one part where I just blacked out, and I don’t remember anything until I woke up the next morning in bed. There was blood on my sheets
I woke up to a few text messages from my friends, just kind of like checking and making sure I was all right. So I asked them if they could come over, and they brought some Plan B, because he didn’t use protection.
They stayed with me and just kept me company, and we talked about it. But the rest of the weekend, I was just wrapped in my blankets and I slept a lot, didn’t go outside. I had to go [to work] right after it happened. I felt embarrassed and humiliated. I felt like, when I was in a room with my coworkers, they knew what had happened. I had to shake myself a few times from the flashbacks.
I thought about [going to the police] a little bit, but I didn’t think I’d have much of a case, because I’d been drinking. And from what I’ve read, the law doesn’t really work well on the victims’ sides.
I actually went to my boss at Planned Parenthood to see what he could do. And I wound up making an appointment with my gynecologist and she gave me some tests, and she did an exam.
After I talked to doctor, I went to my mom and told her about it. She helped me understand that it wasn’t my fault.
There’s always someone out there who wants to help even if it’s not your mother or a parent. It could be a sibling or a doctor or someone on the street. There’s always someone out there who’s ready to help.
It’s still sometimes hard to talk about, but I’d like to keep working on it. I definitely want to share because I think there’s an important message with saying that it happens, and that it needs to be stopped. I don’t think people are really aware that it’s always happening, and that it could happen to someone you know in an instant.
They’re real stories, and real girls that this is happening to.
