Sarah - mother and rape survivor
I’m a single mom of two boys, 12 and 7, and I’m a fund-raiser for Ride Rank for a Cure. It’s a non-profit organization that deals with rodeos and bull-rides. We’re raising money for cancer research and for people who can’t afford their day-to-day expenses because of cancer treatments.
I was in high school, dating a guy who was a year older than me, and he got mad at me one night, starting beating me profusely and proceeded to rape me. He threatened that if I told anybody; he would kill me. I ended up getting pregnant. He found out and beat me so severely that I lost the baby. So at the age of 15, I had lost my first child.
I knew I could have never kept the child, knowing that it was the product of rape, but I had started making plans to give it up for adoption. I think both attacks were just as severe as each other, but the mental trauma of losing a kid that you couldn’t protect, weighs on your mind everyday. But at the same time, I was a kid myself. I couldn’t protect myself; I didn’t know how I could protect someone so tiny.
I was so scared and shocked, cause he said he loved me, that he could do something like that. I didn’t know where to go. I knew that I needed to tell somebody that something happened, but I didn’t know who to tell. The fear that drove me to keep quiet. I didn’t tell anybody except for my very best friend who took me to the hospital.
When I graduated high school, I decided I was going to move out of state and go to art school and start my life over. But it wasn’t until I told my parents that the healing started. Their reaction was a lot better than I thought it would be, we all started crying. That was a good healer right there. It wasn’t until then that they really saw me as a person, and they understood where I had to go, what I had to do for my life, to heal completely.
When I was in Colorado, he found me after he got out of prison for attacking somebody else. I got a restraining order against him, and that’s when I discovered I’m a survivor. I wasn’t going to let him win. I knew at that point, I was going to beat it, no matter what it took. I would survive it, and I would tell my story someday.
Not many people know I’ve been raped or beaten within inches of my life, but the more awareness you can get out there, that it’s not okay, it doesn’t matter your age, you’re a victim, the better. That’s part of the healing process, opening up about it.
Look at yourself every day in that mirror after the attack, tell yourself that you will survive, that you are stronger than what he is. Put a smile on your face every morning and say, “I’m strong enough, I will do it.” Bring out that strength and never give up.
If you use that strength within you, it doesn’t matter what others think, what others say, what others do. Because you know, in your heart, that you’ve won. You’ve beaten something so horrible and so traumatizing, nobody can take that away.
