Taking Back My Sexual Power

TRIGGER WARNING: This article includes depiction and discussion regarding rape, sexual assault and mental health.

April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month and is finally becoming a topic that people are taking seriously in this society. In the beginning of the #MeToo movement, women were finally standing their ground on the sexual injustice that was brought upon them, usually by people they know, work with or even live with.

So, what does the term “sexual assault” even mean. According to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN), the term sexual assault “refers to sexual contact or behavior that occurs without explicit consent of a victim.” These include attempted and completed rape, inappropriate touching, coercion or force of sexual acts such as oral, anal or penetration of a victim’s body.

To this day, those words still give me a tightening feeling in my chest. “Rape,” “penetration,” “assault,” “victim;” they were so intimidating and horrifying to think about. All of these words, they are so…final. Like once a victim, always a victim. And the “R” word is thrown around to intimidate or scare people.

(I still have a hard time calling it “rape” just because of the severity of it. However, in this article I will still be using “sexual assault,” not to dimmish the severity of my situation, but just for my own feelings.)

I remember saying I would never let someone do that to me. And I never thought it would; but it did.

In 2018, I was on a study abroad trip  which was the greatest time of my life. However, towards the end of my trip we went out to a club like we usually did on our days off and had a bit too much to drink.

I don’t remember much, but I remember enough to feel my skin curling every time I think about it. I remember telling my friends that I was going home with someone, and they were hyping me up telling me that I needed to seize the moment and just do it. So…I did.

We started to walk home but the whole time he was pulling my clothes off in public. And by the time we got to his place I was not in the headspace at all to consent to what he was about to do to me.

I just remember blacking out and waking up with him still on top of me, feeling his breath on my body and his weight holding me down. The morning after, I woke up with handprints on my neck and bruises on my breasts. But unlike what I we are taught to do, I said nothing.

I knew I screwed up, and I did not want to be the poster child for the study abroad groups that come after me, using me as an example of what “not” to do. I left it in Spain where I thought it would stay.

I blamed myself for so long, telling myself that I was a slut and irresponsible with my drinking. In my eyes at the time, I was the one that led that night to happening, not him.

I was disgusted with myself and my body for letting someone do that to me. We live in an era of strong, powerful women and standing up to the man for taking advantage of us after years of feeling like we had to be silent. I remember saying that I was never going to let someone do that to me because I was my own protector. And now here I am, stripped of everything I was preaching; I felt like a coward and a hypocrite.

I beat myself up day after day for how he makes me felt for months after that night ended. I felt his body on my chest, his hands on my back and saw him in my dreams. It was like my brain wanted to remind me of the situation I had put myself in, I mean I went home with him, right?

Wrong. This is what took me a long time to understand. Yes, I went home with him. Yes, I knew what his intentions were. Yes, I walked with him and entered his apartment. But when I was being forced into something I did not want to do and blacked out in the middle of it, that was not something I consented to or even could consent to.

When I came back, I confided in some friends. They questioned me, saying that I was blowing it out of proportion and saying that because I went home with him it was not enough to call it “rape” (another reason I have a hard time using that word).

They did not question one second about what I had been through, telling me that it was just a bad hook-up story. And that is the saddest part. At 19 years old, I was still objectified for the fact that I had not hooked up with a lot of people.

It still makes me sad to this day that that was my main motivation for going, and that I was so insecure with myself that I needed to prove to people I was this easy-going, fun, sex-positive woman by going home with someone I had met five minutes before.

For months I would not let anyone touch me, I would not hug anyone, I would not let anyone put their hands or any part of their body on me because of the trauma that lived inside of me for so long; even my family did not hug me when I got off the plane.

A lot of pent-up aggression, sadness and regret led me to coping in unhealthy ways in order to not feel so disgusting anymore. After months of therapy, I learned that a lot of my anxieties and things I had gone through started after my sexual assault. A direct correlation that I had not made at all before

In the beginning of my recovery, my therapist told me that I first had to understand and take into account the triggers that I was going to have. She told me not to see them as weaknesses but places I kept for myself.

I would touch my neck and my breasts in order to eradicate that churning feeling in my stomach every time there was contact there. The first time I did the exercise, I started crying. I could not even touch my own body without feeling disgusting. But after some more tries, over periods of time, I stared to feel better.

Slowly and slowly, I allowed myself to open up again. Being able to hug my family and look at myself in the mirror without seeing something that was tainted or labeled “the victim.” Almost two years after my assault, I had sex again. It was nerve wracking, but I made sure to communicate with them before-hand what I did and did not feel comfortable with. They made me feel comfortable in a very uncomfortable situation for someone where it is the first-time having sex after a sexual assault.

It has been almost three years since my assault, and I still deal with PTSD from that night, and I always will. But learning how to heal my body and my soul after it was stripped from me was not an easy path. Coming back from something that traumatic is hard, and a lot of people may not have the support that is necessary to healing. But there is always someone to talk to whether it be a friend, family member or a therapist.

I did not even know his name, and I still let him dictate how I felt for years after. I realized that he was still doing so much damage to me even after he had already made me hate myself for something that I blamed myself long after it happened. He took everything from me that night, and I was stuck with the pieces trying to build myself back together. 

It is not an easy road to come back from, but I took back my sexual power and started to enjoy sex for the first time in my life, after I thought I would never let someone touch me again. I had to learn how to say, “it was not your fault” and actually believing it.  

I decide every day to be in control and to not let that night dictate the rest of my life or my sexual endeavors. I am the one that decides who I open myself up to, and I am making sure that although from here on out that night will always be with me in my mind, I refuse to let him take anything else away from me again.

Remember, you are not alone and is OK to ask for help, especially sealing with something like a sexual assault. For information or resources please go to RAINN.org or get 24/7 help from the RAINN Sexual Assault National Telephone Hotline 800.656.HOPE (4673)