You were raped
A heartbreaking fact: Of all ten cards in our Feather Plucking series, the rape/sexual assault card is the most sold. These cards cover depression, chronic illness, death, divorce and the end of relationships, job loss, and addiction among others.
11 years ago I was raped.
…by a really good friend.
Because last year at this time (for one of the first times I think) I actually wrote something about this experience on my personal Instagram account, @rebeccatillett I’ll refrain from doing so again. I’ll post that text below.
I just wanted to say if you’re someone who’s gone through this, I see you. You have nothing to be ashamed of, and you’re in good company. We all are. Good, tragic company.
September 26, 2023
The rape victim and the rapist as children, Las Cruces, NM
I feel like I have something to say about the 10 year anniversary this month of a really fucking hard time in my life that was compounded by my rape (which happened exactly 10 years ago today) committed by someone who was a really good friend of mine for my entire life up to that point. My entire life.
Nearly 30 years.
But I am still figuring out what it is, I suppose and how I feel about posting it publicly which is very fluid and very personal to me.
I think I leave my body briefly anytime I really let myself think too much about this.
I was not only assaulted by someone I trusted, but I lost the boy I grew up with, the one and only person in my life who shared memories of me and of us as babies, kids, teens, adults, growing up together. To each other we were no less than brother and sister. To outsiders as we grew up, they either assumed we were dating or related. (We never dated or crossed that line.) We were rarely not together.
As an only child, this was prized beyond measure.
Our moms were best friends. He is in every single childhood memory I have.
And so many more throughout our teens and twenties. In those latter years, we could sit and reminisce for hours, laughing about all the dumb kid shit we did growing up, in spite of the gradual darkening of his heart which I now acknowledge I was in denial about at the time.
He is in every single childhood memory I have. I say this again and with conviction. For a long while after he raped me, I stopped sharing those stories with others entirely, stories I used to share with new friends or coworkers to illicit laughter or just to share some dumb, silly anecdote from my past in the same way a sister would talk about her brother.
Because they were all tainted.
And then at some point I decided I wasn’t going to stop telling them, that he couldn’t take that away from me too, that I still get to have my childhood memories and remember them fondly and share them with others. Even my daughter someday. Even if I can’t bring myself to do it as often as I used to.
I don’t have to preface these stories with, “the boy I discuss in this story would later grow up to rape me and then tell me afterward that I was asking for it.”
He’s in most of the photos, most of the home movies. Erasing him is erasing a huge part of myself and my life. I can’t not share these things with my daughter. And I can’t do that to myself either.
This is the position he’s put me in.
That’s what today’s ten year anniversary is. For me. What he took from me, and what I refuse to let him take from me.
Both. Simultaneously.
Not only did it happen but it happened at a crucial crossroads of my life, a scary in-between place, when I was extremely vulnerable and questioning everything (which is why I had traveled to visit him in the first place—to clear my head).
That assault and the following 24 hours I had to stay awake was a fucking nightmare as I drove through an unfamiliar state in a daze for nearly 20 hours having no idea where to go, feeling lonelier than I’ve ever felt until I finally found a hospital. And then some deeply trusted friends. It was the hardest 24 hours I’ve endured. Maybe someday I’ll feel ready to talk more about it. For now, this was enough for me.
I absolutely still cannot believe he did this shit to me.
And I am still grieving the irreplaceable things I lost.
