And it wasn’t me.

Do you see her?  That’s Julie Beechinor at age 13.  That was 21 years ago.  Nineteen years, twenty-one years, random numbers never seem to make a difference but it’s the decades that get you.

Add a year on to that girl.  She filled out a bit more, hair was longer and she discovered the wonder of blond hair.  She was young and beautiful and had just finished swimming in a pool.

Then she was raped.

Can I start talking in the first person now?  That girl in the picture isn’t who I am now.  I was young and innocent and had just had my first kiss that year.  The girl I am now is celebrating surviving a rape from two decades past.  I’ve been wanting to tell all of you forever but I was afraid to.  I don’t want my dad to cry.  I asked him to not read this.  I’m writing this because I am not ashamed of what happened.  I don’t blame myself (anymore) and I learned an absolute ton about myself and the stigma behind rape in general.  I’m writing it because this blog is me.  I write me and this is a massive part of me.

I can’t be scared of everything all the time.

Imagining the possibilities growing up I always saw myself as the one who would fight back.  In every woman’s head we all think to ourselves that we’ll be the one who can fight if we’re attacked.  We’ll yell and we’ll scream and someone will save us.

I didn’t yell or scream, I just waited for it to be over.

Then that asshole had the nerve to spit on me and call me a tease.

I know his name, I still keep track of him – married, kids, ex-marine (the wonders of  Facebook) and I probably always will.  Someone asked me if the pain ever goes away.  Not really.  Not for me.  Rape jokes just aren’t funny, visuals in movies and on TV just cause flashbacks.  Oh fuck, I don’t even know where to begin.

This is how it happened -

It was night time and I was on vacation.  I was wearing a bikini and had just come from the indoor pool and was walking back up to the condo.  We had a neighbor who was super cool but he brought a friend for the weekend.  His name is Brett.  Brett made me feel great about myself all day by flirting and complimenting me but I was a pretty shy girl being that I was suddenly hot and I had NO IDEA what to do about it and he was eighteen so I took his compliments happily but didn’t really think much about him.

That evening I was walking back alone and Brett came outside.  I was feet from my door.  He came right up on me and smelled of alcohol.  Couldn’t tell you what because I didn’t know the difference then.  His face was close to mine and he kept asking if I wanted to hang out and I said I didn’t, I had to get inside to change.

He disagreed.

Please stop reading this if you don’t like graphic images because I talked this out with my therapist and we both agreed writing is my outlet and this story has been sitting in my mind for twenty years.

That motherfucker grabbed me by the hair, pulled me to the side of the condos and shoved his tongue in my mouth.  I couldn’t breathe.  I sucked air in through my nose as best as I could and I tried to squirm away and I tried to be nice about it.  He shoved his hands down my bottom and put his fingers inside me and ripped right down making comments about me being nice and wet.  It was likely blood.  He pushed me, I fell and my knee popped out of place and then he held his arm across my cheek so my head was pushed to the side so I just stared at the mountains as he went about raping me.

No real need to go into detail about that.  It’s pretty cut and dry.  Want to know what I was thinking?  I was wondering how the skunk was doing.  There was one that kept wandering around the pool area that I was trying to make friends with.  I was willing it to come spray us but I was also afraid he’d hurt it so I just waited it out.  It didn’t take too long.  I don’t know, maybe it did.  I took myself completely out of my body and just waited for it to be over.

I can’t tell you if he came in me or on me or anything.  I can tell you I was scratched up, sore as hell and grateful I had a towel with me.  He spit on me and called me a tease and went back inside.  I sat outside for a little while and then went back down by the pool.  I didn’t want to go in and make it red so I cleaned up as best as I could and I went back into my condo limping.

My dad was waiting for me.  I’m pretty sure when he asked me what was wrong I told him I fell down the mountain.  The one thing I will never ever forget was the sandwich.  He took out two slices of Healthy Choice bread, put fat free mayo on it and then some Healthy Choice turkey and he gave it to me.  It was the single greatest thing I’ve ever tasted.  I’ve tried remaking that sandwich a hundred times and haven’t yet and never will. It may be the fact that it was comfort after a traumatic event than the meal but nothing has ever tasted so good.  Not even gravy.

I didn’t report it.  I didn’t do a rape kit, I just wanted it done.  I didn’t want to upset my family and twenty years ago rape was something the public hid.  I’m not one to keep my mouth shut though, I told my neighbor what Brett did to me.  I told him the very next day.  You know what my neighbor did?  He got me later that night and put me outside the rec hall window and told me to stay there.  I was scared shitless but I did what I was told because at that point in  my life everything was a blur and I was still processing what had happened to me.

I was then given the greatest gift ever.  I got to watch that piece of shit get his ass  beat.  My neighbor pounded on him like something you’d see in “Fight Club”.  I can’t even watch movies like that without thinking of that night.  He beat him with the pool stick and kicked him in the face.  He beat him until he couldn’t move and then he came to get me and asked me if it helped.

Fuck yes it did.

In my personal opinion, that ass beating was much better than any arrest that may have been made.  It was better than having to endure court dates and kids at school talking about me.  I’m not saying a girl shouldn’t report a rape, she absolutely should.  I was stupid.  I could have gotten a disease or pregnant but I got lucky.  I also got lucky because I got mine.  I got to see him get hurt.  At that time that was all that mattered to me.  Revenge.

The only thing missing was that cue up his ass.

I went into the ninth grade a victim.  Now I’m a survivor.  I went through an anorexic phase, then a bulimic one when my friends noticed I wasn’t eating.  I’d have random flashbacks and ask to go the nurses office and I’d sit in the hall crying and shaking.  I had one friend who I always asked for who came to help me and he still checks in on me to make sure I’m okay twenty years later.

Then one day we had a “Peer Help” adviser come to our school.  It was a new thing for us and we were all making fun of her.  She came into my social studies class and was explaining how helpful she could be to those of us in turmoil.  She asked if anyone would role play.  I volunteered.

I sat down at the head of the class and proceeded to tell about thirty people that an arrogant drunken eighteen year old had raped me just months before.  I told them about him shoving his hands in me and spitting on me when he finished.  I told them how I could tell he thought he was so damn cool.  I told them how great it felt watching him get his ass beat and I told them how after that day I never saw him again.

That adviser quit within a week.

As the years have passed I’ve come into my own.  I’m in therapy twice a week and if I can ever get over the daily drama I have we’re tapping more into this trauma I experienced.  I know it has a lot to do with how I handle relations with men.  The first time I had sex voluntarily was horrendous.  I screamed “Get it over with!” repeatedly as I made him go in the other room to put the condom on.  I was his first, too.  We stayed together for years and I have no idea how he got me through it but he did.

I wonder if I’d enjoy sex more if it never happened.  I wonder if I’d be able to open up the way I’m supposed to in bed?  I wonder if I’d have the ability to make love instead of timing how long it lasts?  I don’t even have reproductive organs yet I’m aching inside like it just happened again.

So no.  You don’t forget.  You never forget.  It’s always there and you push it aside and you live your life.  You try to learn from it and you try to seek help where you can.  Don’t feel shame and don’t let anyone shame you.  Don’t laugh at the jokes if you don’t think you’re funny but don’t be the one who screams out that you’re a victim when you hear it.  Just live your life.  If you live in fear that someone will think poorly of you then you are still the victim.  If you embrace who you are and learn from the events that have happened to  you you become a survivor.

I’m a survivor.

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