Every girl goes through it. The moment you think you’ve fallen in love. Your age no longer matters. All that matters is the beating of your heart and how you feel. You’ve imagined the moment that you see him and instantly fallen in love but never really thought that it could happen. Yet here you are feeling this way. Love seems to be knocking right at your door and hey, how could you possibly refuse it?
Unfortunately, what once appeared to be a dream come true can turn into a complete and utter nightmare. For many girls this is a reality.
I was one of those girls.
Dictionary.com defines rape as “the unlawful compelling of a woman through physical force or duress to have sexual intercourse”. It defines statutory rape as “sexual intercourse with a girl under the age of consent, which age varies in different states”.
Here is my story. In the summer of 2008 I was 13 years old and I naively thought that I was in love. By the end of August in that same year I no longer thought so. The reason being that on August 22 I was raped by my then boyfriend. I innocently trusted him and had my trust betrayed in the patch of woods across from my school. It’s the hardest thing to write out the details because it feels as if I’m reliving it. I thought we were going for a walk to meet some of his friends and I was going to hang around while they smoked. He started kissing me then touching me and before I fully comprehended what was happening he was pinning me down on the ground. I laid there with the sun across my face while little raindrops began to fall until he finished. I didn’t know what to do. I was scared and alone. I was shaking badly but he didn’t notice. He left to go home and I went back to the school to wait on my mom to pick me up.
On September 1, Labor Day, my mom took me to the nearest hospital. We had been fighting and she was terrified that I would kill myself. In Florida, the law is that if a person is taken into the hospital either threatening to kill themselves or very depressed they have to be Baker Acted. Being Baker Acted means that they take you to a facility where they can watch, evaluate, and diagnose you in an environment where you can’t hurt yourself. I was there for five days which seemed to drag on for weeks. I left with the diagnosis of depression and a subscription for anti-depressants. I didn’t take them for long. Although they appeared to make me happy I felt even closer to committing suicide.
Before I was raped, I had total trust in my mom. I could tell her anything but after it happened I simply felt that I couldn’t bear to tell her. I was ashamed and I hated myself. I felt that if I was stronger and smarter it wouldn’t have happened. Logically, I know now that there was nothing I could have done. I’m 5’1” and 94 lbs. with minor medical issues (ovarian cysts) so obviously when put up against a much bigger guy I don’t stand a chance.
The boy raped me a total of 6 times in various locations before my family and I moved to Virginia in October 2008. Miraculously, I managed to trust another boy while up there. He understood that I was hurt. He helped me through my self-loathing and I truly believe that in a way he saved my life. He made me want to live again. Towards the end of 2009, I was finally healed enough to be able to bring myself to tell my mom what happened. It was such a saddening experience when I told her. She put the pieces as to why I had hated myself so much and we cried for hours and hours.
The reason why I’m writing this isn’t just for myself. I want every person who reads this to understand that terrible things can happen even when it’s not your fault. This world we live in can be the most beautiful thing to ever exist in our eyes but it still has its dangers like a rose has thorns. We, as teenagers and as human beings, are in no ways invincible and nor should we have to be. When awful things happen we can still rise above it all. We can become all the stronger for it.