Did you know that every two minutes someone is sexually assaulted in the U.S? Did you know that 44% of the victims are under the age of eighteen? Did you? Did you know that 60% of sexual assaults are never reported to the police? On November 22, 2010, these statics became more to me than just numbers. I was only thirteen years old when a friend of mine sexually assaulted me in his car. This friend of mine was nineteen years old at the time. We had met at my best friend’s Bar Mitzvah in 7th grade, when he asked me to dance with him. Little did I know that he was my best friend’s older brother. At the time he was only 18 and a senior. To this day he still says that I wanted it, but what girl wants to be hit, gagged, and cussed at?
As I walked up the path to my school, I was walking to make a deal with the devil. The sun was covered by clouds, as the slight breeze blew through my hair. I remember everything so clear. His car was a shiny gold van with tan leather interior. His breath tasted like chipotle chips and salsa along with his chapped lips. His eyes were cold and harsh along with his mean and aggressive voice. That voice made my heart stop and body tremble. During the sexual assault I asked him to stop, tried pushing him off of me but lost my soul and will in the battle. The physical pain was bad, but the emotional pain was ten times worse. Aside from the pain that the memories caused me, I had to deal with the pain that I caused my family.
It started off as every other day, but ended with my world crumbling before my eyes. That morning I woke up I heard on the radio that if you were a Libra your day would be a ten out of ten. While I was in the hospital waiting to be checked out all I could do was laugh at my misfortune and how wrong they were. The main thing I thought about for the longest of time is how my life changed so much with only a few choices I made. Sure I didn’t choose to have this happen to me, but my actions sealed my fate. It has taken me forever to convince myself that it was his fault and not mine. Even with people telling me that daily did not seem to help.
The week after this event was even worse than the thirty minutes of hell I went through in that car. My parents had no idea how to handle it. I had to talk with nurses, doctors, police officers, detectives, and prosecutors. All I was doing was repeating the same thing over and over again. I didn’t leave the house, change, or shower for the longest of time. We had to contact the school and my teachers to explain what happened. All the teachers starred at me with pity and talked to me like I was an abused animal. I wanted to prove to them I could take care of myself. But that is easier said than done.
I believe that the first year was the toughest year I had ever gone through. I barely passed some of my classes I fell so far behind. I lost all my friends by never seeing them. I also turned to cutting as an emotional release. The flashbacks were once a week for five months. The worst part of these flashbacks was the hysterical breakdowns that went along with it. I relived everything in these flashbacks. I saw his eyes, felt his hands, and heard his coarse voice. I could never feel safe. I couldn’t let my friends hug or get near me. During a flashback one time I punched a guy for touching my shoulder. I always had to explain to everyone why I had become a scared and weak.
I wanted to get on with my life and forget about it, but the trial and law process was holding me back. One month everything would be find, then next thing I know I’m going to speak to the prosecutors about charges. It angered me so much on how long it took. Many times I wanted to give up and drop the charges. Then everything got worse when the whole school ended up finding out. Each day the boys and girls would come up to me, saying I lied, that it was for attention, calling me names. Others told me the world would be better without me, and to just leave my school. I soon began to believe them. My cutting and depression soon turned into a downward spiral of suicidal thoughts. No one stood up for me. I had to stand up for myself.
Everyone told me that I shouldn’t talk about it with other people. In my mind that was only ignoring what happened. The more I talked about it the more it didn’t affect me. When I told people most of them were shocked, some believed me, some didn’t. The ones that did believe me said that Blake should die. I eventually began to agree with them. To me it was no fair my life was ruined, but his was not. I wanted everyone to know what he did. Still, in the end he only was punished with being on the sex offender list, and 10 years of parole. He took away my sense of safety, my trust in others, and my strength to live. Yet I was not able to take anything away from him.

That day, and the months that followed God taught me something about myself. He is always there protecting me, and he made me strong enough to go through anything. I blamed God for the longest of time, but then realized he saved me by having that truck drive by causing the devil to stop. He could have hurt me worse; who knows what would have happened if he had not stopped. For the longest of time I wished I could go back in time and take it all back. It happened over a year ago and I’m glad it did. Since November 22, 2010, I have found my purpose in life and my passion. It is to help other sexual assault victims like me who lost all hope. The law is wrong, we are not victims. We are something bigger and something stronger, and that is survivors.