Type of Aggie currently: Undergraduate
Classification/age at time: 17 years old
Location of crime: High school party
Was the crime reported: No
Reasoning for decision to report or not report: "I felt an incredible amount of shame. I knew if I reported my life would be turned upside down and would become publicly a living hell. I was already known as the girl who's father died, I didn't want to be known as the girl who got raped as well."
"When I was 17 I started to date this boy named S.K. in January of my junior year of high school. I had been raised catholic in a Mexican American family for the majority of my childhood and only left the church when my mother remarried and now went to a non-denominational church. I firmly believed in not having sex before marriage and thought sex was pretty taboo and worried incredibly about what my mom would think if she found out.
"S.K. was a year above me and super interesting. I think I thought it was cool that I was dating an older boy who was a star baseball player and had college interviews for Princeton and other schools. I remember the first time we went all the way. I was reluctant but his constant insisting bugged, and by this time he had already emotionally and physically controlled me. On weekends I couldn't wake up past a certain time or else he would get mad that I wasn't already at his house hanging out with him and would call me awful names, or he would be angry that I decided to run errands with my mom, as he detested my relationship with my family.
"He purposely drove a wedge in between my family and my friends and when the snowball's chance in hell presented itself, when I would get the courage to break things off, he would threaten to kill himself. He was depressed and refused to take his medication, even when he would admit that it helped him, I think he liked how it felt to manipulate me and his medicine made him not in the mood for it. I would confide in his mom my worries but that family was only concerned with their wealth, as the rest of his siblings were awful, hateful people. Ultimately he really frightened me. He was a triple black belt and on occasion where I'd want to go home, the amount of force he had and used in grabbing me was terrifying. I am to this day a petite person, but it wasn't until my junior year did I hit 105 lbs., and he would restrain me and I would eventually give up fighting due to exhaustion and fear that I would break an arm or leg.
"With him I went to my first ever party and drank alcohol for the first time. He had me taking swigs of Fireball and I remember feeling terribly sick, and worried about my friend that tagged along even though I should of been worrying about myself. When I could no longer walk I remember trying to hold onto S.K. and was worried, scared something would happen to me. Later on when I confronted him about this night, he said that I was "asking for it", that my leaning onto his shoulder for support granted him the right to rape me.
"He asked his childhood friend at the time to borrow his truck and when he gave him the keys, carried me and threw me so hard into the back seat that I remember the wind being knocked out of my lungs. With the door open he proceeded to take down my shorts and I remember crossing my legs and kicking for him to stop. I was crying out for my friend asking where was she and saying no, I can to this day remember his hands on me and the look on his face, him laughing at me for fighting. When he penetrated me, he was holding me down with his arms but I continued to kick and luckily enough when he was adjusting his grip I managed to drive my heel into his nose. I ran out of the truck and started looking for my friend but began to throw up violently and blacked out.
"In the morning my friend recalled to me what happened when she found me, shortly after I blacked out, that I was crying hysterically for my father, who had passed recently, and that S.K. was crying saying how much he loved me and how sorry he was.
"I broke up with him months later during my senior homecoming because my last straw was that he was rude to my two childhood bestfriends. I had been abused and broken down so much that I believed I deserved to be treated so horribly, that I was dirt, but when it came to my friends I wouldn't allow anything to happen. It was months after that I admitted to myself that I had been emotionally and physically abused and raped by him. Out of anger, I confronted him during his many tries to resume contact with me, and he exploded. He threatened to kill my whole family and to out me to the whole community as a whore, and got his mother involved and even she went on attack. I remember staying up all night crying and terrified and finally telling my mom and my brother what had happened to me. My mom asked if I wanted to report it, and I said no because it would ruin my public life.
"To this day he tries to contact me, and even his current girlfriend now tries to contact me to humiliate me on social media. I am sometimes afraid that I will run into him when I am visiting my hometown and that he will attack me. I joke that if I ever go missing that it was probably him, yet its not really a joke, its a genuine fear.
"My closest friends don't know my story, my mom only knows the bare bones. My current boyfriend who is also my bestfriend knows more than anyone but I can never share with him how much shame I have with it. I feel guilty to be with an amazing guy like him because I feel like damaged goods. Sex is still weird for me, and it angers me that S.K., such a despicable human being could have had an affect on that aspect of my life. I can't go to catholic church as the guilt is unbearable, the reason I stayed with him for so long was that I was taught that whoever you have sex with, that had to be your forever partner. Its going to take time and one day for I hope to publicly be able to say I am a survivor, but for now I pour myself into advocacy work and focus on the real love I am given by my family, friends and boyfriend."