by Anonymous_181031
When I was 18 I went to a house party with some coworkers. I got really drunk but had 2 friends from work with me so I didn't get worried. But I ended up getting blackout drunk and passed out.
When I woke up, throwing up, I could feel that my pants were pulled down and someone was fingering me. I tried to say stop but they just laughed and kept going. I kept on passing out and waking up, and I felt someone raping me. I got the sense that it was more than one person, and I could hear others laughing. Eventually I woke up to someone raping me while I was on my belly, face down. I got a big jolt when I felt it going in my ass and that caused me to scream and wake up for real and luckily they stopped soon after. I don't remember exactly how I got out, but I think my friends came back (apparently they had left to go pick up another friend) and helped me put my shoes on and drove me home.
I eventually was told by someone who had been there that three guys had raped me, and they had done so after my friends (the only other females at the party) had left. A few of the others had watched, and someone took a video. My friends didn't even know what had happened until I told them. At first I was too embarrassed to tell anyone but my closest friend, but after three days I went to the police.
The first thing they asked was "are you sure you didn't just dream it up?" I assured them that the pain in my ass was no dream.
No physical evidence was gathered, as I had taken 2 showers since then and also it had been 3 days. For a time I had hope that I would get some justice for it, but that never happened. Even though some of the guys at the party told others what happened, and I had a text from a guy who told me of the existence of the video and who the three guys were, that wasn't enough.
I did a call to one of them while at the police station. The detective thought he might admit to having sex since "he seemed to like me." But it just never amounted to anything. Everyone who they talked to who was at the party, including my 2 female friends, denied knowing anything of the sort had happened. Even though one of the female friends knew exactly what happened, she pretended not to know because she didn't want to admit to underage drinking.
This happened almost 6 years ago, and I have occasionally called the detective and inquired if anything more could be done. But she stopped picking up 2 years ago.
To this day, I am haunted by that night. I could never seem to stop saying what if. What if I hadn't lied to my parents about going out? What if I hadn't drunk so much Bacardi? What if my friends hadn't left? What if I hadn't passed out? I try to explain to myself that rape is the fault of the rapist, and I truly 100% believe that, but it almost feels like that doesn't apply to me. Like it could have been avoided if I had made different decisions that night.
Of course, it could have been avoided if the rapists had chosen not to rape, too, so why does it feel like I had a higher burden in preventing it then they had in not doing it?
This really fucked me up. I'd always been a pessimist, but this just made me constantly angry. I carried around this intense rage all the time and was prone to snapping. The only thing that helped was the passing of time. Life kept moving on, even if I wasn't ready, and it sort of dragged me with it. I did see a trauma counselor for a few months, and I would feel better while I was talking about it with her, but it was only free for a certain amount of time. Once it "expired" I couldn't afford further treatment, and that kind of sucked.
I told a few close friends about the rape and most of their responses were shit. "Omg you have to be careful, you can't just be partying it up like that" was one of them. My best friend was extremely supportive about it, and helped me get the courage to go to the cops, which was the right thing to do, even if it didn't get anything done.
I avoided telling my two brothers for a few years because they're guys, and it's awkward, and I was worried about how they'd respond. I was right. One day I was arguing with my older brother while my family was all in the room, and he was saying some things that really made me explode, and I snapped, screaming at him "I was raped, you know," to which he replied, "I bet you were drunk." Family is just great.
I ran from the room and heard my mother telling him off, and I also heard him reply "She's trying to manipulate me and it's not going to work."
These days I'm mostly ok. The fact that they got away with it still can make me so angry. I'll admit I often fantasized about getting my own vigilante justice, finding them and torturing them to death. Even today I feel like I would give so much to be able to feel closure, knowing that at least one of them is paying for it. But I know that rationally it's impossible. So I have to just live with it. Most days I don't think of it, but when I do, it makes me want to hit someone. I hope that time will help dull it more until it no longer makes me feel so intensely.
Published as written, with light proofreading and line break adjustment.
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