Confessions of a survivor: I didn’t report it.

I have always advocated for victims of sexual assault to speak up so our society can see exactly how prevalent it is. According to the National Sexual Violence Resource Center, “63% of sexual assaults are not reported to police.” It sounds like such an obvious thing to do once you’ve been attacked. If you were robbed, you’d call the cops, right? After all, you want your stuff back.

But what can sexual assault victims get back? Why do we want to see our attackers again, to tell and retell our stories over and over and over again? Why do we need to jump through flaming hoops to get a jury to believe us a year or even more after the incident. During that time, we’re forced to recount every detail of how, when, where, and why we were assaulted; in the meantime, we’re supposed to hope that our efforts will convince some strangers that what we experienced was real.

There are countless reasons why women (and men) don’t report sexual abuse. It brings me back to the #WhyWomenDontReport and #MeToo movements. I know my reason this time, and this is how I will speak up. Not in a courtroom but in a blog post that may not nearly be as effective as actually reporting the incident. There’s a reason for that too.

On Saturday, October 20, 2018, my friend raped me in my apartment.

He wanted to talk, and when he walked into my room, I noticed he had cuts all over his arm. I cleaned them up and asked what was going on. I was scared for him, but he insisted it was nothing.

Then he threatened to kill himself if I didn’t love him back. He asked me to send him nude pictures of myself or he would take the photos himself. He went through my underwear drawer, picking out pieces he liked best. I kept saying no.

He said no one cared about him but me. I reminded him of his friends we hung out with and the ones I didn’t know but knew were his best friends. I said I was sorry his home life sucked, and I was sorry he was hurting. I gave him a rock I’d found on a beach one day. This is something I learned in the hospital: I asked him to feel the rock and describe it to me. He calmed down.

He wanted me to hold him. I did. I was sorry. He said he’d jump onto the subway tracks, which is a minute walk away from my place. I couldn’t let him leave being so emotionally unstable, so I continued to comfort him. It wasn’t enough. My compassion as a friend was not enough.

The next thing I knew was that we were kissing, or rather he was kissing me. I tried moving away from him, saying I didn’t want any of this. Then I was lying face-down on my bed. I felt him take off my pants. Then my underwear. I couldn’t move but felt his tongue on me. I blacked out.

I have PTSD from multiple prolonged instances of sexual, physical, mental, and emotional abuse. Sometimes I dissociate and wake up with no memory of what happened during my dissociation or the exact details of when I begin to fade. I can’t stop it from happening once it starts. It’s all so fast.

When I woke up, he was so angry — angry that I thought I was me at a much younger age and hadn’t know where I was or who he was, angry that I would do that to him. And I was sorry. I always am.

I apologized over and over and over again. I cannot control when these things happen, but I knew the trigger. I knew it was him overpowering my body like the many times it’s been overpowered before. It was the fact that I didn’t want him to touch me. It was that I felt like I had no choice. No, no, don’t kill yourself.

“How can you make me feel so scared like that? I never want to feel that way again,” he said. He was crying. He was so angry. I was so scared. How could I make him feel that fear?

That night, he did leave my apartment. He didn’t kill himself. I didn’t go to the ER or the precinct. I wouldn’t go to the ER until nearly two weeks later. But I did call another friend. I cried as I recounted this story to him over the phone until I fell asleep, nightmares creeping in my mind until the morning.

Every person I told urged me to file a report with the police. They’d even come with me. I have to, I have to, I have to. But I couldn’t. He was my friend, and even though he isn’t now, I couldn’t do that to him. He needs professional help.

A few days after the incident, I contacted his best friend and told him the whole story and showed him the text messages between us. I told the friend he needs help. My perpetrator needs help.

We gathered my assailant’s closest friends and planned an intervention to get him into therapy for his anger and trauma. I put together a list of resources for him. Then I told him I don’t want to see or talk to him until he’s well. And if he didn’t seek help, I’d press charges. Again, I was sorry, sorry, sorry.

“How can you hurt me like this?” he asked me with so much pain in his voice.

“I’m not hurting you. I’m helping you,” I said.

“Doesn’t seem like it,” he replied.

I was sorry, sorry, sorry.

Reformation instead of incarceration. I convinced myself this is what’s best for him, that he truly needs help which jail wouldn’t give him. Besides, I honestly don’t believe I would win in the court of law. Just another Brock Turner case — an unconscious girl and possibly no vaginal penetration but only oral and foreplay. I convinced myself getting my perpetrator into therapy was the right thing to do. Is it? I hope so.

I hope so because I feel like a hypocrite. I write and preach against sexual violence. I plead for victims to say something to help them and to help all of us. To make more people believe us. It’s possible that I am doing the wrong thing. It’s possible that I took it upon myself to be the judge and jury against myself. But this isn’t another Brock Turner case, right? He was my friend, and my friend needs help.

If you have experienced sexual assault and wish to seek help or support, please call 800-656-HOPE (4673). RAINN (Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network)