Post by shiva on Apr 18, 2013 12:09:55 GMT -5
It’s taken a long time for me to feel secure enough to tell my story without people judging me and blaming me, I’m so happy I found the facebook page and this forum. I’m sorry if this is too graphic for some people, I want to tell my whole story the whole truth and not leave anything out about how I felt.
I was 17, me and my best friend spent all day with some people we knew threw friends and going out, we met in the park, we had some drinks and a picnic then left, they invited us to a house party later and gave us the address. We went home got changed and met back up. I remember being really excited about the party, dressing up in my favourite new clothes, spending ages on my hair, doing my make up, wearing my favourite jewelery. It was a big party, a big house with 3 floors and a basement and lots of people 50 or more. I don’t remember much about it, I remember me and my friend were drinking a bottle of coke mixed with vodka, we danced, talked and laughed a lot, we smoked some weed and I did some cocaine. The last thing I remember was feeling tired and the room spinning, too many people and then walking upstairs holding the rail. I found a bedroom on the top floor and went to sleep.
I woke up and could hear quiet voices, i could tell someone was in the room and the music had stopped downstairs. I remember trying to move i couldn’t then i saw a face right in front of mine he said “i just fucked you and now my mates are gonna fuck you too”. He was on top of me holding my wrists down. I think i froze then tried to get free, i think i screamed but he held my mouth, then i saw more people, felt hands holding me down. The rest of what happened i remember exactly, i can see faces clearly, hear voices the same now and remember the pain. I can remember the fear. I can remember thinking it would never end, remember thinking i would die i was in so much pain and nothing was going to stop them i was completely powerless, no one could hear me and no one was going to come and save me. There were so many humiliating moments. The first attacker said i got wet for him, they all laughed and did impressions of me when he said i was moaning in my sleep, they were saying i was loving it, calling me a dirty bitch, a slag, a filthy slut, a fucking whore. They pulled my knickers off and rubbed them over my face saying “there see how wet you got”. They were violently ripping my clothes off, they ripped my top completely then they were groping me and biting my chest, pushing fingers in me and trying to put their penises in my mouth. I tried to bite one of them and someone slapped me really hard in the face. I’ve never ever been hit like that before or since. Then they held me down, 1 on each arm, one of them held the door and they raped me one by one. I don’t know how long it lasted, it felt like hours. I was in agony, i don’t know how to describe how painful it was, i felt like i was cut inside, bleeding or grazed, like an open wound and like i kept being cut in the same place again and again. It felt like torture. They kept biting me, slapping me, pulling my hair, name calling, racial abuse, spitting in my face, spitting in my hair. They kept taunting me that i wanted it, that i’d worn “sexy knickers cos i wanted to get fucked”, that i wouldn’t have shaved myself if i didn’t want to have sex. I was raped by all four of them, maybe more than once by one of them. I begged them to stop again and again, cried and screamed but all they did was laugh and tell me to shut up and hit me again. At one point i rolled over and lay dead hoping they would just stop but they didn’t. When one of them finished, i managed to get free of their hands and crawled away against the wall and started screaming and shouting that i was going to kill myself, banging my head against the wall and strangling myself. They threw my clothes at me and told me to get out, one of them took my id from my wallet and said “we know who you are if you tell anyone we’ll kill you”. It scares me that I never met these men before, never since but they knew who i was.
I grabbed my bag and ran out. I put my clothes on as best i could, my top was ripped and i didn’t have all my clothes, it was so embarrassing walking out with no underwear, ripped clothes, covered in god knows what, crying, limping in agony and red faced. I flagged a taxi down in the street. I cried the whole way home. I think the taxi driver new what had happened didn’t want to ask me any questions other than are you alright, he didny charge me. I got home, crept past my parents room and had a shower. I waited in my room for a few hours for my parents to get up then, got dressed and left without saying a word. I went to hospital and got tested, swabbed, they put a diaphragm in me the lot. The doctor called me stupid for not going hospital first and then stupid for getting drunk at a party, stupid for taking drugs, i still remember his face and that pitying judgemental look. I was 17 and had never even had a male doctor before, having an insensitive old man tut at me after what i’d been through made me feel even lower. I had to have cervical smears for years after that cos they kept finding irregularities in the lining of my womb, they said i now have a higher a risk of cancer and may not be able to have children in the future but I was just happy I didn’t catch any diseases.
Afterwards i told my best friend who went to the party with me what happened and she said it was disgusting. She never said she felt sorry for me or asked me anything about it she was cold and distant with me from then on. I felt so ashamed i never asked her if she meant I was disgusting or they were? It felt like she meant the whole thing was disgusting to her and she didn’t want to think about it but she made me feel like I was disgusting. We never spoke properly after that, she kept it a secret that's all she did for me but she never wanted to talk or think about it at all, she would change the subject straight away. That made me feel ashamed, dirty, unworthy, guilty, theres probably better words but something like that all at once. I think i blamed her for not staying with me, I never said it to her face though. She told my cousin, the only other person who knew, that she went to find me and I was asleep in the bed, then she came to find me later when she was leaving in the same room but one of my attackers held the door shut and wouldn’t let her in. I wish I could tell her now how angry I am that she just left me and didn’t try to get in the room or get help. I would’ve forgiven her in time, I needed to get it off my chest and vent my anger at her and she never let me so ive always been angry at myself for that night.
So i lost my best friend. I dropped out of college a month later. I decided to move to another city, i changed my name by deed poll as soon as i was 18. I never told my parents, they still don’t know why I lost my friends, dropped out of college and moved city all of a sudden. I’ve only been back twice and this happened 4 years ago. It’s been hard to have a normal relationship since, hard to tell my first boyfriend afterwards, he was so confused and asked a lot of questions I didn’t know how to answer. I think he felt angry that he couldn’t protect me from it and that it still affected me and our relationship. I suffered from terrible depression and tried to kill myself twice. The first time my flatmate found me and saved my life, she carried me down 3 flights of stairs to a taxi and took me to hospital which the doctors said I might not have lived if id waited for the ambulance. She told me I told her what I had done, what I had taken and my counselor later told me that it was likely that i didn’t actually want to die, I wanted a reason to force myself to process the trauma i’d been through. I had good days and bad days after that but felt better knowing I could do or say anything in front of my flatmate and she’d understand. She is my real best friend and probably always will be.
It has affected me in some many ways, confidence, trust, lifestyle choices but
I'm trying to harder and harder each year to do the things I truly want to do in life and not be afraid. I still get flashbacks of their faces, the laughter, the looks in their eyes, them seeing me in my sexy underwear that was meant for someone special, seeing me naked, seeing me broken, my body reacting to them when i was asleep. I still question what I was wearing on the night, was my skirt too short, top too low cut, how much i drank, taking drugs, its difficult not to blame myself when you re seeing things in the news and how the victims are treated and the comments people make on the internet.
Moving away helped me deal with the humiliation of people knowing, seeing the attackers again, the people who judged me but it stopped me really dealing with the feelings the trauma caused. Being here is me trying to finally confront everything and be honest with myself. I hope if I can get past everything i’m dealing with, I won’t keep having setbacks and there will be less and less bad days.
I was 17, me and my best friend spent all day with some people we knew threw friends and going out, we met in the park, we had some drinks and a picnic then left, they invited us to a house party later and gave us the address. We went home got changed and met back up. I remember being really excited about the party, dressing up in my favourite new clothes, spending ages on my hair, doing my make up, wearing my favourite jewelery. It was a big party, a big house with 3 floors and a basement and lots of people 50 or more. I don’t remember much about it, I remember me and my friend were drinking a bottle of coke mixed with vodka, we danced, talked and laughed a lot, we smoked some weed and I did some cocaine. The last thing I remember was feeling tired and the room spinning, too many people and then walking upstairs holding the rail. I found a bedroom on the top floor and went to sleep.
I woke up and could hear quiet voices, i could tell someone was in the room and the music had stopped downstairs. I remember trying to move i couldn’t then i saw a face right in front of mine he said “i just fucked you and now my mates are gonna fuck you too”. He was on top of me holding my wrists down. I think i froze then tried to get free, i think i screamed but he held my mouth, then i saw more people, felt hands holding me down. The rest of what happened i remember exactly, i can see faces clearly, hear voices the same now and remember the pain. I can remember the fear. I can remember thinking it would never end, remember thinking i would die i was in so much pain and nothing was going to stop them i was completely powerless, no one could hear me and no one was going to come and save me. There were so many humiliating moments. The first attacker said i got wet for him, they all laughed and did impressions of me when he said i was moaning in my sleep, they were saying i was loving it, calling me a dirty bitch, a slag, a filthy slut, a fucking whore. They pulled my knickers off and rubbed them over my face saying “there see how wet you got”. They were violently ripping my clothes off, they ripped my top completely then they were groping me and biting my chest, pushing fingers in me and trying to put their penises in my mouth. I tried to bite one of them and someone slapped me really hard in the face. I’ve never ever been hit like that before or since. Then they held me down, 1 on each arm, one of them held the door and they raped me one by one. I don’t know how long it lasted, it felt like hours. I was in agony, i don’t know how to describe how painful it was, i felt like i was cut inside, bleeding or grazed, like an open wound and like i kept being cut in the same place again and again. It felt like torture. They kept biting me, slapping me, pulling my hair, name calling, racial abuse, spitting in my face, spitting in my hair. They kept taunting me that i wanted it, that i’d worn “sexy knickers cos i wanted to get fucked”, that i wouldn’t have shaved myself if i didn’t want to have sex. I was raped by all four of them, maybe more than once by one of them. I begged them to stop again and again, cried and screamed but all they did was laugh and tell me to shut up and hit me again. At one point i rolled over and lay dead hoping they would just stop but they didn’t. When one of them finished, i managed to get free of their hands and crawled away against the wall and started screaming and shouting that i was going to kill myself, banging my head against the wall and strangling myself. They threw my clothes at me and told me to get out, one of them took my id from my wallet and said “we know who you are if you tell anyone we’ll kill you”. It scares me that I never met these men before, never since but they knew who i was.
I grabbed my bag and ran out. I put my clothes on as best i could, my top was ripped and i didn’t have all my clothes, it was so embarrassing walking out with no underwear, ripped clothes, covered in god knows what, crying, limping in agony and red faced. I flagged a taxi down in the street. I cried the whole way home. I think the taxi driver new what had happened didn’t want to ask me any questions other than are you alright, he didny charge me. I got home, crept past my parents room and had a shower. I waited in my room for a few hours for my parents to get up then, got dressed and left without saying a word. I went to hospital and got tested, swabbed, they put a diaphragm in me the lot. The doctor called me stupid for not going hospital first and then stupid for getting drunk at a party, stupid for taking drugs, i still remember his face and that pitying judgemental look. I was 17 and had never even had a male doctor before, having an insensitive old man tut at me after what i’d been through made me feel even lower. I had to have cervical smears for years after that cos they kept finding irregularities in the lining of my womb, they said i now have a higher a risk of cancer and may not be able to have children in the future but I was just happy I didn’t catch any diseases.
Afterwards i told my best friend who went to the party with me what happened and she said it was disgusting. She never said she felt sorry for me or asked me anything about it she was cold and distant with me from then on. I felt so ashamed i never asked her if she meant I was disgusting or they were? It felt like she meant the whole thing was disgusting to her and she didn’t want to think about it but she made me feel like I was disgusting. We never spoke properly after that, she kept it a secret that's all she did for me but she never wanted to talk or think about it at all, she would change the subject straight away. That made me feel ashamed, dirty, unworthy, guilty, theres probably better words but something like that all at once. I think i blamed her for not staying with me, I never said it to her face though. She told my cousin, the only other person who knew, that she went to find me and I was asleep in the bed, then she came to find me later when she was leaving in the same room but one of my attackers held the door shut and wouldn’t let her in. I wish I could tell her now how angry I am that she just left me and didn’t try to get in the room or get help. I would’ve forgiven her in time, I needed to get it off my chest and vent my anger at her and she never let me so ive always been angry at myself for that night.
So i lost my best friend. I dropped out of college a month later. I decided to move to another city, i changed my name by deed poll as soon as i was 18. I never told my parents, they still don’t know why I lost my friends, dropped out of college and moved city all of a sudden. I’ve only been back twice and this happened 4 years ago. It’s been hard to have a normal relationship since, hard to tell my first boyfriend afterwards, he was so confused and asked a lot of questions I didn’t know how to answer. I think he felt angry that he couldn’t protect me from it and that it still affected me and our relationship. I suffered from terrible depression and tried to kill myself twice. The first time my flatmate found me and saved my life, she carried me down 3 flights of stairs to a taxi and took me to hospital which the doctors said I might not have lived if id waited for the ambulance. She told me I told her what I had done, what I had taken and my counselor later told me that it was likely that i didn’t actually want to die, I wanted a reason to force myself to process the trauma i’d been through. I had good days and bad days after that but felt better knowing I could do or say anything in front of my flatmate and she’d understand. She is my real best friend and probably always will be.
It has affected me in some many ways, confidence, trust, lifestyle choices but
I'm trying to harder and harder each year to do the things I truly want to do in life and not be afraid. I still get flashbacks of their faces, the laughter, the looks in their eyes, them seeing me in my sexy underwear that was meant for someone special, seeing me naked, seeing me broken, my body reacting to them when i was asleep. I still question what I was wearing on the night, was my skirt too short, top too low cut, how much i drank, taking drugs, its difficult not to blame myself when you re seeing things in the news and how the victims are treated and the comments people make on the internet.
Moving away helped me deal with the humiliation of people knowing, seeing the attackers again, the people who judged me but it stopped me really dealing with the feelings the trauma caused. Being here is me trying to finally confront everything and be honest with myself. I hope if I can get past everything i’m dealing with, I won’t keep having setbacks and there will be less and less bad days.