Realizing You're a Victim of Sexual Assault

By Lorena Roberts on February 8, 2016

It’s not unusual to open your University of Tennessee email and see an email about a sexual assault that has occurred on campus. In fact, my freshman year here on campus, we had an email everyday or every few days for the first few weeks of school. People would YikYak and joke around about yet another assault occurring, but what always bothered me was that no one was hurting for the victim. Everyone talked about the assaulter, but no one mentioned the soul that had everything taken from them.

I don’t know about you, but whenever I got (and still get) these emails and see that the victim decided not to press charges, I get angry. Not just perturbed. Straight up pissed. Every bone in my body wants to know who had the guts to ever, ever treat a person-a human being-like they did. I want to beat them to a pulp. I want them to feel every ounce of pain they made the victim feel.

My curiosity has continued to linger over my head since the beginning of my time here at UT. Coincidentally, I recently had the opportunity to have an impromptu discussion with a girl I met on campus about her experience with sexual assault. After hearing her story, I asked her if she’d be willing to share it through this website. I wanted to cry when she accepted my offer to write an article about her. I promised I would keep everything about her identity a secret–every detail that could link her story back to her. I promised her I would make everything anonymously confidential– except the details of her story. 

We met on campus one day after lunch. She breezes up to me with her long chestnut hair perfectly curled, wearing an outfit that looks like it came from a magazine, a small smile on her perfectly peachy lips. You would never guess that she’s a victim of sexual assault. Never in a million years. But she was. She still is. 

He was a guy I knew. Well, a guy I thought I knew. I hadn’t known him for longer than a few months, but we had built up a good friendship. One of those friendships that you don’t find everyday. We just kind of clicked. He was one of the nicest guys I had ever met. And I’m not just saying that. He was really, truly a gentleman. He was one of the closest friends I had made since coming to college. He knew everything about me. He was always there for me. Especially through my breakup with my boyfriend. He understood why my self-esteem had plummeted. Our texts went from just casual ‘what’s up?’ to ‘goodmorning, I hope your day is as beautiful as you are.’ And I guess that’s when I really started falling for him.

“When he was always the one building me up, telling me I could do it, believing in me.–just being there through the daily struggles I had. So when he ended up crashing at my place, I didn’t really give it a second thought. When I woke up with a body on top of me, I wasn’t sure what to think. ‘Did I want this?’ 


I don’t know what happened. My memory is kind of blank after that. My thoughts were swirling. I remember him smelling bad. It didn’t take too long to be over. I was crying. He fell asleep. I finally drifted off after a few hours. He was gone before I woke up.”

“I don’t remember when it really hit me that I was a victim. That I had been assaulted. I didn’t know what to do, who to tell. I was ashamed that I had been so stupid. I felt guilty for letting someone get so close to me, for trusting them too much, that I let my guard down. I felt guilty because I thought I let him. Is it my fault because I didn’t scream for help? Is it my fault because I let my vulnerable heart completely engorge itself in someone I thought was a good guy?”

The interview ended about right here. I couldn’t do much to console my now bawling newest friend. I sat there next to her, as a fellow woman, college student, and human being. I tried as hard as I could to experience her emotions, to try to relate how she must be feeling. But there’s no way what I felt was anywhere close.

Needless to say, it’s easier to understand why charges aren’t pressed. It’s too much to deal with. You just want it to be over. I give her all the credit in the world for telling her story. And I urge anyone who wants to, to share your story.

It’s yours. To have and to hold. Until you want to share it with the world. Whenever that may be.

 

 

For information and resources, go to the website of the Sexual Assault Center of East Tennessee.

If you’re a student at the University of Tennessee and you’re looking for campus resources regarding this matter, visit this website.

According to Google’s definition, sexual assault is: any type of sexual contact or behavior that occurs without the explicit consent of the recipient. Falling under the definition of sexual assault are sexual activities as forced sexual intercourse, forcible sodomy, child molestation, incest, fondling, and attempted rape.

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