When I was 14 years old I was raped. I still blame myself for it. I’m 18 now and I never brought him to justice. I told my closest friends and it leaked out to the whole school. I could handle that, it was when they started telling everyone that it wasn’t rape that I couldn’t handle.
This article really helped me out, because now I know that I’m not the only one with these thoughts. I never told the cops, and it took me months before I could tell my parents. The year after the rape I spiraled out of control and felt completely worthless. I dated a guy I didn’t like because I felt like it was what I deserved. I deserved to be used and not treated like an actual person. I felt like it was all my fault and that if I wasn’t such a slut and a tease it wouldn’t have happened. Self-destructing seemed like the only thing that gave me comfort, even though it was all temporary.

Thank you for writing this. I too wrote about my reaction to Polanski and to rape in general. I am making it a point to speak out, to educate. I am taking a stand against violence and champion anyone ese who does the same!

I have not gotten over being raped and molested but I am waaaay stronger and wiser. i am a mom and fierce. My daughter at 6 knows about sex and men and women and what is okay and what’s not. We live in India. This place is very weird about sex so we are extra careful.

Thanks for the great blog.

Here is to healing. It’s never the victim’s fault for being raped. Its the abuser.

My dad never got thrown in Jail. I wish he was tortured then killed. He is worthy of the torture denizens of Drapache prison in Lhasa….. Someone aught to hang and quarter him while a vulture eats his dick

-AMen

My own story:
http://www.kickingpebbles.net/?p=126

xo! n

No justice for me, and my family has mostly sided with my attacker, a cousin, so I’m estranged from most of them.

I would say it gets better, but it’s a metric ton of work, and as you and Melissa McEwan have said, it’s hard-earned. My life pre-attack was utterly destroyed. I’ve built perhaps a better life for myself afterwards, but it would’ve been nice not to *have* to start from scratch, you know?

I’ve been strangely fascinated by the Polanski coverage in the media. Have never seen any of his movies, except a bit of _Chinatown_ (which I didn’t like at all). People defending him remind me of my parents, and sometimes I wonder what they would say about his case, but I think I know after all.

I was molested the first time by my next door neighbor when I was 10 or 11. He was 65 or so. Almost 70 for sure, but he wasn’t weak or frail or anything like that. It continued until I was 16 when we moved away. He started off fondling me, then penetrating me, and then two of my other neighbors got in on the act, one of them anally raping me and the other having sex with me on a pretty consistent basis.

I have never had a friend, a real friend, i’ve never had an actual boyfriend, and I am so lonely. I’ve never been close to anyone, and that scares me so much. Every interaction i’ve had with a man thus far has been destructive and ugly from that older men who thought I was 18 when I was 16-17 and just wanted someone to tell me i’m pretty, to the last guy who literally kicked me out of his house one day and told me how disgusting and fat and trashy I was and that he was glad to be rid of me.

I read up on stuff like this all the time, and I cannot say I get pleasure out of knowing this is so many other women’s reality, it is comforting in a way…I hate the way that sounds. Lauren, thank you for writing about how you felt, I always think back to that little girl and who I could have been if that bastard hadn’t taken my childhood from me…maybe not so full of rage, of blind fucking rage, and of sadness, and I hurt for that woman and her rape. Polanski deserves a jail sentence, period.

And i’m still working on getting my justice, He still lives in the same house.

I wanted to comment on the “get over it” part. People who say, “Get over it,” don’t realize that that’s just like giving a big middle finger. I have had what I have now self deduced as chronic prostatitis since I was, well, 13. I have been neglected and overlooked at every doctor. Who ever heard of a teen with THAT? No parental support because the doctors said it wasn’t broke, don’t fix it, and if THEY said that then it HAS to be in my head so I should “get over it.” Those words are so frustrating to hear. This has held me back. Now, not being able to be covered by my parents to go to the doctor, especially after my new lead, I am stuck. They have no idea of the physical torture that takes your mental stability away this causes.

If “get over it” makes me mad, I can’t imagine what the horrors it brings when someone says that to a rape victim.

(In no way am I overlooking rape or saying that my story is much more important and worse than any rape victim.)