#1 Rape Culture Series: My Story

Dedication:
This is dedicated foremost to my partner, R.K., who helps me with the after-effects of my rapes, daily fears that I have because of those crimes, and with the fears I have in the world as a woman. And to my 2-year-old daughter, R. Sonnet, who I hope will inherit a world much less misogynistic than this one.
This is also dedicated to all my family and friends who have helped and just listened over coffee. This is dedicated to the mental health professionals (the ones that really do something, and don’t talk to me for 5 minutes & just offer me drugs) who are working with me now, and the many who have worked with me over the years for long periods of time, or shortly.
Finally, to the people who work in Victim Services, with women, men and children who have been affected by violence and sexual violence, as well as other professionals who do this work, who do a very important job, aren’t paid enough, and have to hear one horrifying/upsetting story after another.

Hello There, my name is H. Mosp. I have been a victim and am now a survivor of rape. I wanted to share the story with you of my first rape, then eventually my second in another post. Healing is a lifelong process, and sometimes a fulltime job.
I am a writer and artist using various mediums. I have a degree in Sociology with a minor in Women’s Studies (because the Women’s Studies major was not available yet), I have worked in victim services, and various other populations of people as a social worker. I am a feminist, and have experienced sexual violence, so I know a little about the subject about rape and Rape Culture. I am not currently working for money even though I work on my art and writing all the time. I am a biracial, bisexual, cisgender woman, vegetarian and mother of a 2-year-old girl with developmental delays. I am in my early 40s, and am married to a very caring and compassionate partner. We adopted our daughter. Now you know a little about me.

Below is an account of my rapes and a little about my life at that time. When I was attending a sexual assault group at my local YWCA we were asked if we wanted to write a “survivor story”. This is mine

Survivor Stories
Using My Voice
Posted by YWCA____ on July 24, 2018

I played the flute in school in the Marching and Concert Bands. In marching band, you not only had to play an instrument, but you had to march in configurations for parades and half-time shows that were often difficult. So, in high school, those of us in band started what was called “band camp,” which was going to school two weeks before school started to practice our music and movements.

One warm August day when I was 15, right before my sophomore year, with my lyre to hold my music on my arm and the small sheets of music to “School Song” and “Alma Mater,” I set off to the bus stop to go to band camp. A stranger came up to me while I was waiting for the bus, at a quiet neighborhood bus stop, and accosted me by knife point, and took me. Over a period of hours, this monster raped me a few times in two different cities, threatening that if I didn’t do it right he was going to kill me. I was lucky to get this man put in jail, which is not that common in rape cases, and it was amazing he was able to stay in prison for fourteen years. It’s almost unheard of for rapists to stay in jail this long. Society’s justice process, systemically incarcerates black men at a much higher rate than whites. The man who assaulted me was black and this inequality might have played a role in his longer sentence.

The male doctor who examined me in the emergency room right after the rape said that my hymen was already broken, even though I was a virgin (this can happen to girls in many non-sexual ways), thus almost lessening the validity of my rape claim. Then two police detectives kept me in a hot room with no water for 2.5 hours grilling me. I was in so much pain I couldn’t cross my legs and was in shock. These two detectives interrogated me like I was the criminal and not the victim, trying to get me to admit that the perpetrator was really my boyfriend and I didn’t want to admit that to my mom who was forced to sit in the waiting room not able support me. While rape victims cannot remember or put together all the details sometimes, I knew quite clearly and gave the police information that maybe the defense could later dispute, but the police who were supposed to be on my side couldn’t deny. I brought them to the location of the first place he raped me, and the grass was still patted down. And I brought them to the back of a casual restaurant and showed them the clothing he had made us discard, after he made me steal sweat suits for both of us from a nearby store, which held DNA evidence, and just for a topper, I told them exactly what square of sidewalk he dropped his red lighter. For years when I would walk on that square of sidewalk I would always remember a red lighter had once been there.

The first year right after it happened, which was my sophomore year, besides sometimes going to court and seeing my counselor, a lot of that year is a blur. Yes, there’s basically almost a year of my life I can’t remember, at school or at home.

For the rest of high school, I was still an emotional mess, but I got back to writing, which I had done a little before the assault in journals and stories. I couldn’t write the year I was raped because I was too traumatized, but after that year I started writing again. I wrote at a crazy rate the last two years of high school, in study hall, in Geometry, waiting for school to start, even skipping class. I wrote at home a lot too. I wrote short stories and a novel I never finished that was over 300 pages (in the days when most of what we wrote was by hand). Writing gave me a voice. My voice had been taken away from me when I pleaded “NO NO!” to the rapist and that voice was ignored and basically silenced. Writing and having a voice gave me just a tiny sense of power.

Five years after I was raped, I was in a car accident, in which I wasn’t hurt, and in college six years after the first rape, I was “date raped” by an acquaintance. He was very generous with the beers, and years later I have suspected that he might have drugged me because I lost track of a little bit of time. I didn’t choose to prosecute this rape because this man was a rich exchange student and I was drinking. None of this should matter, but I had a hard enough time getting a poor black man in a racist and classist society in prison when I was a virgin and not drinking, that I knew I was certainly going to be re-victimized like I was in my first rape by the police, and I couldn’t handle that. Soon after this I started getting flashbacks. Before this, I had plenty of depression and anxiety because of the assault, but no flashbacks; a major sign of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. It’s not uncommon for another traumatic event to bring on PTSD. My first flashbacks were scarier because I didn’t know what they were. It made it feel like the attack (most of my flashbacks, which I still have periodically now, are of the first more violent attack, although once in a while the accident and other rape got in there) was actually happening. It was a little better as I understood. What helped me feel some healing at this time was writing poetry and getting into anti-racist, feminism, and LGBT activism through the perspective of my major and minor I was studying.
The mention of this activism leads me to mention how I really like the YWCA’s mission of advocating for marginalized groups of people who have less privilege and promoting justice. At the time I’m writing this I am currently attending a support group at the Y.

The leaders are both warm and affirming. They are knowledgeable about psychological aspects of rape on individuals such as the characteristics of Rape Trauma Syndrome, which is very much like PTSD, as well as sociological aspects of living in a rape culture. The leaders try to instill in us a sense of confidence and strength. Also, each member of the group is free to share their stories, thoughts and observations or not as every person is in a different place in their healing process.
I am not over my rapes yet. I never will be, but I go to counseling and try to participate in activities that are positive and make me feel good about myself, which can sometimes lessen the symptoms of my PTSD, like exercise, art, and writing, which I mentioned earlier. Because writing has been a method I have used to exercise my voice in the past, giving me a sense of strength and peace, it is something I am looking to pursue soon; possibly after I get enough confidence to send any of my writing into a newspaper, magazine, or blog. I write about social justice issues. Thank you for reading my survival story which has been a great opportunity to use my Voice.