Nightmares, my 20-Year-Old-Rape, and Bill Clinton

In January of 1998, I was raped at a Maine ski resort at a friend's condo where a small party was going on following  a bit of barhopping. The story isn't particularly original (it's here if you're interested in reading it), and it's certainly not why I'm writing about this long-ago event at this late date.

I should mention that I've written about the repercussions before as well, here and here, but that's also not what has me in a a bad place right now.

No, it's like it's coming back, and I am just a hot mess.

I had the rape nightmare last night...and the night before. Not a random mosaic of images obviously symbolizing the rape in some way that I'm hopefully smart enough to figure out, not an "anxiety attack", but what was essentially a reenactment.

I've been a disaster for days.

You'd think that after all these years, I would stop doing this to myself, that my brain would just say, "Geez, Katie, it's been almost twenty years, let it go already!"

Yeah, not so easy...

It usually happens a lot in January, because that's when the event itself happened, but it has not ever been quite like this.

It took me a bit to figure out why I'm going through this, why I am again ripped apart by the smart, sassy, feisty little girl who died in January of 1998 to be replaced by the woman typing this. 

Me, brother Mike, sister Meghan 


In the old neighborhood (I'm on the right, holding a play I'd written for the neighbor kids to perform, I think)


With another childhood friend.

A woman who put on a lot of weight, because I was pretty the night I was raped and I do not want to be pretty anymore.

A woman who struggles with virtually every relationship, from family to friendships and everywhere in between, because she trusts nobody.

A woman who cowers with fear at bullies, injustice, and those who habitually do the wrong thing.

A woman who almost lost her passion for her profession because of the pain she lived with, pain she lives with to this day.

A woman who apologizes all the time, to the point where it's annoying and she knows it is, but she can't help it.

It took me years to share that this had happened to me, years. I'd buried it down deep, and while it shaped the adult I ultimately became, I do not think I experienced direct emotional pain on a regular basis. And once I shared, of course, everyone said, "Get help."

So I tried to get help, from a variety of sources using a variety of techniques. I think about the rape and my rapist more since trying to "get help" then I ever did before, largely because I had a huge flashback brought about by the bloody trauma of my daughter Gabrielle's birth that led to what was eventually diagnosed as PTSD and Postpartum Depression.

The last treatment I tried involved the therapist forcing me to relive every detail. Remember and retell and relive every single freaking detail. Blood sticky on my legs. Having my face forced into a pillow, smelling laundry detergent and tasting cotton. The pain getting ever worse. Blood, everywhere. The laughter of my rapist, which echos in my nightmares. He thought it was funny.

After that, I figured I'd just deal on my own, and I've been doing okay.

Until this year.

I couldn't figure out what had changed, why the rape has been on my mind constantly, marring any happiness I should be enjoying.

And then it hit me ...

The so-called "liberal media" has gone crazy posting pieces implying that Bill Clinton is guilty of sexual assaults (which I read to be "rapes") in order to knock down Hillary Clinton's chances of breaking the glass elevator and becoming the first female president.

It was the terminology "sexual assault", not "sexual inappropriateness" that got me going, I think.

Women had affairs with Bill Clinton, and they were paid handsomely in cash or favors to keep quiet about it (I've had bosses imply that my future with a company would improve with sexual favors). Women were sexually harassed by Bill Clinton at the workplace (I have been sexually harassed at the workplace, more than once).

Those women, women who were certainly victims but took bribes to keep quiet about it, don't know anything about being sodomized and screaming and unable to keep your mouth open because it is literally cracking at the edges, about being gagged with their own bloody panties, about having pieces bitten out of their skin. They don't know what it is like to have these images flash every time a man kisses you, even if it is a man you know and trust. They don't know what it is to scream for help knowing that everyone upstairs is passed out and the music is too loud.

And yet they are putting themselves out there as victims for political gain.

I would not ever intentionally cheapen the sexual assault of another human being, but it seems that this is being done to me ... and I can't possibly be the only one.

So I guess I can blame Bill Clinton for my nightmares, a sleazeball who was a sexual predator but by most accounts lacks the violent, sadistic streak that killed the finest parts of me on a cold winter night.

Or, I could politely ask the right-wing, anti-Hillary people to just shut up about it. My wounds are salty enough, and every time I read about Bill's dalliances and sexual misappropriations, they burn more and more.

Most recent pics: still shooting for unpretty...

Toddler's Death Ruled a Homicide, I Have a Nightmare, and the Beat Goes On ...

On September 5, just last Saturday, a little girl living in the same city where I reside died of blunt impact head injuries. The death of Sadence Willott was declared a homicide a few days later.

Little Sadie Willott was only 21 months old. 

So is my daughter, Gabrielle.

There are terrible stories in the news every single day, of course. Life in 2015 is an ugly, scary place, and I think a frightening number of us have become almost immune to the terrors of the news. Every time I have the news on or see news pieces that come up on my Facebook feed, I am appalled.

But usually, I just shake my head and sort of mutter, "What a world" or something like that. Even the really bad stuff. 

I internalize it a bit more when it's about children, of course. I have four children of my own, and I'm a teacher, which means I've "raised" hundreds of kids in my career.

I don't usually carry it around in my heart anymore, although I used to when I was younger and less jaded and had more hope that the world would get better. 

But this one, the story about Sadie Willott, hit me like a kick to the gut. 

I was staying at a friend's house close to work following a night meeting when I learned that someone had hit or kicked or clubbed Sadie's little head, a head that was around the same size as Gabby's melon, until she was dead. 

I fell asleep early that night, but I woke up soaked in sweat at 3 in the morning, a scream on my lips. 

Nightmares are a funny thing. Sometimes, you wake up and you know you had a nightmare but can't remember what happened, just that you're glad as heck to be awake. Other times, you wake up and think to yourself, "A purple people eater? Really? No more bedtime margaritas for me!"

And then sometimes, you remember. And you know what brought the nightmare on. 

And it doesn't help a bit.

In my dream, I was walking through the halls of a hospital with a female doctor wearing a white coat. I kept trying to ask her questions, and she just shook her head and said, "Not yet." She finally reached a set of double doors (made of stone and crumbling as though they were very old) and slowly opened them.

"I've finished the autopsy. You don't want to see her. You should go pick out a coffin."

And then I saw my Gabrielle on a metal table, white and lifeless. Her curly blonde hair had blood in it, and her head was misshapen. I had one crazy, morbid thought--do they make coffins that small?--and then I woke up.

Thank God.

I spent three hours awake and crying because I didn't think going home and waking up the dog and scaring everybody was the best choice. I texted as soon as I knew that everybody was awake, and of course I was assured that Gabs was just fine.

I didn't relax until that afternoon, though, when I picked her up at daycare and hugged her so long that she asked to be put down.

There have been a few nightmares I've had that will be with me always--the one where I got eaten by a shark, the one where I encountered a raccoon in the woods and he flipped me off before jumping on my face, the ones where I relive the time I was raped over and over again. 

This was, without question, the worst dream I've ever had.

Gabrielle is napping on the couch next to me as I type this. She is perfectly fine (other than still using a pacifier at her age, but that's a different story) and happy and healthy. Her head is its usual beautiful shape, and she's even snoring to dispel the myth that she is perfect at this moment in time.

Gabby is fine, Gabby is safe, Gabby is loved and adored and protected by people that would do anything in the world to keep her from any sort of harm.

But Sadie Willott was murdered by blunt force head trauma.

There are millions of kids like Gabrielle in the world, kids adored and revered by their parents and families. Those kids are, in generally, blissfully unaware that there are children in far more dire circumstances.

I have read about murdered children before. I will read about murdered children again, I am sure. 

I will always remember and honor Sadie Willott, though, and keep her in my prayers and in my heart.

The terrible power of that nightmare has ensured that.

It has not, however, answered the dark and ugly question that haunts me, asleep or awake:

Who would do that to a child?

And why?

So I Woke Up in a Bad Mood Today ...

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