Dear Trump Supporters: There is No Timeline for Bringing a Sexual Assault to Light

I suppose it was only a matter of time before the victim-shaming started vis a vis Donald Trump's latest debacle (why don't we call it "Pussygate").

I've spent the last week in a state of shock as I heard Trump boast gleefully about his inappropriate behavior with women. I've been distracted, I've been having panic attacks and nightmares, and it's only getting worse.

My feelings are at a fever pitch today as I've read about women coming forward to allege that Trump's "locker room talk" went way beyond words, that he actually did many of the things he boasted of to Billy Bush according to numerous women, including former People magazine writer Natasha Stoynoff. 

And these women are being crucified by Trump supporters, who are making comments about the convenience of the timing, that they are shooting for optimal financial opportunity and publicity, and even one of my Facebook friends writing, "I have a hard time believing women who jump on the bandwagon 15-30 years later." 

I do not talk about the night I was raped. I have written about it here on this blog, where I have a degree of anonymity and privacy, but I still cannot talk about it.

I do not know my rapist's last name. I do not know where he lives. I do not want to know. I have been fortunate, if you want to call it that, to fall into what could best be classified as "date rape by an acquaintance", which means I've never had to see the monster again.

If the man that raped me--Tom--suddenly started running for public office, if his face was all over the news, if he was spreading hatred, I'm still not sure I would have the courage to come forward publicly. Why would I? The statute of limitations on that crime has run out, and any physical evidence is old and probably useless. 

The vast majority of women (and men) who suffer sexual assault are not going to want to make it a public thing. Those that have the strength to do so immediately, you have my utmost respect, by the way. It eats me up sometimes to think that Tom has probably done what he did to me again because I didn't go to the police (or my mother or a rape crisis center) right away when physical evidence existed, and I could have stopped it by reporting it. I didn't have the strength, though, and I hate myself for that. 

Here's what happens in the aftermath of a sexual assault.   

You have to deal with the physical first. My rape was extremely violent, and there are physical ramifications that still exist today. If you're smart, you get tested for STDs ASAP (I was sort of smart...I did get tested, but I did not share my reasons for wanting this testing done with my doctor). 

After that, you try to find your life again. This can take a long time. Sometimes I think I'm still working on it, nearly twenty years later. You crave normalcy and try to avoid at all costs anything that will bring back the rape in your mind.

By the time you get to the point where you're "okay", you do not want to go back down that rabbit hole. Why would you?

And so you live your life. You slowly learn to live and love and trust again. You do the best you can. Some days are better than others, and blah blah blah.

I wrote that I would probably not have the courage to bring Tom's name forward even if he became a public figure, and I meant it. 

There would, however, be one exception: if Tom was caught on a hot mic joking about raping stupid college girls that didn't know enough not to put down their drinks, particularly if he was running for President of the United States, I would come forward. I would share my story, no matter what people might say about me. 

There is no timeline for bringing a sexual assault to light, and I'd wager a guess that about 85% go unreported. However, we all have a line. That would be mine, and if Tom crossed it, if he lied about who he was and what he did to me that long ago night and how he basically ruined my life, I would still feel a moral obligation to speak up, to not let the sleazeball get away with it anymore.

I suspect Natasha Stoynoff knows that line well. 

Although she no longer works for People, the magazine ran her story. In fact, People might well have been the only major publication that would run it as they were no doubt able to match up her story with a timeline of their own. Was Stoynoff a family friend of the Trumps until that day? Did her professional relationship with them change afterwards? Do the details in her story jibe with what the magazine knows?

Well, a magazine that reports on celebrities believed in Natasha Stoynoff enough to run the story, risk alienating Trump as well as other stars, and issue a statement explaining why they ran it. That would really be going out on a limb for a publication company that depends on maintaining good relations with the people they want to interview and report on.

So to all of you muttering about convenient timing and payouts, please just stop. 

Living with the aftermath of a sexual assault is something no amount of money can assuage, and there is no convenient timing, only the right timing for you in your own personal situation.

That Donald Trump brought about this reaction in so many women speaks to how horrible their experiences must have been, how frightened and damaged they were, and how truly deplorable a human being he is.

He brought about the timing--and the collapse of his house of cards--all on his own.

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...

Can You Learn to Love Yourself?

I've been off the radar for a few days trying to figure out some things. It was a good experience, and I learned a lot about myself and how to go on to live the happiest life possible.

The answer to my problem is quite easy--simply put, I need to love myself, to value myself, to see the good in myself.

The problem is, I don't.

I did get it down to that one issue, however, which is actually quite good progress for me.  It turns out that virtually all of my problems cycle back to that one problem.

All I can hear is Whitney Houston singing "The Greatest Love of All", but...well, it's just not that simple.

I am raising three amazing children (well, Emily is pretty much on her own, but she does sometimes text me in the middle of the night to ask random philosophical questions), I am loved deeply by my husband, my mother, my siblings and their spouses, and my nephews. It only follows logically that I am a pretty good mother/wife/daughter/sister/auntie, yet I can't for the life of me see why.  Or maybe it's how.

And I'm not writing this for people to throw compliments at me.  I know I am a good mother.  I know I have some talent at writing and teaching, but I know that both of these have ceased to be easy for me. I know I'm a nice and caring person.

But I don't know it, if that makes any sense.

I guess it's no secret to most people that know me in person or who reads this blog regularly or is a friend on Facebook that I have been struggling with some debilitating Postpartum Depression that ended up waking up a sleeping nightmare of a crime I thought was buried forever (a sexual assault I wrote about here and focused on the repercussions of here), so I've also been diagnosed with PTSD.

I did make a lot of progress over the past few days, though, and I'd like to share some of it in the hope that it can help any of you out there, anyone that has Postpartum Depression, PTSD, or anything else.  

There is still a stigma attached to mental illness, so I am feeling some shame as I write this.  I'm actually going to say that Postpartum Depression is hormonal and affects a large percentage of women and that, you know, I certainly didn't ask to be raped and have it all come back through PTSD. It's not like, I'm really messed up on my own.  I also have some pretty interesting purely medical stuff going on as well.

And I hate myself for writing the above paragraph because, while true, it dishonors those that suffer from bipolar disorder or depression or OCD or borderline personality disorder or whatever.  People that suffer from those are no different than those that are living with cancer or diabetes.  

Yet the stigma remains.

Anyway, I'll get off my (fairly hypocritical) soapbox now and get back to the point.

I was given a list of positive affirmations and encouraged to identify which of those were true for me.  At first, I scoffed.  I mean, we're talking "I pursue my life's purpose" and "I feel fulfilled and joyful", and my personal favorite, "I balance my self-confidence with modesty perfectly".  

Eventually, I found a couple that did resonate with me, so I read a little further and found a few more, and then I decided to make an effort to take it seriously.

I made a list of the positive affirmations that I felt were true about myself.  There were twenty-four of them, but I felt that it wasn't as cut and dried as that; in other words, many of the twenty-four had a disclaimer.  I then decided to write them in my own handwriting along with some freewriting on the topic.

I care for people.  I do, but often to my detriment.  I am extremely sensitive with minimal self-esteem, so I take things very personally.  I know I need to develop a thicker skin.  Either that or stop caring, and I think that's impossible for me.  My parents bought me a beautiful red jacket when I was a little girl of six or seven.  I gave it away to another little girl who lived in a bad part of town and who didn't have a jacket at all.  If my mother's wrath at that event didn't put a dent in the "care dial" on  my heart, I don't think anything will.  It is so hard to care about others, though, when they clearly don't care about you.

Here's another:

I deserve to succeed.  I have done so many awful things that sometimes I really don't feel this, but the truth is that everyone with pure and positive intentions deserves to succeed, and I definitely fall into that category.  This is one I need to focus more on ...

The next step was going through my freewrites and generating questions for each.  I came up with a ton of questions (I needed to get a second notepad at about this point), and then I went through those questions and came up with what I called "Katie's Essential Questions", which means areas that recurred as common themes that ran through my positive self-affirmations.

Virtually every question came back to the fact that I have very low self-esteem, minimal self-confidence, and this pervasive feeling that I am unworthy of love.

I am still wrangling with this issue as I type this (and, boy, does it feel good to use a computer...I had to write in long hand because it was how I could make it be me, but this is so much easier).  I didn't come up with an answer, although I went through my "essential questions" with my mother this afternoon and she helped me see the connection between all of my questions.

It's funny, because I am your typical ADHD person ... even my brain is disorganized.  It was very hard for me to systematically take on this task, because it seemed both stupid and overwhelming and, most of all, a supreme waste of time.  I used a notebook and a half to realize something that I already know ... that I am not the world's biggest fan of myself.

What I lost sight of, at least for a moment, was that there are twenty-four statements I now own, in my own bastardized print/cursive hybrid, that are at least in some ways true.

The one that speaks the most to me is "I am a kind, caring, and decent person". I put it on my list and know it to be true, yet the question remains ...

Can you learn to love yourself?  And, if so, how?

Repercussions of Rape (Part II)

It is truly amazing to me the response I have gotten from people based on my post Repercussions of Rape (Part I).  So many people have spoken of how courageous I am and how much help it is for people who have experienced sexual assault to read it and know they're not alone.

I am truly humbled by that. Please know that I appreciate the kind notes, Facebook messages, texts, love, and support.

The truth of the matter is, I honestly thought I was over the rape.  I really did.  Like, I didn't think about it, didn't talk about it, only occasionally had nightmares about it.  I even got told by a counselor (originally he was a marriage counselor, but the third time my ex-husband showed up late to the appointment, we realized that marriage counseling was a waste of time but he would happily continue to see me as I felt I had some unresolved issues beyond being emotionally, mentally, and physically tortured by my ex) after spilling the whole rape story that I had great coping mechanisms and there was no real need for me to go back.  He was happy to have me come back if I needed it, insurance would cover it, but there was no real need.

I had no idea that it was consuming my life.

My rape was characterized by someone overpowering me, speaking down to me, telling me I was  nothing, and the guilt associated with my best friend thinking I was sleeping with some other guy in his house when he and I'd had awkward, random, drunken casual sex a few weeks before.

When I encountered a bully, and there are many adult bullies that prey on people they scent weakness in, I would get sweaty, nauseous, clumsy, and my heart would start racing.  I never knew why I had such a visceral response to assholes.

It certainly couldn't be about the rape, right?  A therapist had told me I had great coping mechanisms and a solid support system, that I was just fine.

I do not want to get into specifics here, but just imagine that a person is in a position of power over you in your professional life.  Imagine even further that this person is a bully, a cruel person known for talking about his colleagues (bosses, lateral equals, and peons like me) behind their backs, of laughing at the misfortunes of others, of speaking down to people until they couldn't stand up any longer, telling people they were wrong when this person had no idea what h/she was talking about, and pouring on the guilt by emphasizing how your shortcomings (the ones that s/he had given you) explained why you did a crappy job.

If you had survived my situation, one would think that being bullied by some pathetic loser who epitomizes the Peter Principle would be nothing ... but it wasn't.

So I messed up.  A lot.  It took me forever to do anything at work because I was so anxious, and then it reached a point where it was coming home.

Being beaten down at work every day turned me from a fairly confident woman with many and varied passions (reading, writing, the beach, traveling, spending time with friends) to one who internalized everything.  The dog knocked something off the table?  My fault.  My daughter broke her leg and had to be in a cast because she was screwing around at Hannaford?  My fault.  The washing machine broke? Yup, my fault.

At first these were just feelings, and I tried to keep them from my husband and kids.  After Gabrielle was born, though, it came out in words.  This hypothetical a-hole boss honed the keen blade of self-loathing that went back to 1998, and with the stress of Gabrielle's bloody birth, which was sort of a nightmare, I came to a point where the rape, and its repercussions, nearly killed me.

After the rape, when I washed my hands, there was blood in the sink.  I saw blood in the sink when I washed my hands a month or so ago (and, I mean, I'm an English teacher ... I felt like freaking Lady MacBeth).  I am afraid to take showers, because the shower I took following the rape was when I started to come back to myself, and I was alone and so damn scared.  I will wake up screaming, or I'll jerk awake.  According to my husband, I say the things I said to my rapist when I am asleep, sometimes in a mumble but sometimes nearly yelling.

I am not healed now.  I am in counseling, and I suspect I will be for a long time.  My husband is extremely supportive (except when he's in a bad mood, which is almost never).  I've found some online support groups and even some groups that meet face to face, but the humiliation of someone knowing about the rape makes that medium hard for me.

I guess that makes me posting about it ironic, but the thing is that I am a teacher.  I have had more than one student tell me they were sexually assaulted.  I have heard stories that make my own experience seem very small.

I guess the bottom line is, sexual assault, molestation, rape, whatever word you want to use, they are more common than you might think.  If you are reading this and you feel alone, please know that you are not.

If you are reading this and you are one of my many wonderful friends whom I've blown off, I suspect I've put enough info here for you to figure out why.    

There is a picture that circulates around Facebook from time to time, and I guess that's what I want to end with.

Repercussions of Rape (Part I)

One night in early January of 1998, I got very drunk and had sex with my best friend.  I, of course, wanted to talk about it, even asked, "So that happened because we were so drunk, right?" because then of course we could laugh it off and move on and so on.  He said, "Being drunk had nothing to do with it."

Our friendship was a bit awkward after that, to say the least.

A couple of weeks later, we were out with a couple of his friends.  I was on my second drink at the bar (and that was when I could hold my liquor pretty well for a college girl), and suddenly I was cuckoo, like falling over my feet wasted.  It got worse instead of better, and I vaguely remember walking back to my best friend's condo.  He went upstairs with one of the other guys, and I went out to the balcony to smoke a cigarette with this guy, Tom.  I went to the bathroom, and when I came back, he gave me another beer.

**Note: I am putting in some details.  If this will bother you, please don't read it**
The next thing I remember, I was being sodomized on the pullout couch.  Words cannot express how painful it was.  When I went to cry out, I realized that my mouth felt like it had been propped open for hours.

"Stop!"I tried to yell, but it came out a whisper.  He did stop what he was doing, though.

"You shut up, bitch, or I'll kill you.  You and your little loverboy upstairs."

"He's not my--" I began, and he interrupted me by ... well, by filling up my mouth again.  I quickly realized why my mouth was so sore.

I was crying so hard, but I did it silently.

He said, "You're getting snot on my dick.  You'd better stop or I'll make you lick it off."

I guess he had an aversion to mucous, because he got on top of me and started raping me vaginally.  He had obviously spent some time doing this already.  The sheets of the pull-out couch were white, and I'd slept platonically on them with my best friend many, many times.  They were spotted with blood, I realized, and then I looked around and it occurred to me that "spotted" was a weak word.  This had clearly been going on a long time.

I begged him to stop over and over and he said, "You're really boring."

Finally, I said, "I want you to come.  I want to make you feel good."

He stopped what he was doing (briefly), got in my face, and said, "You don't have the stuff to make me come, little girl. You just don't have it."

Then I kind of blacked out again, which I'm glad about, and the next thing I know, someone is coming down the stairs.  It was, of course, my best friend, the one which I'd had drunken casual sex with just a couple weeks before.

I was so sore and doped up and naked and bloody and ashamed that I just said, "I'm going to go home, I think."

He didn't say anything.

I grabbed my clothes and ran for the bathroom.  I couldn't pee, even though I had to go terribly.  I sat there trying to make pee come out, but no luck.  When I stood to get dressed, I cried with pain and got very scared when I saw all the blood in the toilet bowl.

I flushed and went to the sink.  My hands were spotted with blood like a henna tattoo, and I used soap for what felt like forever, but even after that I don't know if the blood was gone or not.  I was still seeing it.

I walked out the door without saying goodbye and went home.  I locked the door and took a bath and looked at the bruises and felt the blood still seeping out of every orifice.  My jaw ached terribly and popped every time I went to open my mouth.  He had bitten off a piece of my nipple, and that hit me hard. I had fed my daughter with that nipple.

I laid in the bathtub until the water got cold, then I reran another tubful.  My vagina and anus were still bleeding, and I was afraid to look.  I fell asleep in the bathtub, and when I woke up I felt alive and myself, at least.

I got dressed in sweats and a t-shirt and made a grilled cheese sandwich.  I cleaned my apartment, even though it hurt terribly.  My best friend stopped by later, and I was going to tell him until I saw his face.  He had a bag with him, and he wouldn't look at me, just handed me the bag.

"The sheets," he said.  "There's blood all over them.  You ruined the sheets, but it's your blood, so maybe you won't mind how dirty they are" or something like that, and then he left.

"I had my period," I yelled after him.  "I just had my period, that's what the blood is."

He didn't listen.  He knew damn well I was lying.  He just didn't know why.

And life went on.  I put on a huge amount of weight and cut my hair short because I didn't want anyone to think of me as pretty.  I became sexually promiscuous with some pretty shady characters.  I basically gave Emily to my parents for awhile because I was such a mess.  I flunked out of college.

The woman is this picture (circa 2009) thinks the rape is behind her.  She has no idea that, even though her life is "together" on the surface, that ugliness is still inside ... and might always be there.

My parents knew that something had happened, but they didn't know what, and I certainly couldn't tell them.   They made a deal where they would pay for me to take a summer course at UNH and, if I did well, they would pay for me to go part-time in the fall, and, if that was successful, return to being a full-time student in the spring.

I had some successes in college, and that built up a bit of the confidence.  I met and married my ex-husband.  I became a teacher.  Life went on.

Until I bumped into my best friend at Wal-Mart one day in 2009 and asked if we could get a drink, that I had some things I needed to talk to him about.  That whole saga is recorded here, if you're interested in reading it.

I figured that my best friend knowing the truth would be an absolution of some sort, because I knew I had hurt him badly, and it was.

I truly believed that the rape was in the past, that I had healed, that I was over it.

This is all I can write for right now.  I'm starting to get upset and anxious, but I'll write "Repercussions of Rape Part II" in the next few days.

I will say this, to anyone who has ever been raped or molested or anything like that ... please, please, please know that it's not your fault, and know that there are people who will listen.  Sometimes it just takes awhile to be able to say the words ...

Unspeakable Trauma I'm Trying to Work Through: To Post or Not to Post

I was raped in the winter of 1998.

I hadn't thought of the rape in a long time, since getting a fragile peace in April of 2009 from my good friend that was mixed up in the whole mess. Making sure he knew the whole story was important to me in 2009 (click here to see why).

In 2014, I have been talking more about the fact that I was raped.  I do not want to talk about the rape.  I do not want to talk about it with my therapist. I do not want to talk about it with my husband.  I do not want to talk about it with anybody.

But since I mentioned it, I have had three separate people contact me and tell me that they also had been raped, sexually abused, or otherwise tortured. I had no idea how prevalent it was, how many unspoken stories there are.

And I wonder if it is time for me to talk about it.

I have no idea how many people read this blog, and I'm under no illusion that it's a staggering number.  I don't want to write a piece about rape that nobody will read, but by the same token I don't want to write about this traumatic event and have people read it just because it's got a buzzword.

I will tell you one thing about my rape.  I had to have part of my body surgically repaired.  Remember that hemorrhoid surgery?  Yeah, not a bad cover story...my mother didn't even know. So it's a bit gory.

In therapy, they are trying to make me do a play-by-play.  I don't want to talk about it.  I want to forget about it.

But that's not possible.

Writing has always been a better medium for me.

My story is a lesson in stupidity (don't ever put your drink down, even for a second), but it's also a lesson in pain and the long lasting effects of such a trauma.

One thing I've learned in the past few months is that I am still impacted by that event.  It has, in many ways, shaped my adult life.

But is it worth sharing?

I'm not sure ...