Innocence Lost

It was a warm fall night in the year 1994 when she was leaving a 7-11 convenience store. While unwrapping the cellophane from her pack of cigarettes, an arm tightly clamped around her shoulders. Looking up, she saw the face of no one she knew … the man was a total stranger to her! She looked into his eyes and a wave of terror washed over … there was no emotion whatsoever in those eyes! Her mind began to spin with ideas of how to get out of this nightmare.

"Pretend you know me, otherwise I will kill you," the man whispered commandingly, as he quickly dragged her toward his car, which she noticed was also parked in 7-11's parking lot.

Once inside this man's car, she knew she was in terrible danger. Luckily, she had taken psychology years ago and knew that fighting back would turn him on her and, most likely, get her killed. So she began to talk to him as if he were a person.

Before she could even blink, the man leapt on her, ripped her jeans open (zipper and all) and raped her. To add to the horror of what he was doing, he forced her to give him oral sex. While her mind had detached by now, she kept talking to him as if he were not the monster he was… she gasped suddenly and threw up all over him and his car. The rapist slapped her, said, "SHUT UP!! Otherwise I will kill you …" and threw her out of the car. He quickly drove away. She lay there for what seemed like an eternity.

"Thank you, Father, for being here for me," she prayed silently.

Eventually she got up, and slowly, but agonizingly, began to walk. She wanted to get to her car, which was still parked in the 7-11 parking lot. Though she had no idea where the rapist had driven her, she remembered he hadn't driven too far from the convenience store. She felt lucky to be alive. Finally she made it to her car, still in that parking lot.

Getting back to her apartment was of the utmost importance to her; she wanted to take a shower sooo badly, but knew not to. She barely got in the front door when she reached for the telephone to call the police. Then she called her mom to tell her what had happened. There was no way she could ever have imagined the laborious path she would face to recovery – or that it would take 11 years to get herself together again.

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Eleven years later, one night while she was sick with the flu, a nightmare awakened her and she immediately wrote it down in the notepad she kept on the nightstand. In the nightmare, she was lost and forgetting where she lived, trying to find her way home to the man she was in love with: her husband. He was the love of her life, who had been very patient with her for nine years. But even he did not fully understand her fear of other people and the anxiety-ridden, nervous person she had become. With him she was natural. She was herself. But with friends and others people, her eyes would have a scared, doe-in-the-headlights look.

Tears streamed down her face as she wrote. She realized that she had not truly cried about the rape (she had wanted to get on with her life). That night she prayed to God … she prayed and cried for hours asking Him to please help her be natural to friends and others. She felt like a robot inside. She wanted to get well. Be more confident with friends and strangers. Be herself again …

The next day, inexplicably, she felt a peacefulness and calmness that she did not understand. At first. Then she began to understand that she had changed after the rape. She had not really been living life to the fullest.

She had lived all those years pretending the rape never happened to her. Even though she and her husband did speak of it when they first dated, she, herself, had not really dealt with it. Now she was no longer pretending or denying it happened. "I knew then that the person I had been before the rape was back," she says now.

As someone said, "Rape is a very powerful and horrible crime against a woman. But that power can eventually be used to transform your life for the better. You can come through it to have a happy life again."

That person was a 100% right. She is now a successful publisher of an electronic magazine, author of two books (working on her third!), columnist for a Christian literary print magazine, and the published author of numerous nonfiction story articles, fiction short stories, and poetry published in print and online.

*   *   *   *   *

That is why on the 11-year anniversary of my rape, I write my story in hopes that another woman never has to go through what I did and that they know they are not alone if they do …

In hindsight, this 48-year-old woman wishes she had sought out therapy as soon as possible instead of pretending the rape had never happened to her. The healing process would not have taken so long.

A few great resources where you, your family, and friends can go for help: USA & USA/General • National Sexual Violence Resource Center • Women's Justice Center • Office for Victims of Crime (Sexual Assault & Rape) • RapeRecovery.com (USA/general) • Family Doctor.org (Rape: What to Do If You're Raped) (USA/general) • Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (USA/general) Canada • Canadian Association of Sexual Assault Centres (Rape Crisis Centres and Transition Houses) • Ontario Women's Justice Network (Crisis Services: Shelters, Sexual Assault Centres and Transition Houses)

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