I want to thank everyone who has commented so far for being so very kind and supportive. Even those of you who disagree with me have done so in an amazingly gentle and respective way, and I really appreciate that. These are things that are hard for me to talk about… either because I have wanted to keep face, or because I’ve hidden them for so long the words have just shriveled up. I’m going to write now about number two on my list of “untouchables”, and I have to tell you that I am struggling to keep typing. It would be so much easier to turn off my computer, go drink some hot cocoa, and forget all about this dumb idea of being open about stuff. But I need to get it out there. I need to stop it from burrowing deeper into that giant pile of shame and embarrassment where the rest of my past likes to live. So I’m going to keep writing.

This is what happened.

I was fifteen. I was depressed, skipping classes at school, hanging out with kids whose lives were so bad they made me feel like less of a failure, and generally looking for ways to distract myself from my life. I had begun hanging out on Broadway on Seattle’s Capitol Hill, a vibrant, eclectic part of town with a bustling night life. One night, I snuck out of my bedroom window and took a bus downtown to meet some of my friends on Broadway. We walked around for awhile, enjoying the guilty freedom of being somewhere risky while our parents thought we were safe in bed. Around two or three in the morning, when even the most committed night-lifers had gone home to bed, we wandered over to Reservoir Park, a block or so off the main road. Somebody spread out a blanket and somebody else pulled out a pipe, and we sat in a circle getting high and laughing about nothing.

After awhile, two men appeared from the other side of the park. One was big and menacing looking, with scars on his face and broken teeth. The other was clean cut and polite, very soft spoken and kind to me. When he asked to sit down, I moved over making a place in the circle next to me on the blanket. I was scared of his friend, and eyed him warily as he hung back from the circle looking mean and dangerous. All of my friends were pretty high, as was I, but no one else seemed bothered by this large stranger who just sat there, silently watching. When the clean cut guy sitting next to me leaned over and whispered in my ear that he had more pot, but not enough to share with all of my friends, I had no hesitation about getting up and following him across the street into a darkened parking lot. In fact, in my haze I was relieved to get away from that scary looking guy who was giving me the serious creeps. Clean cut guy held my hand and led me in and out between parked cars to the back corner of the lot. When we stopped, I turned to face him and saw with a sudden jolt that he already had his pants halfway down.

I was so confused. My brain was moving so sluggishly through the pot-induced fog, and I struggled to comprehend what was happening. In my mind, I knew something was very wrong, that I didn’t know this man and had given him no reason to take off his pants. But my brain couldn’t make my body move. I stood there, completely still. I should have screamed or yelled, my friends would have heard me, but my mind was so disconnected that it never occurred to me. He started touching me, putting his hand down my pants and saying things. I think he told me I was sexy, I don’t remember. I think he tried to kiss me but when I still didn’t move or respond in any way, he must have given that up. He put both hands on my shoulders and pushed me down on my knees so that my face was directly in front of his crotch. Maybe he forced my mouth open, or maybe I opened it to say something, but he was suddenly pushing himself in my mouth. His hands were on either side of my head, and I remember the feeling of them gripping me tightly, moving my head back and forth. My mind was blank. I knew what was happening, that this strange man was forcing his penis in my mouth, but I had just gone completely limp. I couldn’t move. I couldn’t think. Looking back on it now, I think that my body went into some sort of instinctual survival mode. Somehow, I must have known that the safest thing for me to do would be to stay still and wait for it to be over. Who knows what he would have done to me if I had struggled. When he was done, he let go of my head and I fell over onto the ground, gagging. And this is the part I remember with a clarity that cuts through my mind like a blade: as he was buttoning up his pants, he looked down at me and said, “Damn, girl. You have a lot to learn about giving head.”

Everything else about that night is foggy. I remember that we went back to the group of my friends, and he and his frightening companion disappeared at some point. I didn’t tell anyone what happened, and I don’t think anyone was sober enough to tell that something was wrong. Dawn had broken through the clouds, and the pot had worn off enough that I knew it was time to go home. I don’t remember how I got home, or how I snuck back in so that my parents didn’t know I had been gone. But very soon after that, I think within the week, I ran away from home and was gone for two weeks. I’ll tell you about that some other time.

For a long time, I couldn’t call what he did to me rape. He didn’t force me to have sex with him. I wasn’t injured or scarred in any physical way. I thought that I must have done something, said something maybe, that led him to believe that I wanted to do that with him. I knew that I couldn’t remember everything clearly, so I told myself that some part of the night that I couldn’t recall was the missing piece that would explain the incident as my fault. I think that as a result of my very fragile mental state at the time, it was necessary for me to blame myself for what he did. If I hadn’t, if I had truly understood then the magnitude of the hurt he caused me, I would have been so overwhelmed by terror and powerlessness that I don’t think I would be alive today. It was the only way I knew how to cope. It was only after I had already begun therapy a few years ago that the memories resurfaced, rearranging themselves in my mind to tell the whole story. It paralyzed me at first. I avoided being intimate with my husband, because seeing his naked body could sometimes flood me with horrible memories that would hold my mind captive. He has been so gentle and understanding, and his love and patience has gone a long way towards healing those wounds. As much as I wish to wipe that night completely out of my memory, I know that it is something that I will never be able to forget or run away from. The only thing I can do is make myself stronger so that instead of feeling like my memories control me, I can control them.

I am hesitant to leave the comments open on this post. I’m not sure if I want feedback. I’ll leave them open for now, but if it gets to be too much I’m going to close them. Writing this down from beginning to end is a huge step, something I haven’t been able to do until now. Susan emailed me yesterday and mentioned how amazing it is that I have such a safe space here where I am able to talk about real, scary issues and have my readers respond with openness and honesty of their own. I am grateful to all of you for being such a strength and support to me, and I know you will understand completely if I just can’t have feedback on this one. Thank you, all of you.