It's been about a year and a half since this happened to me. I'm over it, I'm okay, I'm happy. So please, if you finish reading this wondering if I'm okay, I am.
I was sexually abused.
Yeah, that feels super not okay to say, to type, to think, to feel.
Someone (who I least expected) violated me and it disgusts me on so many levels I can never begin to describe them. I was not raped. I was not physically hurt. I was not abused in the way many of you are probably thinking. But I was abused.
Go back to title: Abuse Is Abuse
I am currently enrolled in a women's studies class that covers every single aspect of men and women sexuality that I could ever imagine going over in a formal educational setting. This past week we've been discussing sexual abuse, and I have been fighting back unbelievable feelings and tears each day that we review what sexual abuse entails. Every day we talk about it, every power point slide we go over, I can say part or all of it applies to me.
This is my story. This is how it made me feel. This is how I feel about it now.
I felt the moment it happened that I was violated, abused, taken advantage of, whatever. Now that I am being formally educated about it, I know this to be true. Any form of sexual or physical contact that happens without consent is considered abuse. And with that being said, I was abused. (I think I've said it enough times now that we all get the point)
So.
One night, a friend of mine decided he and I would have a low-key, fun night at home. We made some white russians (that's an alcoholic beverage made with booze and milk for those who aren't aware) and hung out in my room talking and laughing and having a good time. My roommates got home (a couple who lived in the master bedroom of my house together) and the girl, who was a friend, went to bed while her boyfriend decided to hangout with my friend and I in my room for while. We continued making white russians and having a good time.
You can imagine milk doesn't mix well with alcohol.
I felt sick, so I excused myself to go to the bathroom. I was drunk.
I was throwing up, feeling awful, trying to power through the unease I felt in my stomach. I was in my own bathroom, in my own house. My roommate (the guy who lived in the master bedroom with my other roommate, his girlfriend) came in the bathroom and asked if I was okay.
I vividly remember resting my arm on the edge of the toilet and my forehead was resting on that arm. I heard my roommate enter and ask if I was alright and immediately heard the bathroom door close and lock with the finish of that question. I remember lifting my head just enough to see him walk towards me and sit down next to me, draping his arm over my shoulders. My heavy head dropped back onto my forearm and I instantly felt my roommate put his hand on my thigh. I was sitting criss cross in front of the toilet, drunk and vulnerable, hardly able to move, just waiting for my sickness to pass. My roommate asked "Tatum are you okay?" as he slipped his index and middle finger up my shorts and past my underwear, into my vagina.
At that moment I remember snapping my head up so fast. I reached for the towel rack and grabbed on to lift myself up. I pulled my entire body weight up, pulling on that towel rack, asking him "what are you doing?!?!" The towel tack tore off the wall, I stumbled around, squeezing between the bathtub, the toilet, and my disgusting roommate. I yanked on the doorknob which was, in fact, locked. Once I got out of the bathroom I ran into my room and dropped to my knees on my bedroom floor, sobbing. My friend was so confused. I learned later that he heard some sort of commotion in the bathroom. But how could he have possibly known what was going on? All I could do was cry hysterically while he held me, telling me it would be okay.
When I finally choked out, bit by bit, what had happened, he stroked my arm, telling me I was strong, I could get past this, and I was not the type of person to let this ruin me.
My roommate stood in my doorway and asked my friend why I was crying. I was so mind blown that he could act like nothing had happened. I remember my friend saying "I think it's time everyone just goes to bed." And my roommate went into his room and went to sleep next to his girlfriend.
I never knew until now how powerful my friend's words were.
That friend, and he knows who he is (if he is reading this) saved me. He saved me from letting some piece of shit break me down. He reminded me of the strong, independent, insanely hard-headed person I am immediately when I needed to be reminded.
And so I woke up the next morning and decided I would tell no one.
I had just moved in to this house that I found on craigslist. I didn't know the people who lived there very well. I was just getting to know them. I moved in June of 2013 and in July of that same year is when that creep came on to me.
Everyone in the house knew each other for years. The couple I shared a house with was two years deep in a relationship. I felt like if I expressed what he had done, no one would believe me. They didn't know me, they had no reason to trust me over him. And I was strong. Yeah. I convinced myself that all of this meant it was better to keep it all a secret.
Eight months later, that couple that I still shared a house with was on the rocks. They were fighting constantly, breaking up a couple times a week, and unhappy.
Fast forward a bit, I finally told my roommate, and now really good friend, what her boyfriend had done to me. I told her I was afraid to tell her before, that I never thought she would believe me, that I wasn't sure what her boyfriend would do if I told, and that I hoped she could understand the insane disgust that I felt from that violation.
Needless to say they broke up, she kicked him out of our home (thank goodness) and she stopped speaking to me, looking at me, or acknowledging that I existed at all.
My other roommates had learned what had happened. If I or my roommate told them first, I don't remember, but I do know they took my side and I was grateful. Well, two of them took my side. One of them said some awful things to me. (More on that later)
Throughout the next YEAR I fought with my roommate about what happened. She and her friends thought I had done something to deserve what happened to me. They said I must have been coming on to my roommate for him to think that was okay. I probably wasn't telling the truth. Something was going on that she was not aware of. She used her breakup as a crippling experience. She moped around, saying her life was in shambles because her boyfriend had "cheated on her" and her friend (me) had betrayed her. Imagine how SHE feels. Feel bad for HER. She's so depressed because she was going through a hard time.
Each time she threw it in my face, I tried to tell her I lived in a house with a guy who violated me without my permission, and begged her to see it from my perspective too, and all she could say was, "Tatum, you CHOSE not to tell anyone for all these months so it's not my fault you lived with him. I lost my boyfriend of two years. Feel bad for me."
She was supposed to be my friend. She made me feel like it was my fault that her boyfriend abused me. It was my fault I was living in a house with him. It was my fault her relationship ended. It was my fault because I kept it a secret.
She then turned that secret into a lie. I lied to her all those months. Pretending to be her best friend, never telling her what her boyfriend had done.
The 4th roommate found out about the experience through the one whose boyfriend it was. I will never know what the story was that she heard, but she told me it's sad that I would get drunk and let my friend's boyfriend touch me inappropriately. LET HIM. Like I let him do it to me.
I have never been so angry in my entire life. Even the eight months that I carried that experience with me I was not as angry as I was after I told my friends about it. They made me feel like I was dirty, a liar, stupid, whatever. Treated me like it was all my fault. And let me just say, I wasn't prancing around asking for sympathy. If I wanted that I could have asked for it right when it happened. I was trying to tell my friend what type of creep she was dating and save her from that awful relationship. Then I became the bad guy.
Here's where I want my experience to hopefully help someone who has been through something similar.
In my lectures about sexual abuse, my professor keeps stressing the importance of believing your friend when they tell you what happened. Do not judge them based on their experience. Many people have ideas about girls getting drunk and "asking for it" or dressing a certain way and "asking for it". No. I don't buy that. I was drunk, sure. But I was in my OWN home with people I thought were friends. Good people. Support your friend if they need it. You don't have to smother them, they may not need that kind of support. But calling them a liar or eliminating all sympathy for what they went through is a little much. (Even if you have those opinions, keep them to yourself). I cannot stress enough how much it helped me to have just 2 or 3 friends take my side completely and feel for me, believe me, support me, hug me.
And if this has happened to anyone reading this. It's okay to feel awful. But you don't have to let it define you. You don't have to let it break you. You don't have to listen to those who judge you, who tell you it's your fault, who don't believe you. It is never your fault if someone touches you without your permission. Drunk, not drunk, sleeping, awake, male, female, friends, not friends, boyfriend, girlfriend. Whatever. If you don't want your roommate to touch your vag then he doesn't get to.
Majority of the time, sexual abuse happens between people who know each other.
That's not to say you shouldn't trust anyone around you. But you don't have to go around thinking it's not that bad or it's not abuse or it's not hurtful just because a "friend" touched you in a way you did not want.
You also don't have to accept people minimizing what happened to you because "Well at least he didn't rape you. At least you didn't get hurt. At least you didn't get pregnant. At least it wasn't a stranger. It could have been worse."
Just because I was only touched for a second, doesn't mean it didn't disgust me. It doesn't mean I should get over it faster than someone who was abused much worse. It doesn't mean it shouldn't bother me as much as it does. I have spent all this time telling myself it isn't a big deal, I didn't let it destroy me so it must not have been that bad, I wasn't physically hurt so I suppose it could have been worse.
But emotionally, I was hurt. The things my so-called friends said to me crushed me. Someone I lived with came on to me when I was vulnerable and that hurt me just has much as a punch in the stomach. It's sickening the things that were said to me. And I know I am strong enough to get over those things. I am tough enough to get over my abuse and live my life, brushing off the awful thing that happened to me and brushing off the awful things that were said about it. I never showed how much my experience affected me. I acted much stronger on the outside than what I felt on the inside.
I've debated a lot since I started blogging whether or not to share this story. I've moved on and don't particularly love to recall all the overwhelming feelings of disgust that come with telling it. But I realized recently that there are probably plenty of people out there who have been through something like this. I can only hope that sharing this story reminds those people that even if they were not raped or hurt badly or something of that sort, what happened to them is not okay, it's not to be minimized or diminished because it could have been worse. Abuse is abuse and no matter what kind of abuse it is, it should never be tolerated. If anyone reading this WAS raped or physically hurt... share your story too! Sexual abuse is wrong on every single level.
I'm open to talking about my experience. I hope anyone and everyone feels free to share their thoughts with me about my situation or their own. And I want to stress the importance of telling your story. It's a huge part of healing. Share it with a friend. Share it with me. Write it down, even if it's not in a blog you share on the internet.
The most important thing is to heal.
xo Tatum
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