On my 18th birthday, I was raped by my ex-girlfriend of 1 year and 9 months. Precursor to the story: I grew up as an extremely repressed child, becoming proficient at never letting my true self show. Everything was calculated; my words, my facial expressions, my actions, what I chose to share with people… down to what I’ve eaten for a previous meal. I never had a clinical eating disorder, but my relationship with food has been kind of tainted by my parents. I was very shy as a child. Shyness would reappear in my late teens in the form of panic disorder, social anxiety disorder, and depression. I remember being frozen with nerves around people that weren’t my immediate family/people I don’t see every week. My loving, non-directly-abusive grandparents had to let me warm up to them lmao. I always felt guilty about that. Anyway.
My 18th birthday fell on a Tuesday in October. I was in my first year of college, and I had shared classes with my ex-girlfriend, who we will call Alex. Alex and I spent most days together, going to class/hanging out, as I lived 5 minutes driving distance from our campus. On Tuesdays, we had Western Civ then an equally-long 3 hour break before our separate classes. In honor of my birthday, I had begged Alex to pay for my lunch for my birthday, as I didn’t have enough money to pay for my own (Alex blew through my last paycheck in order to pay for her shopping obsession). Alex argued that I didn’t deserve to have her pay for my lunch, as we had gotten in an argument a week prior; she was reportedly reeling from the argument that she couldn’t recall the most basic details of. We settled on a local deli.
We ordered our food, and Alex caused a scene inside the busy deli to tell me she forgot her wallet in the car, and asked if I could cover her. Most eyes in the deli now focused on the out-of-place, blatantly nervous black man with a large afro in the middle of a mostly-white, mostly-conservative suburb. I clammed up a bit, but I reluctantly handed over my bank debit card to the cashier, wondering if the transaction would be approved. It wasn’t. Alex went to the car to grab her wallet for what seemed like forever at the time. We got our food and went to Alex’s house nearby to eat the food.
At Alex’s house, I was frozen in front of my food, unable to eat. I was calming down from the recent anxiety attack I had in the car on the way to Alex’s house, as she berated me for embarrassing her in front of the seven other people inside the deli. After several minutes, I managed to eat half of the sandwich Alex ordered. She switched sandwiches, as she unknowingly ordered a sandwich with mayonnaise on it. I don’t like mayonnaise either.
After we ate, I sat on the floor in Alex’s furnished basement, where we usually spent time together. Working away at my laptop, I was proofreading and editing an essay due the next day. My mood was flat. My eyes glassy, red, and swelling up with tears. I couldn’t even tell you what specifically made me cry while I was doing my homework. Alex said she didn’t want to see me upset. It was my birthday after all, and she thought I was trying to make her feel guilty about what happened at school, inside the deli, and on the drive to her house.
Alex proceeded to close my laptop while I was working. She unbuckled my belt, and undressed me from the waist down. She proceeded to perform oral sex on me. I was frozen with anxiety. I couldn’t stop crying on the inside, but I managed to stop tearing. She never looked up at me while she was down there. After what seemed like minutes (turned out to be 30 seconds), Alex mounted me. I repeatedly yelled ‘no’ and ‘i really don’t like this’. it didn’t seem to matter if I enjoyed myself. Alex didn’t seem to enjoy herself either. I pushed her off my semi-erect penis. She punched me repeatedly. She mounted me again, claiming if I didn’t want to have sex with her, then I must not love her. I tried to explain through my now-flowing tears that I wasn’t trying to make any statement about my love for her. I just didn’t want to have sex. She kept insisting I didn’t love her, which wasn’t true. I loved her. I thought I loved her. I didn’t know what to feel. She hit me again while she was mounted on top of me. A few times more after that. Alex forced me to finish inside her. While on top of me, she repeatedly had claims that she was only doing this because she loved me. She told me I should be grateful that she wants to have sex with me.
After that incident, I stopped wanting to celebrate my birthday. It seemed pointless. I wasn’t worth lunch, or basic human respect from my partner. As my birthday approaches this year, I feel reluctant to celebrate. This memory is becoming more intrusive, and I find myself becoming less and less interested in celebrating myself. Honestly, I don’t feel as if I deserve to celebrate myself. Most things I plan for myself turn to shit. I still feel pathetic for letting this happen to me.
(It’s important to recall that at that point in time, I was in therapy for social anxiety disorder and panic disorder. I was not taking medication at the time of this story, as Alex threatened to leave me if I were to regularly taking anxiety medication. I tried to kill myself 1 year and 6 months after this event by taking a multiple drugs in pill form. It didn’t work. That was the last time I tried to kill myself.)
