Rape Victims Wishes She Had Gone to the Police

"Unafraid, we speak the truth and heal the world."
-Suzanne Shutman

God, I hope this helps somebody. I don't even really know where to begin. I was raped by my uncle when I was about 4 or 5 while I was spending the summer at my grandmother's house. It was hot and I had been playing in her lawn sprinkler, and he was watching me while I played.

Later that day when my grandmother and I were both having afternoon naps, he came into my room. I didn't realize he was in with me until I felt him pressing down on me. I can still remember the smell -- alcohol, stale cigarette smoke and rancid sweat. He jerked off my panties before I was really awake and began fondling me. I remember being afraid and whimpering, but he told me that if I made any noise or told anyone, he would kill me and my baby brother. Something cut my upper thigh, his zipper maybe, or his pocketknife. I still have the scar. I was terrified. He told me that he could tell that I wanted it by the way I had been acting earlier in the day. He pressed my face down into the bed pillow and raped me.

Through it all, and for a while after he left, I stayed quiet. I went into the bathroom and saw blood -- on my nightgown, on my legs. I wiped it off and put on some underwear, then crawled back into bed. I felt so very small and sad. My grandmother sent me home a few days later because I was crying all the time and running a fever. I wish that was the only time I had been raped. I was so young then, and my memories of it are hazy around the edges. Unfortunately, my other memories are crystal clear.

My self-esteem has never been very good. I fell into an abusive relationship when I was 16. That man abused and intimidated me in every way possible. I was very afraid of him, and especially afraid of what he might do to me if I upset him. He raped and assaulted me, and had other men rape and assault me several times during our relationship. He humiliated and belittled me. The rapes were just an especially degrading item in his array of torture methods.

I left him by breaking up with him and immediately fleeing the state. I stayed with a family friend for a couple of years while I was in therapy. I never pressed charges. I thought about it, but decided that nothing could ever make up for what he had done to me, and that my life couldn't stand any more intrusion, no matter how well-intentioned. Now, later, I wish I had gone to the police. What I want more than anything is to know that he can never do this to anyone ever again. What he did to me is beyond comprehension. He scarred my body, he wounded my soul.

It seems massively unfair that I am the one who suffers after these rapes. I have flashbacks and nightmares in which I relive the events. If I were meting out justice, I would see to it that the rapist feels the emotional destruction that comes with rape, that he relives the horror and the pain from the victim's point of view every time he sleeps or gets startled. I would certainly make it so that the victim doesn't have to relive her assault ever, ever again. Once is too much!

Jennifer