*WARNING: THIS MAY BE TRIGGERING TO THOSE WHO HAVE EXPERIENCED ASSAULT. NAMES IN THIS POST HAVE BEEN CHANGED.*
I woke up confused, and I felt terrible. I evaluated my body to see that my hand was swollen, and there were bruises and cuts on my leg. I went to my mirror and realized in horror that I had a black eye. My head pounded, and I had zero idea of what happened the night before. I felt like I wasn’t even in my own body. It hurt to even move, something felt very wrong. I eventually managed to get out of bed and find my phone, It was blown up with messages. Multiple friends asked if I was okay, the guy I had a crush on, Sean, said that he was sorry for everything. My brother texted me, “Please call me, are you drunk?” “I don’t know what is going on” “please call me and tell me you’re okay.” Then there was a random number I had never seen that texted me saying, “I had fun last night. See you in Spanish.” My stomach dropped. What did this person from Spanish class mean? Who are they? What happened to my body? I felt like I was going to break.
I went it to my friend Jenny’s room, she opened her door and pulled me close immediately. I shook in her arms as I said, “I need help. Please. I need help”. She helped me clean up and took me to the Pryz to try and eat, I hid my black eye with a pair of her sunglasses. In the Pryz we ran into my crush, Sean, he grabbed my arm and begged me to talk to him. I couldn’t find the words to speak, all I could say was “Stay away from me, how could you let last night happen?” But I didn’t even know what happened. He said to me, “Babe, it wasn’t me. I didn’t drug you.”
My world stopped. Drug me? What drugs? How did this happen, who did this to me? I walked away from Sean in confusion and went to lay down in Jenny’s bed after we left the Pryz. My phone was still blowing up. My brother and Sean were both begging me to talk to them. I finally agreed to meet Sean. I went to his dorm and had one of the worst conversations of my life.
First, we went over what I remember. I remember going to the party and getting a beer. I was hanging out with Sean and having fun and then he went to go play beer pong. After that, I was talking to people I knew until this kid from my Spanish class came up. He and I were talking and then I went to pee. He took my cup and waited outside the bathroom for me. I came back and finished my beer. I remember feeling dizzy and tired. The kid got me another beer and I pulled out my phone and started texting. That was all I clearly remembered. Then Sean and I started talking more about the night and this was what I found out. The person I pulled out to text was Sean and I had sent him messages asking for help and saying something was wrong. But I could barely stand up so the kid took my phone and put his arm around me. But he texted Sean, pretending to be me, and said that I was fine and to leave me alone. He then deleted those messages off my phone. Next thing Sean saw was the kid holding me up against the wall and forcing me to drink wine. After that, he proceeded to kiss me and that was when Sean pulled me away. But there were so many people I got lost in the shuffle. Next thing we both knew, I was with the guy trying not to let him take me into a room and saying “I don’t wanna go home with you. I wanna go home with Sean. I want Sean”. Someone heard and intervened and the kid from my Spanish Class tried to pretend to be Sean. The person who intervened said that if I was able to stand up alone, I could leave. The kid from my class let go of me and I collapsed and started throwing up the water that was given to me. Someone went to get Sean who then spent hours holding my hair back, trying to get me home, and trying to convince me that I was safe. At one point, Sean told me that I collapsed in the middle of the street and he just held me until I was able to move. Some of the injuries I had were from when I was going home with Sean, but the rest he said were there when he found me.
That was everything I learned that day about the night before. The worst part of all of it was the fact that Sean and I knew there was more to the story, we just didn’t know exactly what. But I knew who. I knew who the guy from my Spanish class was. I knew because I was friends with him. I even had a crush on him first semester. But after that night, I felt so violated and helpless that I was terrified to see him. I didn’t want to go to Spanish ever again.
I felt alone and helpless. I didn’t know what to do, who to talk to, or who to blame. I tried to talk to my RA but she didn’t even let me finish. After I said I didn’t remember anything she immediately cut me off and started talking about the dangers of drinking. When I tried to explain that I thought I had been drugged, she told me that I had no proof and that everyone would think that I was lying in order to excuse my behavior that night.
My RA had been helpful in the past, it was her job to be helpful to girls like me. So how could she not even try to hear me out? I spent a week crying randomly, and without control. I began to have panic attacks; feelings of intolerable pain and fear that I could not escape. The seminarians in my Spanish class walked me to and from class each day because of how scared I was. I was getting so much help from my friends and so little from the school that it made me feel like what happened to me, and how I felt, wasn’t important.
About a year later I finally found the courage to speak up about what I went through. I was in the Dean of Students office talking to one of the Deans about my class schedule, when suddenly I blurted out my experience from last year. That Dean was shocked at first but then he quickly pulled himself together so he could help. He calmed me down and set me up with another Dean since he was in charge of Conduct cases and could not be directly involved. My meeting with the dean of conduct went well. She was considerate of me and my story and she made sure that she had everything written down correctly. She didn’t blow me off when I told her that I didn’t know if I was sexually assaulted because all I was told was that I was kissed. After I told her what happened she gave me my options, and it made me feel overwhelmed.
I was hearing words like DPS, Conduct, Order of No Contact, Interviews, Discretion, Investigation, and more. I was handed booklets and pamphlets. I was given business cards of different people to contact. Then I was told “So email me tomorrow and tell me what you decide and we can go from there.” How the hell was I supposed to decide in a night when I barely understood what she just told me? I asked her, “If there is an investigation do my friends get interviewed?” The Dean replied, “Only if you can clearly say that they witnessed it.” But my friends did not witness the actual event, no one did, they were just at the party with me but they didn’t actually watch everything happen.
What was the point of even trying? It was my word against his. I didn’t want to run the risk of going through an investigation only to lose. It would make my life harder in the end. I told the dean that I would do nothing, because apparently my evidence was not substantial. The dean applauded me for my bravery.
The Catholic University justice system made me feel as if getting drugged and possibly assaulted was my fault. That I somehow asked for this to happen. It tore me apart inside, I felt worthless. Nothing about that situation was fair.
How can Catholic University expect a student to make a choice regarding such serious circumstances in one night, and without any professional legal advice? How can the school ban witnesses simply because they were not close enough to the scene? Was CUA intentionally suggesting that I should not trust my friends?
I deserve better than this from my school. I deserve a lot of things from my community; to be loved, to feel safe, valued, and most importantly… to be heard.