The second I opened my eyes, I felt like something was wrong.
I was curled up in a ball, in the fetal position. I slowly uncurled myself and sat up. As I did so, I immediately noticed I felt woozy. Light-headed. I blinked the room into focus. My brain slowly started to recognize my surroundings. It was my friend Candice’s* bedroom. I was in her apartment. I slowly looked around and realized that I had been asleep on the floor, with no pillow or blanket. It felt like morning. I looked down to see that I was still wearing the clothes from the night before.
I racked my brain, trying to figure out how I had gotten here.
Nothing. My mind was blank.
I was only left with a feeling like something was wrong. Something was out of place.
I looked down at my body, which confirmed something was definitely wrong.
My toenails, which had been painted perfectly the night before– were now all chipped and scratched up. I looked closer and realized my toenails had scrapes through them.
My legs were badly bruised and scratched, and there was a deep cut on my right ankle. I was no expert, but based on the injuries I had seen my little brother sustain over the years, it looked like it could use a few stitches.
I had been wearing a white, knee-length, flowing A-line skirt. I cringed as I registered that it could no longer be classified as “white”. It was now brown, dusty and dirty. Like it had been dragged through the mud. My stomach flipped as I realized I wasn’t wearing any underwear anymore.
I looked down at my arms and realized they were just as badly bruised and scratched as my legs. I looked closer and realized there was a bruise that resembled the shape of a handprint on my upper left arm. I could see finger marks.
I got up and unsteadily made my way to the bathroom and looked in the bathroom mirror. My face was bruised and swollen, and my hair was a mangled mess. I slowly touched my face and quickly discovered my face and jaw were sore to the touch. I leaned closer to the reflection, trying to make everything come into focus.
As I stared back at this girl I barely recognized, I felt the panic well up inside of me. I again racked my brain—but there was nothing. I couldn’t remember what had happened.
…
What I did know was that I was in Texas, visiting my friends and family. It was the summer in between my sophomore and junior years of college at Arizona State University and I was only planning to be home in Texas for a few days, for my brother’s high school graduation. I had attended a party the night before, at my friend Candice’s house.
I had never been happier to get on a plane and go home to Texas. I was looking forward to this much-needed break. I had just broken up with my boyfriend of a year and a half, after finding out he had been cheating on me. I knew I had made the right decision by ending it, I was at peace with the situation, but it was still fresh in my mind. I had planned to bring him home with me to Texas for the celebration. But obviously, now that we were no longer together, I had come home alone.
The family party had been the day before. And after it was over, Candice came over to whisk me away to her apartment for our party.
Shortly after Candice and I arrived at her apartment, people started showing up.
Everyone that came through the door had made a beeline straight for me, excitedly grabbed my hand and said something along the lines of:
“It’s so nice to finally meet you!”
“It’s so great to put a face to the name!”
“It’s so nice to finally, finally meet you! We’ve heard so much about you!”
It was clear—they had been expecting me.
Everyone was friendly enough, but that didn’t stop me from feeling a bit overwhelmed.
Everyone that came through the door had known MY name, but I didn’t know any of their names. I felt tense and guilty for not being able to keep everyone straight.
There were people everywhere, and loud music was pulsating.
I had a weird feeling… but I talked myself out of it. I was at a party… my favorite thing on the planet was to meet new people and hang out. Why was I so tense?
I looked around the room one more time. And told myself to relax.
“If these people are friends of Candice, then they’re friends of mine,” I remembered telling myself. “Right?”
Less than an hour later, the party was in full swing. It was an epic party, by any college student’s standards.
There was a particular guy that had caught my attention. He was pretty cute… and there was some mild flirtation going on… but I was being fairly coy. I was still feeling the after-affects of my break-up and didn’t want things to become too serious. I was just there to have fun.
In the midst of all the madness, about eight other people and I sat down to play a drinking card game. I felt a little wave of excitement when the cute guy sat down right next to me.
[pagebreak]
Everyone at the table began a heated debate about what game they should play, and with what rules. In the midst of the clamor, the guy leaned over to me and said,
“You don’t have a drink! We gotta get you a drink!”
I was distracted by the discussion going on—and gave him a quick sideways glance and quickly said “Oh- I’m okay right now—I don’t know what I want–” before jumping back into the debate.
About ten minutes later, we had all agreed on the rules, and had started to deal out the cards. Taking advantage of the moment, the guy leaned over again… this time a little more adamant.
“Okay, I’m going to the kitchen now…” he said. “You still don’t have a drink—let me get you that drink.”
I realized I did need a drink. I couldn’t think of another reason to refuse. So I looked up at him, and this time, my answer was different. I said, “Okay, cool. Thanks.”
He went to the kitchen, mixed the drink, and came back and set it down next to me. I remembered finishing the drink…. and finishing the card game. And that’s it.
That’s the last thing I could remember clearly from the night.
Then I woke up confused.
Still standing in the bathroom, I turned on my heel to see that Candice was still asleep in her bed. I ran over and shook Candice awake, yelling “Candice, Candice, what happened last night??” in a shrill, panicked voice I didn’t recognize.
Candice sleepily rolled over and said “Dude, I don’t want to talk to you if you’re still drunk.”
My voice rose another octave, “I’m not DRUNK. I wasn’t drunk! I don’t remember being drunk last night, now tell me what happened!”
Candice was in no hurry to wake up. She rubbed her eyes, and looked up at me. She was clearly annoyed.
“You want to know what happened last night? Fine, I’ll tell you what happened. YOU had SEX with Justin last night, that’s what happened.”
I felt like I had the wind knocked out of me.
I was a virgin.
I had just gotten out of a year-and-a-half relationship with a guy I was in love with, but had never slept with, because it never felt right. And now my friend was telling me I had slept with a guy I didn’t even know? …Who was Justin?
After dropping this bomb, Candice then rolled over and went back to sleep, like it was nothing.
Feeling helpless beyond anything I had ever felt before, I couldn’t move. I just stood there and began to cry.
I didn’t know what to do.
I turned in circles in the bedroom, looking for something familiar. I saw my overnight bag in the corner, and prayed my cell phone was in it. It was. I grabbed my cell phone and walked out into the living area.
Things felt vaguely familiar—but I was still having no luck remembering what had happened. I looked around the apartment for clues to what had happened… but found nothing.
I went outside the apartment and sat down on the stairs. I fumbled with my cell phone, searching the call history and the text messages, again, for clues. And again, I found nothing.
Out of desperation, I tried to call my two best friends in Arizona. It was early in Arizona, but against the odds, one of my friends answered.
I tearfully recounted the few details I had.
The unfamiliar sound of my friend crying filled my ear. Then the words-
“Sweetie … please go to the emergency room. … I think … I think you were drugged and raped.”
I felt every inch of my body go numb.
Drugged.
Raped.
The words echoed in my ears.
Stuff like this didn’t happen to me. I had vaguely heard of it happening out there in the world… but never thought it would happen to me.
How? … Why?
The rest of her conversation was a blur. I vaguely recall promising to go get checked out… then hung up.
I had never felt more helpless or more violated in my entire life.
I tucked my elbows into my stomach, gripped my forearms, bent over, and began to cry. A heaving, indistinguishable, hysterical cry.
I was still sitting outside crying a little while later when Candice came outside and found me.
“Come on inside,” she said in a quiet voice. “We gotta talk.”
[pagebreak]
She led me in by the shoulders and sat me down on the couch. Together, the two of us started to piece the events of the evening back together. As we did so, I began to remember a few things… a few fuzzy pieces began to click into place. But I couldn’t remember much. I just remembered a few flashes.
Candice said I had appeared like I was drunk, because I had been stumbling around, and having a hard time holding myself up. Upset and crying, I was being led around the party, even dragged around on the concrete outside the party by this Justin guy. …There was so much struggling between us, that the people at the party intervened and pulled Justin off of me on four separate occasions.
I definitely remembered Justin… Or mostly, I remembered this guy who was taller than me, and I remembered fighting and struggling with him.
I had a flash of lying down on the concrete staircase outside, and having my arm pinned above my head — I guessed that’s where the hand-shaped bruise came from.
I vaguely remembered the feeling of being overpowered. And that helpless feeling you have when you’re having a nightmare. The semi-conscious part of your brain is screaming that something very bad is happening- and you open your mouth to scream, but nothing comes out. Knowing something was wrong, and not being able to form the words to cry for help…
I remembered a few other things that were so bad…. I’ll never say them out loud ever again.
As we sat there talking, Candice began to cry.
“I’m so sorry!” she yelled. “I didn’t realize what was happening last night! I just thought you were drunk, I didn’t realize what he was doing … oh my god, I am so, so sorry…”
I had stopped crying at this point, and had begun to wonder what was going to happen next.
“We’re going to get this guy!” Candice yelled. “What he did was WRONG and we’re going to get him! I’m going to help you, I’m on your side!”
I knew we had to go to the emergency room, but I also knew I couldn’t just go to the emergency room and disappear for hours on end without telling my parents where I was… They were expecting me to go home… there was no way around it. I had to go home and tell my mom what had happened.
The ride back to my house felt like it was over in an instant. My legs felt like spaghetti noodles as Candice and I walked in the front door.
My mom was right in front of us, vacuuming the front hallway from the graduation party the day before. She turned off the vacuum, took one look at her disheveled, beat up daughter, and started screaming.
“What happened to you??” She yelled.
In the instant that it took me to catch my breath, my mother ran forward, grabbed my shoulders and said “Oh my god, tell me right now, are you okay? What HAPPENED to you!?!”
I mustered up every ounce of courage I had in my body and opened my mouth. My voice, quivering, said “Mom… last night …I think I was drugged and raped.”
The second I said those words, it was like time stopped. My mother froze in front of me, and I willed my legs to not give out. My knees were shaking and felt weak, like they couldn’t bear the weight of my body for one second longer.
Then, just as quickly as time had frozen, it un-froze. My mom turned and started screaming… but not at me. She turned and started yelling at Candice.
“This is ALL YOUR FAULT,” she screamed. “You’ve NEVER been a good friend to my daughter, you’ve ALWAYS been a bad influence on her– this happened in YOUR apartment, surrounded by YOUR friends… this is YOUR FAULT!”
And Candice, my fair-weathered friend, wasn’t taking that lying down. She immediately jumped to the defensive and yelled right back at my mother, “MY fault? How is this MY fault?? It’s your daughter’s fault!” She spit out the word ‘daughter‘ like it was poison. “Your daughter was dumb enough–”
At that moment, my mother cut her off, lunged at Candice, pushed her backwards out the front door, and slammed the door in her face.
In the ER, they did a rape kit examination.
They took samples from underneath my fingernails and toenails, they took samples from every inch of my body, and pictures of every inch of my body as well.
They spread out this thin sheet of paper, the consistency of tissue paper, and told me to brush out my hair over it, so any debris that was in my hair and on my scalp, would fall onto the piece of paper.
I felt like I was in an episode of Law & Order SVU.
“Your body is a crime scene,” they told me. “We are collecting evidence to put the pieces of the crime back together.”
Everyone was very nice… including the special nurse that was called in to do the exam.
During the exam, I was shaking. Alone with the nurse in the room, I gathered up the courage to ask the nurse what all the evidence meant, and what was going to happen next.
The nurse sighed and shook her head, “I don’t know honey, but you’re a fighter. You fought. That much is clear. And something tells me you’re going to keep on fighting.”
The exam took several hours. Afterward, they brought in a cop to get my statement. This guy was young and enthusiastic and encouraging, and kept thanking me for coming in. He kept saying, “We have all this evidence, we’re gonna GET this guy, don’t you worry!”
His enthusiasm was a harsh contrast to the environment, but it was contagious. After a few minutes of listening to him, I actually began to feel a little bit better. Right in the very pit of my stomach, I had a feeling everything really was going to be okay.
The cop took more pictures of me, then began to ask me what happened. I relayed all the information I had, and racked my brain, hoping for more. But there was nothing. I started to apologize, but just as I did, the nurse reappeared.
“Her tox screen is negative,” she informed the officer.
“Everything?” He asked.
“Everything,” she said, and handed him a sheet of paper.
The cop shook his head, then looked up at me.
“This doesn’t mean anything,” he said. “Date-rape drugs are metabolized very very quickly, and are typically out of the body, leaving no trace of them, within 8 to 10 hours.”
His eyes glanced up at the clock. “We’re at nearly 21 hours now after you report ingesting the drink. Although we can’t prove it, or tell which one,” he continued, “Your story is consistent with a date-rape drug.”
Statement in hand, he left, promising to be in touch in a few days.
The hospital treated me for my bumps and bruises. The cut on my ankle was too far healed for stitches, so they just patched it up. They confirmed that I did, in fact, have a concussion, and they administered “Plan B” to prevent pregnancy.
[pagebreak]
Nine hours after we arrived at the ER, we were finally allowed to go home.
When we walked out the doors of the hospital, I was surprised to see that it was dark out.
As we walked to the car, it began to rain.
When we got home, I went straight upstairs, raced into my room, and got in the shower. I desperately scrubbed every inch of my body over and over and over again, washing all the evidence down the drain.
Two and half hours later, the water ran cold, and my skin felt raw. I reluctantly got out of the shower. But I still didn’t feel clean.
The next three days went by excruciatingly slowly. My parents decided I wasn’t going back to Arizona that summer, like I had planned. I was going to stay in Texas where they could keep an eye on me, and where I could help the investigation along.
Candice never called, texted or came over. And my parents also started poking and prodding, asking, “HOW did this happen, honey? … HOW could you have let this happen?”
But I didn’t say a word. For three days, I just sat up in my room, with my knees tucked up under my chest, not talking to anybody.
At the end of three days, there was a knock at the front door. It was a cop. A different cop, though, than the one that had come to see me in the emergency room. This guy was older. He was hardened, and very clearly, angry about something. I could tell, right from the start, that he did not want to be there.
He announced that the case was in a different precinct than they had originally thought, and the case had been passed to him. He would be handling the case from that point forward. My heart sank.
Because I was over the age of 18, he gave me the option of talking to him alone, without my parents in the room. I decided that was a better move, and led him into the backyard where we could talk privately.
He pulled three statements out of his briefcase– a statement from Candice, a statement from Justin, and my own statement I had given in the emergency room. He asked me to read all three.
It wasn’t Justin’s statement that surprised me. It, of course, said everything that had happened between us had been consensual. … I had expected that. But what I hadn’t expected, was what Candice’s statement said.
Candice’s statement said that all the bruises on my body were from me. Candice said I was so drunk, that I was stumbling around and falling all over myself, and that she was just trying to keep me from hitting the ground. Candice’s statement swore that she had seen me taking shot after shot after shot that night, and I was so drunk, I couldn’t see which end was up.
I recognized the handwriting on the statement, from so many years of passing notes back and forth in school with Candice. But I couldn’t believe what the handwriting was saying. Throughout the entire statement, Candice made no mention of Justin, whatsoever. No mention of the struggles, no mention of the fact that they had to pull Justin off of me… nothing. No mention of the truth. Candice had lied.
I flipped the statement over, looking for more of the story—there had to be more than this. “This isn’t true!” my mind screamed.
The cop then said, “I’m sorry, but it doesn’t look like you have much of a case… based on these three statements alone, there’s no way you’re going to convince a jury of 12 that anything really happened that night.”
“But this is a lie!” I exclaimed, trying to stay calm. “Candice isn’t telling the truth about what happened! This is a lie!”
The cop looked at me, and raised an eyebrow.
“Really! Candice and I talked about what happened!” I cried. I sputtered for the words- “This isn’t it– this is wrong! …Go talk to someone else– there were other people at the party that night, there were plenty of other witnesses! Please go talk to them, THEY will tell you what really happened!”
The cop looked at the paper that I was desperately waving around, sat back in his chair, and sighed.
“I could go talk to some of the other witnesses, I could, but if I do, I’m going to have to issue every one who was involved a “Minor In Possession of Alcohol” charge… including you.” He paused to let that sink in. “You don’t want all that on your shoulders as well, do you? … You don’t want to have to deal with that on top of everything else. You’ve put your family through enough.”
Looking back on the situation, it was easy to see that this cop was just trying to get the paperwork off his desk. He didn’t care about me, and he definitely had no desire to find out what really had happened that night.
But right there, in that moment, I couldn’t wrap my mind around what was happening.
“Why don’t you want to help me??” I screamed silently. Why didn’t he CARE that I have no memory after Justin made me that drink? Why didn’t he care that I was a virgin, had bruises all over my body, and had flashes of some really horrible things?
The cop continued, “I really think you should consider dropping the charges. These cases very quickly turn into a he-said, she-said battle. And since you can’t remember much that happened that night, there’s not much we can do.”
I sat in stunned silence.
“I really think it’d be easier on you, and it’d be easier on your family, if you just drop the charges and move on. … YOU, and only you, have the power to make this all go away.”
I had no more fight left in me. All I could do was sit there.
The cop said, “I’m going to give you a few days to think about this.” He packed up the statements, and handed me his card. I couldn’t help but notice his face soften just a tiny bit, as he stood up.
“Give me a call in a few days, and let me know what you’ve decided. And remember, you, and only you, have the power to make this all go away,” he added.
And with that, he was gone.
[pagebreak]
Over the next three days, a war began to rage in my head. I relayed what had happened with the cop, and my parents agreed with the officer. “This was all just a really close call,” my parents said. “It was time for this to go away.”
At first, I was mad. Raging mad. I was infuriated that this cop didn’t want to help me. Where was JUSTICE in all this? What if Justin went out and did this again? What if his next victim didn’t survive? WHY didn’t anyone care?
Then my thoughts shifted to Candice. When it came right down to it, this behavior was typical of Candice. Throughout our entire friendship, she had always bailed on me when things got hard. Candice was never there when I needed her. I had been a fool to think this time would be different.
The more I thought about Candice and Justin and what had happened, the crazier I felt. I hated even thinking about it. Each day and night, was spent reliving every horrible moment, and going over every single detail.
I wanted to scream. I wanted to cry. I wanted someone to listen, someone to DO something. But more than anything, I wanted it all to go away.
The cop’s words kept echoing in my head- “YOU, and only you, have the power to make this all go away.” … The more I thought about THAT, the more peace it brought me.
Ironically, the thought of never having to think it ever again, was freeing. I desperately wanted my life back. I wanted my summer back. I wanted my thoughts back. I wanted to never, ever think about Justin, Candice, or the attack ever again.
Three days creeped by, and I couldn’t take it any longer. I made a decision.
I picked up the phone and made a call.
The next thing I knew, my mother and I were on our way down to the police station.
I walked in the door, and immediately, saw the angry cop standing there waiting for me. He had a piece of paper and a pen in his hand.
“I’m glad you called,” he said. “You’re making the right decision.”
He took me over to a counter, and handed me the pen and the piece of paper.
I put my pen to the paper, closed my eyes, and signed.
I dropped the charges.
…The moment I signed that piece of paper and laid down the pen, I half-expected there to be this magical “POOF!”, and everything would disappear. I expected that, when I opened my eyes, I would be sitting by the pool in Arizona, with my friends, laughing, as if this had never happened. … I opened my eyes. I was still in the police station.
The cop explained that this piece of paper would remain on file, but that they were going to destroy all of the other evidence. My clothes, the statements, the DNA, everything, was going to be destroyed, to prevent the case from ever being re-opened.
I took a deep breath and waited for the wave of relief to wash over me. But the wave never came.
My mother took my shoulders and led me out of the police station.
Over the next few months, I hoped and prayed that one day I’d wake up from this terrible nightmare. That day never came. The plan had been to drop the charges, and move on with my life. But the “moving on” part was taking a little bit more work than I had planned. I was mad at God, mad at the world, and had no idea what I had done to deserve this.
Before I knew it, I had fallen into a very deep depression.
By the time I made it back to Arizona in August, I had had so much practice shoving my feelings “under the rug”, that I was in full denial that anything had happened.
I was so excited to be away from Texas, and was determined that I would never have to think about the attack ever again. I vowed to devote all my time and energy into my schoolwork and extra-curricular activities, and I swore up and down that I was fine.
It didn’t take long for this plan to crumble. Still having never talked about the attack, I was beginning to be consumed by it.
I fell even deeper into depression. I stopped going to class and competing on the speech team. I stopped doing the things I loved. I started sleeping all the time. I hated being around people, but I hated be alone with my thoughts, even more.
I didn’t feel safe anywhere, even in my own home. I fell asleep every night with my clothes and shoes on, all the lights on, and the television on for background noise.
I was jumpy and emotionally unstable. I couldn’t be around any guy I didn’t know before the attack.
I dyed my hair.
I began drinking heavy amounts and attempting medication to numb the pain.
Most days, I thought, “This isn’t worth it. It would be easier if I just wasn’t here anymore…”
The fun, outgoing, loving girl was gone. She had been buried under waves of pain, guilt, and shame. She was now a victim.
I was dying inside. But on the outside, was claiming to be fine.
Several months later, I was attempting to describe my feelings to a friend, and had broken down crying for the fifth time that week, when I heard the words, “You don’t have to do this alone anymore.”
Through my tears, I looked at the paper my friend was handing me.
It was a flyer for the Counseling and Consultation department at the university. My friend explained that they had student services available for this kind of thing.
Therapy was never something I had ever considered before, but all of a sudden, it was the only thing that made sense. I figured I had nothing left to lose anymore.
About a week later, another friend said something I had never expected: “When you get better, is there a chance you’d want to speak about what happened to you? To kids?”
I had always been a speaker… I had been in competitive speaking and speech and debate since I was in 7th grade. But speak about my own experience? A sexual assault, no less?
As scary as it was, it made sense.
I decided that one day, somehow, I was going to speak out about what had happened to me. I never wanted anyone else to ever feel the way I had felt. No one should ever have to go through what I went through. If I could tell my story and prevent even just ONE person from going through this, then it wouldn’t have been in vain.
All of a sudden, it clicked.
This new realization gave me the push I needed to begin to get better. I reluctantly (and secretly) went to therapy, and began the long hard process of “dealing” with what had happened to me.
On my second day of counseling, my therapist took out a book, and showed me that the page’s headline read: “POST TRAUMATIC STRESS DISORDER”.
Below the headline was a list of symptoms.
My symptoms perfectly matched the words on the page.
“See?” Said her therapist, “You’re not crazy. Everything you are feeling is completely normal.”
For the first time in the six months since the attack, I felt a wave of relief wash over me. Finally.
Working through what had happened, was not easy. But it was necessary. I knew I had to get better before I could speak about what happened to me. I knew I had to do the hard work, so I could help prevent anyone else from ever having to go through this. That is what gave me strength.
About a year later, I began speaking about it for the first time. I stood in front of an all-girls school in Phoenix, Arizona, and tearfully recounted my story for 100 girls. I was a shaking mess, but when I looked in the eyes of those girls, I knew they understood. They heard me. And deep down, I knew that I had found my purpose.
Today, more than seven years after the attack, I am still speaking about what happened to me. But I still feels that my work has only just begun.
…
I got stronger, and so did my message. I have now had the privilege of speaking in nearly 250 schools and universities, to over 100,000 students across the country. I educate on safe dating, healthy relationships, sexual assault awareness, and dating violence prevention. And, of course, the importance of watching your drink.
I founded Pretty Feisty last year to help girls prepare for college, and empower women (and the men who love them) to take steps to protect themselves out there in the world. Watch out for yourself and your friends, and don’t be afraid to be fierce, feminine and feisty.
I speak, not only in the hopes of preventing sexual assault, but also, to empower survivors to take back their lives. The countless amounts of students who write to me, or come up to talk to me after an assembly, are what keep me moving forward. No matter how big or small, we all have the ability to use our stories for good. We all have the power to change the world.
Natalie is the owner of Pretty Feisty, LLC, and is working in conjunction with community partners to bring her message to the world. Her school assemblies, programs and workshops have been endorsed by numerous government entities and community organizations, and Natalie also sits on the advisory board of the National Center for the Prevention of Community Violence, a 501(c)-3 non-profit organization based in Virginia. Natalie is a member of the Women Speakers’ Association, the Experts Industry Association, and also owns and operates her own small speakers bureau out of Phoenix. For more information, or to book Natalie for a presentation at your school or university, please visit her website.