Rosalie's Story
Have you ever felt like the shell of the person you used to be? That young naïve you were before the weight of the world landed on your shoulder. Have you ever wished you could go back to that person, just so all the fake happiness you wear for your parents, teachers and peers was replaced by true happiness and you could stop wearing a mask and end the act all together. You just want to escape the façade and just be happy, instead of that empty person you currently are.
Adults tell you that its just a phases, that you'll get over it and when you're older you'll look back and laugh. But what if its not a laughing matter? What if its something serious? Then what are you suppose to do? What if its all just too much, what if you're too far gone to wait around for this so called "phase" to pass? What happens then? Do you take the "easy" way out and remove yourself from existence or do you wait for the storm to pass when you don't know how long that will take and if you can survive in this mask of fake happiness till then?
What do you tell your parents when they ask what happened to their little boy/girl? Do you tell them the truth, that s/he is gone and the person in front of them is just a ghost of who they used to be? Or do you lie and tell them that you didn't go anywhere, that you are the same little boy/girl that you used to be and you just grew up, or having an off day?
Are you suppose to go on as a shell of the person you used to be, or are you suppose to do something about it? That's what I'm dealing with now and I have to idea what to do.
My "phase" started on the night of December 31st 2008 at my best friend Becky's house. We were planning on ringing in the new year in style and so we decided to have a huge party and invited the whole school. Since we were only 16 we got Becky's brother to go out and buy us alcohol. Everybody who was anybody was there, but most importantly Royce King and his friends were there. Royce was the king of our high school, captain of the football team, and I was the junior that was vying for his attention. I spent most of my night hanging around Royce and his friends just hoping that he'd be my new years kiss.
Everything was going fine until Royce got drunk and started getting touchy feely with me. I normally wouldn't have thought anything of it and would have basked in knowledge that Royce chose to be kissing and "copping a feel" from me, but then he started to undo the zipper of my dress and put his hands into my panties and was forcefully shoving his fingers into my opening. So I started to resist it and tell him to keep his hands out of my dress, but he wouldn't comply.
"Come on babe, just show me how much you want me., I know you do. That's why you've been hanging around here with me and my friends looking like the loser you are instead of staying with your friends."
I knew that he wanted to have sex with me, I'd be another one of his trophies, but sex is not what I wanted. I wanted a boyfriend and someone to love me, not a one night stand. Call me old-fashioned but I wanted to wait for marriage before having sex. I viewed my virginity as something sacred that should only be shared with the person you are going to spend your life with, not something to give to a drunken womanizer.
When I thought that he'd finally given up and was getting up to leave I was relived, only to have fear strike me seconds later when Royce and three of his friends grabbed me and took me upstairs to Becky's room.
Everything happened so fast. I was surrounded by guy twice my size and three times my weight. They held me down and stripped me of my clothes while I struggled with them. My attempts were futile though because in the end they got what they wanted, I was naked as the day I was born in front of four men that were surely going to defile me. Royce was hovering over me then thrust into my womanhood with as much force as possible causing the greatest pain I ever knew to course through me, and took away apart of me that was not his to take.
One by one all of his friends had their "turn" with me and left me naked and in pain on my best friends bed with blood pooling between my legs.
To this day Becky is the only person that knows what happened at the new years party because she found me in her bed later that night, in the same state that they left me in. Becky stood by me in the whole situation begging me o go to the police and report what happened so that I would get my justice but I didn't. The situation was too humiliating to relive and not something that I wanted to freely share with others.
This brings me back to my current situation. Do I tell my parents that their perfect little girl was raped by four men and did nothing to stop it? Or do I go on living my life in a mask of happiness struggling to be the person I was not so long ago while watching Royce King and his band of miscreants live their lives as if nothing happened all the while passing me in the hallways and giving me their sickening smirks reminding me of the worst day of my life.
"The desire to forget the past is a form of suicide. I have come to believe that many would sooner die than remove our masks and stand barefaced to the world."
-Richard Bode
"I'll never be able to completely explain, how you feel like after something like that. Worthless, confused, degraded, depressed, they're all just words. N O T H I N G will ever be able to describe how horrible you feel. Nothing is enough…."
-Broken Masquerade
"Little girl hiding in the corner,
Clothes all over the floor.
Man standing above her whispering lies,
'you're just a little whore'"
-Amanda Ghosties
"By not coming forward (about rape) you make yourself a victim forever."
-Kelly McGillis
"I prefer to characterize rape simply as a form of torture. Like the torturer, the rapist is motivated by the urge to dominate, humiliate, and destroy his victim. Like the torturer, he does so by using the most intimate acts available to humans-- sexual ones."
- Helen Benedict, Virgin or Vamp, 1992
1 in 6 women- and 1 in 33 men- will be sexually assaulted in their life time.
College age women are 4 times more likely to be sexually assaulted.
60 percent of sexual assaults are not reported to the police.
Approximately 73 percent of rape victims know their assailants.
Only 6 percent of rapists will ever spend a day in jail.
A woman is raped every 2 minutes, according to the U.S. department of justice.
If you have been raped or know someone who was, PLEASE contact the local authorities and report the crime. Too many scum bags wander the streets and leave more victims in their wake because women and men will not report the crimes stating that it is a personal issue that they can resolve themselves. The only thing that you're doing by not reporting the crime is giving the person the chance to ruin someone else's life.
Rape is the hardest crime to be proven because it can all be he said/ she said, so if you are raped go to your local hospital right away and have a rape kit done so that you have a better chance of proving your case.