Content warning: mentions of sexual assault.

“The Monster Myth hurts survivors and makes it less likely that they will be believed when they come forth with their stories if their perpetrator does not conform to that misconception, which very few actually do.”

He was a recent high school graduate. He was on the cross country team. He loved playing the ukulele. We sang indie music in the car together as I kept him company while doordashing. Our favorite was “Lemonade” by Jeremy Passion. He held the door open for me as I got in the car. He cuddled me as we watched Pixar movies. We spent all summer together laughing and singing, fully just happy, young and clouded by naivety. He was a sweet, kind, funny, normal guy. 

But he raped me. 

For a while I could never make sense of what happened to me because the boy who did it just did not fit in that cookie cutter definition of a rapist. He didn’t seem like a monster. He didn’t seem evil. If he was the good person that I thought he was, how could he have done something so horrible? This question is what swirled around in my mind for years afterwards as my brain just could not — or would not — let me accept the truth of what happened. I believed the world was filled with either good or bad people and that everyone fits into those categories. God, I wish it were that easy. 

The myth that men who inflict this pain are always inherently evil is what allows rape culture to be perpetuated. Now, I am not saying that rapists are all saints, because the reality is that there are serial rapists and abusers who have genuinely no sense of morality. But for cases like mine, friends and family refuse to accept the label of “rapist” for their loved ones. It’s such a potent word. It is biting and uncomfortable to hear, so people make excuses for why something “didn’t count” as rape to avoid having to accept those uncomfortable feelings. They look at the victim and try to find their culpability, because if the responsibility is split between the man and the woman, the crushing weight of that label doesn’t seem as heavy. Push it away and push it down, but whatever you do, don’t allow yourself to see the imperfect parts of the people around you. 

I picked apart every second of that night and assigned blame to myself for everything I could have done differently, everything that would have prevented me from getting assaulted. The truth is that the only thing that could have stopped what happened that night is if the boy who did it had stopped himself. The Monster Myth allows men and boys to look at their friends, whom they can see all the best parts of, and say “he would never do that.” Their friends can’t be monsters because what does that mean for their own identity if they enabled such an evil person?

A friend of mine experienced an assault from a friend of a friend, and both happened to be male. When she approached her friend about her experience, all he could say is how good of a guy his friend is. She didn’t need to hear he was a good person. That is irrelevant. Life is just not that simple. Just because people around you perceive you as good does not mean that you are not capable of causing harm. Two things can be true at the same time: He can be a great guy, but they can still hurt people. 

I wish more men would hear this and not immediately go on the defensive when women approach them with their experiences. You have no idea what happens behind closed doors, and you are naive if you think that your friends are always completely honest with you. It takes so much strength to come forward, and when victims are met with dismissals in this form, it gaslights the victims into thinking what happened to them wasn’t wrong. Being labeled a “good guy” by “the boys” should not be a “get out of jail free” card for any crimes they may commit. 

“Okay but it’s not all men — there are just a few bad apples.” 

I agree, it’s not all men. But why is it most women? So many survivors have reached out to tell me about how confusing and challenging healing has been, showing me how deeply this rape culture has seemed to soak into our world. We need to stop clinging to these labels of “rapist” as inhuman and “victim” as damaged. It allows us to be blind to the real human experiences that allow this harm to continue. Instances of sexual violence against women are not isolated incidents but symptoms of a much larger problem. It’s not in back alleys, it’s in the bedrooms of so many women with partners they know and trust. It is inflicted by the boy sitting next to you in class, the dedicated husband, the gentle boyfriend. It isn’t monsters committing these acts, it’s the seemingly “good guys” all around you. The problem takes root when men are taught that sex is a prize, that the label of “virgin” is something to be ashamed of, that their masculinity is dependent on how many women they can get with. Naive young boys internalize these messages and begin to learn that women are a commodity. A woman becomes an asset that has value to them. 

I am a woman. I am not an asset. My body has no value to you. I am a daughter and sister and friend. I am a living breathing person, and others’ actions have an impact on me. I am human. We need to teach our boys this. Simply telling them that “no means no” does not do enough to combat the patriarchal messages that are being fed to them everywhere else. Boys need to fully appreciate the humanity of the women that they engage with so they can understand the gravity of consent. I can acknowledge that many men lack a role model that will demonstrate healthier behavior. Thus, many boys refuse therapy due to the stigma, and it results in the cyclical nature of this culture as it is silently passed down from father to son. This is where I believe it is important for friends to hold each other accountable.

If you are a man reading this, I want to give you a guide from a survivor of sexual violence for what the best way to address these situations when a woman comes to you. 

Most importantly, you need to listen. If a woman is standing in front of you telling you her experience, you need to know the miles that she has run in her own mind to get there. She isn’t looking for solutions or sympathy, she is looking for validation of her experience. She just wants people to know and understand the pain that she feels so that she can begin to understand it for herself. It doesn’t matter if the man intended to do harm: If a woman is saying she has been hurt, then making sure she is okay should be your only concern. 

Next, don’t ask questions about what she was wearing or what she was doing. Trust me, she has already run through those questions of blame a million times in her own mind. She doesn’t need to hear it from you, too. 

Finally, we don’t expect you to call the cops and deliver your best friends in handcuffs to the authorities. We understand that you have a bond and a relationship with this person, but, for once, we just don’t want to be the ones addressing these issues. Women are exhausted. This can’t just be a women’s issue. We need the men in our lives to be willing to actually have uncomfortable conversations with their friends, and, at the very least, help their friends to take accountability for the impact of their actions. We are not attacking you, we are asking for help. 

The world is not black and white. There are no good people. There are just people who choose to do good and bad things. We are human and we have all done bad things, often unintentionally hurting the people around us. Being human means making mistakes, but it is essential to be able to hold yourself accountable for the ways you hurt others. 

Katie Tenniswood is a Junior in the College of LSA.

The post The Monster Myth appeared first on The Michigan Daily.

Editor’s note: The author is anonymous for safety reasons in light of the sensitive nature of this article. In accordance with our ethics policy (which can be found in full in our bylaws), the Editor-in-Chief and Editorial Page Editors are aware of the author’s identity.

Content warning: sexual assault

For all the claims from the University that we are experiencing a paradigm shift in how sexual assault is discussed and handled on campus, my own experience has qualified those conclusions. I have been a survivor for about two years. The person who assaulted me was an ex-boyfriend turned close friend I met my first year on campus. It’s hard to use clinical language like  “assault,” “attacker” and “victim” when you’re talking about what happened between you and a friend on a night only one of you remembers. He asked me to trust him when he said he hadn’t done anything I didn’t want. I knew what he was asking of me was wrong, but I wanted to believe him so badly. Instinctually, I realized what had happened within a few hours. But it took nearly a year to say it out loud.

Though I have been an advocate for survivors for years, part of me had always darkly thought, “I’ll never be one of them.” It’s rational after having received so much messaging that survivors could have prevented their own victimization if only they were smart enough. Strong enough. Loud enough. Yet, a key element of many assaults is some preexisting trust between the victim and the attacker where these conventional guards have already come down. Consider that students have drunk sexual experiences with exes, friends and random people frequently. In the interest of limiting the University of Michigan’s exposure to liability, the training course we are required to complete at the beginning of each year says all those drunk interactions are assault in some form. But once it became more than a hypothetical situation, our friends struggle to apply these bright line, University-endorsed consent rules to us. I did too.

In processing my trauma, I discovered that feeling like a victim and a survivor were distinct stages. Identifying as a victim brought me some validation as I worked through my self-doubt and internalized victim-blaming. At the same time, I feared asserting this new identity. I did not want to hurt him with the words “rapist” and “assault,” nor did I want to put our friends in the awkward position of acting as an informal judge and jury. Most significantly, I did not want to give away any of my own strength by admitting my autonomy had been compromised. It felt like he had power over me after that night because he was the only one that knew every detail. Though I have made great strides in my progress, I have not totally quieted that voice that tells me it was my fault because I drank and cannot remember.

I have searched endlessly for a guide telling me how to be a survivor. There had been so many charts and handouts on how not to become one. Turns out there isn’t a flowchart with step-by-step instructions on cutting off a close friend who raped you. Being around him was extremely difficult because I still cared about him, but I was also confused and mad. I gritted my teeth through lectures on how I was a bad friend for distancing myself from him. When I finally confronted him, I used neutral language. I did not yell or scream even though I felt anger bubbling up inside. I thought that if I did not directly accuse him of anything, maybe he would take responsibility for what he had done. During the minute and a half of silence that followed, I resisted the urge to give him an excuse for his actions that night. One of the last things he said to me was that I was lying to myself because it was easier than admitting I had wanted it. I cried the entire walk home. 

After putting everything in the open, I waited. If you’re expecting people to bring up the fact that a friend sexually assaulted you, I can tell you they won’t. I carried the weight of wondering whether he had told our friends, and whether I should, for so long. Even though I felt I had the word survivor blazoned across my forehead, the truth is that survivorship is often an invisible identity. I have been in so many conversations where people are talking about me and my experience without knowing it. I realized the debates around me about consent were only thought exercises for those whose understanding of reality and self did not depend on the answer to “Did you consent that night?” Mandating a generic training class on such complex topics and believing that will help prevent assaults seems so ridiculous to me in hindsight. My friends took the training; they still didn’t intervene. He took the training; he still raped me.  

People always talk about the ripple effects that someone sets off in a community when they assault another person. I contend that there is a similar ripple effect when a survivor begins to grapple with their assault. It felt like I had become the face of assault for the people I told, reminding them of the dark reality that survivors are everywhere. Once-vocal supporters of victims became hesitant to discuss the scope of my consent and what should have been done to prevent my harm. It was during these uncomfortable and halting conversations that I realized how much work still needs to be done on behalf of survivors. If we discussed situations where the attacker is confused or uncertain about how drunk is too drunk, but still acts, many people would be forced to join me in the uncomfortable gray area between a sober yes and a sober no. 

With the help of other survivors, I have come to accept that I am a different person than I was that night. I found a community that moves through the world similarly to me. One of the first days I met with other survivors, I described the paranoia I felt walking around campus, thinking every man that resembled him was him. They all nodded. I finally felt like I was being heard. I am suspicious of alcohol. I can’t hear about someone with the same name without thinking of what happened. I am also braver than I thought I could ever be. And I am not alone.

This piece is part of the Survivors Speak series, which seeks to share the varied, first-person experiences of survivors of sexual assault.

The post My consent is more than a debate appeared first on The Michigan Daily.

**Editor’s note: We have extended the deadline from Nov. 14 to Nov. 23 to better accommodate contributors.

Over the past few years, students, staff, faculty and alumni at the University of Michigan have addressed on-campus sexual misconduct through activism, policy development and increased discourse. While these developments are critical to changing campus culture, we believe it is also important to re-center the stories of survivors in the broader cultural conversation on campus.

With that in mind, the Opinion section has space in The Michigan Daily for first-person accounts of sexual misconduct and its various implications. In this series, submissions underpinned by the experience of survivors will be published, aiming to highlight their essential perspectives.

If you have experienced sexual misconduct and would like to participate in the University-wide and national conversation, please submit a piece on your experience — this can include the context of the misconduct, the aftermath of the trauma and what being a survivor means to you. We welcome pieces from students, staff, faculty and alumni of all gender identities. You may include specific details of the misconduct that took place, but please keep in mind that we hope to focus this series on the impact of sexual misconduct, particularly relative to your campus experience (though the misconduct does not need to have taken place on campus).

This series is meant to highlight a variety of experiences to show the nuance of sexual misconduct experiences and impacts — we will read your pieces without judgment or assumptions of guilt. If you have reported your experience and the case has gone through the University or legal system, and you reference details of this part of your experience, make sure to provide documentation as a part of The Daily’s fact-checking protocol. 

Ultimately, we are seeking to provide a space for survivors, particularly those who may not have previously had an outlet to share their stories, as well as to share nuanced statements on sexual misconduct and how these experiences relate to the University. 

To be considered for publication, please submit pieces to Editorial Page Editors Liz Cook (elizcook@umich.edu) and Joel Weiner (jgweiner@umich.edu) by Nov. 23, 2021 at midnight.

Format requirements:

1. Submissions should not exceed 1,000 words in length, and may be submitted as an op-ed, personal essay, letter or poem.
2. Though we encourage you to include your name in your submission’s byline if possible, we can publish your submission anonymously due to the sensitive nature of the subject. If you choose to publish anonymously or with a pseudonym, your name would be confidentially disclosed only to the relevant Daily editors (Opinion Managing Editors, Managing Editor and Editor-in-Chief) and will not be given for any other reason than legal obligation. If you have concerns or questions, feel free to reach out for more details.  
3. We cannot publish pieces that name the accused in the vast majority of cases. This space is made specifically for survivors to voice their experiences, rather than for reporting purposes. See the resources below if you want more information on reporting sexual misconduct.
4. Everything published in the Opinion section must follow The Daily’s style rules and standards for factual accuracy, and we reserve the right to alter wording when necessary to uphold those standards. If your piece is selected for publication, you will be involved in our editing process.
5. We do not guarantee publication of each piece we receive.
6. If you would like to submit a piece about sexual assault but are not a survivor yourself, we highly encourage you to submit it as an op-ed to the Opinion section by emailing it to tothedaily@michigandaily.com to participate in the conversation. For op-ed guidelines, please see the guidelines on The Daily’s website that are linked here.

Resources for survivors: We understand that writing your experience can be emotionally challenging. We want to remind you that the following organizations and campus groups are available for support: Sexual Assault Prevention and Awareness Center (SAPAC), Spectrum Center, Counseling and Psychological Services (CAPS), CAPS After Hours, MiTalk, CampusMindWorks, UM Psychological Clinic, UM Sexual and Gender-Based Misconduct Reporting and Resources

The post Submit to Survivors Speak: a series on survivor experiences appeared first on The Michigan Daily.

Content warning: This piece contains graphic descriptions of sexual assault.

It’s not something I talk about. It’s not even something I think about if I can avoid it. But I think it’s time for that to change.

Last year, just a few months into my freshman year, I became a victim of sexual assault.

It was mid-November, and I was at a mixer my sorority had with a couple of fraternities we have events with. I won’t name the fraternity I was at, because the truth is it could’ve been any fraternity on this campus — and at some point, it probably has been.

A couple of weekends before, I had gotten set up for the date party of one of the fraternities we were mixing with. I really liked my date, but I hadn’t spoken to him since the night of the date party (more accurately, he hadn’t responded to my text or added me on social media), and the realization was dawning on me that he was just going to be someone I had been set up with once.

So, I decided I needed to move on. “I need to kiss a boy tonight,” I remember telling my friends. I remember putting on an outfit that was a little bold for me, a little more skin than I was used to showing, and I remember starting to feel the buzz from the pregame and the boxed wine I had upon arriving at the mixer. I remember feeling confident. Feeling like the night was going to be a success.

I remember looking around the fraternity’s basement, searching for my date, trying to see if he was there. Maybe he was just busy this week; maybe it wouldn’t have been just that one night with us.

Or maybe — and I’m not proud of this — he’d see me with someone else.

I don’t know if the boy from the date party ever showed up that night. But about an hour into the mixer, I found the someone else.

He was standing on an elevated surface and noticed me dancing with my friends. He grabbed my hand, spun me around. It was fun. I felt pretty. I felt noticed. He pulled me up onto the elevated surface with him.

We started dancing, introduced ourselves. He was a year older, and I remember looking down at my friends and getting a look of approval back. “He’s cute,” one of them mouthed at me. We started making out. It was a normal fraternity party experience.

And then it wasn’t. Or maybe — unfortunately — it was.

I felt his hands on my chest, then inside the band of my underwear, and this was too far for a guy I had met 10 minutes ago. I tried to move his hands away, but he had a foot of height and probably 50 pounds or more on me, and he shook me off easily and kept going. He pulled me off the elevated surface and I tried to look for my friends, but couldn’t find them in the crowd.

He started pulling me toward the door, toward the nebulous “upstairs” where I knew enough to know his room was up there somewhere. I knew what he thought was going to happen.

Luckily — so, so luckily for me — I wasn’t as drunk as he thought I was. I dragged my feet as he pulled me along. I started with the typical excuses. “I have a 9 a.m. tomorrow.” I didn’t. “I have to be up early.” I didn’t. “My friend is so drunk, I have to make sure she’s okay.” The friends I was with that night had all had less to drink than I had, and we were all holding up just fine.

He didn’t buy it and kept pulling me upstairs. He stopped for a second in a corner, and I was relieved. Maybe I’d gotten out after all. And then his hands were back, inside my underwear again, inside of me, and I couldn’t get him to move his hands away.

“Stop,” I said. “No, stop, please, I just met you —” 

“Come on,” he said and started pulling me toward the door again.

Every single day, I’m thankful for what happened next. We ran into a girl who lived in my hall. She and I were friendly, and had even gotten a few meals at South Quad together, but we joined different sororities and had never been all that close. But she saw us, saw enough to guess what was going on. She came over to me and started talking. To his surprise, the boy let go of my hand, and that girl from my hall led me away from him and put me in an Uber back to West Quad.

We all know what would’ve happened if I hadn’t run into her right then.

The state of Michigan defines what happened to me that night as criminal sexual assault in the third degree, but I knew I wasn’t going to press charges or report it. The system is too broken. No matter what I did, nothing was going to happen. 

I knew what people would say. I had been drinking, had been wearing revealing clothes — never mind the fact that I was barely tipsy, just a couple drinks in, and while, what I was wearing was bold for me, it was still pretty standard fare for a fraternity party, and not at all revealing by my friends’ standards.

That night I had done everything I’d been taught. I didn’t get too drunk, I stayed within my limit, I came with friends. It was a fraternity I knew well, a fraternity I felt comfortable at.

It still happened.

What I wanted — what I still want — is to move on, not to let it affect me. I still go back to that fraternity, still have a drink or two (or more) on occasion, even still wear that outfit. That boy doesn’t get to take any of that away from me.

But not every girl is so lucky. Not every girl has the luxury, the luck of getting out like I did. Not every girl can move on as I’ve tried to.

And for all of us, the system is broken. So, so beyond broken that I knew from the moment that I walked out of that fraternity house that I wasn’t going to do anything about it — that I couldn’t do anything about it. Not when this University has a history if instutional sexual misconduct.

That’s how broken the system is. Not just generally, but at the University of Michigan.

So broken that I knew from the moment this happened to me that I knew there was nothing I could do about it but keep moving forward. So I did.

I don’t know what I expect to happen as a result of this article coming out. I certainly don’t expect anything from the University; I’ve learned I can’t expect anything from the University in this arena. 

But with all this going on, I need to speak up. Need someone — anyone — to hear me when I say: 

me too.

Editor's note: The author's name was omitted to protect their identity.

This piece is part of the Survivors Speak series, which seeks to share the varied, first-person experiences of survivors of sexual assault. If you are a survivor and would like to submit to the series, please see our guidelines for submissions here.

The post Survivors Speak: Me too appeared first on The Michigan Daily.

It was a couple years ago, with my then high school girlfriend. She was going through a tough time — her father had been diagnosed with a terminal illness; her life turned upside down. I was there to support her in any way that I could. “Don’t worry,” I’d say. “I’m right here next to you. You aren’t gonna be alone in this.” She knew she could count on me. Mental illness got the best of her, however. Her initial sadness turned to anger and rage and frustration, grief to deep unrelenting desperation for her mind to be eased. Longing for control and quick hits of dopamine to help her through her struggles, my support became a crutch, and eventually, her addiction. I remember the day well. She had expressed she wanted to have sex. I did not. “But it’ll make me feel good,” she said, as she began to touch me. I didn’t want to. My body did what physically male bodies do when exposed to stimulus, and my courage disappeared. She did what she wanted, as my quiet objections of “No, stop” turned to only hearing her muffled moans and a “See, wasn’t that good?” when she was finished.

And here I am, years later, left to pick up the pieces. It’s been a decent bit of time here, we’ve since broken up, and I’ve met an incredible, beautiful, intelligent woman with whom I’d be lucky to spend a long, long time with, who supports my struggles mentally and is patient with the occasional lapses I have with sexual dysfunction. Dysfunction takes the form of different physiological hiccups. For myself, I find it difficult to climax, as what fills a lot of my mind during sex is anxiety. I have nightmares nearly every night of this particular scene in my mind, my ex-girlfriend on top of me, telling me that it’s what she wants, almost daring me to claim that my desires are as important as hers.

Therapy helps, but a lot of the pain, a lot of the struggle is the everyday anxiety. I’ll just be out at Potbelly Sandwich Shop by myself, eating lunch before my afternoon classes, and suddenly, I’m transported back to that night. Smelling her perfume transports my mind into that fight or flight response. Post traumatic stress disorder is not a simple disease that you can just ignore occasionally. You live with it; it becomes a part of you. Through therapy, you learn to “make the beast beautiful,” but even then, it never goes away. You learn to live with it.

The road is long and arduous, but it’s worth it. I find beauty in my life again. My friends, my family, all support me and my endeavors. I’m never truly alone, and I know that. Whether it’s a quick Costco run with my best friend, or a walk around campus with a couple of others, I always have someone I can talk to, to help carry the burden with me. But, once again, it's always there. Especially at night, when I’m alone, and all I have are my thoughts. But, it’ll get better. I know it will, and I know that with work, with laughter, with intention and determination, this part of myself that I hate so thoroughly will, one day, become an even more beautiful part of my soul.

Meeting my partner was one of the most spectacular times of my life. I never thought I’d be able to have a healthy sexual relationship with a woman ever again. I still remember the night I told her what had happened to me. I was worried about what she would think or say. Once I was finished, she held me, and told me that she was there for me, and that we could be as patient with our sexual relationship as we wanted. That there was no rush, and she wasn’t with me for the sex, but because of who I am as a human. Being comforted not only physically, but emotionally, was so refreshing and changed how I viewed my own sexuality. I could be patient, and find comfort in that patience.

One in six men will be sexually assaulted at some point in their life. It doesn’t make us weak or less masculine — nor should it. Rather, we, as men, should encourage other men to speak up, to be courageous, share this burden with others and to attend therapy and take medication. There is such a thing as healthy masculinity, and we can find that in our fellow men, in comforting those who are having a rough time. Seeking help in a healthy way, wanting to be better, practicing empathy and compassion and caring for each other are ways of practicing healthy masculinity.

This is the fourth piece in the Survivors Speak series, which seeks to share the varied, first-person experiences of survivors of sexual assault. If you are a survivor and would like to submit to the series, please see our guidelines for submissions here. Though the deadline has passed, we may accept late submissions.

The post Survivors Speak: Life as a male sexual assault victim appeared first on The Michigan Daily.

The post Survivors Speak: In a place between emptiness and devastation appeared first on The Michigan Daily.

Editor's note: The author’s name was omitted to protect their identity.

My story is probably different than many of the stories you’ll read here. I was sexually abused by my (now ex) boyfriend during my freshman year of college, repeatedly. The abuse started slowly and subtly at first; pushing me to go farther than I wanted, saying “please.” And gradually over time he became more demanding and even violent before descending into frank disregard for my consent or lack thereof. Once when I asked him to stop, he said he couldn’t because I was “too sexy” and therefore he couldn’t help himself. After that, I didn’t feel comfortable with my naked body and for a period of time would wear swimsuits to shower. It got to the point where I knew I couldn’t say “no” because if I did, he wouldn’t care and having him blatantly ignore my pleas to stop hurt more than going along with what he wanted. I used to think I was weak for not putting up more of a fight, but I’ve realized it was a form of self-preservation and may have saved me from something worse.

He was smart enough to not leave marks and to avoid triggering the usual “red flags” we’re warned about for abusers like being overly possessive or jealous. The truth is, I didn’t escape in the night to a domestic violence shelter or triumphantly break up with him; he broke up with me. I didn’t understand why until I learned through therapy that he is a sexual narcissist, someone who uses sexual abuse to control someone’s behavior.

This helped me to understand what had happened to me, why it was so difficult to get out even when the abuse kept getting worse and why he broke up with me. He was betting that he would be able to continue to control me without us being in an official relationship, but him breaking up with me also gave me an out. Even after the break up, he still tried to control me, but thankfully as school started up, I was in closer contact with friends and less in contact with him.

In some ways I feel guilty even sharing this, knowing that most others who experienced assault vehemently did not consent, but I sometimes had consented to intercourse with my boyfriend. But I also faced my perpetrator over and over again while loving and caring for him. Sometimes I feel like I should have left him earlier, that I should have known better. My friends and family’s disapproval for him and the subsequent isolation made me feel I couldn’t be honest about what was happening with anyone who cared about me and only made it more difficult to escape my abusive relationship.

In the aftermath, I dealt with symptoms that would likely qualify as Posttraumatic Stress Disorder. I had recurrent nightmares about the assaults and would scan my surroundings for him on campus and plan escape routes. My relationship with him had lasted a little over a year and there were reminders of him all over campus. He even started working at two of the same jobs I did after we broke up. It felt like I couldn’t escape. I had panic attacks, trouble concentrating at school, became depressed and even suicidal. Seeing him on campus would make my heart pound in my chest and make me feel like I needed to vomit — my mind would race about how to get away. It took a lot to reclaim my life and sense of self. I went to therapy and started on antidepressants. I explored reporting him to the police, but was told off-the-record by an officer that a jury would find it difficult to convict him for assault when there were times it was consensual.

It’s been over seven years since I escaped that relationship. It has been a long road and it has not always been easy, but here’s what I will say: I am not destroyed. I am capable of and worthy of healthy relationships. I can love and be loved. Things do get better.

This is the second piece in the Survivors Speak series, which seeks to share the varied, first-person experiences of survivors of sexual assault. If you are a survivor and would like to submit to the series, please see our guidelines for submissions here.

The post Survivors Speak: Sometimes it’s someone you love(d) appeared first on The Michigan Daily.

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Editor's note: The author’s name was omitted to protect their identity.

I was sitting in Biology 172 on a Friday morning in November 2014 after my first semi-formal when I got an email from a woman involved with Title IX at the University of Michigan asking to speak to me about an event that had been reported. Then came the text from my resident adviser, who had apparently been on duty when I’d been locked out of my dorm and crying the previous night, explaining he was a mandatory reporter and that I’d said some concerning things.

I had flashes of what had happened in my mind, but I couldn’t remember what I’d said to my RA. I panicked. Everything felt fuzzy, and I couldn’t face the memories threatening to surface — the drink from a boy I never should have accepted, how I felt like I was looking and speaking through a fog afterward. So I decided nothing had happened, emailed the woman back and asked her to never contact me again and told my concerned friends and RA that I’d just been drunk.

That wasn’t the only time something happened my freshman year. Two nights, two different guys. The shame often threatens to swallow me whole.

On New Year’s Eve, I was in Ann Arbor and went to a frat with a friend. She met up with her boyfriend, and I was with a boy who seemed nice enough. Until he wasn’t. To this day, I can feel the visceral terror that came when I realized what was about to happen, and that I couldn’t stop it. When I tried to scream, he put his hands on my throat and told me to shut up because he knew I wanted this. I froze, and my memories from that point feel like I was watching it happen. The sound of metal clicking sends me into a panic, even now, because of the sound of his belt buckle. I remember crying in a bathroom, and when I called a friend from home, they laughed and told me I sounded so drunk they couldn’t understand. In reality, I was crying so hard and was too panicked to be coherent — I’d been sober for hours at that point. So, again, I decided I had to be fine. I pushed it away, told myself it had just been rough sex and that I needed to get over it.

I pretended I was OK and that nothing had happened for years. I’d developed an eating disorder in high school, which had gone untreated, and after these events, I spiraled. I had panic attacks almost daily, missed class because I started to cry and my heart raced when leaving my dorm. I rarely ate, and when I did, I threw up, desperate to be so small that I would disappear. I eventually had to withdraw that winter semester, blaming the escalation of my eating disorder on poor body image, perfectionism and academic stress. For the next two years, I went in and out of treatment, plagued by impossible anxiety, poor sleep, jumping at small noises and a constant need to be in “survival mode.” I would exercise for hours, desperate to feel some sense of control over my body. After six months in treatment in 2016, after being nourished for long enough that my brain was working properly, I began having nightmares every night. I kept trying to say everything was fine, but my re-emerging restriction and exercise addiction said otherwise. I finally said, “Yes,” when my doctor asked me about abuse, and things spiraled from there.

My therapist found out and told me I needed to talk about it. I couldn’t. I froze, unable to speak every time I thought about it. I lived on steamed vegetables, convinced that everything else was “dirty,” and that if I ate “clean,” then I would finally feel clean again. I didn’t care that I was dying. I thought I would never get past this, and that the constant fear wasn’t worth living through. I barely slept between nightmares and hunger. My mom and doctor threatened me with a psychiatric hold and a court-ordered hospital stay if I didn’t voluntarily receive treatment. I stayed in a hospital for a week before a residential treatment center declared me medically stable enough to receive their care, and then had to go through the process of evaluation after evaluation, again. But I couldn’t pretend nothing had happened anymore. I still couldn’t talk or think about it much, but I tried getting a word out here or there about how it made me feel.

I returned to Michigan after that last treatment stay and still hadn’t dealt with the post-traumatic stress disorder. I still avoid the streets where things transpired. I won’t go to Pizza House because I went there one of those nights. I’ve done a decent job of avoiding the memories whenever possible, even though I still have nightmares every night. When the #MeToo movement started, I once again missed classes, but kept eating. When the Kavanaugh case hit the news, I felt so much anxiety that I couldn’t breathe unless I curled up in a ball and used a weighted blanket. I missed three classes in one week because I just couldn’t feel safe outside of my house. I go to therapy twice a week, and still freeze and have flashbacks when we approach the subject of those nights. The Kavanaugh case sent me spiraling. I’m finally beginning to actually try a form of trauma-therapy called EMDR, or eye movement desensitization and reprocessing. I’m terrified. But the past four years of my life have been defined by these nights. I’m so tired of being tired from lack of sleep — tired of feeling like my body isn’t mine.

It’s hard being a survivor, right now. It’s hard calling myself a survivor. It’s hard being a survivor, period.

I’ve built up grounding skills — essential oils in silly putty, carefully crafted playlists, breathing exercises — to keep me present instead of spiraling into memories. There’s no neat end to this story, because this will probably still affect me for the rest of my life. But I’m hoping that I can get to a point where it’s part of my story, not the defining factor.

The author is an LSA senior.

This is the first piece in the Survivors Speak series, which seeks to share the varied, first-person experiences of survivors of sexual assault. If you are a survivor and would like to submit to the series, please see our guidelines for submissions here. 

The post Survivors Speak: My body isn’t mine appeared first on The Michigan Daily.

It happened on a Thursday. It was the day before Halloween. I was dressed as the devil. I remember walking outside and feeling the cold air on my face. I remember walking into the house. I remember him on top of me. Everything else is black. Those three memories are seared into my brain, permanently I think. No matter how hard I try to forget, I don’t know if I ever will.

In the years since it happened, when I find myself gripped with panic and unable to catch my breath, I calm down by reasoning with myself. Mine wasn’t that bad because, thank God, I can’t even remember most of it. Some women have more violent memories. I’m one of the lucky ones, really. But how could I ever forget the part I did remember? It flashes into my mind at random times, and always before I go to sleep.

It’s been three years since I was raped. Those three years have been some of the longest of my life. It took me a year to admit to myself that what happened that night was actually rape. It took even longer for me to tell my parents. I can count on one hand the number of my friends I have told. To this day, I keep it to myself out of shame and fear of how I will be perceived.

We all know how people react when a woman seeks justice, or even solace, following a rape. What was she wearing? She has no proof. Why would she want to ruin a man’s life like that? Questions like these had me convinced for a long time that what happened to me was my fault. I did go to his house, after all. I was even wearing a dress. So, I allowed the shame I felt to take hold of my body. It gripped me so tightly it made it impossible to speak, even when I wanted to tell people what happened to me.

Everyone who knows me knows I’m an outspoken feminist — I’m never afraid to address the injustices that exist in our society. I have supported many of my friends who have experienced the same injustice as I have. I assure them that what happened to them was not a result of their actions or words; the horrific denial of their autonomy and disregard for their humanity was not their fault. And I believe that wholeheartedly. I would fight for any victim. So why couldn’t I fight for myself?

Over the past month or so, I have read hundreds of posts associated with the #MeToo campaign. I’m encouraged by survivors who speak out about what was done to them. I admire their bravery. Reading other women recount their stories and their recoveries gives me hope that I, too, will be able to recover one day.

However, campaigns like these, which are designed to increase awareness, feel empty at best and insulting at worst. I was not surprised by any of the posts I read or even the sheer number of my friends alone who have experienced sexual assault. This is common knowledge to me and to every woman I know.

What surprised me was how men reacted: I had no idea sexual assault was this widespread! What can we, as men, do to stop this?! Women of the world, help us be better! As if women don’t have enough to deal with already, now we must fix the problem of sexual assault, too? To me, “the problem of sexual assault” is really “the problem of men who do not know women deserve respect and dignity just like everybody else.” It’s “the problem of toxic masculinity and the patriarchy” or, more simply, “the problem of power.”

I realized this long before I was raped, and my understanding certainly didn’t require having a daughter or a wife first. Like many women I know, I’m tired of facilitating the conversation on sexual assault. But, for the sake of change, I will. Men reading this, listen up.

I implore you to understand that even if you have not sexually assaulted someone, you are complicit in sexual assault in your silence. You are complicit in the rape jokes you make with your friends. You are complicit when you willingly participate in organizations where sexual assault rates are highest, like fraternities. Please understand how destructive your behavior is to women, to men, to yourself and to society.

If you are offended by my claims, all you need to do is tune into the conversation women have been having for decades. For too long, the blame and responsibility have been placed on women. It is not our job to stop what is being done to us. We do not need to be less naive, more careful or more accepting of the “reality” of our world. Men, you need to step up. This is not on me. This is on you.

Beyond ensuring that it never happens again, men can help fix “the problem of sexual assault” by addressing the role they play in its perpetuation. Chris Brown, abuser, has a new documentary on Netflix. Kodak Black, rapist, continues to be a widely streamed artist. Woody Allen, pedophile and rapist, decorates the walls of our “progressive” town of Ann Arbor. Donald Trump, alleged rapist, is the president of the United States. The list goes on. Stop celebrating, glorifying and rewarding these men and, instead, hold them accountable.

You can also help by being supportive of the people in your life who have been raped. When I told my dad what happened to me, he listened to me. He allowed me to share my experience without interrupting or interjecting his own thoughts. Most importantly, he did not doubt me for a second. The positive impact of having a man like my dad in my life during my recovery process has been immeasurable. I encourage you to be that man for someone. Listen, actually listen, to the women, and men, in your life who want to share their experiences.

For a long time after I was raped, I felt helpless. I still have days when I feel things will never change. But my helplessness no longer consumes me. I’m inspired and comforted by the resilient, brave women in my life. To the women in my classes who excel despite their trauma, to my friends and family who carry on despite what was done to them, to survivors everywhere: I see you, I believe you and I believe in you.

Women are strong as hell. But we shouldn’t have to be. No, the solution to “the problem of sexual assault” is not women becoming stronger and less sensitive. The solution is for men to stop. Stop. Raping. Us. Though I’m tired of being held responsible, I will continue to fight for justice until men no longer feel they possess the right to my body. I will fight for me. I will fight for you.

The author is an LSA senior.

The post Survivors Speak: I will fight for you appeared first on The Michigan Daily.