A Letter to the Man that Assaulted Me

Dear, well, you know who you are.

I’ve thought about this so many times. If I could, what would I say to you? I’ve never been able to verbalize how I felt. I mean, what do you even say to the person that singlehandedly destroyed your life?

            I hated you for a long time. For what you did to me. For the effect it had on me. You knowingly and willingly shattered my entire being into a thousand pieces, leaving only a sad shell of a person behind. You cost me everything: who I was, what I believed in. I abandoned everything I thought I knew in order to cope with what had happened to me. I stopped believing in love and hope, focusing on simply making it through each day. My world was no longer filled with joy as it always had been. My world became muted to shades of grey, sucking the life out of any positive emotions and merely leaving emptiness.

I hated myself for a very long time because of what you did. I stopped valuing myself. I saw myself as worthless. I stopped loving myself because I couldn’t. How could I love the broken person that was left behind by what happened? You engrained rejection and hurt into the core of my being. Insecurities rose up in me that I didn’t even know I was capable of feeling, leaving me a bitter, jealous, shallow person. These insecurities cost me dearly, poisoning anything good from the inside out. It cost me some of my closest friendships, my relationship with the one person I’ve ever truly loved, and worst of all, my relationship with God. My core was filled with this horrible bitterness that I couldn’t mask or escape. Everyone around me could sense it, infecting my heart and my mind and leaving a bitter person in its wake. I couldn’t look at myself in the mirror without being disgusted. If I couldn’t love myself, how could anyone possibly love me? I isolated myself from others in order to protect myself from this horrible problem with trust that I couldn’t shake. Even when I was around people, I was there physically but not much else. You can’t be hurt by others if you don’t allow them to see the real you. I became harsh. I became insecure. I became desperate for love and affirmation from others, doing anything to receive what shallow love and acceptance I could. I became a person I scarcely recognized.

I was scared of you for a really long time. The mere thought of you would send me into a frenzied panic that I couldn’t escape. I was terrified of you, your friends, and the constant hurt you both managed to inflict on me. At the most vulnerable time of my life, you made people think I was crazy. You told them I was making everything up. You told them you never hurt me. You told them I was just an angry girl who decided to take out her hurt in the worst way possible. I think the thing that hurt more than the accusations you hurled my way was the fact that some people believed you, choosing to believe that I was just a pissed girl with a crazy streak instead of believing that you were actually capable of hurting someone.

I live with this pain everyday. As time went on, however, I realized that you do too. While I live with the hurt of what happened to me, you have to live with the guilt of what you did to me. You singlehandedly destroyed the life of another person. That can’t be easy to deal with. Sometimes, I actually feel worse for you than I do for myself. You see, as time has gone on, I’ve healed. How do you heal? How can you live with what you’ve done? I know it must be a large burden that you carry everyday.

If there’s one thing I wish I could tell you, it’s this: I forgive you. I forgive you for what you did that night, for that horrible drunken mistake you made. I forgive you for crushing me, shattering my heart, and killing my spirit. I forgive you for lying to everyone about what happened. I forgive you for everything. You see, hatred and bitterness are a horrible feeling to constantly hold with you. I know. I let it erode me from the inside out for years. I’m still angry about what happened, but I don’t think that there will ever be a time when I won’t be, and that’s okay. Anger is okay. Hatred is not.

This horrible thing that you did to me turned me into the person I am today. I am much stronger than I ever could have hoped to be, and it’s because of you. I wish I could have become this person another way, but I know that’s not possible. You can’t change the past. You can only shape your future. I love myself now in a way that I never knew I could. I love myself because I fought so hard to become her. I love myself in spite of what you did. I love myself because of what you did.

You no longer have power over me. All those negative emotions are what kept me chained to you for years. Letting them go was the most freeing thing I’ve ever done.

I forgive you. I genuinely hope that one day you can forgive yourself.

Natalie Ross

What If No One Believes Me?

This simple phrase puts into words one of a survivor’s biggest fears: what if no one believes me? Survivors have already lived through more pain than some can even fathom, and being told you are a liar only adds to that pain. Unfortunately, some survivors will never come forward due to this fear.

It’s been nearly a year since I reported my case to my Title IX Coordinator, and this is still one of my biggest fears. It’s a fear that haunts me to this day. Unfortunately, two nights ago, someone sought to make this fear come true. I received this comment on my original blog post:

“I am so disappointed in you Natalie, this post is a complete lie. Please don't lie and frame a poor innocent boy. Don't be that girl who post lies just for attention. everyone knows exactly who you are talking about because you gave a time when it happened. you wanted to frame this boy and embarrass him. What people don't know is the truth. The truth that he never sexually assaulted you, he merely broke up with you and you couldn't handle that and had to take revenge and ruin his reputation. I am not someone very close to him but i was present while all of this was going on and know the truth and everyone else should. stop begging for attention you are only embarrassing yourself and making yourself look like a shitty person for everyone who knows the truth. I just hope that you grow up and never make a poor guy your victim ever again you attention whore.”  

Ouch. I found the lack of grammar in this comment appalling, but that’s beside the point. When I read this comment I was shocked and crushed. I’m not sure what hurt me more: the words that were said, or the fact that someone genuinely believes this about me.

The more I thought about it, however, the more I realized that it doesn’t matter. The fact is that people are going to believe what they are going to believe, and there is nothing that I – or anyone else for that matter – can do to change it. People will say and believe what they want about you.

I can’t stress enough that what others believe and say about you doesn’t reflect on who you are as a person at all; it reflects upon who they are. Often times, you have nothing to do with what’s being said. For many people, it stems from a lack of confidence and love for themselves – not from anything you have done.

You have to realize that there are always people who will doubt you and try to discredit you, but in reality, they are powerless. You are the one who knows the truth, not them. They weren’t there, and they have no real way of knowing what happened.

With this being said, cast this fear aside: become fearless. The less you care what others think, the freer you will feel. Nothing can take away what you have lived through: not what anyone thinks, says, or does. Go on fighting fearlessly, and know that the truth and light will always win.

Who Am I?

            Once upon a time, there was a girl; she was kind and strange. She was goofy, and she loved everyone around her. She loved people with everything she had; she loved people in a deep, unconditional way that is rare, even in fully developed relationships. Her downfall was the fact that she loved too deeply, and she saw the good in people, even when there was no good to be seen. One day, her world fell apart due to unparalleled tragedy. Her life spiraled out of control as she sat and watched, paralyzed and unable to prevent the intense damage that would occur.

            I’ll give you a little hint about this story: I was this girl.

            I came to college naïve and optimistic. I genuinely believed that there was good in everyone, and I loved the people around me too deeply. Even two years later and after events that permanently changed my life, I still see the good in people and love far too deeply.

            In February of 2015, I was sexually assaulted. It wasn’t like a scene from a movie, where an unfamiliar man snatched me off of the street and assaulted me. It was a person who I knew and trusted.

            After it happened, I knew that he did something wrong, but I didn’t know how to define what occurred. Since I didn’t have a name for it, I assumed that I was over-reacting. When people asked me what was wrong, I brushed them off and said I was fine. They seemed to believe me, despite the fact that I collapsed into a heap on the kitchen floor and cried, ignoring the people who attempted to console me.

            In the days and even months that followed, I plastered a smile on my face and painted on a facade; I tried to pretend that I was okay. I didn’t realize at the time that my facade was cracked, like a windshield that had been hit by a baseball. Everyone could tell that something was wrong, but no one could figure out what that something was.

            Everyone – including myself – sat by helplessly as I spiraled out of control. I began self-destructive habits to manage my pain, and the ugly monsters of mental illness reared their heads. As a result of the assault, I acquired depression and anxiety, which led to a striking mixture of numbness and throbbing pain. The anxiety developed into panic attacks, which left me frozen and defenseless, drowning in my own emotions. In order to control these horrible monsters, I began to drink. People didn’t realize that I generally spent three to five nights of the week drinking to try to numb the throbbing pain that didn’t seem fixable. I stopped eating as a result of the anxiety, and in a few short months, I lost eighteen pounds: transforming my body, which was already very skinny, into what seemed like a walking skeleton. I also stopped sleeping due to the anxiety, which left me constantly exhausted.

            When summer came, I thought that this horrible spiral would come to an end, but it only became worse. I would spend all day lying in my bed, often crying silently in an attempt to keep my family from noticing. My abstinence from food became worse, until I was barely eating once a day: I had to stay seated or laying down to prevent myself from passing out. My depression worsened; I was left tragically and utterly defenseless.

            One day, I decided that I didn’t want to feel the pain anymore. I didn’t want to face this overwhelming sense of hopelessness anymore. Something within me snapped. My mother noticed all summer that something was profoundly wrong with me, but I finally disclosed that I wanted to physically harm myself in an attempt to stop my pain.

            My family automatically brought me to the hospital, where I was involuntarily admitted to the behavioral health unit. I spent the next two days there, surrounded by people battling schizophrenia and raging drug addictions. While I was in the hospital, I finally disclosed what happened to me to my doctor. I felt like a weight had been lifted off of my shoulders. He told me that in order to be released, I had to tell my parents.

            My parents came to the hospital the next day for our “group therapy session”. I reluctantly told them about what happened to me. The looks on their faces are burned onto my brain: looks riddled with shock and pain. I will never forget the way my mom cried, or the way that my dad looked utterly heartbroken. Despite the sadness of the situation, I felt like I was finally free from the ghost that had been haunting me for months.

            I began the healing process, which started slowly at first, but became easier with each day. Every day was a new battle. That’s the strange thing about grief: some days are happy, some are numb, some are sad, and some are angry. Even over a year later, there are still days that are difficult, days where I cry, and days when I don’t want to get out of bed.

            Being sexually assaulted was the worst thing that ever happened to me. It shattered my world into a pile of unrecognizable shards. It also, however, turned me into a much stronger person. With the love and support of my friends and family, I picked up the broken pieces of my life and put them back together. They slowly but surely assembled into a steadfast, new being.

            Through tragedy, I learned to be a stronger person. I learned that nobody -- no matter what they do to you -- can break you. I learned that some friendships could not handle the strain of something so painful, but the ones that can survive it become so much stronger and beautiful.

            I still believe that people are good; I just learned not to create goodness where it doesn’t belong. I still love people too deeply; that will probably never change.

            In the past year and a half, I went to hell and back. I danced with the devil, and I think he enjoyed my company, seeing he didn’t want to let me go or escape the pain I was feeling.

            I survived.

            Yes, I survived.

            You see, I learned that people are truly resilient, and they can handle anything that life throws at them. No matter what you are going through, you can survive. No, you will survive.  You will become a stronger version of yourself than you ever thought possible.

            So go on. Fight. Face your demons head on. Go down swinging. Even when you feel like you’re losing or you’re not going anywhere, remember that you are becoming stronger. You are becoming strong and brave and fearless. When the battle seems tough, don’t forget about the people who love and support you; they will be your greatest allies.

            Above all, remember that you will survive.