The Well Magazine Spring 2013 | Page 17

Photos by Marlowe Whitlow this happen to me ? This was not supposed to happen to me . But guess what ? It did . Raped . Three times . Baseball rules say three strikes and you are out and that is exactly how I felt . I just wanted to go to the store ; I just wanted to hang out with friends . How did these very separate days , very separate instances , involving very different people have so many similarities ?
Raped in the back of a record shop . Raped two apartments from my own home . Raped in my boyfriend ’ s home at a party by his roommates . Am I cursed ? Is God mad at me ? This clearly cannot be what life is supposed to be . So I hid behind a mask . Not a physical mask , but an emotional and spiritual mask . I smiled during the day and I plotted at night . I plotted how to get back at the men that did this to me . That scarred me . That hurt me . During the day , in the public I was one person , but privately I was a different person . I had to be . I had to protect myself from something so heinous and tragic ever happening again . One way one minute and another in the next , but the juggling began to make me tired and confused . My moods and personalities began to switch at the wrong times in front of the wrong people . The mask became too heavy . I just wanted it all to end . And so I tried to end it .
I figured the only way to stop the pain was to end my life . So when the overdosing of pills didn ’ t work and the alcohol poisoning just gave me an upset stomach and a major headache I figured driving my car off the road or standing in the middle of the street would work . But I was left with nothing but a flat tire or a car blowing at me , with the driver screaming at me to get out of the street . My tears of frustration turned to laughter . The night of my third rape , a gang rape by my boyfriend ’ s roommates , I heard a voice . As I lay on the side of street pray-
Spring 2013 / The Well Magazine 17