(original french recommended)
When I was sixteen I was secretly seeing a guy from my class. It went on for about three months (from September to December). He had a girlfriend at the time, so I decided to end it after the Christmas holiday. He didn’t say anything when I called it quits, but kept on sending me multiple texts and pictures of his private parts. He also made it a habit to push me against the walls to touch my breasts and ass, and of sitting next to me in class to caress my legs and make sexual and sexist jokes. He would sometimes even publicly humiliate me and say I was “easy”. During the school year, I didn’t really realize how unhealthy his behavior was. He was one of my closest friends and I trusted him. I was at times uncomfortable and frustrated that he didn’t understand nor change his behavior, but seeing that he acted in a similar way with other girls (sexist jokes, groping, ...) and that nobody said anything about it, I decided to keep quiet.
The situation got worse in may, as his relationship with his girlfriend was on the rocks. He locked me in one of the school’s toilet cubicles, saying he was convinced I was lying to myself, and that I necessarily wanted and desired him. He tried to force me to perform a fellatio on him. When confronted with my refusal, he forced himself inside me. I managed, after a never ending moment, to push him away and to get myself out of there.
After leaving the cubicle I was in a state of shock. We were in the middle of a PE class so I joined the group, trembling. A friend noticed my uneasiness and came to see me. I couldn’t dare to tell him the truth, so I said he had only tried to remove my t-shirt. Then I started running. I didn’t understand how he could have done that to me, how he could be so sure that I wanted him. I ran to try and “get away” from my own thoughts, I even got hurt. At the end of class, unable to walk, I had to wait for my mom to come and get me. He came and sat next to me, saying he was sorry and that it would not happen again. It was the first and last time he recognised (in a way) the pain he inflicted upon me.
I didn’t come back to school until three days later. Seeing he was acting in the exact same way with other girls from class made me nauseous. At noon, I was unable to eat anything whatsoever. When I got up from the lunch table, I started crying, and decided to confide n some of my friends, who convinced me to call a hotline. After that call, I decided to try and write a letter for my mother, to explain what had happened. I couldn’t do it. But I kept on talking to other girls from the class with whom he displayed the same type of behavior. I told them what happened to me because I was afraid the same would happen to them, I was worried about his girlfriend, too.
A week later came an oral french mock exam. I got to analyse an extract of Molière’s Tartuffe, where the character behaves like a sexual predator with Elmire. I kept on brutally reliving what had happened. Soon enough the teacher realized and asked me what was wrong. I caved and told her about what happened. Then, it all went down very fast: calling the delegate, of the student life council, my parents, meeting with the principal, and final destination, the police office. Around 11.30 pm, completely worn out, I filed a complaint.
After all this, he was kicked out of high school, whereas I only came back a few weeks later. I had to go back to the police station at least once a week, go through a medical then psychological examination. The whole class was questioned, as were teachers and other former friends of mine. In the blink of an eye, the whole school got up to speed on the whole situation.
It was his word against mine. Along with his lawyer, he denied every accusation and spread the word that I was doing all of this to get back at him for supposedly dumping me at the time. I didn’t understand how he could dare to say or even think that. I felt dirty, I cried often, namely at school, where people still didn’t know what to believe. Some people acknowledged his impulsive, predator-like and possessive behaviour. Then, on top of all that, some people would say that I was the type of person that would often flirt with others, or that I dressed in a certain way, with mini-skirts, to get attention.
Every aspect of my life ever since the beginning of middle school was put under a microscope (isn’t there an expression for this? I couldn’t find it but I’m pretty sure there’s an idiom). Unable to keep anything whatsoever private, my whole life was exposed for all to see, namely my parents. My father, who prohibited me from even talking to boys, made it his mission to give me a dressing-down, threatening that if I ever did anything to tarnish his reputation, he would kick me out.
I felt guilty, I thought it was my fault, that I shouldn’t have gotten involved with him in the first place. Some people would tell me that, that I had brought the situation upon myself. I was closing in on myself and shutting people out.
Eventually, french exams arrived. We were supposed to pass them in the same building, in the very same room. They moved me, so I had to pass the exam at the other end of campus. I got through those exams under an incredibly oppressive tension, sickened to my stomach by the mere thought of catching sight of him. After that, I couldn’t get out of the house, scared by the idea of seeing him in town.
The press was put up to speed. We were in a renowned high school in Toulouse, usually known for its great results rather than its rapes amongst students (despite a few drug, killings and suicide-related stories in their preparatory classes). I got myself out of social media, and my parents sent me to my aunt’s house for the summer (she is a therapist).
I was completely lost, and constantly doubting myself: I wondered what I could have possibly done to turn him on. I hated myself.
The sight of my naked body made me sick. I shut everyone out, in an attempt to forget it all and concentrate solely in the school’s program.
The day came when we had to get back to school. He was forced to enroll in a different high school and his lawyer had gone back to the press. The investigation resumed.
I tried, as much as possible, to concentrate on my classes. I was loosing, little by little, all of my friends, who struggled to understand why I was so distant. I was under the impression that a glass wall was preventing me to communicate with them. Despite feeling like I was screaming from the inside, I remained stone cold on the outside.
The school demanded a psychological follow up. I spent all of my time in between classes at the police office or at the therapist’s office. I was having regular panic attacks, my nightmares prevented me from sleeping, and I hated the sight of my body in the mirror. Going to the school’s bathroom was, at this point, unbearable for me.
In the middle of the year, a confrontation in front of the prosecutor took place. I was trembling, absolutely terrified by the thought of seeing him again. And then, the prosecutor gave me the very first glimpse of hope: while looking him in the eye, she told him:
“Honestly, do you seriously believe what you are saying? Are you capable of standing here, in front of her, and hold that kind of speech? Do you realize how serious this is?”
Tears of relief ran down my face: it was the first time throughout all of the investigation when someone other than my attorney believed me. Until then, I was under the impression that people would constantly question me and my story. They kept on trying to corner me, to force me to confess that it wasn’t all but a lie. They would make me retell, and therefore relieve, that moment when I was treated like an object, and where I was frozen by fear, over and over again.
For months, I had been continuously reliving my rape, whether it was at the police station, in my nightmares, or at school.
The final exams arrived, and the scheme hadn’t changed: I was the one put away, for my own protection.
Then, I was accepted into preparatory class, in that same high school. Things cooled off a little: the investigation was moving slowly and the summonings to the police station were spaced out. I was trying to live my life as if nothing was happening, as if it was all over. I was very busy with class, and with a few complicated health issues that took me to be hospitalized anyway.
In my second year, not long after the admissions, I got my convocation letter to court. The trial was about to happen. I was in a state of shock: I had spent the last few months struggling to get away, to forget, and it all came crashing down at once. I felt as if I had just received a hammer blow to the head. I spent the next couple days in a daze, completely unable of concentrating in anything but the apparent Damocles’ sword hanging over my head.
The day of the trial came. I attended it alone, with only the company of my lawyer. The session was not open to public and my parents were to busy to accompany me. I was trying to hold my head up high and not cry. He came, accompanied by his lawyer and his family.
They all played the role of the victim perfectly, saying how my accusations had forever changed their lives and ruined their son’s opportunities.
My voice was trembling when I took the stand. I was aware that his actions did not only impact me, and that a lot of people were concerned: the students questioned, our loved ones, his family. But I had to stay strong, and convince myself I deserved justice, that it was the right thing to do.
Justice was on my side, and condemned him, even though this actions had been re-qualified of “sexual assault” (due to lack of evidence and the fact that it was the first criminal offense of a young man who’s life the court didn’t want to ruin). Despite my relief that justice had at last acknowledge the wrongs he did me, I was sad: he had until the very last moment denied every single one of my allegations. For me, he still failed to realize the pain and hardship he had caused me.
I will never understand why nor how the situation came to this. I felt forever betrayed and used like a toy. A part of me will always try to understand. At times, I even find myself wanting to contact him and ask him if, in reality, deep inside him, he doesn’t realize, or if he was just manipulated by his lawyer. I understand that is impossible, so I keep asking myself these questions and try to learn about similar stories, from the point of view of the aggressor, to try and make some sense out of what happened to me.
To this day, I am still unable to go to a public restroom alone, and I always have my walls up when it comes to people of the opposite sex. Even with my current partner, who is extremely patient and sweet, and that I have known for a few years now, I have protection and retreat reflexes whenever he makes a sudden move. For a long time, I was convinced I was incapable of enjoying myself, of feeling any kind of pleasure, during sexual intercourse. My gynecologist always thought that it was due to a psychological blockage.
My mental state deteriorated little by little, due to the accumulation of certain problems. But I truly believe it was on that day that the fall began: I was never the same after.
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