A Jacobs’s Story: The Abuse was Bad – the Opinions Even Worse

We’d been together almost 4 months and though I knew it wasn’t going to last the long haul I was still considering that this could still be more than just a fling after an amazingly romantic Valentine’s together.

We’d been out drinking with his roommates – he was too high and too drunk and just went home to sleep it off fairly early in the night. I told him I’d come home with his roommates and curl in beside him later. When I did crawl into bed he started to stir, I mentioned that I was home and safe. As soon as I had made a comfortable little cocoon for myself he was pinning me to the bed with his knees forcing himself in my mouth.

I was stunned. I had no idea how to respond. It took me longer than I’m willing to admit to push him off of me. Now, it was 3am, I lived half-way across town and would have to go into a not-so-nice neighbourhood to attempt to hail a cab to take me to my own apartment in arguably the worst part of the city.

I stayed in that bed that night. I stayed in that bed for about a week after that. Until the shock wore off and I was able to fully acknowledge what had happened.

I’m still ashamed to say that I didn’t dump my attacker bluntly because of this, and instead picked a stupid fight and got him to dump me.

For me the worst part of my attack was not from my attacker but everyone else who had an opinion on it.

I was the recipient of heavvy victim-blaming from a percentage I confided in. Throughout all of high school, university and even after wards I participated in either wrestling, rugby and field hockey. Because of this I would receive “Well, couldn’t you have just gotten him to stop? You’re a rugby player/wrestler/field hockey player”. These words manifested into guilt and self-blame. This then made my then manageable anxiety/panic attacks much worse and more easily triggered. Even to today.

Even though three years later I still can get paralyzing panic attacks when someone makes a horrible joke, or will bring up something that might remind me of that time, I do have to say I am one of the lucky ones. Through an amazing friend network that would not let me blame myself (their value cannot be overstated, they were and still are my rocks). To the love of my life who I am with now, who doesn’t know (and will never know) all the details that happened but will calm me down and bring me back up whenever I am going down a bleak spiral. But most importantly was patient with me and never called me broken when I told him a vague rendition of my story.

There will never be any proper justice in my case, however it has made me hyper-aware of all the victim-blaming, issues in our justice system regarding sex crimes, slut-bashing and overall gender inequality that has forced me to become a much stronger version of myself.

Though I would never wish anyone to have to become this strong, I have striven to do good and hopefully affect change whenever possible in order for these stories to end.