My Story: The Night That Brought the Unexpected

Hi random person reading this right now. Life hasn’t been the easiest for me by any means. High school brought me many of things in my life. Good and bad things. Friends that came and went, depression, anxiety, anorexia, low self-esteem, past lovers, one-night stands, and some funny/happy moments along the way. I went to a small school with a class of about 70 students. I knew everyone in the grades 4 years ahead of me and 4 years below me. I had many friends and got along with just about everyone. I was at the end of my high school career and graduated in 2019. The month of May was when things had turned so badly that my life will never be the same since.
May 18th, 2019. My senior campout. Many schools don’t practice this somewhat illegal tradition, but its where many people of my class get together one last time after graduating to drink and smoke til the sun comes up. I was friends with pretty much everyone there and it was a good night to get drunk and high. We sat around the fire shooting blow darts and drinking lightly until everyone had gotten there.
I had arrived at 6pm after I had gotten out of work and planned on spending the night in the back of my car. With me, I had 4 tall boys of the mikes harder lemonade and a pint of whiskey. I was there to get messed up on my last hoorah with my classmates. I had started drinking around 7pm and was feeling pretty good after the first tall boy and about 4 shots of whiskey. My friends had then started passing around a slim looking “cigar” and asked if I wanted to try it. (I had never tried one a figured why not?) So I had taken a nice long drag off the “cigar” and said, “that tastes a lot like marijuana.” My friend responded: “Thats because it is.” At that moment I had started to get paranoid. I was not planning to get cross faded, I was just hoping to drunk and still be conscious enough to party with my friends. But, I wasn’t mad, I made the best out of it and its not like I haven’t smoked some good weed before. I continued to drink another tall boy and start playing some corn hole, until I couldn’t control my body any more so I laid in the grass and tried to puke up some of what I drank and maybe help me sober upon a little bit. My friend had gotten me some saltines and some water, but nothing was helping at this point. Only time would help. We continued to play corn hole and sit around the fire while people continued to show up slowly throughout the night. At about 10 pm I had started to drink again, more whiskey, more mikes lemonade, and more spiked fruit. I was trashed. I kept passing out in the lawn chair around the fire, but everyone kept waking me back up. I had finished all 4 mikes, a few more shots of whiskey, and few shots of my friends vodka and then puked again at 11pm.
At about 11:30ish, my “friend” hank (not his real name) had brought me over to his truck and stood me up by hugging me and caressing me. He had started to kiss me and he had then laid me down and started to finger me. I rolled around the truck bed not being conscious enough to stop what was happening and I then had told him that I want to go back to the fire and I stumbled my way back to the fire. This was just the beginning of this not so great night. At about 2am my friend Karrie (not real name) had walked me over to my car and had put me to bed as everyone else was going to bed.
I was passed out for a good hour and a half. Then this is when Jake (not his real name) had walked over to my car. (Mind you Jake and I have been friends for a few years and had one sexual encounter before this, but I had told him I would never have sex with him again.) I was in and out of consciousness this whole time. Jake had opened my car door and had started to talking to me. He had said, “Come to my camper its going to be cold in your car and its warm in my camper.” As a drunk girl, a warm camper doesn’t sound too bad compared to a car on a cold night. I stumbled behind him and laid in bed. He had then continued to get into the same bed that I was in and continued to take my pants, then my underwear, and left my shirt on. At this moment in time, as a drunk woman, what do you do in this moment of vulnerability? In this moment of exploitation what do you say to stop it? Someone that you know takes advantage of you on a night that was supposed to be a good time with classmates. He was a grade ahead of me in school, he wasn’t even supposed to be there. He proceeded to preform unwanted anal sex. How do you resist to something so painful? I then ended up shutting my mind down and try to get out of the moment mentally. I woke up next to him with no pants on. He had woken me up and told me, “get up and put your pants on and get out before someone sees you.” I had gotten out and shamefully walked out before anyone else had seen me come out of the camper.
The next morning I had drove home trying to forget what had happened before I faced my parents the next morning. I had gotten home after the 25 minute car ride at about 8am and went straight to bed while no one else was awake and tried to get some more sleep and try and get my mind off of what had happened. I had told my friend Gary and Kent (not real names) about what happened and they had immediately invited me out to eat and talk to me about what happened and my next steps of what to do. They had tried bringing me to the hospital to get a rape kit done, but I had refused. I had refused cause I was too scared to face reality. So they gave me the option of either going into the doctors or telling my parents what happened. So I chose to tell my parents. We had high tailed it back to my house to tell my parents. As we were heading back to the house, Jake had messaged me “I know I fucked up but stop telling people that I raped you until we solve this. I feel like a piece of shit.” I responded back to him, “just don’t message me ever again I hope you feel bad because you have ruined the rest of my life. This permanently scars people and now I am one of them. Don’t message me ever again and I won’t press charges.”
We had gotten to my house and sat my parents down and this is when I had broke down. I couldn’t get the words out to even tell them what had happened that night. I had choked but It needed to be said. I had said, “At my senior campout, Jake had taken me out of my car took me to his camper and continued to rape me.” And my mom had broke down in tears. My dad had the look of disapproval his eyes. At this moment I had felt like not only my life was in pieces but my families was too.
My best friend Craig (not his real name) wouldn’t talk to me ever again because he was friends with Jake and I had lost one of my closest friends because of something that I had no choice over. Someone who was there for no matter what had happened between us, was no longer there for me because what had happened between me and his other friend.
Everyone was saying that I was doing this for attention and that it didn’t really happen. Many people had said: “Don’t get drunk and blame him for your actions.” When they don’t even know the real story. What woman wants to be known for the lady that was raped by a friend at her own senior campout? Who wants to be known by the victim of rape at all?
The story had gotten brought around my little small town. Everyone knew and 5 days later I had to get up in front of everyone and say a speech at graduation. Everyone knew what had happened to me last week, but I was gonna stand up in front of 500+ people and sign off my years of graduation by saying the last words I would ever say in the high school that had shaped me who I was.
I had gone to the police station and talked to a detective in a meeting about my story. I had told him my story, staying strong the whole time. Not crying and trying to remember as much of the night as possible. Until the detective had asked me, “Why did you not wanna come forward about the case?” I broke down in tears as I said, “He’s moving down to Kansas (not real location) to accept a job that he had studied for that past year in college. I don’t want to ruin his life.” As much as he hurt me there is so much more that he needs than just a slap on the wrist. He needs counseling help. He forces himself sexually on his past girlfriends, but Im just the first victim that he wasn’t in a relationship with. But sadly there is nothing I can do about it. He knows he needs help and he admits it, but is he willingly getting help himself? No.
The detective had talked to a few people from the party that were willing to go in and talk. One of Jakes friends had gone in and told the detective many things to protect his friend. I had felt defeated when I had heard the lies that he had told the detective no matter what I said, it felt like everyone was against me. It was me against my small town. No one had believed my story, so what makes me think I could get a 12 person jury to believe me? I had given up on the case because I wanted to move past from the story. I didn’t want to have to keep bringing it up and as a long as I kept fighting it, there was no way for me to move past it.
Now 5 months later I will be starting my first year of college and getting my own apartment. Still to this day I suffer from the depression and borderline personality disorder (BPD). I have no motivation do much in my life anymore. I only get out of bed for work and to get up to eat about once a day other Than that I don’t really have an appetite. So far in the past 4 months I have lost a total of 30 lbs because of lack of motivation. Life will look up for me one day and I think sharing my story will help me and hopefully others that are going through this as well.
Please know that you are not alone. When I had lost all of my friends from this situation, it was so hard for me to even want to live. I didn’t want to live anymore on this earth I was ready to give up at the age of 18. About a week after the rape had taken place. My dad had caught me in the bathroom as one of my only friends, that had stayed by my side, called my dad because I told Kent I was ready to be done living. I can’t take it anymore. My dad open the bathroom door and slowly talked my out of my thoughts. Life is worth so much more. You will battle depression, even though it will not fully go away, just know you can battle those days and take those days in stride. Take those days to make yourself a stronger person.
I started to get so sick of my depression about 3 months in and I honestly came to the breaking point where I couldn’t take it anymore. I feel lazy and just like a waste of space right now. Im the type of person who has to be doing things to feel successful. But when you have no motivation do to anything, that’s when life gets the toughest. You feel like no one will love you with the emotional instability you have. But, I hope you know when you find that person who will love you and all of your problems, they are going to mean so much more to you and you won’t take them for granted cause they still love you for who you are and are willing to look past and help you with your problems.