The Car Accident Inside

I graduated with a 3.7 GPA from a community college in my area and went away to an out of state university on scholarship for my grades and for my accomplishments in speech competition - I won over 30 awards in speech writing and speaking including 4 National Championship awards. I was on top of the world.

When I went away to college, I was harassed, stalked, and attacked repeatedly while I was in school by one individual who had a say in my scholarship, and thereafter, by another who had control in my social circles. I tried to report all of this to officials on campus and to my so-called friends. I was directed to a "rape counselor" on campus. The "rape counselor" met me every day for two weeks and once a week thereafter. Since the counselor was assigned by the school, it led me to believe that the school cared. The school did nothing. They didn't report it to police. They didn't do anything to the predators that made my life hell. I was told by everyone I spoke to that it was somehow my fault because I had asked for it because I was too friendly, too trusting, I dressed too nicely, etc. The counselor said nothing and just sat there and listened and offered absolutely no help or advice. I might as well have been talking to a wall. Finally after a few months when stopped going, the "rape counselor" blew up my phone and started speaking to me, but even then, she never told me to go to police or report anything, she just told me to keep coming and talking to her like a wall. In hindsight, I believe she was planted by the university to gather information to use against me if I ever did decide to sue the school. They were just doing what they thought was necessary to insulate themselves from liability, not to protect me as a student.

I was confused. I thought somehow the predators were right and I was wrong. The predators had a lot of clout on campus. I was the newcomer transfer student. I was also lonely and wanted to have friends and fit in. With a social structure and university structure and everybody and everything in my world at that time saying that I was wrong and they were right, it affected me.

I stopped eating, I experienced severe depression where I slept for days, I couldn't read my textbooks or hear anything in class. I ended up in the hospital when I passed out from starvation and dehydration because I never left bed and never ate. The doctor diagnosed me with anorexia and they fed me and gave me water intravenously until I was better. People thought I had a body image issue. I didn't. I just wanted to disappear.

When my grades died, I lost my scholarship. I went from a 3.7 GPA and 30 awards in speech competition, to being a college dropout and developing a stuttering problem. I had reported what had happened to me to the dean of the liberal arts college where I was a student, the president of the entire university, a "rape counselor" and "psychiatrist" on campus, other students. Nothing. Nobody heard me. Nobody cared.

I dropped out of school and came home a college dropout. I had failed myself and my family.

I have been fighting Rape Trauma Syndrome and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder my whole adult life. I have been through the PTSD machine. Angry outbursts, anxiety, depression, panic attacks, nightmares, inabilities to concentrate, psychiatric hospitals in-patient admissions, loss of family and friends, isolation, fear. Most of all, fear. Fear that never goes away and never ends and is there 24/7.

The one thing that was never taken away from me was my desire to learn. I felt like everything else had been taken away from me but my desire to learn, and the knowledge from it, was never taken away. It was the one thing the predators never took from me: my desire to learn, my work ethic, my determination, and my refusal to be defined by a college degree, a college institution, institutions in general, family, and friends. Needless to say, it is alot to stand up against, but I have also learned that faith and prayer and God on my side has given me strength to accomplish and do amazing things I never thought I could do.

My PTSD is so severe I can't even go near a college campus without experiencing severe PTSD symptoms making it impossible for me to function, let alone finish school.

What could my life have been if I could have gone to college free of rape, harassment and stalking. Why are these luxuries and not fundamental rights based on common sense and the basic tenets of a civilized western society.

I'm doing the work I love in the field I love. It took a very long time for me to get to this point, but I am here. I just wish that I could have finished the education I was supposed to finish.

I am writing with the hope that it will help others to understand the long-term effects of this rape culture on college campus. Women are damaged and denied education, but that's not even the worst part. What is most disturbing is that institutions of learning are teaching young men that rape, harassment, and sexual assault is okay. The rapists, harrassers, and sexual assaulters on the campuses of today will be in key positions of management and authority in the workplace and will carry what they learned in college to the workplace with continued harassment, sexual assault, and rape against women in the workplace and at home. The colleges are integrating rape, harassment, and assault into the fabric of our mainstream society as acceptable.