...that many of you don't know exactly what happened while T*** and I were together. Living in Norfolk with people who knew me only during and after that I realized exactly how much he cut me off from my friends at school. I spend a lot of the time saying "Where was I when THAT happened?" but I also figure this should be told because I've found out that some people have had similar experiences and blame themselves. I did, for a long time.
We had gotten into a fight, T*** and I. Our fights were always nasty but this was especially so because it was the first time he had done more than scream or wheedle. About half way through the fight he raised his hand and I flinched. I'd grown up with the distinct possibility of a slap or a punch if I said something someone didn't like. He just smiled because he knew that he could make me do whatever he wanted just by pretending he was going to hit me. He never ended up hitting me just would stop before his hand would have connected. This time was the first and the worst because I was living with him and knew I couldn't go anywhere else. So when he told me to lie down I did. I asked him if we couldn't just go to sleep and talk in the morning when we were less angry. He just raised his hand and when I flinched again, he pushed me onto the bed.
According to H.R.3, a bill sponsored by Rep Chris Smith (R-NJ), this doesn't count as rape. Because I didn't have bruises or cuts, because I didn't physically resist, if I had gotten pregnant, I would have had to keep the baby. The baby of a man I am STILL afraid of, of a man who cut me off from my friends and family for 2 years, a man who so completely destroyed my personality that I had to start from scratch, beginning with what my favorite color was and what food I liked.
Please, for the sakes of every woman who can't fight back or didn't have a chance, who was date raped, drugged, sleeping, married to him or too scared to say "No", write to your congressman and tell him to stop punishing survivors of rape and sexual assault.
Sign the petition here and here. Please email them here.
