I got a hospital bed and you got a lazy Sunday.

Content Warnings include explicit descriptions of sexual assault on Oberlin’s campus, use of the word rape, descriptions of the aftermath of sexual harm, and seeking medical care and Title IX reporting following assault.

This is an impact statement I wrote out of anger, addressing my assaulter, when the Title IX office failed me and the Title IX coordinator stopped responding to my emails entirely.

I’m not trying to ruin your life here. I’m just trying to get back to mine. You belittled me, tried to silence me, and coerced the fuck out of me.

Fresh-eyed, naive freshman me fell yet again for woman-hating masked as male validation. But what you did to me was never my fault. It’s yours, just like the boy before you. I’ve realized that healing from the damage you caused will be a lifelong feat; a constant cycle of relearning and unlearning as I uncover how deep the wounds you inflicted are.

Do you want to know what my life has looked like since you assaulted me? How everything shifted within minutes? Do you want me to help you understand the impact of your actions? Take this as a disclosure of patience and vulnerability, something you do not deserve.

I was hysterical as my friend rushed over from her dorm, responding to my repeated calls, and I shook my roommate awake. They held me as I sobbed, and eventually, I fell asleep between the two of them. All three of us squeezed into my twin bed as they anchored me to this world, just moments after you robbed me of my autonomy. I woke up reeking of you. I slept restlessly. I scrubbed my teeth and tongue and tried to get rid of the taste of you.

My friends sat on the phone with campus safety. The man who answered the phone was incredulous, asking, “Well, was she even raped?” We hung up. The woman who called back called us into the office. I trudged there in my clothes from the night before, with no underwear on, my face sticky with tears and the lingering reminder of your mouth and fingers and forced affection branded onto my body. I tried not to break down as my friends guided me every step. A 15-minute walk felt like hours.

I sat in a conference room with two women I did not know, and I had to describe in vivid detail what you did to me. I answered questions absentmindedly as my head throbbed and my voice croaked with a sore throat. I nodded in understanding as the officers rattled off possible courses of action. I listened to the area coordinator explain support resources, but I didn’t retain anything as I focused on the way my body stood alert, reeling from what you did to me.

I climbed into the back of a campus safety vehicle and was driven home to collect the underwear you had ripped off of me. I listened to the officer explain my options for avoiding you in class — which, as the semester went on, proved inadequate. I shuffled out of the car and into the emergency room, where the officer told the receptionist why we were there, in the bluntest manner. Hearing her say out loud, “sexual assault” jostled me awake to a full realization of what you had done.

I stared into space as the receptionist fastened a wristband to me while asking me three separate times for my birthday. I kept my tears to a minimum as she made me feel crazy, inundated, an invalid, with her questions. I hugged my friends goodbye as they left for the waiting room. Two nurses who checked my vitals asked me questions and led me into an exam room. I had to tell them again, in colorful detail, what had happened. I waited in silence for twenty minutes until a doctor came in. Again, I had to tell her what you did. I sat on the phone with the crisis center to hear my options for an evidence collection kit, as the hospital could not offer me one. I listened absentmindedly, asking no questions because I was too busy praying to God to take me home.

I sat in a sterile hospital room for two hours, waiting for someone to see me. I had to call my mom and beg her not to ask questions, that I was just letting her know I was okay but that there would be a bill in the mail. I made the decision not to do the rape kit after learning I would have to make my way to the clinic, 30 minutes away, to be poked and prodded for hours, and required to file a police report. Exhausted, defeated, and terrified to reenter the world, I left the hospital with my dear friends. One of whom, we had held in common. She trusted you. You betrayed so many people.

The hospital visit, as it would turn out, cost $714. To sit in a room by myself sobbing, trying to understand what was happening, while incompetent doctors and nurses loitered outside indifferent to my situation, unable to even provide me a rape kit or resources beyond a phone number. Not a single test was conducted, the bed unsoiled. $714 for me to sit there atop the covers, crying into the abyss.

I came home to the remnants of our pregame sprawled across my bedroom floor. I was guided to the shower as my friends stripped my sheets, which were wet with tears and soiled with the feeling of you on my skin. I wanted so desperately to be anywhere else, to be outside of my body. I stood in the shower and had to remind myself every thirty seconds that I was safe. A vicious feedback loop has continued in my daily life because of you.

I slumped on the floor and stared at the Title IX reporting form on my laptop, only to burst into tears. Every time I retell my story I am reliving it. You did this to me. 

I forced myself to eat a bagel. Food felt like a chore as my body and mind struggled through the state of stress you manifested. I fielded more calls from campus safety. I had to speak with them so many times that I quickly memorized the extensions to be connected. I sat in the dorm’s lounge, waiting for an officer to bring me my written statement to sign, along with a no-contact order identical to the one that you received. I tried to no avail to prepare my schoolwork for the coming week. It didn’t work as my brain kept remembering where I was and what you had done there.

I sobbed as I remade my bed. I resolved to accept that I would not get work done in this state. I had to take melatonin before falling asleep for fear of the nightmare you have created following me to sleep. It didn’t work. Your face haunted me as I drifted off. I slept maybe two hours before I just lay in bed, scared to fall asleep, because the next day was Monday and that meant I would have to see you in class.

You got to sleep soundly on Saturday night while I had to struggle to understand the damage you had done. The fire you had started. I got a hospital bed and you got a lazy Sunday.

In the weeks that followed, I walked around campus, a shadow. I was never without headphones in my ears, drowning out everything around me. Playing on repeat was my playlist, “Songs that feel safe,” which consisted of songs from my childhood and the anthems my best friends would blast on car rides. I needed a constant reminder of my existence and those who love me because you so drastically shattered my sense of self, safety, and security.

I did not know who I could trust, who was whispering about me, which of your friends glared as I passed them. I stormed out of classes just minutes after I had sat down, on the verge of a panic attack because hyper-vigilance and an acute awareness of the stigma and shame that accompanied my new existence were constantly hanging over my head. 

How many childhood friends answered my calls to hear me sobbing and screaming as I franticly paced campus, searching for a sense of safety that I could never seem to find? How many professors received apologetic emails as I missed yet another lecture? How many lunches did I cancel, how many phone calls did I decline, and how many people did I avoid because I could not bear the shame as people noticed an obvious shift in my demeanor? I resent the fact that you have compromised my academic ability.

I experienced such chaos, a crisis of self that touched my body and soul, completely obliterating my trust in men and wrecking my self-confidence. I began to doubt every relationship I had. Second-guessed every decision I made. Replayed every conversation I had. I apologized constantly as I faded in and out of conversations, feeling like a failure as I was unable to give my friends the level of attention and care that they deserved.

I have always been self-sufficient. I have always operated with a strong sense of justice and a determination for kindness and warmth. I have always cherished and prioritized my relationships because of the joy and energy that they create. You robbed me of my ability to provide for my friends and family in the ways that I so valued and prioritized. I was unable to act as a beacon of support and love because I was forced into a position that left me disempowered, mistrustful, and absolutely overcome with frustration. I could not be present in my daily life because of the distress you caused. I resorted to dissociation and isolation because I could not cope with the fact that I no longer felt like my body was my own.

When I decided to pursue the adaptive resolution process through the Title IX office, I spent hours racking my brain for possible threats and outcomes and considering the experience's effects on me. I chose to continue in the interest of mitigating my safety concerns and holding you accountable. I was terrified you would retaliate. To my surprise, you cooperated with my demands. 

I don’t know if it was out of fear of the formal resolution process and its possible consequences or out of guilt. But regardless of your cooperation, you ended up being saved by a system that places an undue burden on survivors in the interest of protecting an institution’s biggest financial and athletic contributors. When you transferred, having only completed the apology to your teammates and the supplemental consent education, our resolution became null and void. I never received the written reflection that was promised. You never acknowledged the harm that you caused. You get to start fresh at a new school with the possibility of terrorizing countless other girls with no consequence. You got to go on with your life, a bright future ahead of you. How Brock Turner-esque of you.

I finished out my semester the best I could, with a subpar attendance record. Having to see you in our religion class every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday took its toll on me. I wouldn’t sleep at all the night before, and I’d sit in class texting furiously to my friends, who waited outside for the several instances that I would run out of class mid-panic attack. I’d never turn to my left, never risk having to lock eyes with you across the room. I tried my best to stay engaged, to no avail. Independent assignments were my only way to maintain a good grade. At the end of the semester, our professor, perhaps due to forgetfulness, left a comment on my evaluation — something to the effect of, “without your written assignments, I would have considered your participation to be seriously lacking in the classroom.” Little did she know I fought an internal battle every day, feeling like I was dying in your presence.

Trying to feel safe on campus while having to be near you almost every day was one of the most difficult things I have ever had to do. Constantly being reminded of your touch on my skin and everything you tried to take from me and having to relearn how to trust myself — was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. And that is coming from someone who has been fighting to survive in every aspect of my life since I was old enough to read.

You never even bothered to get to know me. You underestimated my resilience, my sense of justice, and my determination to protect myself and those around me. You put me through such unnecessary and avoidable pain. You made someone who has already overcome a lifetime of hardship endure even more, all because you couldn’t not be a fucking sexual abuser.

It has now been six months since you raped me. Never in my life did I imagine my freshman year of college and the summer following it would be defined by coping mechanisms and grounding skills and panic attacks and lingering feelings of self-doubt and shame. I have been home from campus since early May. I returned to my mom’s house, everything completely unchanged. Surrounded by my unconditionally loving friends and family, my joyful little dog; I have found great solace in the safety and familiarity of my hometown. And yet my body and mind remember in vivid detail what you did to me. A kiss on my forehead from a cousin and a tug on my arm from my best friend pull me right back into the laundry room that forsaken night. I am laying in my childhood bed, and then suddenly, I am laying paralyzed in fear on the cold ground with you on top of me.

Can we put a price on the harm you caused? The violence you inflicted? The emotional and physical wounds ripped? The ripple effect that continues to impact my family and friends as they watch me struggle to breathe between sobs, hear me scream in the middle of the night, follow me out of a room that felt like it was closing in on me?

The hospital visit. The therapy copays. Dollars. Minutes. Miles. How can we measure the lengths I have had to go to mitigate the damage you have done? How will you repay my mother for the sleep she has lost? My friends, for the hours they spent consoling me or the plans they canceled to keep me company? The tears we have shed? The gas used on countless drives to clear my restless mind? The screams I have uttered. The dates I’ve canceled. The parties I’ve left. Every single heartbeat multiplies at the sight of a potential threat. The lifetime I will spend remembering every moment of that winter night. Every surface of my body that you dug into, taking what never was and never will, belongs to you.

Every day, I wake up. I look down at my body to remind myself it is still mine. That my head is still attached firmly on my shoulders and my legs will carry me wherever I need to go. Every day, I have to grasp onto the little victories. The way the sun shines through my curtains, the sweetness of the blueberries in my cereal. My dog’s quiet yawn. All to distract from the aching fear and shame that penetrates my body and mind just as you did. My head throbs with constant anxieties about my safety, my identity, the ways that I am perceived as a survivor.

You have robbed me of my ability to feel safe on my campus. You have violated my trust in men. You have ruined my wellbeing and destroyed my peace. You have betrayed my friends and yours, you have made my home feel unsafe and made my happiness on this campus a distant possibility that I will have to fight tooth and nail for. Try to put a price on that.