I interviewed this person, who is a radical lawyer and a survivor, for my oral history project in January 2019. For privacy, names, dates, and places are redacted. This is a moving story that everyone should read to understand what sexual violence survivors experience and how trauma works in their bodies, minds, and souls. The interviewee has a black cat who works as a part-time paralegal and a therapist.

Warning: the following post includes sensitive, heavy topics such as abuse, illnesses, violence, discrimination, death, suffering, and pain. Reader discretion is advised. Copying or forwarding the text is strictly prohibited.

Then I went to college, which I majored in Russian because I loved Russian Lit. And then the second time that I was raped was my fall semester freshmen year. And I was on a rugby team; I was the eighth woman [laughs]. And there was a progressive one night — and there was one guy in men’s team [sighs] — and you know, I was really, really drunk. This guy in the men’s team — I knew he had a crush on me — and then — at one point I just — he carried me like to — because I was sick — he carried me to his off-campus house, and he was like, “Here you can lie down on my bed.” And then I woke up and he was having sex with me. I remember thinking, “I can’t believe he’s trying to kiss me because I puked all over.” And then, I went into sort of the freeze-up mode.

And then, I later learned that the school, where I was [redacted] just had — very recently had — like 10 years ago or something — had a big case where they discouraged survivors from reporting or retaliated. I still didn’t know all the details about it, but I remember when I was telling [redacted] and he was like, “Oh, that school is the reason we have victim’s bill of rights.” And I was like, “Oh no.”

So — but anyway, I again didn’t know what to do with that. I remember I kind of — I was almost like, “Oh maybe I need to have a relationship with this guy” — you know because I can’t be worthless to him, because he raped me, and — and then, you know, I remember that he didn’t want to have a relationship with me — he was like, “We are too young” because he was a senior. So I was like, “Oh wow, okay.” So like you raped me, and I was not good enough for you” — so that was not a good semester for me.

You know, I stopped eating. You know, wouldn’t go to class. And I told a friend of mine, and he was like, “You need to go talk — you need to report him and go talk to a counselor.” I talked to a counselor, and it was the most — it was the worst experience because she was like, “Well why? Why did you not run away?” Well, he was huge and I was almost passed out drunk and was terrified. And I also didn’t want to hurt his feelings. It’s just one of those things, you know, you just — when you — it’s kind of a defense mechanism — so and then she said, “Well, you could report him but he has so much to lose,” because you know, he was the first person who had — and she knew this — he’s the first person to transfer from a community college to [the school].

And you know, I’m bleeding hard, I’ve always been super left wing — as leftist as they can get and — and I also was, and this is the way, you know , I’ve even pitied my first rapist. I remember thinking, I would be so embarrassed if I were him. I would never want to have raped a child. It sounds ridiculous but I felt so sorry for him that he had that in his conscious. But yeah and so she was like, “You should think about that carefully,” and I was like, “Okay , I don’t ever want to talk about this ever again and I never want to report to anyone,” and you know, “I don’t want to be a person who ruins his life,” and so [laughs] — and that was in 1996. It was in last century [laughs], and it was really different back then. Like people never ever complained about rape, and it was — and I remember, there was this one person, one girl who reported this guy who worked in the dish room, and he sexually harassed everyone; he was really creepy. Kind of looked like a creep, messed up version of Bruce Willis or something. But he — he was sexually harassing everyone — and she reported for the sexual harassment, and I remember we were all shocked, and people were like, “Oh my god. She’s so hysterical. Why does she?” And I was like, “I know what she means.”

I remember thinking like why I didn’t report and just being like, just made me tired to, thinking about it — like, “These people will not, they will think I am horrible,” and I just, again, I had to disrupt the sediment [laughs]. You know, my mom was having another big [problem with] drinking, and also there were other stuff going on at home and you know, I [pause] so — anyway, I kind of put that beside.

So I knew that no matter what I did, you know, I filed this report and I barred my soul and been torn apart but I’d thought, “Maybe they will get this guy and they’ll get rid of him, and maybe they’ll start…” and one of the things that I asked for was that they would have training about what’s not appropriate for [professors] to do — so, but then — you know, they still gave him that independent study with an undergraduate woman. [The third rapist] was gonna be back and nothing was changing.

So I sued […] So I left [the university] — I could stay there — even while he was supposed to be off campus, I was told that he wouldn’t be on campus and so I went on campus for the first time in forever and I saw him immediately, and I just — threw up. Just literally threw up.

So then I was like, “Okay, I want to be a lawyer.” And uh — so while the suit was pending I joined AmeriCorps.

I knew that I never wanted to be a for-profit lawyer. I knew that I had in mind start an organization like the Equal Rights Advocates […] I want people to have lawyers, too because I didn’t have one and it sucked — and — so and then working with survivors in AmeriCorps like, you know this is the best kind of therapy.

Because you know that some really bad shit happened to you and some really bad shit happened to other people but you can — I mean, there’s something that you could do that makes it not as bad.

I strongly believe in public service, I mean it’s a luxury . I mean I was in a position where I can join AmeriCorps and join law school.