I said “no”, but my words fell upon deaf ears. He heard me, but he didn’t listen. I had something he wanted, so he took it. “No.” “Don’t.” Stop.” “I’m not ready.” “I don’t want to.” “I want to go home.” “Please—you’re hurting me.” My words were empty and meaningless. To him, I too, was empty and meaningless. I was nothing but his plaything—something to be used for his pleasure ‘til he had enough. That was my purpose. My wants, my needs, did not matter. I carried my worth between my legs. In his eyes, all that I am, all that I will be was tied to what lied beneath my royal blue dress. I was his own personal f**k doll. When it was over, through the tears in my eyes I scanned the bruises on my body and watched the blood and semen drip from between my legs. The only clear thought in my mind was “I have to get home”. It repeats in my head like a mantra, until I finally return home and I make my best attempt to cover-up what had just happened. For nearly 6 months, I don’t speak to anyone of what happened to me. I keep the ugly truth to myself. Something I’ve grown to be not only embarrassed of, but ashamed of—for reasons I can’t explain. I blame myself. I dissect every detail of that night with great scrutiny, subsequently finding every red flag and hating myself for every missed opportunity I believe I could’ve handled myself differently. I have felt the full spectrum of human emotion one day, and the next I am completely numb. If you haven’t figured it out already, I was raped. I was raped. It took me 5 months and one exceptional therapist, to finally say those three words. I was raped.
A word so vulgar, you don’t realize how casually people throw it around until it happens to you and just the sound of it makes you sick to your stomach. I did not know how to start this message to everyone. There is no easy way to tell someone you have been violated in the most gruesome and heinous of ways. I have tried my best to tell those closest to me before going public, though I know I have missed a quite a few and for that I apologize. I have heard my mom lock herself in the bathroom and cry, held my brother as he cried and unnecessarily apologized for not being able to protect me, my grandparents and uncle heart broken and devastated. As hard as it was to tell these people, it is their love and support that helps me get through the day. I debated whether I should even be writing this. Should I be telling everyone something so personal and still so raw for me? But I have come to the conclusion, that if in sharing my story I can help just one person whom has been through it feel less alone, then it is worth it. With that being said, I welcome all well wishes and prayers, as well as questions from those in similar situations whom would like to reach out and talk. However, I will not be answering the “five W’s”, (who, what, when, where, why), and while we are at it I will throw in “how”. For those of you who know me well, you know that I tend to be an open book. However, before asking your questions to me, please be thoughtful. Will your question help me in any way or is it simply to satisfy your own curiosity? That should eliminate the “who was he”, “how long did you know him”, “where did you meet him”, “were you drinking”, “what were you wearing”, “where did it happen”, “how did he force you”, “did he put a gun to your head”, “did you report it”, “did he get arrested”, questions. I am sure I will get some backlash for restricting what questions I will respond to, but I am going to be selfish and make this about me and what is best for my recovery. I am blessed to be surrounded by supportive family and friends. If someone you know is ever in this position, questions and statements like, “are you okay”, “what do you need”, “is there anything I can do for you”, or simply stating, “if you ever need a shoulder to cry on, want to talk about what happened and/ or how you are feeling, I am here for you”, are far less invasive and show you care more about the victim than satiating your spirit of interest.
I want to say I am okay but I am not. I am working on being okay knowing that one day I will be. I have a long road ahead of me, but as stated, I am blessed to be surrounded by so many amazing friends and family members that have helped give me the strength to write this today. With every word I write I take the power away from this trauma. With every sentence I take away the stigma that surround the words “I was raped”. I am not a victim of rape, I am a survivor of rape.
Fortunately or unfortunately, today holds so much more meaning to me than that which is written in the snippet above. Today, September 25, 2018 is the 8th anniversary of the night I almost died in ICU. It’s bittersweet. While it is a happy day, a day that we celebrate because I truly believe God saved me that night, and kept me on this earth for a reason, it is still a day that harbors so many horrendous memories. At the forefront of my mind are vivid flashbacks of me telling my mom, “I love you.”, “You know I love you, right?” as I feared I would not awake from emergency surgery. If only I could say my struggles ended the moment I walked out of that hospital on my 17th birthday, January 12th, 2012, but they were just beginning. I now had a chronic life-threatening illness, and the events that had transpired throughout my time in the hospital now had me riddled with severe anxiety, depression, PTSD, and OCD that I struggle with to this very day. I could close my eyes and feel the intubation tube slide down my throat as it gets harder to breathe, taste the blood in my mouth, smell the saline flush as they would push the medication through my veins, hear the heart monitor beeping, watching what looked like a sea of scrubs in a frenzy to get me to surgery. And there I was, back in that hospital room.
My demons were back, and they were looking for a fight— only this time they were looking to win. My grandfather passed not long before my parents divorced. I soon became ill spending 5 months in the hospital, had 4 surgeries, nearly died more times than I'd like to remember and came out of it with a life-threatening illness leaving me in excruciating pain every day. Now struggling with severe anxiety, depression, PTSD and OCD, I couldn't sleep at night and when I did my nights were filled with nightmares. I had missed out on my last two years of high school-- couldn't attend grad night or prom. I struggled through college. I tried on campus, but with the state of my health, things would happen like me passing out 3 times in one day. When I switched to virtual, I thought everything would be better. While I could make the grades, deadlines were nearly impossible. I was working with a bucket next to me, throwing up as I took my exams. I had lost friends as we grew apart. It's hard to relate to the "sick girl" when your priorities are school and dating and mine are getting my health back on track. I lost relationships with family for the words of a scared, hurt 16 year old whom was afraid she was going to die and no one cared. It weighed on me. No visits, no phone calls, not even a get well card for 5 months. To feel like no one would care if you died-- it's a feeling I can’t put into words. It's a feeling that has weighed on me for years. I can clearly recall the day after my dad left, he returned to speak to both my brother and I. In tears, I asked him if this would happen to me. Would I fall in love with a man, get married, and think we are happy only to be left for another woman? Is that okay? Would he be okay with that happening to me? I’ll never forget what he said next. He said, “Sometimes love isn’t enough”. For years I feared he was right. When he was “too tired” to show up that night in ICU when I almost died, the narrative began to change. Now it wasn’t just him. It was my family too. Aunts, uncles, cousins— no one came those 5 months. I began to think maybe it isn’t “love” that’s not enough, maybe it is me that is not enough. I couldn’t understand why family would sit vigil at others bedsides, and I couldn’t get a single call. Maybe I’m not enough. They say life is short, but sometimes it is bigger than the strength we have to go on one more day. On February 18th of this year, I attempted suicide. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, but what doesn’t kill you also leaves a scar. To paraphrase Tiffanie DeBartolo, no one wants to die, they just want to be out of pain—and I was in a lot of pain. As my favorite song goes:
“Maybe there's a God above
But all I've ever learned from love
Was how to shoot somebody who outdrew ya”
Some days, believe me, it feels like every time I’ve held a rose I’ve only felt its thorns. I’ve had bad things happen to me, but my life isn’t bad. I’ve come to the realization that I have been to more funerals in my life than I have weddings. In the past 8-9 years I have lost 2 dogs, my grandfather, two aunts, and my uncle whom I had to watch pass away before my eyes and deliver the news to his wife, sister, and niece. With all that has happened to me in my 23 years, I have asked a lot of questions, but the one question I have never asked is “why me?” Many people do, and quite understandably ponder “why” things happen specifically to them when we face hardships in life. Even so, “why not me”? What makes me superior to you reading this, to anyone, that my struggles would be best put off on someone else? Hypothetically, if we could choose, who would we push our problems on? Whom is more deserving? I am sure we have all been through things we wouldn’t wish on our worst enemy—I know I have. As the saying goes, “there but for the grace of God go I”. This of course meaning, I too, in seeing someone whom has suffered misfortune, might have suffered a similar fate, if it wasn’t for God's mercy. We wonder why bad things happen to good people, but you can’t have the good without the bad. Everyone has something going on in their lives. Though I think it is paramount to always practice being mindful and cognizant that things could be so much worse, it’s not a competition. What is bad for us is bad for us. Perhaps we need to look into changing our perspective. Sometimes it is the terrible things that happen in life that help us to appreciate the wonderful everyday things. I believe it was John Lennon who said, “When I was 5 years old, my mom always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down “happy”. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.” Happiness isn’t about what the world gives you, it is about how you look at what the world gives you. We all have bad days. I have bad days emotionally and physically, sometimes both on the same day. If I were to let it get to me, some days I would never get out of bed and there wouldn’t be a silver lining in sight. Some days I am grateful that I got out of bed, and on worse days I may be grateful I woke up at all. It is a choice to be happy. Choose to be happy. Don’t play the victim—take your power back. Don’t let what has happened to you define who you are. If anything, let it empower you. Be a survivor. Me personally, I don’t want to just survive—I want to thrive.
Eight years ago my life was changed forever when a surgeon made a mistake during surgery by nicking my left ureter. In females, the ureters pass the mesometrium and under the uterine arteries on their way up to the urinary bladder. In the medical field they have a phrase for remembering this anatomical relationship, and that is “water (ureters) under the bridge (uterine arteries).” It is because the ureters are commonly ligated during surgery, that doctors use this expression to avoid exactly this mistake. This is how I have come to know the phrase, “water under the bridge”. To most, “water under the bridge”, is used to refer to events or situations that are in the past and consequently no longer to be regarded as important or a source of concern. Funnily enough, whenever I talk to people about all that I have been through, they always say, “if I had the power to go back in time and change it for you, I would”. But you know what? I wouldn’t. Everything I have been through, no matter how horrible, has made me the woman I am today. There is no guarantee that if any one of these events hadn’t transpired I would be the person I have come to not only love but be proud of. I have to trust in the end, it will all be “water under the bridge”.
Special thanks to one of my best friends—Giovanna Navas, my uncle (Roy Wagner) as well as granny and grandpa, and my cousin (Cynthia Herndon) for your unconditional love and support.
Out of everyone, the two hardest people to tell were my brother Ryan Feathers and my mom Ann Wagner Feathers because I knew they would hurt as much if not more for me. You two are my world. I am blessed to have a brother, though younger than me so crushed by his inability to protect me and a mom so willing to put my needs ahead of her own. I have been through hell and you both walked it with me hand in hand. We have been through so much together and because of that the three of us will always have an unbreakable bond.
Please, if you or someone you know is suffering, reach out. There are safe and confidential resources available to you.
Side Note: To anyone who just needs a friend or a confidant, please do not hesitate to contact me.
It’s okay not to be okay.
You’re not alone. Help is free and confidential.
National Suicide Prevention Hotline: 1-800-273-8255
National Rape & Assault: Hotline: 1-800-656-4673
My Email: deborahfeathers@gmail.com
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