It was my 21st birthday. I had just gotten out of a relationship. My ex was moved out and I had an apartment to myself. I had never had alcohol before, as alcoholism runs rampant on both sides of my family. Seeing that was enough to scare me. But I decided to drink that night. I was alone in my apartment, got on Facebook and began to message a coworker. He was aware this was my first time drinking—we had had a conversation about it a couple days prior during a shift together.
I was pretty heavily inebriated at this point; it was glaringly obvious and he knew. He offered to come over to "take care of me," and I agreed. We'd been friendly for over two years, and he had always been a decent guy to me. I had no reason to think anything would happen.
He arrived and kept giving me more and more to drink, despite my heavy inebriation and claims that I didn't want any more alcohol. At this point, I was so drunk I couldn't even stand up. He laid me down in my bed and started kissing and touching me. I tried pushing him away; I asked him to stop. He didn't. This went on until he was satisfied. Once he was done, he gave me a bottle of water and left.
I felt dirty, used, confused, ashamed and guilty. I found out later that he had allegedly done this before, supposedly slipping something into a girl’s drink before assaulting her. I'm not sure of the specifics of that incident or if it's true, though it wouldn't surprise me if it's the truth.
To this day, 16 months later, I still struggle. I would say that it does become somewhat of a lighter burden, however I cannot yet say I feel it has gotten easier. I still struggle with feelings of guilt for reporting (despite the fact that the report went nowhere), playing what-if, wondering why I couldn't just stop drinking and wondering about the assault. I can only hope that this happened for some greater purpose...that I will be able to potentially help someone else.
