I’d like to share something personal. You can read it if you’d like.
I’m a freshman at a university in the Southwest United States. If you look through enough of my blog, you can probably figure out which one, but that’s not what matters. What happened to me could have happened anywhere, and it could have happened to anyone. But it happened to me, and it’s time for me to talk about it.
In mid-September of 2015, I was a girl who was attending club meetings, learning about volunteer organizations, and doing whatever else I could to get involved and meet new people. I had just moved 2,000 miles away from my home, my family, and my friends, and as you could imagine, I was having a difficult time handling that. I spent more time crying over the course of this month than I had in my entire life up to that point. But nevertheless, I was connecting with people and finally starting to feel like I had some control over my life. But what I didn’t know was that much more tears, anger, and fear was yet to come.
While I was making friends at my new school, I was also quickly gaining one big enemy: my roommate. She and I were like oil and water and could not have been more different from each other in any way. I liked to spend my nights in watching Netflix and reading fan fiction, while she on the other hand enjoyed staying out until dawn and doing her pre-drinking drinking in our room with all of her friends. While I tried to keep things amicable, we clashed. A lot. For instance, I couldn’t help but get a little angry when I came back from the shower in just my towel to find that she and four of her male friends all of whom I’d never met before were just hanging out in our room. After I had texted her telling her I’d be in the shower, but of course she had never gotten that text.
This was my first time living with somebody other than my parents, so I didn’t want to come off as a stickler. But when she coerced me into changing our roommate agreement to allow male overnight guests, this transformed into multiple individuals of any gender staying the night every single night, save for those evenings when she and her friends stayed out until 10 o’clock in the morning. Even when I tried to express my discomfort about this she would end up going to class in the morning, leaving me with her guests sleeping in her bed and on our floor. Stupidly, I thought that this was just part of the college experience.
At this point, I knew my boundaries were being crossed, but I didn’t know what to do about it. My friends and family begged me to talk to my RA, but I was too afraid of creating an even bigger problem, and again, I didn’t want to seem like a square. (It’s okay to be a square, I know that now.) However, I abruptly got over my fear one night when my roommate and her friends crossed one line too many.
It was a Saturday night, the night of a late football game. I had spent the majority of the day hunched over the toilet in our communal restroom, giving back whatever was left of a bad carton of Ben & Jerry’s Half Baked. (The irony of this name is not lost on me.) The rest of the day had been spent silently fuming over my roommate’s complete lack of regard for my illness as she and her friends paraded in and out of our room in preparation for the game. She even had the nerve to demand as to why I wasn’t going to the game as I lay on my bed shoving saltines and Pepto Bismol into my face. I was pissed, but I was too exhausted to do anything about it. She finally left me to suffer in peace, and I contemplated how I would address her ignorance the next day.
I had spent most of the evening dozing in and out of a restless nap, so I had decided to stay up and journal for a little while. In the middle of me trying to write all of my frustration onto the paper, somebody who was not my roommate unlocked the door and let themselves in. I had recognized this girl from when we’d met about a week or so before. The game had long since ended, so I assumed she would grab whatever she needed and then leave me alone for the rest of the night. At this point, I was tired of writing, so I relocked the door (because the girl who had my roommate’s key did not), I turned off the lights, and I went to bed. Not long after this, the girl had returned, and I once again fumed over the seemingly revolving door in our dorm room. Once she left, I rolled over and tried to go to sleep again. If I could do anything differently, it would be this.
Now it was about three in the morning, and I had spent most of the day in a food poisoning-induced haze, so I can understand why my judgment might have been foggy. But I really wish I had realized that this girl who had my roommate’s key was seemingly incapable of locking our door as she left. I wish I had realized this, gotten out of bed and locked that damn door. But I didn’t. I tried to go to sleep.
I hadn’t been asleep very long when I’d heard one sharp knock on my door, then the sound of it opening, and then loud voices. I rolled away from the wall I was facing to find two men I had never seen before standing in my room and looking around. One of them demanded “Where’s ******?” The same man proceeded to pull my sheets off my legs, and say “What, you ain’t got no dude in there?” I was only wearing my night shirt and my underwear. I finally screamed loud enough to make them leave.
I flew off my bed, locked my door, and paced and cried in pure terror and anger. When I heard them try to come back in the room, I armed myself with a can of Lysol. I continued like this for awhile until I could collect myself enough to call my mom, but as soon as she answered, I just broke down and sobbed again. She convinced me to go wake up my RA and tell her what happened. She offered to let me spend the rest of the night in her room, but I knew I wasn’t going back to sleep for a long time.
What followed was a long series of talks with my RA, my roommate, my community director, another community director, and the university police. I eventually decided not to press charges because I didn’t want to put myself through testifying and having to relive the experience over and over again. I felt confident that the residence association would hand out a significant punishment, and that I’d get justice.
And now? I live across the hall from my old room with an utterly fantastic new roommate who I can trust completely. Seriously, I love living with this girl. It’s a comfort to come home from class and see my name tag on a door to a safe and happy room. But across the hall there are five name tags on that door. My old roommate, her new roommate, the girl my old roommate gave her key to, my old roommate’s best friend, and the name of one of the boys who broke into my room. I walk by that door and see his name there, and it’s a reminder that none of the promises that my community director made to me were upheld. It’s a reminder that my old roommate can do whatever she wants and treat people like shit, and she can get away with it because she’s now buddy-buddy with our dorm’s CD.
Now, I realize that what happened to me could have been much worse. I know girls who have experienced much more traumatizing events, and I’m not trying to equate my experiences with theirs. But I don’t think it’s fair that three months later, I’m still terrified that he’s going to be there when I go take my shower. It’s not fair that I carry a can of mace on my key chain and sleep with a baseball bat under my pillow because I’m afraid that someone’ll break in again. It’s not fair that I had to ask my mom for steel-toed boots for Christmas because I’m constantly afraid that someone is going to attack me. Why is it okay that he get’s to feel perfectly safe staying in the room across the hall from the girl who’s first semester he ruined, while I’ve developed an obsessive-compulsive habit of locking and re-locking my door before I go to bed at night?
All I feel now is regret that I hadn’t done something more. I regret not immediately going into fight mode hurting those two guys for what they did. I regret not following through on the police report. I regret believing my CD when he said that punishment would be handed down. Sometimes I regret choosing this university.
I don’t have any lesson for anyone to take away from this, I just want to write this down so I know that what happened to me was real, and it was serious. I’m tired of nobody seeming to give two shits about what I went through and the fear that I carry constantly as a result of it. I’m tired of being silent about this.
I’m just tired.
