#projectunbreakable

sometimes you’d never be able to tell that the struggle is real. now, I don’t mean that in the sense of its normal use in today’s society but in the sense that I sometimes feel like I’m drowning. Imagine yourself, sitting in a space you once found comfortable, and no longer being able to stand it because as soon as you get there, your anxiety raises, your flashback starts and it’s like you are living it all over again. 

If only people knew that joy could be faked. now, some may argue with me and tell me that happiness is what I mean to be referring to. It’s not. To many, and probably most, you’d never know the constant hell I put myself through because I felt I deserved it. I did something wrong, somewhere a boundary was crossed, maybe I dressed in a way that made me deserve it, maybe I could have fought harder. Harder. How much harder could you have fought? Could I have screamed louder with his hands around my neck, and the struggle to breathe loomed larger than my desire to talk and try to soothe my attacker. Could I have thrown better punches, when the heat of his hands precariously placed on the most intimate areas of my body. Could. Could is a dangerous game to play, and one that I continue to play often. Could... it have been different. Could.... it have been better for me.... could I have done something. 

If you can make it through this long post, there is a great discussion point at the end labeled So, here’s the educational part. If you want to skip the story, feel free. Anyone who knows me IRL and reads this, here’s to hoping you don’t see me differently, because I am just Nicole after all. 

The story.

I am going to be open and share something that I have shared with many people in certain contexts. But being that this happened 6 years ago in 2009 to this day, I can’t help but reflect on where I have been and where I hope to go and to possibly educate anyone who might read this with as much grace as possible. 

In 2009 starting my senior year in high school, a smooth-talking football player danced with me at my senior homecoming. He was cute, I didn’t know anything except that he was awesome in my eyes. A football player was dancing with me? And then he asked for my number and I graciously gave it to him. For days I was distracted by his sweet texts and his invitation to have dinner at his house and meet his mom the following Sunday. 

I drove over to his house and was nervous because, oh my gosh, I was going to hang out with this guy who I had possibly been crushing on and nervous to talk to for a few years. Football players didn’t talk to me, I was the nerd who got all As and helped other people do their homework and didn’t break the rules. He let me in, I met his mom, and then we went to watch TV on the lower floor of his split-level house, which had a weird smell and Family Guy was on TV (later in my RA years, I found out that it was marijuana). 

We go hang out and he starts kissing me. A football player was kissing me? I don’t kiss random guys. So “young me” wanted to have the conversation about what it meant. He didn’t comply. Instead he decided that doing other things would keep me quiet, or so he thought. I didn’t know what to say, I thought maybe it was fine because that’s what everyone else was doing, especially if they were dating the football players. I was incredibly uncomfortable as he did some questionable things to me. Not everything, but enough to make me uncomfortable. So when I said “NO”, “I don’t want to”, “stop”, he covered my mouth so his mother couldn’t hear me yelling those things and he continued to push me down. I must note that dirty talk was not sexy at all, nothing was in that context. But what does a girl who has only ever kissed a guy know what is wrong and right if no one is telling her?

Hours later when I could finally go after saying that my curfew was really earlier than it was, I drove home, fixed my hair, and walked into my house. My mother asked how it was seeing the guy, I said it was good, but I’m really tired and needed to shower “so I didn’t need to the next morning”, and cleaned up and went to bed after sending my best friend at the time a text that said I needed to talk to her. 

The next morning, a Monday, I went to school and went through the day. I tried to see football guy because for some reason, what had happened was something I had mistakenly perceived as some sort of affection. We glanced at each other, and when I tried to talk to him, he walked away with a girl who would soon be his girlfriend (and possibly right now, his fiancee or wife, they were together long after high school). I tried to tell people I trusted, “hey, this happened. I don’t know what to think”. I was a confused almost-eighteen-year-old. I asked my best friend for advice, and she said “oh my gosh, you went as far as me and *boyfriend*”, and we have been together for 3 years. Are you going to see him again?” To which I responded that he hadn’t talked to me since, and I later came to find out he would never speak to me again.

People had started calling me a slut. I didn’t know what to think at all, so I continued to believe that it was just a night where a guy had shown affection and nearly one-night-stood-me-up. And then my long-term (now ex) boyfriend and college came into play. 

I won’t go into detail with my ex, but I will say that by the end of our relationship, he looked a lot to me like football guy ended up looking. 

One truly does find herself in college. After going away to a private school 437 miles from home, I had no one and I made my own friends. Let me tell you, this was the best decision that was ever made. Once my first year ended, I had decided to apply to be an RA (resident advisor/assistant) and THAT was one of many beautiful and amazing choices I made that led me to where I am now. 

After becoming an RA and going through a week’s worth of training, I became close to a staff of 21 people who had my back, particularly 2 ladies, one of which was a Christian all her life, and the other who had not practiced regularly. They were co-RAs and hung out together 98% of the time, and I was invited to join them with my little knowledge of Christianity. I went to church with them a few times, but this time, I sat with them and they played the Great I AM, a worship song that sticks with me with such power, and they played it twice that day, at the beginning and the end of the service. I had not been an avid churchgoer, I had not declared myself a Christian at this point, and I didn’t know what to make of it when the tears poured down my face and I began sobbing and one of my girls had to hold me in her arms. Because it was then that I realized that 2 years ago (at that point), I was sexually assaulted, and I had no idea what to make of it. That moment, in the 2nd row of the church I have recently called my home church, the place where I now feel I belong and that I am not judged, changed me forever. 

Practicing Christianity and its values is not for everyone. I am not to judge and I do not shun those who do not practice organized religion. In fact, I hope that I do not come off as that type of person. But I will tell you that my faith, which genuinely kicked into full gear in 2011, is something that has since helped me cope with some unfortunate events in my life, such as my mother’s cancer diagnosis 14 years ago, my dad’s heart attack and recovery these past few months, the distance I had put between my family and myself over misunderstandings the last 3 years, missing my nieces who live 18 hours from where I live and who I haven’t seen in over a year, and emotionally abusive relationships, among many other things. 

My wish for other survivors of sexual assault is that you can receive closure and justice. I do believe in justice. While sexual assault is not rape, it is still punishable by law. I hope that people you trust to tell your story to will help guide you to the resources you need. I hope that perpetrators will be educated on how what they do or did was wrong. I hope that your best friends stick by you - but if they don’t, you get an amazing opportunity to find YOU. 

Do not let your experiences cause you to hold every potential romantic partner at an arm’s length, because there will be one person who can see through that and still wants to care about you anyway. Trust is hard-earned and easily lost, but eventually you will learn to let someone in who thinks “you’re the bee’s knees” (direct quote). 

I have forgiven football guy, yet have not talked to him and do not wish to. In fact, the rumor mill told me that after me, he did it to another girl in hopes of fulfilling his own “needs”. I digress. 

I have chosen to take my voice and raise awareness, to be kind to everyone, to try to remain positive when anything happens. Because guess what? I’m alive. What happened to me did not cause me to take extreme measures nor did it cause me to be cynical and to push people away. Because for some people, that is what they need to do for a little while until they can gather their own sense of healing. Mine just happened to be through faith. 

So, here’s the educational part: 

These are just some of the resources I can think up at the moment, but the first one in particular is close to my heart. 

Grace Brown is a phenomenal photographer and an overall genuinely beautiful human being who I had the opportunity to meet and be photographed by in October of 2012. Her project is titled Project Unbreakable and the link can be found here. Please DONATE to Project Unbreakable so Grace and her team can continue traveling to colleges and speaking, as well as photographing survivors so they can receive closure like I did through her project. 

RAINN (Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network) is a resource that provides an online hotline as well as a telephone hotline (1.800.656.HOPE) for survivors of sexual assault and other abuses listed above. 

If you are talking to someone who has been sexually assaulted, please refer to them as a survivor. Victim is a term that is negative to many people. I am a survivor because I have been through it and I have come to terms. It is a positive term if a term has to be used (because let’s face it, I don’t talk about this in my everyday life). 

Please be aware that sexual assaults can happen to anyone in any type of relationship. It is not just cis women assaulted by cis men; absolutely anyone can go through something like this. 

While EVERYONE should be educated, I do find that in the college-aged community and in the high school-aged community, young heterosexual cis men especially are not socially educated on consent and being sexually respectful. This is not because of my personal situation. Peer accountability training or discussions could be one form of education geared toward a particular group of people. Just based on some peer-reviewed sources I have read in my research. 

"We can find ourselves in a place where we are broken and our lives are shattered. We try to glue together the pieces of our lives, but the moment that pressure is applied in our lives we discover the glue does not hold. Brokenness will become the seed that gives birth to greatness. Allow it to finish." -Pastor Daniel Floyd 10.26.14. I was 12. I was a victim. I was weak. “If you tell anyone, your sisters are next,” are the words that were planted in my ear while tears dribbled down my cheeks. Those are the words that haunt me everyday. Those are the words that caused me to change. Those are the words that forced me to cry myself asleep countless nights. Those are the words that created a surplus of hate that was once in my heart. Those are the words I strive to escape. Those are the words I constantly replay. Those are the words that kept me silent. I blamed myself. I was embarrassed. I am embarrassed. I thought that there was nothing that could change this form of evil that was placed into my life. A mental wave of violence washed upon me. I wanted to destroy my rapist along with myself. But violence, violence does not change an individual’s mind state. Violence does NOT make me unraped. “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit.” Psalms 34:18. The unthinkable happened. My life was shattered, my peace was destroyed. Everyday filled with fear of it reoccurring. A distant relative, my rapist, robbed me enough, I will not allow him to rob my future as well. “[There is] a time to keep silence, and a time to speak.” -Ecclesiastes 3:7. Today, I take my life back. Today, I speak.