Getting Good at Running Away: My Survival Story

I woke up with the sun this morning. I have a thing about rising and setting with the sun, that some deem weird. But, I’m sitting in my bedroom with natural light pouring in, before it starts to hurt, and I’m looking at the fresh flowers I’ve been gifted, I’m smelling my collection of “Golden Chestnut” candles, and I’m admiring my freshly organized desk, and it’s time.

Well, I don’t know if it’s time. The truth is, I don’t think it’ll ever be time. I don’t think the day will ever come when I confidently lay myself and my truth bare for the world, because I don’t trust the world. But, I need justice. I need to be made to feel as though the wrongs committed against me were, in fact, wrong – that I am worth life, despite actions against me deciding otherwise. I need to get louder to achieve that, to reach people, to move people. I need to share.

On February 13^th, a podcast episode by the ChattyBroads will drop. I shared my story aloud, for the first time in over three years, with Bekah and Jess. My voice doesn’t sound much like me, laced with anxiety and trying not to cry. I tried my best to articulate the play-by-play of the attack that changed my life, took my life. Turns out, I’m still a better writer than a speaker, or at least I’m more confident in my writing abilities. This new life, all three years of it, have been hard, but trying to say my story was one of the most uncontrollably emotional experiences I never expected. I think if I try to write it for you, it might be more whole, and for me, more cleansing. Let’s fucking do this. Let’s talk about it.

I grew up just outside of Boston in a part of Massachusetts that left me less than half an hour from both Boston and Providence, with the ocean not far, and farmlands down the road. I had a knack for writing, an unparalleled affinity for the escapism I found in books and movies, and I loved my brother’s pet cows down Sunny Rock Farm. I showed sheep in 4H, played soccer for my school, and had Friday night dinners with the grandfather who raised me. I had chronic migraines with aura by age eight and a permanently fractured spine by 11. I went to Catholic school, where I barely spoke, and my town’s 9-1-1 call log always had a weekly document of cops in my home. I was raised in a home teeming with domestic violence and sexism and pain, but I knew no greater love than that of my mother, and of my grandfather. My parents are married, but my dad was never shy about not having wanted kids, so he dedicated his life to his career, and made a chosen family out of his coworkers. He told them all he really loved us a lot. Mumma did the hard stuff, all the hard stuff. She did the cleaning and the cooking and the protecting and the saving and the healing and the loving. Grandpa did the valuing and the yard work and the hard conversations and the teaching me how to sweep “the right way” and to only eat food that burns your mouth a little. They wrangled in my brothers as a team, and taught me love as a team, and we miss him every day. About once a week my mum will curl up next to me and we will talk about all the things that would have never happened if he hadn’t died here in this room when I hit double digits. Twins, my half-brothers seemed polar opposites in my early years. They are 11 years older than me, and through them I was exposed to a lot. I saw my mother chased with a knife by the age of four, and I was beaten and strangled, same as my mother, for years beyond that. I got really, really good at running away. I was the one small enough to slip out of windows or between legs and run for help. The one time I called 9-1-1 myself, I got my ass handed to me. One of my brothers tried his best to save me and my mum every time, always remarking on the other’s addictions feeding the hatred, until he got out. He went as far as he could, from Massachusetts to Arizona, and when he came back, something was gone. It was probably the love and the kindness, and I’ll never know why, but then they sure seemed like twins. I was taught what happens in the family stays in the family, and I watched the culture of secrecy break my mother until I realized it was breaking me too. I stayed quiet still.

As my formative years continued, I went to a tiny Catholic high school with under 300 people in the whole building. Maybe one day I’ll write a whole book series on my time there when I’m full of free time and self-loathing, but for now I’ll stick to the larger points, as they are still relevant to this new life. At 14, I had never kissed another human. It never made sense to me all the genuine attractions my classmates were feeling for each other, or for me, but I tried to go along with it, all the while thinking the only person I’d ever be attracted to was Emmy Rossum. I hadn’t really ever had crushes, and the sincerity with which the people around me straight up lusted after people seemed bizarre. I tried to talk like my friends, tried to blend in, and that was fine. Then, a boy from the baseball team waited by his locker next to mine and shoved his hand up my skirt. And with that the universe said, “Welcome to Sexual Violence,” in a somehow louder, more definitive way than when that relative had climbed into my bed, or when he reached for my chest in the car while he drove. I froze. All that running life trained me for, and I froze. I told my parents about the assault in the hallway, and during a meeting with the boy’s father, it came out that the Dean of Discipline had told the father that all his son did was call me a bitch. That’s the sort of school I went to. I was crying in an empty hallway on the third floor while my mother spoke to another dean. Slumped against the wall, I was shaking and scared and already so tired. A senior boy came to sit next to me. He had been nice to me before, but not this nice. He introduced himself. Everybody loved him. They thought the world of this good Catholic boy who worked on the school television show and was a Big Brother and aced his SATs. He seemed he really was all he cracked up to be, and I felt something. When he gave me my first kiss and asked me to be his girlfriend in following months, I had no idea I was being targeted. I guess we never really do. February of my freshman year of high school brought me beatings and rape and PTSD that felt like I had been brainwashed into something resembling Stockholm Syndrome. Mumma knew right away something was wrong, so I pushed her away, not knowing how to breathe much anymore. When I stopped having the energy to cover the bruises, all hell broke loose. I was getting really sick too. I dropped nearly 50 pounds in three months before finally being diagnosed with Celiac Disease. My immune system was crashing and my world was too. For years I was hurt by the way my parents made an agreement with his, a document stating he’d never live in Massachusetts again after graduation, and that if he came near me they’d go the real legal route. My father remarked on not wanting to ruin his life. My mother, disgusted, never told him it was about saving mine. She knew me inside-out and knew I didn’t have the strength left to survive the dehumanization of how rape survivors were treated judicially a decade prior to Me Too. It didn’t feel like that at the time. When my brothers found out, I was told I must have done something to deserve it. I crumbled. For years.

The dark years we’ll call them were full of black outs and finally fighting back at home and drinking, a lot. My spirit was slipping, my light was dulled, and I didn’t know how life was supposed to get better. I kept getting sick. Adjusting to the reality of being a chronically ill person with question marks hanging over my medical records took its own toll on me. But, in my family I was always “the brain,” so I started to look critically at how it could be my ticket out. Then Hailey May came. Caitriana, my first-born niece, had a mother who knew safety was a bare necessity, and she made the hard choices to give that to Caitie. I never had to worry about her in that respect. She had a mom, and love, and I never had to be a parent for her. Hailey came next, and she was a different case. Her parents, my brother and his partner at the time, dropped Hailey off when she was 3 days old. They would visit or take her for a few days at a time after that, but that’s how I became a co-parent at 16, with my own mum. It never felt strange, or dark, or unintentional. Having Hailey made the most sense in the whole damn world. She was the first thing that made sense in my world. Making sure she was safe and happy and healthy, and living a better life than mine, was my catalyst out of the cycle of abuse. She was born in September of my junior year, and by May I dropped out of high school having fully acknowledged the building that held my triggers could no longer serve my goal. College could though, so I aced the GED and signed up. The administrators took one look at my GPA and test scores, and asked for the address to send an acceptance package to. I took a smattering of strangely timed courses to best suit my schedule with Hailey and my job at the local Friendly’s. I buckled down. I did the work. I was on my way. I traded in Friendly’s for a desk job when I turned 18, and kept pushing, while Hailey blossomed into the happiest baby.

The threats of violence weren’t there anymore. They always felt, to me, like they were waiting in the wings, but the physical reality of my family home was different. My brothers weren’t around much, and although my father started drinking, his cruelty was rare and quiet. My mother grew stronger and fiercer in her conviction to build a better life of love and value with me for her grandkids, and the dust was as settled as it can be for folks who are healing. I continued my education, relentlessly pursuing a way to a space beyond this one. Two weeks after I turned 22, I walked at my college graduation as a member of five honor societies, with a 3.8 GPA, having held multiple jobs at the same time as taking beyond a full course load, and Hailey slept through the whole thing on my mum’s lap. When she saw me after the ceremony, she kept fist pumping the air and saying, “WE DID IT,” like only a five-year-old can. I had a bank account full of freedom, a degree in my hand that said the same, and my sights were set on a PhD after a badly needed break. New diagnoses were rolling in for my body and I was tired. I wanted a taste of freedom before I signed myself up for the rest of my life. To me, that looked like buying a backpack and a plane ticket, with promises from Mumma and Hailey that they would be okay and Skype me every other day. I believed I was living an example I could be proud of, knowing Hailey wouldn’t fear education or travel or the world outside of herself. They swore that they and Caitie would meet me in France. I never got to France.

I suppose this is what most of y’all really came for. You got a whole lot more than you bargained for, huh? Well, this is my first time writing my survival story, the story of my life, and all those major points I just poured out for you very much made the woman who was broken in what comes next. It all made me who I was when I was taken.

Solo backpacking is one of the most fulfilling things you can do for yourself. I will never suggest otherwise. Traveling, learning about other humans in other parts of the world, it makes you feel small in the same way that looking at the ocean does. It’s necessary. It’s a smack in the face explaining in an instant that the universe isn’t yours, that there are full and vibrant lives you will never touch, that there are a million and one things you will never know, and that it’s all okay. It’s actually beautiful. I want to make this abundantly clear before I dive deep: I would not trade the five weeks I had traipsing across Europe in combat heels with a backpack alongside kindred spirits for anything. I tasted freedom, safety, belief in the human collective, and my own identity with acceptance. If I was going to go, what a damn high to leave on. With that said, I didn’t want to go. I didn’t want to leave this earth after embracing it.

In late September of 2016, I arrived in Switzerland. I headed into the Alps, to a small hostel, gearing up for a couple of days of hiking. It didn’t seem like my kind of place, or my kind of price tag, but I knew it was one for the books, and within a couple of days I’d be in Interlaken, signing myself up for all the extremes, like skydiving. It was the one place I had to try to lend myself to the experience and try I did. My hostel was at the first stop on the gondola, but the next stop was another small town, Murren, where I went for groceries. There were mostly families there in Murren, so I assumed I was sticking out when two older guys walked by a few times watching me. I had done my fair share of observation in my travels and although curious, I wasn’t suspicious. I just gathered my groceries and made my way back to my hostel. On my last day in Gimmelwald, after hiking with a new friend originally from Bern, I returned to my hostel alone and rundown. I had been sick for about a week by that point, but I was doing my best not to let it deter me from adventuring. After a nap I headed out of my dorm. That’s the night I first spoke to them. The two men, staring 40 in the face, seemed to be the life of the party, friendly with everybody, especially the hostel owners. They all invited me to share in some wine and chat. So, I did. The men told me they were from the Midwest, decorated army veterans, that one’s wife was waiting at home, and they were anxious to see the results of the upcoming presidential election. They had people laughing, were quick witted, and asked questions that don’t seem probing in the backpacking community. “Are you happy? Overall? As a person?” I said I wasn’t sure. I don’t remember much outside of that. I just remember people loved them. I excused myself to go to bed, strangely thankful the dorm I chose was segregated, but believing I had met two decent men who served with honor.

When I woke up on September 25^th, I packed my things, ready to drive to Interlaken and check in to the hostel I had booked a couple weeks before. The two men were in the common area with their backpacks, talking to the hostel owner. They walked outside with me as she said she needed to get some cleaning done. They asked if I was leaving and where to, so I answered. They said they had thought about leaving for Germany, but they’d rather spend another night in Interlaken, since they had loved it so much the first time. I mentioned maybe we’d see each other there. They said they’d like to show me around, actually, and I said sure. I had met so many backpackers by that point who had done the same. It was a community built on paying it forward, so I decided I would take whatever insight they could give. After the gondola ride to the base, we hopped in our respective cars and headed for Interlaken, not far away. I parked in the lot for my hostel, a few blocks down from where I’d be staying, they parked elsewhere. We had decided to meet up at my hostel after we all got sorted. When they got there they told me they were staying a couple blocks up the road, and that they were lucky to get a room because there were almost no vacancies, but they had befriended the hostel owners during their last stay, so everything was peachy. I said I was starving, so we walked. I was stunned by how quaint everything was in stark contrast to the natural environment. We all ducked into a Chinese restaurant where I devoured fried rice. They laughed, like I should care for their perception of how much I ate. I remember that. When I was done, they said they’d show me more, did I want to drop by a bar where they liked the bartender, sure. A lot of things are lost now. A lot of the conversation, any signs I could comb over in retrospect, they’re gone. We went to a bar. I ordered a cider. I went to the bathroom. The cider was waiting when I got back, and one said, “that just got here,” and I had my first few sips of a drink I now know I should not have drank.

Everything is black and patchy from there, happening only in flashes, with so much lost time. They dragged me through the streets of that town by my hair and by my arm. They pushed me and urinated on me in front of homes. They had my phone. They were talking to each other mostly. They argued over who would get to kill me, one angrily leaving while strangers watched. I asked the other if I could leave, and he warned me that no, I couldn’t, the other would be right back. He came back. I was told we went to more places, with more people to see, but I don’t remember them, I just see flashes of faces sometimes. People who watched and did nothing. Then there are the faces with the blue light behind them, people laughing at me. I would later learn that this was the entrance of their hostel. I remember asking if I could please go to my own. I asked that a lot. They just kept saying no and hurting me. I think that something inside of me thought that if I tried to run they’d kill me faster. They had told me if I could do the macarena they’d let me go, while one restrained me and I couldn’t move. They laughed. I wonder why those other people laughed, later. I wonder what was said about me, thought about me, other than I wasn’t worth saving. The next thing I remember is their room. They still had my phone. One fell asleep. The other grabbed me and pulled me by my neck to another room. It was too dark to see. I’ll never know what the room looks like where my old life ended. I think about that sometimes. He threw me into a wall, against a door, face down on the hard ground. He beat me badly. I kept saying no. He raped me for I don’t know how long. Still, so much time between blows to my head is lost. I screamed for help. He strangled me into unconsciousness. I will never know how many times I lost consciousness, but every time I came to, he was doing something new to my body. Everything hurt in a way that I still don’t know how to put into words. It’s as if my adrenaline kept me at as far of a distance from the pain as it could to keep me alive. My head, from every angle, was brutalized that night. I took between 20 and 30 blows to my head, until I stopped speaking, stopped crying, stopped moving. I came to while he was dressing me, trying to prop me up. My knee was damaged, my head was worse. He brought me back, nearly lifeless, to their shared room. The other was still sleeping. He wrapped my arms around my back using his own, tightly, and laid down on the bed, taking me with him. He decided I was as good as dead, and that he’d deal with clean up in the morning. It was about 4 in the morning then, as I saw on the analog clock. I lost consciousness while he was speaking.

At 7 in the morning on September 26^th of 2016, I regained consciousness to rays of sunshine bursting through the window. They were both asleep. I saw the clock. The one whose arms were still on me was out cold, and his grip was loosened just enough for me to slip out. I rolled off the bed as quietly as I could, to the ground where my purse was, and slipped my phone from the table with the clock, realizing it was dead. I knew I had one shot at running away. At that point, I knew something was wrong, beyond the handprint-shaped bruises littering my throat. I knew I was still going to die. My escape was not in effort to change that. All I could think, over and over, was I needed to get my body back to my mum, and Hailey, and Caitie. I didn’t want my mother to burn the rest of her life searching for me, and I didn’t want the small ones to inherit that trauma too. I just knew I needed to get my body to a place with a lock on the door, until my parents could retrieve it. I tried to stand to run and quickly learned that not only was my knee wrecked, but something wasn’t letting me fully control my legs, or my field of vision. I crawled. I left the door ajar, fearing the sound of it closing would send my attackers after me. I kept trying to prop up for a bit and partially walk holding onto anything I could, but crawling was all I could really manage. The pain was incredible. I had to go downstairs. There was nobody in the lobby anymore. Nobody to help me, or, as I saw the blue-lit bar, nobody to trap me. I kept going. My hostel was just a couple of blocks away, but it felt like miles. A few people sharing the sidewalk on my side of the road crossed to the other, as people walked by, watching, saying nothing. If I ever forget everything I’ve ever known, I’ll still remember my escape, and the fear, and the determination, and the faces of people who silently decided I wasn’t worth saving.

I made it to my hostel, crawling up the stairs, and reached my dorm room. I plugged my phone in and began to lay down, but as I felt everything begin to spin and go dark, I knew I had to try to tell my family, if I could. I opened my tablet, everything swirling, and called my father’s number on skype. They were waiting, sobbing, and when my father saw me, he began screaming. It wasn’t at me, it wasn’t even words, it was something between him and the universe, or his God, or something. My mother had woken up soaked with tears and crying out, at what would have been the time I first lost consciousness. They had been trying to get ahold of me, knowing something was wrong. She was convinced. He wasn’t until he saw me. They kept asking “who did this,” and “how,” and I kept swirling. I explained I had to go, the real have to go, the final have to go, but I needed them to come get me. I needed somebody to get my body. They were watching me slip away. Mum just kept crying “no” as it happened. My phone had a small amount of juice, so I sent a message to a couple of friends I wanted to look after my mum. It just said that I had been attacked, badly. One of the friends I had met a few weeks prior was a nurse, and she said I had to go to the authorities. I said no. I told my mother no. I had nothing left of me, in me. It was over. My friend got the Swiss authorities on the phone. She told me something that feeds both my fury and my gratitude to this day: “Think of the women they’ve done this to and will do this to. You got away.” I waited for a couple of hours, with a dormmate who had noticed me. She had walked over while I was just trying to stay alive and said, “Isn’t this sad that this is our reality?” As she then explained, she was attacked and raped a couple years prior by a group of men while she was backpacking Germany. She kept me awake, seeming to understand there was something wrong with my brain when I didn’t know what to think.

The authorities showed up, two men in tactical gear, with minimal English and some very concerned looks. They took me to the police station where I was put in a room. Only women were alone with me from that point on. An officer who spoke broken English asked me why I was there. I told her I was taken, drugged, attacked and raped. She said “Right, but what crime happened,” and again I responded, “I was raped.” Then she asked, “Did these men force you to have sex with them?” And that’s how I wound up explaining the word “rape” to my intake officer, while trying to let the adrenaline keep the pain at bay. They kept trying to get more information from me, anything I knew to try to catch these men. They had a female detective come in, which took hours. Things are black and patchy still. I just know I stayed there, in that room, at the police station in Interlaken, for a long time without food or water or medical treatment. After nightfall, the detective helped me to her car and drove me a couple of hours to a hospital in Bern. She asked me during this time if I had a partner, and if I was a virgin. I wanted to tell her my virginity had been stolen a long time ago. I wanted to say I was backpacking to establish a sense of trust in myself after my most recent partner cheated on me, that his sister had called and asked me not to let him come home because he had molested her and maybe their cousins, that I had spent almost four years with a stranger. I just said “No,” and “No.” She asked me if I knew what rape felt like, and what sex felt like. I said, “Yes, I’ve felt the difference.” She told me she could see my pain, and that she was sorry. There was barely any staff on hand by the time we got to the hospital. She waited with me for some more time before a nurse took me back to a room where three people were waiting. They stripped me, propping up parts of me to photograph the bruises. The black and blue fingerprints were all over. My neck, my arms, my chest, my thighs. They didn’t talk much, and what they did say I don’t remember. They had me sign a release stating my clothing would be mailed back to me in the States once it served its purpose as evidence. I couldn’t read it. They took my jeans, my underwear, my bra, my favorite long-sleeved shirt, my oversized sweatshirt representing my university, and my scarf. They let me keep my sneakers, with the urine on them. Don’t let anyone ever tell you rape is provoked by what a survivor is wearing. Ever. I hadn’t even washed my hair in a week.

The rape kit continued, and I blacked a lot of it out. It felt cold and clinical. It hurt, but not anywhere near as badly as being raped. I was still bleeding. I was ushered out of the room with the three strangers who saw all of me and brought by an elderly nurse to a separate room. She spoke English and had a light about her. She tried her best to comfort me, knowing she was only there to take my blood. It was late again. I was so worn. She tried to take my blood, but whatever my body had gone through made it nearly impossible. The blood just “wasn’t moving like it’s supposed to,” so she had to call in more nurses, and finally an anesthesiologist, who also couldn’t explain what was happening. Four nurses were holding me down at that point, the one stroking my hair and telling me it would be okay. I wound up stuck about 12 times all down my arms and hands before they gave up, deciding they had enough for what they needed. That was the only medical evaluation I received. Then they released me to the detective, who drove me an hour to a different location, to a police station I never learned the name of. The intake officer was there, and a translator came too, although they quickly dismissed her, stating she’d take too long. I have my own beliefs about why that happened, but they got about 19 pages out of me for a statement. I don’t know what that statement was, as I was barely capable of speaking beyond small phrases from the trauma to my head, but I’m sure it’s damn near gibberish, if it’s my words at all. They asked me if I thought my attackers wanted to kill me, and I said, “I don’t know.” It would take about three weeks before I could finally say it aloud and admit to myself that I couldn’t escape the reality that they never intended for me to live. I don’t remember much else about giving my statement except repeatedly saying my head wasn’t okay until the intake officer snapped at me, saying “We want to go home, this is about you.” I have no idea what she intended to say, and I don’t think I’ll ever care. It was wrong.

At some point during this period of time in this other station, I was told the detective spoke to my mum, and that despite the fact that the authorities didn’t want me to leave until the trial would end, the detective agreed with my mum that I needed to return home for medical treatment. The intake officer made sure to clarify that the only reason I was going home was because the detective went to bat for me. I was also told that my mum had secured a last-minute flight for me for the next day, and that the men had been caught at the border and were giving their statements at another location. The detective assured me that the Swiss judicial system was swift and fair in comparison to that of the States, that a female judge was appointed to my case, and that within two months, my attackers would be put away for somewhere between three to ten years. It should have sounded like bullshit to me, but all I could register was that I was still clinging to life and in need of a doctor.

The detective had two female officers in tactical gear pick me up. She said she was tired. They drove me to my hostel and dropped me off after I received my phone. The detective had told me the time of my flight, and that I had to get myself there. I could barely communicate anymore, still barely able to walk, in excruciating pain. It was the morning of September 27^th, just before the sun came up, when I was finally in my hostel, not knowing where my attackers truly were, and putting all my energy into packing my backpack. I carried it, walking as much as I could, to my car, parked in the lot closest to the hostel I almost died in. I was terrified, and trying my best, and scanning everything as it swirled. I made it to my car, where I found a note. It was from them. It was signed from the one who raped me, who had nearly killed me. It read, “We should continue this conversation, give me a call,” and the fear and adrenaline that rushed through me carried me for four hours driving that car to the rental shop. I fell asleep multiple times at the wheel, never fully cognizant of where I was or what was happening. It was like my body and the car were on autopilot. I made it all four hours and into the parking garage before crashing the rental into another rental. Some guy in the garage started yelling at me in Swiss German, and I walked away. At the desk inside I told them, and they didn’t want me to leave. I told them they could call the Interlaken police station with questions, that I was leaving. One of the women behind the desk nodded, and I got myself outside to catch a cab. It wasn’t too far from the airport, but in the few minutes the cab driver spoke to me, he could see. He carried my bag and helped me into the airport, not caring much for his cab left open with the keys inside. He told me to be well. It’s black and patchy from there too. The pain was nearing unbearable, and I lost consciousness on the flight from Switzerland to Iceland. I found out as the flight descended that it was running late, and I was missing my connecting flight. I realized I’d be stuck there too. Then, they announced my flight to Boston was boarding. It had been late too. I was never so happy to see a line full of strangers look at me, bandages and all, in horror. Something felt safe there. Somebody with a Southie accent was bitching about the Sox. Ah, my people.

My flight to Boston was difficult. The pain was setting in as the adrenaline begin ever so slightly to diminish. A man named Paul sat next to me. He told me about his upbringing in Rhode Island, his wild child brother, and his wife and kids back in Finland. I didn’t realize he was trying to keep me awake until he reached to shake my hand. He purposely pressed into the bandages and said, “You okay?” and I said “No.” Every 20 to 30 minutes for the rest of that flight, he had the flight attendants bring me water. He put on a movie for me. He asked what I like, but I didn’t know, so I said I liked X-Men as a kid, and he put that on. It would keep me awake. He kept an eye on me. When we landed, he helped me through customs and with carrying my bag until he got held up. I credit Paul with saving me, a lot. It might not be apparent why, unless you really knew and know me. Had Paul not done what he did, who would have known the consequences of losing consciousness again, and beyond that, who would have known my capacity to ever interact with another stranger again. The nurse was kind and the driver was kind, but there was an intentionality and staying power of the good Paul did that day. For hours, this stranger watched over me. Where I had been dehumanized and isolated, he offered simple decency. Had he not, I truly do not believe I would still think it’s out there.

While Paul got held up, something urged me forward. I used the wall to move. It was after 6 in the evening, meaning in Switzerland it was already the 28^th. When the doors opened into the reception for international flights, the people behind the metal bar all went silent, seeing me. I scanned the crowd, and couldn’t recognize anybody, until my large Italian father came bombing down, where he wasn’t supposed to, and picked up both me and my bag. He had tears in his eyes and helped me to my mum, who was waiting with a friend of mine, before the security could nab him. She didn’t cry. That was for me. They put me in the car and told me my favorite take out meal would be waiting at home. She had called my former pediatric office, where Hailey was still a patient, and Mumma was before us, to ask for advice. They said I should try to eat, maybe sleep, and come in there in the morning, where everything and everybody was familiar, so they could do an evaluation. My gynecologist would be waiting to see me too. Then I’d head to the hospital for imaging. I didn’t sleep much that night. The pain kept me from collapsing into it. I didn’t eat either. I couldn’t seem to stomach solids. That lasted for a while. That was the first night of a year of nights I did not spend alone.

We found out pretty quickly in Boston on September 28^th that I have a traumatic brain injury (TBI), with a whole lot of muscle and nerve damage to my neck and shoulders. I couldn’t move my head from side to side for a long time, or lift my arms above my waist, or stand without an aid, or remember much of anything, or articulate enough for a conversation, or process oral communication, or read beyond a phrase or two, or write. Doctors were hopeful I’d heal quickly, but kept assigning me to more bed rest, more time without screens, more ice, more appointments. Switzerland refused to send my records to my doctors or to my mum, to whom I had signed over my power of attorney. They had to run their own blood tests here and hope I hadn’t caught anything from my rapist. They loved on me and my mum and served us as best they could. Mumma got a lawyer in Switzerland, who told her the American embassy had interfered. My attackers were picked up under the guise of being returned to the States for trial, but they were released to continue traveling in the UK. Shortly after we found that out, Mumma was told all the women on my case, including the judge, were replaced by men, and that Switzerland would no longer be pursuing the case as it was an American issue. The lawyer stopped answering too, only giving us a name and number of another lawyer, who never returned my mum’s calls. The evidence box never came. It’s missing. My father paid thousands out of pocket, once he could afford to, to have what documents the lawyer managed to procure, before she cut contact, translated. Mumma found out my rapist is a social worker who works with rape survivors in the Midwest, and that my attackers, according the police records, “were likeable.” She called and sent what she could to Senators in Massachusetts, and each time, the calls would stop being returned around week three in the process. All the lawyers get excited and then decide they won’t touch it. Mumma didn’t admit a lot of this to me for about a year. When I’d ask, she’d say she was still fighting.

Mumma became my caregiver, helping me with everything from showers and dressing, to walking and eating. She sat in the chair at my desk every night and watched as I slept. Every night. For over a year. She went to the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center as she grappled with what our lives had become. Through their 12 free counseling sessions for survivors and support systems, she learned how to help me manage my PTSD, and how to love me through it. She became my lifeline. I got sick again. This time they added Ulcerative Colitis to my medical record. Even food was hurting me. My neurologist at the Brigham finally admitted he didn’t know what to do with me, after a year of bed rest and after the rest of my medical team had voiced concern that I needed much more intervention than was being provided. Not long after this, Mumma was diagnosed with stage three lung cancer. We fought our battles side by side. My TBI care was moved to Spaulding Rehab Hospital. There I learned that people with TBIs shouldn’t be put on bed rest, that TBI survivors who have a history of chronic migraines take significantly longer to heal, and that my PTSD and TBI flare each other in the same parts of my brain, so any stress at all can worsen symptoms. I learned that my difficulty walking and talking, my sporadic loss of vision, my unparalleled sensitivity to light and sound, my stretches of memory wiped away, my mixing up of simple words, my sleeping anywhere from 10 to 20 hours a day, was all just part of it. I learned I wasn’t alone, and I wasn’t hopeless. In addition to new appointments with my TBI neurologist, I began physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech therapy, with humans who mostly understood me. I continued to be adjusted in my neck and shoulders at the pediatric office, where I feel familiar. Eventually I could move my head and my arms, I began to cook again, I’m reading again, and, clearly, I can write again. I’m nowhere near where I was before, but I’m better than I have been. I have a Service Dog in Training, who I adopted from a rescue called the Brown Dog Coalition. Her name is Peony and she gets me through the nights, so Mumma can sleep in her own room now. She cares for me through the nightmares and the flashbacks and the blackouts. She anchors me. I graduated PT and OT, with an at home daily routine and long-term goals. I still commit time each day to speech therapy tasks too, like reading for a half hour, and filling in notecards as I go. I need those to remember any of what I read now, but it works. I still get adjusted every other week by the same pediatric DO who managed my initial medical evaluation in the States that September. I still build in rest breaks to prevent cognitive fatigue, like my Spaulding team taught me. Mumma fought and won her battle. Everything’s different now, but most of it works.

I’m 25 now. I spent a long time grieving. Nobody prepares you for saying goodbye to yourself. Mourning the person I was, the abilities I had, and the life I had painstakingly built, has eaten away at my spirit. I used to feel my attackers on me, every night. Now it’s less frequent. Sometimes I don’t think I’ll ever stop grieving for the life lost in 2016, but I still go through the motions in this one. I’m learning about this me. I’m only three years into this life, and it’s a process. I don’t like crowded places. I don’t go anywhere alone. I don’t walk around my block without another human. I still struggle with grocery stores. The lights, the sounds, the colors, the people. My occupational therapist had me put that on my goals list, but I don’t think it will ever not be too overstimulating for me. Learning pacing and acceptance has meant seeing that sort of thing as just part of me, not as something wrong with me. I really like yoga. I went to Love Your Brain Yoga for TBI survivors and learned the modifications I needed. I also met other people there like me. Some were survivors of TBI, sexual assault, and attempted homicide. That made me feel a lot less isolated. I still like the ocean. I really love sweets now. I was the kid who ordered broccoli for dessert when we went out to eat while I was growing up. Now I want ice cream all the time, even though I’m allergic to it. I like chocolate now. I’m not supposed to have that either. I still like writing, but now I like hiking and photography. I don’t know what kind of books I like yet, but I know that’s different too. I don’t wear skirts anymore. Or dresses. I don’t wear heals every day anymore. I’ve grown selective for where I give my time and energy. If I catch myself thinking, “I didn’t survive for this,” whatever I’m giving my energy to doesn’t get it again. My friendships have shifted. The only people I really allow in my life and embrace are other survivors of sexual assault or TBI, or people who work with trauma survivors professionally. I don’t have much room for being misunderstood, because I don’t have patience now. I don’t care for the field I intended to get a PhD in, and I struggle to interact with most people who knew me before. I go to church on Sundays like when I was a kid, except now I’m alone and I can’t tell if I’m going because it’s one of the few places I vividly remember or if I’m trying to believe in something. I feel hatred now. That’s new. And anger. That’s new too. For all my fear I used to have courage, and for all my trauma I had only been hurt and frustrated before. When I graduated college, a professor gave a speech about me, like all the graduating folks in my department. He started it out by saying, “This next woman, I think we can all agree, can only be summed up by one word: fearless.” I loathe that guy now, not that I ever liked him much, and although I sure as hell was never fearless, I’m a whole lot less brave now. I had a lot more grace before, and a lot less boundaries. Now, while I still maintain trauma lives on an unquantifiable scale, and none is larger or worse than another’s, if you complain to me about your boyfriend not telling you you’re pretty enough I’ve already decided we aren’t friends. Like I said, no patience. I’m not giving of myself to just anybody in that way. If you have something real to say, I’ll listen. If you just complain to make conversation, I won’t. I still think nachos and cheeseburgers are the ultimate foods, even though I can’t eat them anymore, and I still miss Jack and cokes. Nightmares suck. I miss the feelings of freedom and safety. I miss being able to ride on planes without getting really sick. I miss being able to get my blood drawn without flashbacks and fainting. I miss believing in the collective and smiling at strangers and walking outside after dark to stare at the sky without wondering what’s waiting to kill me outside my door. I miss long car rides and being able to blast music. I miss driving and independence and running and talking the way I used to. I miss playing my guitar and the way I used to manipulate piano keys. I still think Hailey was the best thing to ever happen to me. I feel the most joy when I’m with her and her siblings. I miss working and earning my own money. That part is the same. I always disliked relying on my father for the money he earned, but now that I need more of it for the medical bills, I hate it. I miss being able to pick up Hailey from school with a jar of strawberries and driving around with the windows down so she could sing to me. I miss the time before she and Caitie could identify the panic rising in me, during anything, and the way they say, “We won’t let anything happen to you,” like it’s not supposed to be me saying that to them. I still like oversized sweaters. I still think Lost is the best television show ever created. I still keep things organized and clean, except now I’m a lot more obsessive about it. I answer texts as soon as I receive them because I’ll forget them otherwise. I only listen to two podcasts, because others can’t seem to hold my attention. I hang up every phone call that isn’t from my support system. I still think Emmy Rossum is peak attractive. I don’t like to be touched anymore. Very few people can comfortably touch me, and I struggle now to initiate any physical contact. I miss movement, in my thoughts and in my space and in my future. I like jelly now, which was gross to me before. I’m weird about textures. The people who knew me before, but didn’t visit me on bed rest, are permanently on my shit list, because they cared more about how they’d feel seeing me like that than how I felt living like that. I still catch myself wondering if they thought it was easy for my mother, or for Olivia who messaged me every single day of bed rest, or for Lizzie who tried her best to help me walk outside, or for Peter who taught me how to tie my shoelaces again, or for Caitie who read to me after school, or for Hailey who told me about her school days even when I couldn’t respond. I spend more time being than doing. I catch myself being an ableist toward myself less frequently now than I did in the beginning. People think I don’t notice things, because I’m so different now, but I just notice different things. I want to fight people who tell me that everything happens for a reason, because I was whole before and suggesting my trauma was some cosmic necessity to better me or to make me whole is wrong. I’m often referred to as blunt, still, but now my bluntness has a sharpness to it, so I’m told. I’m still polite. I try really hard not to laugh at the wrong times, but it happens anyway now. I meditate at least ten minutes per day. I use a nightlight. Now I wear glasses, not contacts. My mum is my best friend. I believe secrecy breeds shame now. In understanding the shame of the attack isn’t mine to carry, I’ve resolved to get loud. That’s new.

I’m different now. I live life differently now. And I’m finally ready and in a position to pursue justice, even if it’s from right here on the bed I couldn’t leave for year. I will spend my life building anew, and it starts here. It starts with being cleansed of these details hidden away under my inability to communicate them for so long. It starts with you reading my truth and deciding I’m worth saving, and so is the next human, and the one after that. This is what I mean when I share that I was taken, I was beaten, I was raped, I survived attempted homicide. This is what I haven’t been able to put down on paper, until now.

A few days before Thanksgiving, I received an anonymous death threat. It was personal. It referenced the attack. The local authorities are as certain as I am that it was not sent by a troll. In fact, I’ve been assured that this is almost certainly tied to the attack on my life. I’ve been told it’s probably because I’ve been sharing more details of my story on social media. My attackers didn’t think I’d ever be in a position to do that, to articulate what they did to me. Imagine what they’ll think or do when they read this. That’s why I had to write it. A local cop looked me square in the eye with all the pain and sincerity in the world and told me to keep getting loud. That’s what I plan to do. I’m still here, and my survival is the biggest mistake they ever made, because I’m not going anywhere, because even if they get me now the truth is out there. My own fight for justice starts now.

Please, share my survival story. The more people who read it or listen to it means more people like me finding out they aren’t alone. And, it means people in positions of power can reach down and help me get justice. Please decide this me is worth saving, because people should have saved the last one.

With gratitude, fear, and determination,

Chantelle Dashner-Griffith