Saturday, September 22, 2018

#whyIdidntreport

I'm not sure if I should share this story. It doesn't seem like the rest of the #whyIdidntreportit stories. But I want others to know how much the belief that we won't be believed, or that we deserved what happened to us.

I reported a crime the night my maniacal, mentally ill ex boyfriend caught me in a dark parking lot after work and forced me into a car at gun point two days after I broke up with him. I reported the fact that he had a deadly weapon and that he threatened to use it on me. What couldn't be reported was the fact that I wondered if he was there to rape me, that I had to ask him if that's what he was there to do. I even told the cops that I had cheated on my boyfriend- something that had happened some time before was probably completely unrelated to the incident and to our breakup. I had to explain it somehow. In the moment, I was grasping at straws to understand why it happened to me, why I was still alive. Yet I offered infidelity as an excuse, an explanation, a reason why this man was mad at me.

There were other times. With other men, in other lives. Rape-y things, borderline things, sexual assault things. And lets be realistic- I know of no law that would have made those grey areas a crime. But I wouldn't have reported- because he had kids. Because he would have gone back to jail. Because I would have had to go back to court to testify. Because I had already quit one job that wouldn't give me time off to testify. Because testifying against one domestic abuser is enough emotional work for one lifetime. Because- how could I be a repeat victim? I was lucky enough to have rolled the dice with the system once, and the system won once, and no one gets lucky reporting crimes against them twice.


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