I agonized when I read the topic for tomorrow about rape on college campuses. Two years ago this very day (October 13, 2006), I was raped at a gas station on Route 22 East. It is about 25 miles from New York City. I was 52 1/2 at the time (born the same year as Robin). I had gotten to the point in life during which I thought I'd get through life without having been raped. There was only one attendant on duty pumping gas, an illegal alien from Egypt who had no papers to work here in the USA. He managed to pull me into a bathroom during a brief lull in the incessant traffic through this gas station and viciously, violently, savagely raped me. I could tell he had done this before. I believed from his expertise, he had had many victims prior to me.
I fought him off from the front, but my screams only enervated this beast and with a mighty roar, he threw me across the filthy bathroom and I hit my head against the bathroom wall. He had me bent over a handicapped railing, totally paralyzed by his hands controlling my upper body, strangling my upper arms from out-to-in, and his weight leaning against me from behind was trapping my lower body. I kept trying to turn around, pleading, "No! No! No!" and asking him whether he was wearing a condom because I didn't know where he'd been, what I might contract from him. My hands were against the wall to stabilize me, so I didn't fall over. My view, once he was successful in tearing me to ribbons to get into me from behind, was of 2 rolls of toilet paper and one roll of white paper towels lying sidewise across the silver handicapped bar. To this day, this is what I "see" before my eyes when I think about the rape. This view. Plus, when he was finished, he thanked me because he hadn't had sex in 2 years. I wanted to pulverize him. But I ran.
I was in shock long enough to get through 3 police/Prosecutorial detective interrogations and a LONG physical exam on a broken gyn. table. The Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE) told me I had four injuries she could see. I had a cut from the anus to the vagina; two red, round bruises at the vaginal entrance (I think due to the rapist's thrusting into me so hard from behind: bruising from his testicals bashing into me); two abrasions within the vagina; and more semen than she'd ever seen before after a rape. Later the female Assistant Prosecutor would tell me that the SANE said I'd had no injuries that night; my photos showed nothing amiss. But my fiance had been beside me holding my hand and he was a witness and he knew the truth. Now that I've read the papers, I find out that the SANE told the truth and the AP lied to me about what the SANE had written up/the photos of my body's injuries. My SANE happened to be mayor of her town and for a long time I wanted to rip her to shreds in public. Now that I know the truth, I'm glad I never did.
My fiance has a saying, "It is hard to tell your friends from your enemies" (a Winston Churchill-ism). Reading the papers about my rape afterwards now, I find that those who seemed kind and friendly in law enforcement were really my worst enemies and the ones I'd thought of as "enemies" turned out to be my friends, really fought to get this guy put away. He was facing 30 years in the penitentiary for his actions.
I thought I did the right thing by getting to the police within 20 minutes of the rape and submitting to the questions and the physical exam. By taking about 20 pills and various shots to prevent sexually transmitted diseases. By submitting to X-rays to make sure he had not dislodged hardware in my spine for a painful back. By being put on anti-AIDS medication for one month which was so strong that I was a lifeless, bedridden creature, who would bang into walls from dizziness if I tried to walk straight. I felt like the two anti-AIDS drugs were killing me and I wanted to quit after 10 days, but my fiance would have to beg and plead with me to take the medication I swore would kill me before the month ran out.
I had to go through three gynecological exams total and repeated bloodwork, even to this day, to see whether I contracted AIDS.
To my horror and shock, the Prosecutor's Office decided the very first night that since the RAPIST had said the sex was consensual, it was a "he said/she said" case and I fought them and fought them and demanded a Grand Jury hearing. 24 hours later, several months down the road, I learned my case was "no billed" and my rapist was let go with no punishment. He even continued to work at the gas station at which he'd attacked me, free to prey upon any woman who should drive into the station.
Paradoxically, today, the 13th, as I write this, is the 2nd anniversary of the rape. That morning I'd said to my fiance that I loved Friday the 13ths because they had always been so lucky for me, wonderful things had happened to me always on Friday the 13ths, even when I was a child. I now have a completely different view.
I did fight hard against the rapist, against the system, because I just could not bear to think of another woman being injured by this man. And I am being "nice" to refer to him as a "man".
My rapist told the police he could not possibly have raped me; it was the last day of Ramedan and he was not allowed to have sex on this holy, holy day. Plus his wife would be very angry with him if she learned that he had had sex on Ramedan. In his taped statement, the second one two weeks after the rape after he's consulted an attorney, he tells the police that he wouldn't have had sex on Ramedan; he'd go to hell. I commented to my fiance, "Guess he's going to hell..." During his first statement, taken right after the rape, my rapist told the police he had not waited on one female customer during his entire shift, not one. Halfway through the interview, with the prodding of his brother-in-law, who was acting as interpreter, although my rapist could speak "Harvard Law English", better English than most Americans, once he was in custody, suddenly he lost his ability to speak English at all. This continues to this day, as long as anyone from law enforcement is around.
For a long time, I could not go anywhere alone, especially gas stations. I used to drive my friend to Bethlehem, Pennsylvania to see her dying mother on weekends because Cindy was afraid to do highway driving. Once we had to stop for gas and I had a panic attack at the wheel. Vaguely, from somewhere out there in outer space, I could hear Cindy telling me she wouldn't let anyone hurt me--and she would not have. I had the window down about 1 centimeter to allow for the passage of money, but I had to roll it down further to be able to take my change. Once we got back on the road, I felt like I was in shock, unfit to drive. I didn't tell her that until several months later. It would probably have been best if I'd pulled over and decompressed for awhile, but I didn't want to stick around a gas station.
I had to have much counseling after this happened and my doctor used to walk me to my car because I was afraid to leave the building by myself.
As time has gone on, I have gotten better. I realized one day, about 17 months after the rape that I had actually driven past the gas station and not looked at it as we went past. I realized I was "healing".
Things were so poisoned by my Prosecutor's Office, I never could find an attorney to represent me, even reaching out to other nearby counties. However, one lawyer did get important paperwork from them, paperwork the Prosecutor's Office would not allow me to have. The rapist could have obtained it, but I, as the victim, could not, without going before a judge and telling her why I wanted this information.
I tried to get the rape into the two local major newspapers. Both were incredibly interested--until they talked to the Prosecutor's Office, then the next day they'd call and say they weren't going to interview me after all...
I believe what is at the crux of this is that the site of my rape was a gas station owned by a former prosecutor who had died and I have to wonder if some of the remaining prosecutors don't own a chunk of the business themselves. Anyhow from Day 1, the rapist became the victim and I became the criminal. It was something that never has made sense to me...
I had a major decision to make last week. In a way, Fred and Kim Goldman gave me the idea. I did not win in the criminal arena, but I knew I could act "pro se", as my own counsel (although my fiance is a retired attorney with 26 years of experience who guides me), to bring a civil case against the rapist and many players in this situation.
I had a two year deadline hitting me squarely between the eyes. I could not even read the papers that my fiance and I referred to as "The/Our Rape File". My fiance took this nearly every bit as hard as I did as we've made the journey down the highway of life... The papers had to be filed by Friday, the 10th of October this year because the 13th, the 2 year anniversary is a court holiday, Columbus Day, so I had to have everything into the court by Friday, the 10th at 4:30 PM. I finished with a couple of minutes to spare, after two full days of work in the County law library.
I found taking action helped me to retrieve my battered sense of empowerment. I was fighting for myself again--and for all women out there. Serendipitously, I ran across a man who told me one day he was my rapist's cousin. I would ask every gas-pumper in the area if they knew him and this particular man jumped up and down and said he saw him every day, that it was his beloved cousin. I tried to get more information, but my fiance came out of the restroom and finding out that this man had a connection to my rapist, blew a gasket. We had to leave quickly, without my gas, because of my love's fury. But I did glean one piece of information--my rapist had moved quickly to the Bronx, without warning. I'd noticed I'd begun to hear of violent rapes occurring in the Bronx on TV in the evenings. I actually called the Bronx DA and warned him that he had a violent rapist in his territory, most likely pumping gas and trying to "get at" the women who are alone in their cars. I'd met six of them in New Jersey as I made my life journey. God seemed to drop them into my life. None of them had been raped, but all had either had bad experiences with my rapist or had fled and never gone back again due to his actions.
I think it is very important, for one's sake, to report an attack to the police, to go through the rape exam, to let what has happened to you be known. And do you know what gave me strength to continue when I felt like a beaten down animal? I FOUGHT for my fellow sisters out there. I never, ever wanted another woman to be hurt by my rapist the way I'd been violated physically, emotionally and spiritually. It is the kind of experience that upsets not just the victim, but the victim's family and friends, who become frightened and upset by what has occurred.
I think of how lovely things were for me in my early 50s. I felt reborn after my 50th birthday, like I had newfound wisdom and peace. It must be ever so much harder for those in their late teens and 20s to have to go through a rape like this. I met a young woman who worked behind the counter at a "Dunkin' Donuts" two weeks after my rape. She'd been date-raped twice, but she never reported either (and she became pregnant from one), because she thought the police would think she caused her own rape. We do not cause our own rapes. A rape is an act of aggression, power and control. It is not sex. It is control. It is not love. It is for the selfish self-satisfaction of the rapist himself. To me the real hoot is reading how the rapist tells the police that I raped HIM!
I had one "friend" who used to tell me that I should be glad I wasn't murdered because rape and murder go together. My fiance used to say to me that he wished I'd been killed because I suffered so greatly afterwards, he would weep from observing it. Sometimes I would hear my big, tough love sniffling in another room. Other times, I literally heard him sobbing when he thought I was asleep or far enough away from him not to hear. But I did.
I think it is important, for one's own dignity, even if one does not get legal satisfaction, to fight, to at least TRY with all of one's might not to allow another sister to suffer as you have. Fight on. Fight on. I know the battle is starting up again. I know I may, in one sense, "lose" again. But in another, more important way, I have won myself back. No longer will I allow this "animal" to control the days of my life. I will and do. And my heart goes out to every woman who has ever endured such an experience, no matter how/what occurred.
Parents and college students, listen up! College campuses all across the country are dealing with issues relating to sexual assault, drinking deaths and hazing. Did you know that as many as one in four college women are victims of rape or attempted sexual assault? And that 84 percent of college men who committed rape said that what they did would not be defined as rape in their own minds? Know the safety tips and warning signs before you or your child is caught in a crisis. Dr. Phil’s first guest, Cynthia, is a mother in anguish over the loss of her daughter, 19-year-old freshman, Megan. Seven months after Megan was allegedly gang raped by at least three men in her dormitory, the student took her own life. Attorney Gloria Allred represents Cynthia in a civil lawsuit claiming that Dominican College failed to investigate Megan’s alleged attack in any meaningful way. Hear the bizarre and disturbing twist in this story. Then, meet another freshman who’s already had two frightening experiences in her first month of college that left her mother wanting to bring her home. Plus, learn what you can teach your teen before he or she heads off to college, and the top five safety tips all students need to know to protect themselves on campus. Talk about the show here.
