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bibianarealizacion · 7 years

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Jane’s Story

Jane, 24, is a survivor of a very violent sexual assault that required urgent medical attention. She since then developed PTSD, severe depression and spent a week in a psychiatric ward because of a suicide attempt. Jane was privileged enough to have had access to medical attention and psychiatric attention under Medicaid. Unfortunately, this is not always the case for victims and the Trump administration threatens the little available healthcare even more. It’s been four years now since the assault and Jane is doing her best to continue to heal although she can’t afford therapy anymore her after having lost her Medicaid and the defunding of Planned Parenthood (which offers group therapy to rape survivors and counselling). Rape may not be something we are able to prevent, but we can improve the way we approach it by understanding and recognizing how heavily it impacts a person both physically and psychologically.

Jane places a mirror on the floor as she prepares to talk about her experience. Jane carefully takes two tiny steps as she steps onto a mirror on the floor. She lifts up her black dress exposing her bare legs as she crouches down to stare at the rectangular mirror below her. She shifts her weight and moves her head as she intently searches the mirror’s reflection between her legs.

I can’t see it. I’ve never been able to see it, and I think that’s fucking crazy

Jane says with a sheepish smile, nodding her head, as she pulls down her dress and takes a sit on the floor next to a pile of laundry.

I think it might not be visible anymore, but I remember looking for it a few days after it happened and I couldn’t find the scar then either.

On the second Saturday of May 2013, Jane got on a plane heading to southern California, where she would be violently raped that night. She had planned a surprise visit for her mother that weekend months in advanced.

It was the first flight I ever booked and I felt so excited and in control. My mom had offered to fly me down for mothers day a few months earlier and was disappointed when I told her I wasn’t going to be able to make it. She didn’t know I had already been saving up my tips and had enough money for a round trip and as decent of a gift as my minimum wage job could afford.

Jane’s eyes gleam with joy as she describes her mother’s excitement when she surprised her that Saturday evening. She picks up a stray shoe lace from the floor and starts wrapping it around her finger as she describes her family’s background with the same joy but now with a hint of longing and nostalgia.

Jane’s father stepped out economically a few years back and declared bankruptcy after some terrible business decisions. Jane’s mother had been unemployed for over a decade but still managed to get a job at a department store and has been making ends meet for Jane and her two younger brothers ever since. Although the cost of living in southern California is astronomical, Jane and her brothers managed to be accepted into one of the districts best schools in the wealthier part of town. The family of three share a one bed room apartment and the kids partake in an hour and a half commute every morning in order to receive a superb education. Jane graduated in 2011 with a high enough GPA to land her a full ride at a University in northern California.

My parents worried that we would be bullied for being latino in a predominantly white school or that it would be hard on us to be surrounded by kids with a beach house, snow cabin and a lake house (these kids were really at the pinnacle of wealth, Im not exaggerating) But I was lucky, and just sort of understood that although it wasn’t my time yet, I could still aspire to the same things those kids did, we were talking the same AP classes after all. Not only did I not feel inferior but I had a really nice high school experience to be honest and built some pretty strong friendships.

The gleam in Jane’s eyes seems to dissipate and her look becomes somber as she talks about her best friend. She continues to wrap the shoelace around her finger, pulling it and making it tighter.

Adriana was my best friend. She lived in a huge house that faced the ocean, but her father was in jail for embezzlement in Mexico City. So her family would hide out in a mansion with an expired visa. I told her I was visiting my mom and she begged me to spend the night at her house that Saturday. My mom reluctantly agreed but asked me to be home early next Sunday so we could celebrate Mothers day. Mothers day.

Jane’s finger has turned purple after being constricted by the shoelace for so long. She stares at it and puts the shoe lace aside. She’s uneasy and opens her mouth as if to say something but immediately closes it afterwards. She looks at the ceiling and takes a deep breath.

This is for sure anonymous right? The names, my voice and everything will be altered so it can’t be traced to me right? Just call me Jane Doe.

I nod but before I can answer Jane claps her hands in front of her chin and takes another deep breath. She quickly wipes her lower eyelid with her finger.

I’m sorry, I’m just not ready or strong enough to feel so exposed you know? I wanna be able to consent and to decide who can approach me about this and when. And I also think it shouldn’t matter who this story belongs to, it’s real and it speaks about a very tragic reality that I think we need to be aware of.

Adriana’s cousin raped Jane that Saturday night, it was the first and only time they met. He entered the room she was sleeping in and violently forced himself on her. The next morning Jane’s bed was drenched in blood.

I woke up disoriented, like I had woken up inside a reality I was not equipped to deal with. I felt a pulsating pain in my core and didn’t want to move but the bed suddenly felt cold and moist when I shifted my weight. I reached down between my legs and felt an alarming amount of warm blood that made me bolt up.

I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t know how to tell anyone and now there was a giant stain of blood in my best friends bed. In that moment I wasn’t even aware of the gravity of the predicament I was in. I found a pad in one of her drawers and tried putting it on until I realized my panties were gone. My immediate concern still remained taking care of the stain because how was I going to explain it? I planned on pulling out the sheets and flipping the mattress but the second I stood up from the bed I felt extremely light headed and realized I needed to be concerned about the bleeding, about myself.

I put on my pants and stuck the pad in there since my underwear was nowhere to be found. I couldn’t process everything that was happening so I just decided I was going to walk to CVS, buy tampons and go home to spend the day with my mom. I wanted to believe that maybe even though I had had sex before, my hymen hadn’t ruptured and this was just that, and it would be fine.

Jane left Adriana’s house at around 6 am without talking to anyone. She walked for an hour down the hill of wealthy abodes in an attempt to reach a pharmacy, but the bleeding was so severe that she had to stop herself and wait for a cab to take her to the hospital.

Things did not get better when I walked out of Adriana’s house like I thought they would. This was before uber and there were no cabs running that early so I had a long walk ahead of me. As I was walking I googled “heavy vaginal bleeding after intercourse”and the results shook me. Menorrhagia. STDS. Miscarriage. Cancer. UTERINE ARTERY RUPTURE. I felt the tears and the fear simultaneously build up inside me. I slowly put my hand between my thighs and became horrified at the amount of blood I found. The pad that I had put on minutes ago was completely saturated. I picked up a newspaper and shoved it down hoping that it would absorb some of the blood. I couldn’t call my mom but I realized I needed help. None of my friends from the area picked up and so I called my college roommate and told the first, of a series of lies I would later tell about that night.

Jane avoids eye contact as she talks about covering up the rape and saying it was consented. She explains that at the time she was too afraid of the reaction she would yield by telling the truth and how she thought things would get resolved in a smoother way if she abstained from telling the whole story.

It is very common for rape victims to feel shame and in some cases to even blame themselves for what happened to them. This is a direct result of the social construction that surrounds rape culture in which victims are often questioned about their behavior or appearance prior to the rape. These types of questions imply that the victim could have done something different to avoid the sexual assault and thus create feelings of guilt and shame. Some victims even have testimonies of people close to them asking, “Why didn’t you scream or fight?” and again unknowingly placing some of the blame on the victims lap.

I would later find out that my roommate never believed me when I said it was consented sex, but at the time it didn’t matter since she just wanted me to get medical attention ASAP. She found me a cab and I told him I urgently needed to get to the nearest hospital. The driver didn’t say much and avoided eye contact. My eyes had become extremely swollen after all the crying and I was sure I was going to leave a blood stain on his seat. I did but he didn’t say anything, I don’t think he knew how to deal with me.

I didn’t realize that the hospital he dropped me off was for Veterans only, which meant that they would not help me. I realized the cab driver never gave me back my card so this hospital had to be IT. I didn’t have the means nor the time to get to another one but the receptionist didn’t care and asked me to go stand outside.

Jane curses as she talks about the people at the hospital, who could see her blood drenched pants and frantic face but still decided not to help her. Her voice breaks as she describes the feeling of doom and helplessness that she felt in that moment. She takes a deep breath and wipes off her tear stained cheeks.

A doctor saw me crying on the floor and said the single most perfect sentence I could have heard in that moment “Im going to help you, what do you need?” He didn’t ask what had happened, or if I was ok. Questions I didn’t want to answer and questions that wouldn’t resolve anything. He gave me a ride on his truck and took me to a hospital nearby in which his wife was the head nurse. He spoke to her on the phone and promised me I would be in good hands. I stained his truck seat and when I tried to apologize he said, “Sweetie, don’t worry about anything else but yourself from now on, promise?”I wanted to hug him, I wanted to tell him that he might have just saved my life. I wanted to say so much to this stranger that had shown me a kindness I’d forgotten could exist, but I was only able to slur a “thank you” in between sobs.

Jane walked into the second hospital at 8 am and passed out minutes later because of the blood loss. She was admitted regardless of the paperwork she wasn’t able to fill out. The doctors gave her fluids and something to stop the bleeding until she woke up an hour later.

I lied again to the people in the hospital and said I consented and that I didn’t want to call anyone. The nurse frowned and asked if I authorized them to collect a rape kit before they did anything else. I said ok.

A rape kit is a recollection of samples from the body that may contain the abusers DNA or show signs of physical violence. The procedure also includes a pregnancy test, pelvic exam and ultrasound. The procedure must be done as close to the incident as possible in order to be able to preserve the evidence. A rape kit is preserved by the hospital and should aid a victim who decides to press charges. Jane’s rape kit maintains preserved at the hospital she was admitted into even after 4 years. Jane refuses to press charges and doesn’t think the rape kit with the evidence can stand up to a powerful family and an easily persuaded judge.

I mean I’m sure you heard about what happened with Brock Turner, there were witnesses, evidence and a good part of the country watching that demanded justice for the victim. And yet, he still got off with a slap on the wrist because he was a white, privileged athlete. It’s fucking tragic.

I’ll be at a party and at least 5 of the girls in the room will be survivors of sexual assault, that I know of. Yet, I’m never at a party or in a group of people where I can identify someone as an assaulter and it’s because society makes it really hard to prosecute your rapist. It’s not an easy process and legal help is not easily accessible. It’s not something people want to hear and for a while I felt like it was better to remain quiet.

It took me month to talk about, years to tell my parents. Sometimes I ended up feeling worst after I told my story. Many, after hearing about the rape kit, urged me to prosecute because otherwise my rapist would rape again. That type of comments made me feel guilty for not pressing charges and made me feel responsible for all the horrible things my rapist could be doing because of me. It’s taken me a long time to feel at peace with my decision not to prosecute. It’s not up to me to grant anyone justice and specially with a system that values it’s individuals because of their monetary value or the color of their skin.

After Jane underwent all the medical procedures, the source of the bleeding was identified as a severe uterine laceration that required a surgical procedure. Jane’s operation was successful without any complications but she would later face an enormous financial burden because the medicals bills were not covered by her insurance and now with the diminishing Obama care, Jane is struggling to find healthcare that doesn’t label her mental illnesses as pre existing conditions.

My heart really did break when the doctors told me they needed to stitch me up from the inside. I don’t know, I just thought wow, this person literally tore me in half. There’s a very tangible before and after because of that night. I continue to discover ways in which something I thought I could just lie about and make go away continues to affect me. Even now, in a loving relationship and with a partner I trust, my vagina closes up during sex sometimes. The doctor’s say it’s a result from the trauma and muscle memory. I feel out of control a lot of the time because I’m easily triggered into a panic attack or an anger outburst and I hate that I don’t feel like a person that can function normally. For a while I was always crying or angry or numb, and who the fuck wants to be around that all the time?

The people that have been supportive and understanding have really made all the difference but I still think we as a society are not equipped to deal with rape and it’s because we don’t talk about it enough and in enough depth.

Jane stands up and crouches on top of the mirror once again. She pulls up her skirt and lowers her head.

That’s why it blows my mind that I can’t see the scar. I don’t know if the doctors did a great job and it doesn’t even exist or maybe it’s way too deep inside me. I search and think about the scar in an almost obsessive way, it’s weird. I did read somewhere that your skin completely renews every 7 years, and who knows if it’s even true. But maybe in 3 years all traces of him will be gone from my life and I’ll accept that the scar has healed and I’ll stop looking for it.

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