After the rape, my home no longer felt safe. Sometimes, at night, I’d sit outside on the front porch rather than be inside as I waited for my new husband to come home from work. Inside everything was still the same—but nothing was the same. Nothing would ever be the same.
Before that night, I thought that my home was a refuge. That once I got home, closed the curtains, I was safe from whatever evil walked the streets. Afterward, the creak of every floorboard sounded like a warning—he was back, and there was no way out. He was in every room that had the lights out. I slept lightly, with the lights on and a gun under my pillow. Sometimes I didn’t sleep at all. n
What many people don’t understand is that the fear and the terror don’t end when the rapist leaves—it grows like a cancer, slowly consuming life as I knew it. In the aftermath, I grieved the loss of certainty. The loss of ease. The loss of walking through the world without the shadow of fear lurking in every corner.
Justice did not erase the trauma. It did not restore safety or trust. I carried a gun on dates. I had whoever I was out with search the closets when I got home. The rapist was in jail, but at the same time he dwelled in every room in my house, every room in my soul.
People sometimes believe that survivors of rape are permanently broken. That’s not the full story. Survivors adapt. We carry scars, but we also carry resilience. We learn that courage and fear can exist together. That we got ourselves out and could do it again.
For a long while, I imagined my sense of ease in the world had been stolen forever. But eventually, I believed I was courageous and had the power to bring evil down.