Dear Me Too Letters,

My multiple-offender rape happened at 17. I was in high school and I told no one. Parts of me died that night. I was intoxicated, unconscious and woke up in an all-male athletic college dorm, being assaulted with an audience there to watch, and another college guy waiting and prepared. I was talking to them inside a bar on Bourbon Street (snuck there with a friend) and next came a total blackout. I am and always will be, haunted by them being able to view and touch my bare body while unconscious. It never goes away... even 36 years later. To this day, I fear exposure. My life-long insomnia, confidence and ability to one-day become a divorced, single mother has all been affected. There are so many parts of my son’s life that I can never get back. I didn’t become a Registered Nurse until the age of 40. My silence, my shame.... it saved them. With the help of social media and a college football program from 1984 on eBay I found the 4 boys (now aging men with gray hair and grandfathers) responsible. I confronted them by sending a pic of my 17 year old self via text or email. It was like writing a victim impact statement. I went from not knowing their names, to recognizing one set of eyes in that program. I was finally able to tell them “I KNOW WHAT YOU DID TO ME, and I’ll NEVER be able to forget it”. Sometimes, you never know what will lead you to closure and forgiving yourself for the years of silence and shame. I finally, after 35 years, reported to authorities and I found the courage to tell my now-aging parents, which is a story in and of itself, my husband and grown children. Back then, my offenders and my shame robbed me of seeking medical care, much needed mental health that I so desperately needed. I felt powerless and degraded as I crawled on that dorm room floor looking for one of my shoes; which I now know, they threw it out a window. IT WAS MY SHOE, and I mourned it’s loss as well. That sense of imbalance surrounded much of my life. The awful bruising they left on my thighs remain scattered on each vital organ of my being. My poetic justice... as one of them stated last year..”I’ve had you in my mind forever.” And that was a text message. That night, they robbed even themselves of realizing that they will one day have daughters of their own.. and they did. For me, they no longer rob me of anything. I am free, and no longer feel like I’m at the scene of my crime. I felt unprepared last year as I saw pictures of them along with much of the details. I’m finding healing in therapy, even now, in my early fifties.

Today, I am much stronger for sharing my story, disclosing and confronting them. If my story helps just one survivor, I’ll know that each vulnerable moment, throughout this journey, has been worth it.