Mary Kate O.
Photography by Caroline MacLaren
Please note: In this letter, I discuss my experience with sexual assault. If you believe this topic will be triggering for you, I encourage you to take care of yourself and be prepared to access any resources you may need. The RAINN National Sexual Assault Hotline is available 24/7 at (800) 656-4673 or at www.rainn.org
If you’re reading this, it’s okay to just survive.
I follow an account on Instagram called @tanksgoodnews, and each time they post it’s typically a beautiful story of someone making the best out of a terrible situation– like an amputee that became a marathon runner, or someone whose house burned down in a fire that became a firefighter. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing but respect for those who are able to take a traumatic event in their life and turn it into a positive or some sort of important learning experience, but if you’re reading this, please know that you don’t have to. Not everyone is capable of doing this nor does every negative need to become a positive. There’s so much pressure to bounce back better than ever when something bad happens, but if all you’re able to do is work your way back, that’s enough. Sometimes horrible things happen for seemingly no reason at all, and if you’re not able to find something inspiring in all of that – that’s okay. If all you’re able to do is survive, that’s okay.
At the beginning of the second semester of my freshman year, I was sexually assaulted. I remember waking up the next morning. I was nauseous and confused. Was I remembering everything correctly? That didn’t actually happen, did it? It did. I remember telling my friends – joking about it even. “Can you believe I hooked up with x?” I brushed off their clear concern because it was much easier to laugh about it than it was to accept what had happened to me. From there, I spiraled. To sit in what I was feeling was awful and painful, so I tried everything to feel anything but that. During that entire month of spinning out of control, there was one question I repeatedly asked myself and those around me – What am I doing? This isn’t me.
I now know that this was a normal response to trauma. When I finally realized that what I wanted to believe was a drunken mistake was actually sexual assault, a month had already passed. One thought continued to echo through my mind: Why would anyone else believe me when I don’t even want to believe me? Even once I was able to recognize what had happened to me, next came the issue of reporting, which would only make it more real. I could already hear what the boys in my dorm would say if I chose to come forward: “Free my man, he didn’t do sh*t;” “She’s a sl*t;” or “She was asking for it!” The worst part is that none of these are thoughts I hadn’t already said to myself. So what good would it do to have to hear other people say them, too? I didn’t want to call an adult for help and say something I couldn’t take back. I eventually worked my way through reporting my assault, but I was so frustrated by all of the red tape of the Title IX Office that I wanted to tear it all down and rebuild so that other people wouldn’t have to feel the shame and the fear that I did.
In my attempt to reform the system that I felt had hurt me, I did projects, wrote letters, talked to professors, and emailed our Title IX Coordinator. I was going to try and change the culture surrounding sexual assault on our campus. But I was so busy trying to fix our campus, I wasn’t working on fixing myself. I was neglecting my own healing process because it was easier to fix something else than it was to process and work on my own emotions. I wanted to show myself and the rest of the world that I was so strong and was making the best of a bad situation, but I wasn’t. I suffered greatly from depression and PTSD, and I still struggle today. I eventually realized that I wasn’t going to be the person that could turn their story into a positive one. I had trouble finding the silver lining or gleaning any kind of life lesson from my experience. Soon enough, I realized that none of that was necessary. I realized that even if the most inspiring thing you can do on the bad days is get out of bed, that’s more than okay. If all you can do in the moment is survive, that is okay.
So, Villanova, if you’re reading this, know that there is strength and beauty in simply surviving and that I, for one, am so proud of you for doing that.
Mary Kate O., Villanova University
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