Ricochet Red's Story

Rape. Yes, I am a victim of rape. I refuse to be silent about it. I refuse to let the world be silent about something that happens way too often.

I was five when I told my mom what my dad was doing to me. I was lucky. I was still five when the small town court let him go free as they couldn't fathom that a man they worked with every day could do something so heinous to a little girl they all knew. I was five when we were paid by the jurors to help move away because they felt so bad for letting him go. I was six when my father stalked us, three states away, and I had to use a fake name for the first time. All I knew from that point on was a new school and new name. I never kept friends for long. I couldn't. I was always the new kid and was bullied at every school I went to.

I was nine when I requested to stop going to therapy. It took a long time to understand that it wasn't my fault,  and although I was strong in my resolution to overcome it, I struggled for a very long time. Depression, anxiety, terrors...

I was 16 when I told a room full of practical strangers what had happened to me. To this day, I can't tell you why I did... But I was given an opportunity and am lucky to have taken it. I felt the pain and weight leave me that day. That was the day that I truly realized that what happened to me wasn't my fault and shouldn't be hidden. Hiding what happens lets the guilty get away with it. What is even more incredible is that the second I did, I saw sympathy in the eyes of my crowd. Not the accusation and blame I had feared my whole life I would see.  

Throughout my entire life, I knew I was lucky. Lucky to have spoken out at such a young age. Lucky to have made it stop. Lucky to have had someone listen. Lucky to have gotten away. No matter how hard the struggle was, I SURVIVED. I am lucky... and hope that with every time I share my story that it will help someone else decide to speak out.