It’s a weird feeling not knowing the man who raped you. You know you were raped. You know a man did it, but you don’t know who. You can try and piece the puzzle together, but I simply don’t have enough information. The only thing I have are three solid facts: his first name, he had ran a half marathon and he was a wall plasterer. Everything else is fuzzy, he could be 5’5 or 5’11. He could’ve been 23 or 25. He could have blond hair or maybe light brown. Even though I saw him leave the next morning my brain simply won’t let me remember his face.
When you have no idea who hurt you, have no way of healing. You can’t say, “that’s the guy who did it!” There’s no way you can get legal justice against an unknown stranger. You hate yourself for being a naive 19 year old who didn’t understand why he kept offering you drinks. You hate that you were too drunk to remember the walk back. You hate yourself for freezing and not having the voice to say no. You hate that you eventually stopped fighting as he pushed your head down for what you think might’ve been the fifth that night. You also hate that your Catholic school education taught you nothing about consent. That they taught you that those who lead people into sin are as guilty as those who commit the sin themselves. You hate that they made you think just because you flirted, you’re just as guilty as the man who raped you.
You channel your anger at professors and administrators who you felt did the bare minimum. You feel the angriest at a professor who failed to make a Title IX report after you disclosed. To her credit she did file a student concern report after hearing from a secondary source that I had a “traumatic” time abroad. However, even after she filed a report knowing I had a traumatic experience, she was relentless. After numerous email exchanges, she kept emailing me and saying I didn’t have a “valid reason” to drop a course, whose content focused on the country I was assaulted in. If she felt something traumatic enough happened to file a report against me, she apparently did not feel it was traumatic enough to be a “valid reason” for not wanting to take the course. After she kept repeating the fact that I had no “valid reason,” I felt pressured to disclose. It was only then that I received an accommodation to take a course at Notre Dame. My accommodation was short-lived as being surrounded by unfamiliar male classmates drove me to nonstop flashbacks every class, which contributed to my eventual diagnosis of PTSD. Eventually, I had to make the choice to drop my beloved second major, as my options were to stay in a class of constant flashbacks or take a course focusing solely on the country assault.
It wasn’t until a year later while talking to Title IX that I learned that the assault I disclosed to my professor, a mandated reporter, was never reported. For some reason after hearing a student disclose an assault, this professor decided the best course of action was to do nothing. The only record the school had on file was that indirect and undescriptive information from a secondary individual, which had no mention sexual violence. Who knows what other kinds of support I could’ve received if the school had a direct report of sexual violence, rather than vague secondary information.
While I know this professor and the institution is not fully to blame, I can’t help it. I feel let down. I have blamed myself since the day it happened. And when you finally find someone other than yourself who you can blame, you pounce on the opportunity. All you want is an apology and acknowledgement from someone who truly harmed you. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I can never get justice. I will never find the man who hurt me. I can never get my major back. I am writing this on the two-year anniversary of my assault. Everyone around me gets to move on, but I never do.
Editor's Note: due to the sensitive nature of this letter the author was granted anonymity.
Apr. 28
