LIFE AFTER RAPE

 

I was only 20 years old and just wanted to have a good night with my mates. We were having a pretty good time and went to the club at about 10:30, as usual. At about 1 am, I got into an argument with my best mate about her boyfriend and went outside the club . This was when my attacker came across me sitting on the edge of the pavement. He came up to me and asked me why I was upset. He seemed nice enough and calmed me down: I'd got myself really wound up. Afterwards, I always wondered why my judgement was so bad, he seemed so nice.He said he'd help me find the rest of my friends and  I went off with him. After all I had no reason not to trust him. He led me to an uncompleted building saying he could hear voices and I wondered where we were going. I got a bit upset and he said it was OK and kissed me. I was OK at this point, a little wary I suppose, but then he started getting more intense and I started panicking. I knew from then what he was going to do. The next thing I know I was telling him "no" and getting more and more upset until I was physically pushing him away from me. He was too strong for me and I was extremely distressed at this point. He then raped me, holding me down. 

Six weeks later , I was getting worried. No period, constantly going to the toilet and feeling sick,  I'd split up with my boyfriend two days after the rape, using an excuse, because  I could not bear to be touched by anyone especially a male so I knew that since I had not slept with anyone at all, if I was pregnant it had to be for my attacker. I moved out of  the area because I couldn't stand the shame of being pregnant. I miss my boyfriend  but he kept on writing me assuring me how much he loved me and begging me to come back to him not knowing I was pregnant . 

I was going to have a baby, friends advised that I didn't have to have to give birth to the child , that I could abort it. I remember thinking, I can't die now, I have to take care of my baby. Not that animal's, but MINE. It was my baby and I would take care of what is mine. So I pulled myself together, walled up the unpleasant memories, and prepared my life for my baby. The first time I felt him move, there was such joy in my heart, all the pain was forgotten for a time. Those that knew the story kept asking me how I could bare to give birth to that animal's child. Some one from my church even went so far as to tell me it was the "spawn of the devil." I never felt that way, not for an instant. My baby was a precious gift to me from My Heavenly  father. My mom was great, she supported me and wanted the baby as much as I did. My brothers, while angry at the circumstances that brought my pregnancy about, eagerly awaited the birth.

I couldn't respond to any of my boyfriend's mails because i didn't want him to find me nor tell him what had happened, I knew he wouldn't want me, but I didn't want him to hear it from someone else, so my mom called him and told him. He still loved me and still wanted me, baby and all. He came up to where I lived and went through labor and delivery with me. He was there for me and my son. He put his name on the birth certificate as the baby's father. We got married two and a half months later.We have been married for almost fourteen years and have a total of five children now.
 I managed to suppress the feeling from the rape until just recently. After the attacks I became very fat so that no one will rape me again if I become shapeless, right?!. I don't want to deal with these feelings now anymore than I wanted to deal with them then; however, I realized I must. I have allowed  that bastard to control me long enough. My husband deserves a whole wife and my children a whole mother. I deserve to be whole again.

I hope that by writing this I will help someone else. We are not alone. There are many of us. We can not allow these things to control our lives. We have each other, those who love us, and yes, we have God. We are all His children. I read once that when a child is hurt, He has to go to the farthest corners of heaven so that He can not hear the cries. While He has the power to stop the actions of others, He will not. One of His greatest gifts to us is the freedom to choose our own way, because of the agency He gave each of us, He is powerless to prevent such occurrences. It isn't Him letting it happen, it is someone else's choice to perform these acts. I know that He cried for, and with each of us, as we suffered. We are His children, He loves us unconditionally.