Leaving it All Behind - 1. Chapter 1

Title: I Still Wake Up Screaming
By: Rose Strailo

Warning: I speak about rape and the resulting events that such actions cause, including nightmares, victim blaming, depression, and the way it can affect some families.

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I still wake up screaming, clawing at my face, chest and stomach, trying to get the phantom touches to stop. I claw until I’ve caused my blood to bead from the scratches and raised red welts that would stay on my body for hours after, stinging as my shirts rubbed against them. I can’t stop my self and even as I take a shower, I end up scrubbing my skin raw as I continue to try to get rid of the phantom touches. The moment I step out of the shower, I’m still rubbing at my pink, sensitive skin, but not as much.

I still have the scars from those nights that I wake up screaming.

I had figured out that I was a lesbian when I was in my freshmen year, and had tried to hide it. I suppose I didn’t do quite as good of a job as I had thought I had. I can still hear the words that one friend made, offering me an ear to listen when I needed it. It made me smile at the fact that I did have someone then, but now, I don’t even have her because I had to hide from everyone.

While I hid, I went to the internet to find the information about how to come out to your parents without seeming like a complete disappointment to them. I guess that didn’t work out, huh? My mother can’t stand to look at me. My father doesn’t touch. The rest of my family calls me a slut and Satan’s child. Only my cat stands by me in this house, and she has become my source of strength against the words that spill out of their mouths. It makes me cringe and hurt, each word like a whip upon my already bloody soul.

I found someone on there. I found someone who was there as I tried to figure things out. I found someone who betrayed me. I had finally agreed to meet her after a year of chatting online, getting advice and building my confidence in myself and in her. She was good at what she did to. She made me feel like I was so special and loved, that she really did care about me. It was all a lie. The illusion that lie built around me shattered that day, the very day that I was raped by her.

It was painful and horrifying. I couldn’t fight her off; the drug-laced drink that she had given me was working against me, making me weak. I found out later that the drug she used was something called Rohypnol, or a roofie. I just know that it made my limbs heavy and my head hazy, making me weaker than I was.

I once vowed to never let someone do that to me, to get me so drunk, or so high that I couldn’t fight them off or say no, but in one night, that vow was broken because I had been stupid and gave my trust to a virtual stranger. I think that’s what hurt the most. That I lied to myself and ended up hurt because of it.
Even as I set pen to paper to write my last words, I stare at picture that I have kept since I got it.

My girlfriend and I stare back at me. At the time it was taken, we had been best friends. I had loved her then and I still love her now. I wonder how badly she would take the thoughts that swirl around my head, drowning me in my sadness. She loved me then and she still loves me now, even though she is with another. He’s a sweet guy and he treats her well, but still I want to be in his place, by her side, in her bed.

Shaking my head, I stare at the bottle so close to my hands. They signify the start of my escape. I can’t stay anymore. It hurts too much to remember the pain, the humility, the coldness that I received when I told the police my story. The very fact that they didn’t believe me when I told them that I had been raped by another woman made my belief in others die a horrible death. It was a wake up call that topped all wake up calls.

If you are hurt no one will stand by your side. No one will call you friend and no one will be willing to call you lover. You are nothing more than damaged goods and who should believe damaged goods?

I swipe at my eyes, brushing the tears harshly away from my eyes as I stare at the report from the police. I know that they still don’t believe me, but they are now looking into my case, as forced by the Arizona state court system. I don’t care any more. Their coldness has already done its job of eating away at any hope that I had to have a normal life.

Standing up, I close my journal and lay my pen on top of it, closing the story of my life with a few last words. Goodbyes mostly, but also a quote from a song that I’ve come to love in the past few months as I began my downward spiral.

“I hurt myself today, to see if I still feel. I focus on the pain, the only thing that’s real. The needle tears a hole, the old familiar sting. Try to kill it all away, but I remember everything,” I sing softly to myself as I swallow a handful of pills that I’ve been hording for the past three months, tears starting to slide down my face.

My nightmares have gotten so bad that I’ve gotten to the point of taking sleeping pills at night. My mother doesn’t want to see the evidence of them, so she fills the prescription for me, and gives them to me, never watching me take them. So, the moment I knew I had to escape from everything, I started to horde them in a little shoe box under my bed. I quickly finish taking the pills, one by one, before picking up my sweet cat with a soft sigh, knowing that they would take effect quickly.

As I hug her one last time, she meows piteously at me, her yellow green eyes looking up at me with sadness, or so I think. She has been there for me for so long, through the good and the bad, through the rape and the subsequent nightmares and depression, through the coldness that I encountered with every plea for help, she was my strength. Never judging and always there for me in her own way.

“Take care of mom for me, Fluffball,” I tell her softly, before setting her out into the hall. Closing my door, I flip my stereo on, before turning to my journal, making sure that it was just the way I wanted it to sit on my desk. Looking around, I can feel the pills start to kick in. Getting up onto the chair gingerly, I slip the noose around my neck and smile to myself sadly. My father was going to be mad when he found out I used a length of his climbing rope.

“Now I lay me down to sleep and pray the lord my soul to keep,” I slur to myself before closing my eyes. I kick the chair away from me clumsily. And with a snap of a rope and a jerk of a neck, I escape from it all. I end the pain, the cold looks and the nightmares that haunted me for so long. I’m finally free as I leave this world behind.

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Rape is very, very serious and so is suicide. I got all my information about the things talked about in this story in the following list:
Rohypnol (Flunitrazepam): http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flunitrazepam
Rape: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape
Rape Trauma Syndrome: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rape_Trauma_Syndrome
Victim Blaming: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victim_blaming

Basic disclaimer: I don’t own the song “Hurt” which was originally sung by Nine Inch Nails and covered by Johnny Cash, or the child’s prayer that was used.

The entire prayer is as follows:
Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray thee, Lord, my soul [or "thy child"] to keep;
If I should die before I wake,
I pray thee, Lord, my soul to take.
May angels watch me through the night
and wake me with the morning light.
Guard me while I sleep tonight,
And wake me safe at dawn's first light.
Guide and guard me through the night,
And give me rest till morning's light.
Dear Jesus, please be at my side
To light and guard and rule and guide.
God bless Mommy; Daddy, too,
And help me to always be true to you.
Thy love guard me through the night
And wake me with the morning light.