Welcome to the SpeakOut! Blog

Break the silence that surrounds sexual assault, sexual harassment, interpersonal violence, relationship abuse, stalking, hate crimes, and identity-based violence. Share your story here on our anonymous blog.

To speak about an experience with any form of interpersonal violence is difficult, but it is also empowering. Breaking the silence reduces shame and helps others to speak out about their own experiences.

End the shame. Be empowered. Speak Out!

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We are holding our spring Speak Out! on April 16th, 2018 from 7-9 pm in The Pit. For more information, check our Facebook page.

Because this blog features stories of interpersonal and sexual violence, we offer this *content warning* as a way of caution. We also ask that you do not reproduce any of the content below, as the authors of these personal stories are anonymous, and cannot give consent for their stories to appear anywhere other than this blog or at a Project Dinah-led SpeakOut event.

Saturday, December 6, 2014

It was a frat party. Don't tell me I was dumb for drinking the pj, because I've already heard it and I already know it. I'd been to this house a few times, and knew some of the brothers as great guys. I felt comfortable here, but I shouldn't have. It was alumni weekend, and the place was crowded. I split up from my friends to ask a brother, one that I didn't know but had seen around, to show me to a restroom other than the one that was overflowing with people (and a questionable-looking floor). He took me somewhere, saying something to another brother on the way there. I was lead down a hallway on the main floor to a restroom, and turned to say thanks to the brother who lead me when I was pushed backwards into the room. Before the door was shut and locked, the brother I'd asked came in - along with two other guys I'd never seen. They started saying shit. About how a girl doesn't ask a brother for the bathroom unless she's a slut. About how they were alumni and they 'ruled this bitch.' Whether they were talking about me or the frat is unclear. 

I told them I just wanted to go to the restroom while they pulled their polos out of their pants. I told them I wasn't a whore while they unbuckled their belts. I told them my friends would be looking for me as they pushed down their pants. And I told them I didn't want it as they pinned me to the floor and shoved their body parts inside of me. 

I'd sworn when I was younger that I wouldn't be another statistic. I'd been molested by my grandfather throughout my childhood and I'd heard that people who were abused previously were more likely to be abused again. As I lay there, one man holding my wrists, another my feet, while the third... my mind swirled, wondering if it was a nightmare, like I so often have. I thought about the bathroom - how white it was, a brother had left their toiletry bag on the counter, the toilet needed cleaning. I tried to think of everything except what was happening. I left the room after they were done with me - throat hoarse, clothes and hair a mess, face smeared with tears and other things. They'd taken me, taken my ability to say no, and taken my dignity. They'd degraded me and ruined me. 

I didn't tell the police. I told my close friends, and they tried to get me to, but after the court cases with my granddad and the humiliation, anger, and depression I felt when he was acquitted of every charge against him, I didn't feel like going through that again. I didn't want to feel like a monkey in a cage again. 

I haven't gotten over it completely. I've had breakdowns while intoxicated. I've been irrationally frightened of men for next to no reason - other than that I've been physically harmed too many times by the male sex to trust anyone fully without years of proof that they aren't going to hurt me. I'm not one of those people who goes around telling their story to incriminate the Greek system or men in general. I'm a member of the Greek system and I still know a lot of great men. But I don't feel safe at Carolina anymore. Not just because of being raped. But because of the nonchalant - or worse - victim-blaming attitudes that I have encountered. Rape culture exists, and it exists here. 

Thursday, December 4, 2014

We weren’t even dating. We had been an on again off again couple my freshman year of high school. He was older than me and I thought that was cool and that made me someone to have someone older like me. He had randomly called me one day and asked me if I wanted to hang out. I was all for it--anything to get away from home (my parents were in the process of dragging out a long and bitter divorce. They were still living together at this point). I just thought we were going to drive around and talk, which we did…initially. I wasn’t paying attention to where we were going, just spilling my guts out to him about how miserable I was. Next thing I knew we were pulling into some sort of truck holding area (a year or so later I discovered where he took me). We were talking and next thing I knew he was telling me how much he missed me and was trying to pull me closer to him. I was guarded since we weren’t dating and kind of just ignored him. He begged me for oral. I told him no. He pulled my head down to his crotch. I sprung back up and tell him no again. He told me he wasn’t taking me anywhere (aka back home) until he got what he wanted. I felt so trapped. After a while and after more repeated requests, I did what he asked and he drove me home. We never went out again needless to say. I felt disgusted with myself. Maybe if I had waited him out longer none of it would have ever happened. I should have known what he wanted calling me up like that. I was naïve and stupid. I told my mom what happened. She used it as ammunition against my father; lying to him and telling him that I said he was cut from the same cloth as that guy (I’m not a fan of my father at all but I never said that). I only learned about that after my father confronted me about it. I felt betrayed all over again, this time by my mother who I told that to in confidence and she swore she wouldn’t tell anyone. Then my issue disappeared and they argued amongst themselves again. A few months (probably closer to a year) after it happened I get a call from the guy. Evidently he had been at my dad’s house and my dad had told him how that was unacceptable behavior (how you have a civil conversation about that, I’m not sure). The guy called me and cussed me out and said he did nothing wrong and that I was a willing participate. All I could say was “no means no” and I hung up the phone. I still had to see him around school and unfortunately he hung out with the same people I did, so I saw him even after he graduated. I’d like to say I’m over it. I’m not over it, I’ve just moved past it. I still think about it from time to time which makes me mad at myself to even let him and that situation enter my mind. It’s almost like he still has the control, even when I haven’t spoken/seen him in years.