Zibby Mag

By Amelia Zachry

This article contains information about sexual assault which may be triggering to survivors.

“Why are they coming forward now, after all these years?” The woman who said this was a relatively new friend. I marveled at her expectation of support from the other moms at the table.

Around this time, the women accusing Harvey Weinstein had been in the news, and Christine Blasey Ford had just given her public testimony against Brett Kavanaugh. My friends didn’t trust Blasey Ford’s demeanor. The agreement around the table seemed to be that if something untoward had happened, it would have been addressed long ago.

I found myself cringing at this. I was furious because I held the opposite belief, born of first-hand experience, which is that survivors are unlikely to recount what happened right away. That resolution is never immediate. The women in the room were all suburban moms and this group had become my support system in raising my children — relationships I’d grown to rely on. However, this was the first time the subject of sexual assault had come up and it scared me how much their opinions differed from my own.

At first, I just listened, biting my tongue. I had moved to this city two years earlier and I still felt like a newcomer. I had struggled with isolation before finally finding this group of friends. I wanted to fit in, but I couldn’t stay silent on this topic. Finally, it came out:

“I was raped.”

I saw their eyes widen and a few of them looked down.

“I’m sorry,” said the mom who’d started the conversation, the one looking for verification.

“Thank you. I was nineteen and I didn’t report it or go to anyone about it. So I understand why women don’t report.” She looked at me blankly and I added, “Anyway, that was a lifetime ago.” I wanted to end the conversation. I hadn’t felt this uncomfortable since I could remember. I felt naked, my secret out in the open for everyone to scrutinize.

One of them excused herself. There was an awkward silence at the table.

Twenty years had passed since I’d woke up in a dingy motel room, with condoms on the floor and a singeing pain in my nether regions. There was a man in the room, getting dressed, slow and slackened, a satisfied wolf licking his lips after the thrill of an attack. I walked out of the motel room that night having left a piece of me behind.

I stayed silent about what happened for almost twenty years. Why? my mom friends surely would have wondered. Why didn’t I deal with it immediately? Why didn’t I go to the authorities and make the predator pay for his crime?

Like so many survivors, I believed that telling wouldn’t make a difference and that I’d be more likely to move on if I kept my secret where it was supposed to be — hidden.

I felt naked, my secret out in the open for everyone to scrutinize.

I left the party that night feeling frustrated, knowing that I’d made some of my new friends wary. I hadn’t even come to the other women’s defense. I didn’t get to the part where I explained why I waited — that it’s not as easy as they might think to confront your accuser in the moment or the immediate aftermath. Instead, I abruptly ended the conversation and once I got home I regretted it.

In bed that evening, I recalled the taunts from people who’d been at the bar the night before the incident, fellow students at my university who’d known I’d gone to a hotel with him, but who had no idea I’d been drugged.

“You asked for it!”

“It’s your own damn fault.”

“You were wearing that dress, inviting it.”

“How could you have done that?”

That last comment stung the worst and was the one I believed most over the years. I thought that I had autonomy over my body back then, but I was sorely mistaken. I was no match against the young man who decided to have his way with me that night.

My self-worth was torn from me. I was no longer a good girl, a smart girl, the things my family imagined me to be. I couldn’t trust myself to make any decisions in my life. Instead, I allowed the men I dated to make choices for me. I went along, one foot in front of the other, a zombie in my own life. I’d gotten lucky to find and fall in love with a good man who’d become my husband, but clearly, I was still struggling.

When I woke up the next morning, I had more clarity. It took twenty years for me to finally accept that what happened to me was rape, a violation. I was passed out, likely drugged by my perpetrator, though I will never have proof.

But it was not my fault. This awareness did not come to me in a matter of weeks or a few conversations. It took two decades of replaying and reliving the details of that one dreaded night to make sense of it all. I keep up with therapy to face my demons one week at a time.

I was no match against the young man who decided to have his way with me that night.

This was the first time I’d ever voiced to a group of friends what had happened to me. I am lucky to no longer be absent in my own life, and my family has renewed my sense of purpose. When I considered why it mattered to speak up, I thought about my daughters. I would be failing them to remain silent.

Over coffee, I considered what I could have said to my friends.

Why are they coming forward now, after all these years?

Because the path has finally been lit for women’s truths to emerge.

How do we verify if it ever happened after so much time has passed?

It was harder for her to come forward than it is for you to believe her, however uncomfortable that makes you feel.

I have never been sexually harassed or assaulted, and I don’t even know anyone who has been.

Just because women you know haven’t shared with you their experiences of assault doesn’t mean you don’t know any other woman who’s been a victim.

It took two decades of replaying and reliving the details of that one dreaded night to make sense of it all.

A wave of calm came over me, and I felt a new emotion about speaking out: pride. I had shed light on something they knew nothing about. Perhaps it would change their viewpoints to consider that someone they knew had been assaulted.

I will no longer be silent; voicing my truth is something I do as much for my daughters as myself. I am showing them what it looks like to speak up. In claiming what happened to me, I’m also claiming the pieces of me that were stolen after my assault. I am different because of what happened, but I am still me. And I share what happened to me so that other women can know it’s safe for them to come forward too. This is the power of #MeToo.

One in six women in America will be a survivor of attempted or completed rape in her lifetime according to the Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (RAINN). The more of us who say out loud what happened, the more we give voice and visibility to these transgressions. The more we change the conversations at our dinner tables, the closer we move toward eradicating the toxic rape culture we live in.

I want a freer future for my daughters, and for all girls, where women’s experiences are valued and honored.

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Amelia Zachry (she/her) is the author of Enough, a memoir-in-progress encompassing themes of family, immigration, mental illness, and surviving sexual assault. When she’s not writing, she can be found enjoying time with her two rambunctious daughters. Originally from Malaysia, Amelia now calls Lexington, Kentucky, home, and she can be found on ameliazachry.com and on Facebook and Instagram at @browngirlcrazyworld