9/27/2000: A Memory From Twenty Years Ago
**Warning: This blog post addresses the sensitive topic of sexual assault. If you feel you may be triggered by this content, please do not continue reading.
September 27, 2000
Wednesday – 4PM
Venice, ItalyThis city is so calm and peaceful. Maybe it’s the lull of the water constantly in motion. It’s so easy to get lost here in the maze of canals and small side streets. It feels as though you’re never really sure where you are or what you’ll see around the next corner – a beautiful bridge, a delicious candy shop, a store with brightly colored glass. This city has mystery, and I could feel it the minute I left the train station…
…Life is good! I am excited about everything coming up in my life! I can finally be myself and reach for everything I have always wanted. No boundaries – only opportunities. I have never felt this confident and this happy. Energy flows to every part of my body and I have such POWER!!!…
… My truest wish is that I will be able to take all of this energy and all of these experiences and use it to propel forward. Everything I’ve always wanted to be and to accomplish is right here within my grasp for the first time…
I wrote those words exactly twenty years ago today, sitting beside a canal in Venice. I was literally having the time of my life, and I was certain amazing things were just around the corner for me.
I don’t have enough words to describe how much that trip had meant to me up to that moment. Two full months in Europe by myself. No one fully understands it except maybe God and my own soul, but I was happy. I had found something inside myself during that trip that felt like a beginning. Something great.
Shortly after writing that in my journal, though, I walked into an internet cafe on the Rialto Bridge, where its American owner introduced me to “two nice Air Force guys” on vacation. Americans! We should all hang out and explore the city together! Oh what I would pay to rewind time to that exact moment and have the opportunity to choose again. To take a different path.
Later that night, one of those guys followed me into a bathroom. For a brief moment, I actually laughed, thinking he was confused. To this day, twenty years later, I still have nightmares where I swear I can feel this huge man lifting my feet off the ground and ramming my head into the low ceilings. I pray to God I never again have to experience the mixture of horror and helplessness that overcame me in that moment or the devastating violence that followed for the next few hours. [And please, please God, NEVER let my children ever know that feeling.
I had to cut my trip-of-a-lifetime short, of course, and again, there’s no way to even explain what I went through over those next few days as I had to write and tell my story a dozen times and be poked and prodded. Even if I tell the story, there’s no way to express what it felt like. What it meant or how it hurt.
How it changed me or broke me into a million pieces that would never quite go back together the same way again.
When I got home, I was so alone. Lost.
Being raped is like experiencing the death of the closest person to you, only no one knows it. There are no flowers or condolences. You are not allowed to wear black and cry for decades.
Instead, you suffer silently, putting on a mask each day when you face the world, pretending to be yourself and failing, even, at that.
I remember walking around thinking, how is no one else changed? How is everyone else just acting like nothing happened? How did this not leave a mark on the whole world???
Even those who knew refused to discuss it. It’s not an easy topic to discuss, is it? I have a greater understanding now, all these years later, of why it was as hard for me to heal as it was. A few years ago, someone I wished had been there for me, instead told me I should have considered how much my experience had hurt those around me. Hadn’t I ever considered that?
No, I’m sorry. I never considered how my experience hurt those around me who knew. I was drowning, and the last thing I could have done was offer a liferaft to the person watching me from the boat. I think now that maybe it hurt them because they wanted me to stay the same, and I simply couldn’t.
The guy called “B” had ripped the light from my eyes, and I thought I would never get it back.
I kept moving, putting one foot in front of the other, because that’s what you do. I went to grad school, and I tried.
Slipping back into my old dreams, though, was like trying to slip back into an old favorite dress only to find it no longer fit.
I lived alone, and I would often walk home from class and daydream about what it would be like to take two steps to the right and tumble off the sidewalk into the traffic on Meridian. Would it be enough to kill me?
And when I would get home, I would pull out the vodka and roll a joint, staring all the while at the bottle of pills, wondering just how many it would take.
I’m honestly not sure how I survived. A new friend, Julie, who I’ve sadly lost touch with. She helped save me even though she didn’t know. Mall dates with Kylene, and hanging out with Kim and Kevin. My voice teacher at the time, Steven, telling me that if I didn’t get help immediately through therapy, he’d kick me out of the program. Up until then, I thought I’d been hiding it pretty well, which I know now was a joke.
(In fact, I wonder now why more people who had known me before Europe hadn’t asked me if I was okay.)
My friend Ian. A Dave Matthews Band CD my friend Megan had given me. The chance to study with Claudia Waite. Being close to Bethany. A million tiny things to be grateful for now that kept me from the worst thoughts.
The military, of course, tried to sweep it under the rug. “Insufficient evidence” despite my torn clothing and concussion, or the fact that he’d immediately fled the country. (And more that’s too shameful to even write about.) Oddly enough, they returned my clothes, but they kept my camera. And the Vanderbilt watch I’d gotten for graduation. All of my photos from that part of the trip.
And I went on, shattered and trying to put myself back together with pieces of tape. A wedding! A new job! A pretty house! At times, I almost convinced myself I was doing okay.
It’s a gift to look back now and see that God / Goddess / The Universe simply would not allow me to settle there in that broken shadow of a life. Instead, She burned my house down. Twice.
The first time it happened, it was a storm that did it. Maybe a personification of the anger I refused to indulge in.
We got back to my parents’ house late that night, covered in soot and wet from the rain. Exhausted to the core when the phone rang. An officer in Japan asked my father if he remembered a man named _____ B_____. My father tensed and handed the phone to me.
For four years, this guy had been living his life, travelling and being a good soldier (according to his records), but now, he’d hurt the wrong woman. A fellow soldier who’d been brave enough to report him. And she’d gotten all the way up to trial without anyone even knowing I existed…until a paralegal read a single line in “B”s file from his CO that said, “Apart from the incident in Italy…” “Wait, what incident in Italy?” she wondered.
Yes, me.
The moment that had nearly taken my life a hundred times since that night, 9/27/2000, had been reduced to a single mention in his file of an ‘Incident in Italy’. Thankfully, the paralegal flew to DC to find my statement from 2000, at which point they asked me to testify.
I know in my heart it was no coincidence that fire took my home and many of my possessions on the same day that call came in. I have since come to call those kinds of moments ‘synchronicities’. Winks from some higher power that there are greater forces at work than I could ever understand.
Less than a year later, I flew across the world alone again. This time to Japan to testify at his trial. Although he was not officially convicted for what he did to me, I got a chance to stand up against him, and my testimony helped a jury to convict him of raping the other woman. Her courage gave me a voice after all those years, and I hope she knows just how much I love her.
“B” was sentenced to 8 years in prison, and I came back from that Japan trip, expecting life to be different somehow. Only, it wasn’t. I was asked to step right back into my old life, but I think I was finally at least searching for moments of joy and purpose (and mostly coming up empty).
So, The Universe burned my house down again. And worse this time. The fire marshall said the fire had likely been smoldering in the attic for a long while, and that if we hadn’t had high ceilings in that house, we’d probably never have woken up.
I should have died that night.
And because I didn’t, maybe some part of me, deep down, decided that someone up there wanted me to live. That maybe I had something I was put on this earth to do, and it was time for me to start doing it.
Which is where my husband, George, came into the picture. That timing was no coincidence, either. After Venice, I had stopped believing in love or that any good thing was really meant for me, but when George and I fell in love, it was like someone switched that light back on inside of me.
Either that or he was the first person in years who could still see it when he looked at me.
He was definitely the first person to let me rest my head on his shoulder and just cry. Just talk about it all. (which he still does when I need it…)
“B” was sentenced to 8 years in prison, served 5, and was released on my birthday in 2010. Later that same year, I had the word “Believe” tattooed on my wrist and published my first book, “Beautiful Demons”.
Somewhere along the way, with the help and encouragement of someone who truly loved me, I had made a decision. I was not going to die. Not yet. And I was not going to let that one “incident in Italy” steal the rest of my future from me.
Step by tiny step, I allowed myself to be healed. I allowed the trueness inside of me to shine its light and lead the way.
I will forever be grateful to those who listened over the years. To those who believed in me or held me close. (You know who you are, even if we no longer speak on a regular basis. Thank you.)
Twenty years is a long time. It’s still not long enough to completely let go or stop mourning what happened to me, but I am able to sit here now and finally say that I can feel that excitement again.
…Life is good! I am excited about everything coming up in my life! I can finally be myself and reach for everything I have always wanted. No boundaries – only opportunities. I have never felt this confident and this happy. Energy flows to every part of my body and I have such POWER!!!…
I have fought so hard to get back to this place of joy, where I can see something inside myself again that’s exciting and true. Where I don’t feel like I have to pretend, anymore, and I can live in the truth of who I am.
And to be honest, even saying that now scares me. What if my own joy and power in that moment invited that tragedy? What if I am somehow responsible?
Through therapy, I’m slowly realizing now all the ways I have kept myself small. The game I’ve played with myself, reaching to feel the sun on my face without growing so tall as to draw the attention of anyone who would want to cut me down.
Even twenty years later, healing is a process.
I’m taking some time today to mourn, still, the loss of what might have been or who I might have been. I cry for the girl I was and for all that she had to go through to get to where I am now. But most of all, I grieve for all of the millions of women who have been through this or something similar. Or in many cases, something much worse.
If you know someone in your life who has been through something like this, please don’t assume that just because they put on a brave face that they are doing okay. (even years later. This kind of trauma leaves deep scars.) Please don’t let your fear of being awkward or saying the wrong thing keep you from asking them if they need help. Or just telling them they are loved.
It’s not an easy topic to talk about for anyone, but I wonder sometimes if it would have been a lot easier if I had gotten more support from the start.
And if you have been through something like this, please know that I am holding space for you today, too. Whether it’s been twenty days for you or twenty years, it’s not something you ever really “get over”.
It’s not your fault.
You are not alone.
You don’t have to suffer in silence.
I love you.
I’m so sorry this happened.
You are loved.
You are so loved.
Even if you feel broken, you are loved.
Your story is not over.
I am making a donation today to RAINN, a wonderful organization who helps survivors of this kind of trauma and assault. If you need help or would like to also make a donation, you can learn more on their website here.
If you’ve made it this far, I just want to say thank you for being a witness to my experience. Thank you for holding space for me today on this twentieth year.
I’m writing this to mark the passage of time, but I’m also writing it to celebrate myself. I’m writing this to say:
I’m still here.
I will not be defined by that moment, or any of my lowest points.
My light did not go out, no matter how hard you tried to take it from me.
Despite you or anyone else, I will let my light shine.
If you want to read more about my experience or hear more about the novel I wrote to put some of these feelings to paper about coming home and feeling so alone, even among friends, read this post or download this free book.
Girl, all I can say is-
You are such a beautiful person inside and out. I’m so sorry that so many failed you when they should have been your avenging angels. I’m so happy you have found a way to come around into your joy.
All my love.
Thanks for sharing your story, and I know you can encourage other women experience sexual assault. I served in the military for 4 years thought I never experienced sexual assault but understand how a male can dominate women’s behavior. We women have to teach our children and nieces how to be strong, but still demand respect.
Charmaine
I wish you didn’t have to endure what you did. I wish you would have had support and justice.
But your strength and courage are inspirational.
Thank you for sharing your journey, Sarra! You are a beautiful light in the writing community and I’m so glad you’re strength and perseverance kept you here for all of us to bask in your brightness! You are loved here and appreciated. Xoxo
That is a brave and beautiful article. Beautiful because your amazing light pours forth from it. You’re an amazing woman who inspires me every day with everything you achieve. Your energy and sparkle help me on my bad days when M.E. makes it hard to put finger to keyboard.
He is a nothing and you are everything. You are surrounded by people who admire and care for you. Sending a torrent of love and admiration from the UK.
I´m crying, but thank you for sharing.
My first time was with a guy, I just went on a date with. Everything was lovely, till he took my virginity although I told him over and over again not to do that. The day after, I could barely walk home, hid it from my dad and told my friend that it was passionate – that was why I was bleeding. Months went by and I slept over at a guy friend´s place. That was the first time I opened up. But the same night, he did the same to me. Three, almost four years later and a part of me still thinks it´s my fault. I shouldn´t have trusted. To read what happened to you and how you found happiness whilst healing is incredibly inspiring. Inspiring me to love myself during that healing process. I used to know girls that had similar experiences and went to the police. No justice, just victimshaming. So I decided, I couldn´t be able to go through this. Maybe it was a mistake. But at the time, I suffered horribly under PTSD. And I need to forgive myself for that, for not speaking up like that. What I hate most, is that people consider my opinions about relationships invalid due to my experience. As if I am no longer able to judge anything relationship related, but sometimes it extends to other topics as well. ( deciding to castrate my female dog for example ) Anyway, this is getting long. I just want to thank you and show my similar experiences.
I don’t know the right words to say, but if I knew you, I would just hug you. I feel compelled to write though. Trauma is complex and life-altering, but usually invisible and we suffer in silence. I haven’t been raped but I have had experiences that will always stay with me. When I said something years later about one incident, because I was protecting someone else’s feelings, I was told because they didn’t see it, it probably didn’t happen. There is logic behind not speaking up. And evidence why it sometimes can create even more harm, tragically. Please don’t feel shame for that. The judgment to have perfectly and unemotionally handled the aftermath is not your responsibility. I have learned through pain in many areas of my life, that there are an equal number or more people out there who are emotionally weak and it’s second-nature to them to hurt others in various ways, to make themselves feel worthy, less pain. They are manipulative. They instinctively can recognize those of us that literally think and operate differently, where hurting someone else actually causes more pain, not relief. You did NOTHING wrong. Including trusting. You are wired different, better. You don’t spend your time, I assume, seeking out people that you can manipulate and hurt, or have the potential to do so, because it alleviates your fear of being hurt or controlled. I have spent much of my life projecting onto others that they must feel like I do- that you have everyone’s best interest at heart. I’m waking up through my own pain and experiences, that actually this is not how everybody else operates. It’s a lot of work to live more consciously than unconsciously. But the peace is enormous. As for your opinions being invalidated, I feel for you. I get it. People can only relate to someone to the extent they have experienced similar pain. They don’t understand your wounds and that you’re capable of thoughts that aren’t colored by them. I would be kind, and calm, but mention something to them. Be direct. Literally for the sake of educating them. And for yourself. Because you’re not invisible and your experiences don’t get to rob you of being able to express a valid opinion. I am truly so sorry that you experienced the trauma you did. You did nothing wrong, including how you handled the aftermath. I’m sending you so many warm hugs! You’ll find that happiness again. It just comes in unexpected moments at first and you’ll be more aware of it so it will feel different. It’s lying beneath the pain and anger you need to heal first. Wishing you all the best.
I read this and felt so many different emotions… joy, shock, sadness, anger, relief, hope, love and faith. I am always telling people about my favorite author and how amazing she is as a writer, wife and mother. Now, I KNOW I have been telling them the truth. I wish I could give you a hug and tell you how much you are loved by so many. And, your words and story give strength and hope to those in need. I would love to read a time travel novel in which you get to take a different path and lead “B” towards a more deserving end. As someone with a daughter your same age, I can only imagine and believe I would have, likely, ended up in jail for my actions/reactions. You are a beautiful woman with a true gift. Please, don’t ever give up or ignore that inner light! “Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass… it’s about learning to dance in the rain.”
Hugs!Loads of love . You are an inspiration in so many ways
This brought tears to my eyes again. When you told me this story at Starbucks (last year? two years ago?) I got home later and cried, thinking of you back then. I’m so proud of you for telling this story. Women, we are not alone! I believe in you, Sarra, and all the women out there struggling through these same circumstances. <3
I wish that someone with the heart you have now, had been there for you. To hug you and help you through the pain. So many don’t have that and don’t make it twenty years. I am happy you are a survivor and that I found you for my own sake. You have helped me in so many ways, you can’t imagine how many. I wish there was something I could do for you that might even come close to how much you helped me.
Keep sharing your life the ways you have been. It really helps others, I know, I am one of them.
If I met you in person, I would hug you. I am a good hugger and I pour all the energy I can spare into those hugs. Today, I am giving you and anyone else who needs it, one of those hugs. Hope it helps with a smidgeon of comfort and a tiny modicum of joy.
I’m so sorry you had to go through all this. Thank you for being brave enough to share this with us. It’s really sad that no one even asked you if you were ok in the past, but now you have a whole community that loves you! We love you Sarra and we love everything that you do! I hope that our support can keep inspiring you to let your light shine! 🙂
You are one of the strongest women I’ve ever known, and it is your natural inclination to help others that truly shines in your writing and the way you live your life. Always, you are a dragonfly. ❤️
Sarra, I only had nightmares about that happening, but you actually survived. God bless you. I’m thankful for you getting up every day and moving forward. We never know whose life we touch on our journey and you have touched more lives than you know. I hope your healing continues. Hugs my friend (even if only through the computer).
I am holding space…Thank you for sharing your bravery and for you staying here. You are an inspiration. Continued Blessings❤️♀️
This country does not take sexual assault seriously, if they did prison terms would be longer and number of cases (particularly first time assaults by repeat offenders). Laws in this country need to change.
sorry, meant to finish the thought. Cases of sexual assault would drop drastically, particularly rape by repeat offenders, which most of them are.
Sarra, your story has uplifted so many women in these comments. I am one of them.
You’ve earned your success. You’ve lived to tell the tale. Thanks for sharing this! Sending love from Jamaica <3
How you overcame and fought the horror of what those terrible people did to you (the assault and cover-up) to get to where you are now is beyond inspirational. You are a beautiful person with a beautiful life, including family, friends, and fans who love and adore you. Thank you for sharing your experience with the world to help spread awareness and hope. Much love.
I am so deeply sorry this happened to you and am humbled by the strength and light you have brought to the world despite everything. Your wonderful stories, the inspiration and knowledge you give so freely to the writing community, your generosity of spirit, the communities you build and nourish … your light shines SO bright.
Love and gratitude for you for sharing.
Sarra, you are such a beautiful, strong, sweet, generous woman. Thank you does not even begin to express how much positive light you bring to the world and those you reach. I am so very proud of you for standing up, and being vulnerable enough to tell your story and speak you truth. So many cannot. You deserve all the love, joy, happiness and success in the world. You are a true blessing to so many of us. I for one, will be forever grateful for finding you online. I hope some day that I am granted the pleasure of meeting you in person. Much love and many hugs. I admire you so very much.
Thank you for sharing your story. I hope it helps someone, but I also hope it helped you for writing it. I’m a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, so I know how one minute you can be fine, and the next, you’re down on the floor wondering how to go on.
As you said,
It’s not your fault.
You are not alone.
You don’t have to suffer in silence.
I love you.
I’m so sorry this happened.
You are loved.
You are so loved.
Even if you feel broken, you are loved.
Your story is not over.
Thank you, Sarra for sharing your story, for your strength and courage.
Like Mason S I experienced sexual abuse as a child and more than once as an adult, held down and raped by my husband who was a drunk and took various kinds of drugs.
Sharing your story will help so many who have lost their voice and their hope. You are an angel of light in the darkness.
Not quite the same experience but I understand some of the feelings and emotions. Your bright and kind spirit inspires me as I continue my writing journey. Sending you hugs and blessings.
Tambra Nicole
You are stunning and courageous. Your story has so many layers of trauma, I hold so much respect for you because I know it takes so much inner strength to peel each one back. Even when they flip forward on you years later.
You won’t be able to protect your daughter through everything in life, but you’re already building her a map of how to handle situations when she does eventually get hurt or disappointed. And a foundation of support and how to apply it. You’re also teaching her (and your son) how to recognize people, like your husband, who bring value to your life and why. And how to recognize those that don’t. And why. I feel like having people in your life that care enough to walk you through that is rare. Your kids have that in you. Most of us are never really intentionally taught what is worth valuing in people. You’re very clear on the reasons you value George. That clarity is a diamond in a goldmine. And if there is even a shred of anything positive to come from your experience, it’ll be found in the knowledge you have gained and can arm your kids with.
You don’t deserve any of the pain you are experiencing, from the trauma or people. You didn’t deserve that trip to be taken from you and branded so negatively. I could have wrote your journal post in Venice that day. I’ve been that girl too, I recognize that feeling. I grieve that loss of light for you. I’m healing from my own loss of light. But now when it shows up, it’s not just a warm, deep glow anymore. I recognize it like a firework. And not everyone gets to light fireworks. Especially beyond sparklers.
I value that you are heart-driven. And vulnerable. And honest. And sharing with your knowledge. No one should have to experience trauma like yours. But look at you! You keep getting up. You keep leveling up. And that is so courageous and takes so much strength. I think you’re amazing. =)
Massive hugs,
Sheila
Wow, it is true that every single person in this world has a story.
I just completed my own, 3 memoirs about my story too Sarra. Although I definitely wouldn’t recommend writing a memoir for your ‘first books’ I did, and I did eventually find my strengths. Through a lot of my own therapy, I too found one of my brightest stars in being vulnerable.
You are a shining light the way you help others succeed in writing, paying it forward, and you are such a beautiful soul. I’m so glad you shared your story. In sharing, you help so many others who cannot comment but your words will help them find their own way too.
Much love, Susan