My hope is that my words can touch the deep spaces within the cracks of the broken heart, and become a part of the glue to help put them together. We only have one life to live, with one story to tell, and I chose to share mine with you. I hope that you find comfort in the uncomfortable and peace through the pain. We can all take something from one another, and I give a little piece of me, to you, freely.

Carissa Cortez

About The Writer 

Carissa Cortez is a student, freelance writer, and hospitality professional. She is pursuing a second career in Psychology with a passion and love to be the voice for those who cannot speak for themselves. Her main focus in her mental health studies will be working beside children, and to help provide them with the ability to regain their aspirations, confidence and trust that can sometimes be taken from us at such an early age. Her mission for this blog is to provide light and healing through her own personal experiences, with the hope that her words can touch your heart, and help you begin the journey of your own healing. Her resilience for life, the willingness to love, and her passion for words has provided a portal to reveal her truths. She currently lives in the Bay Area with her life partner Jacob, and their daughter Coraline. 

As a teenager we experience a time where it can feel like a world all on our own.A secret society where no one over the age of eighteen can understand what we feel, think, and go through. The typical “you don’t know how I feel” phrase leaving our mouths with every other moment. Sometimes that simple phrase cans peak volumes of emotions, and trying to navigate those at such a fragile age can be difficult. We continue to commandeer the deep waters of our youth throughout our entire lives – at least I do.

            I slowly opened my eyes to what felt like the brightest room I had ever been in. I couldn’t really get a grasp on where I was and my vision was not at its best. My eyelids struggled to stay open – an abundant force was fighting against me to keep them shut. I still had no idea where I was. Everything was so clouded. My mind driving extremely slow to grasp onto any sign of recognition, but all I saw was fog – complete fog. I began to fade away again. I wasn’t asleep anymore though. I was there and my brain knew it, but it refused to connect with all my other senses. This repetitive cycle happened for what seemed like hours. I tried once again to open my eyes. I didn’t think a simple act could ever be so tiresome, but this time they partially stayed open. I was thankful. My mind slowly started to defrost my visual window, and the pathways to my senses began to familiarize themselves.

            I heard faint noises in the back ground which were becoming slightly clearer as they got closer to me – random chatter, screaming perhaps. There was a banging sound that I could hear. It was as if someone was in my head beating on a drum. A consistent repetitive beat. That sound has never left my head. My head hurts – it was in so much pain. I tried to lift my arm and reach towards it, but my arm felt like it was a thousand pounds. The amount of strength it would take for me to get it up was impossible at the time. I began feeling sick. I was in motion. Where was I? Bang boom my head keeps saying. The sound is so vivid, and it hurt the clearer it became. My mind was slow trying to clear the mental fog, but my senses swiftly began to comprehend. Bang boom – this time it was different. The sound just wasn’t in my head – It was my head. I was being abruptly thrust into a wooden dresser behind me. The thrusting being so repetitive and consistent, that the sound was as constant as a heartbeat. I was on my back, lifeless with a weighted pressure that would not allow me to move. I looked around again and in just an instant everything was visually clear.

            My view was a white popcorn ceiling above, surrounded by walls that were a few shades darker – cream colored? A few pillows to my left with small trinkets – necklaces, a lipstick case, perfume – and family pictures behind them, on the small mirrors, which were in the shelving of the bed frame. A full length mirror, which used the floor as a base to my right, had pictures pushed into the frame – happy smiling faces embracing life’s friendships and each other. The coolness of the comforter under my fingertips as I tried to feel what was beneath me felt very different from the warmth of the blanket behind my back. I was so cold yet a shield of warmth cloaked my skin. My legs dangled over the edge of the bedside yet they were too short to touch the ground. I still had my shoes on and my bottoms were pushed down to my ankles. I was naked everywhere else.

            I had no time or mental capacity really to get emotional. I was awake, alive, yet unable to see and understand clearly what had happened to me. It was an out of body experience. I was telling myself to get up and get out of there. Yelling at the version of myself laying there lifeless on this bed. I couldn’t though. I was so weak. I was completely incapable of leaving the room. This experience felt so compartmentalized at the time. I was asleep, then awake, then asleep again but not in the deep cycles of the REM. My mind didn’t want me to know what was, and had, happened. It was a blackout; it was the deepest sleep I had ever been in.

            He was there the entire time though. He never left the room, never left me – he was on top of me. It was as if I failed purposefully to realize that he was there. I was awake, but protecting the inner beings of myself that he could not physically get to. His body was heavy and I tried to push my arms up against him. I heard myself screaming at the top of my lungs but my mouth was completely shut. I had no ability to get out. He wouldn’t get off of me. I heard banging again. This time it was not my head but the bedroom door. I could hear her screaming “Open the door and let me in!” A scream so shrill that I will always be thankful for it even if it couldn’t save me. I was being raped. I had been, by this guy, for who knows how long now. I don’t know how long I was in that room for. I couldn’t tell you how I got in there in the first place. All I knew at this point was I needed to get out. The screaming and banging didn’t stop and after what seemed like hours – but was probably only minutes – he did. He got off of me, put his clothes back on (at least what he had removed), fixed himself up, looked at me and said “You good?” He then turned his back and unlocked the door.

            I quickly got up – at least I thought – and put myself back together. I began to exit the bedroom with tear stained cheeks and a heavy heart. I had a discombobulated mind, and was overwhelmed by feelings of insignificance. I didn’t want to be there. I didn’t want to be noticed or recognized. I hated how I felt. I hated the big scarlet letter that I had been branded with. I was on the stake. I was on trial. I wanted to run away from that house as fast as I could. I wanted someone to pinch me awake from this nightmare that I had just experienced yet could not even recall. I was emotionally confused. I was coming down off of whatever drugs I had been given and I couldn’t truly comprehend all that was happening. There was no clarity. No honest truth to hold onto. I tried not to cry but I couldn’t keep my composure. I stayed within the doorway a little longer. I couldn’t just stand there and run through the darkness of my thoughts though. I wiped my tears, took a deep breath and walked away from that room. I walked away from an innocence that I will never get back, away from a loss that I didn’t even know how to mourn. I didn’t want to turn around to look at where I had been for the last minutes, hours, who knows?  But as I silently turned to say goodbye to the version of me that was no more, I looked ahead and realized that the entire world was saying hello. The party was still going on.

            I was seventeen and in my junior year of high school. I had been around the same peers for the last ten years if not more. We grew up in the same neighborhoods and moved through the same school system together. It was a good community. I was an athlete playing three different sports a year, excelled academically, and built a bond and trust with a core group of girls. I got into the usual mischief, and I pushed the boundaries like any teenage girl would, but I was a good kid. I was raised in a single parent home with my mom’s undying faith being the foundation of my youth. My parents divorced when I was four years old – an event I don’t even remember. My pop was involved in my life, and my parents had always stayed amicable for me and my sisters. It was hard not having both parents around. It unfortunately required us to grow up faster than I would have liked, and it made the understandings of men and love complicated. I knew though that what happened was not love, or okay, in any way. I knew that I had to speak up and say something. But how? Who would I tell? And who would believe me? I didn’t even want to go to school. What was I going to tell my boyfriend? I was full of so many questions and had no answers. I went to the one person I thought would listen – Mom. The next few days were the hardest.

            I went to school with such anxiety. I tried to remain cool, calm, and collected. This was something my pops always taught us to embrace. “All you need to be honey is the three C’s”, he would say. I took those words and embraced them forcefully. I still had not shared with anyone what had happened to me and yet I am sure everyone in school knew. I went to my classes like any other day but I was really just going through the motions. I kept my head down, did the work and didn’t really talk much. High school can be so daunting to the normal teenager but now it was even worse. Silent whispers and gossip filled the halls about the party. Awkward stares followed suit. Lunch was going to be difficult. There would be no books to hide behind, no papers to engulf myself in. I would see everyone that was at the party, and I wanted to face my abuser but also run as far away from him as I could. I wanted to know why? Why did he do this to me? Why did he think it was okay? Did he really think I said yes? So many questions. Lost in my head yet again, trying to run from the darkest corners of my mind. The bell rang; it was lunch time. Things get boggled at this point of the day and I don’t recall the exact exchange of conversation. I do however remember facing him and hearing his simple answer to the things he had done, “We’re friends. I didn’t think you’d mind.” I was never the same again. I was broken.

            I finally got the courage to tell my mom what had happened to me. I didn’t know what to say or even how to say it. We were having problems within our relationship at this point. I was no longer her “yes mommy” child anymore. I was broken, rebellious, and trying to manage my own pain. I was experimenting with drugs and my grades were suffering. I was less interested in my athletics and it all seemed to be going downhill. My mom was in a new marriage, with a man I didn’t care for, and I was just another burden. See my mom had raised three girls. She had put in the work for all of us and was ready to have her life back. She tried to protect us from the world through her strict parenting style and devout faith. She thought that she could protect her girls if she restricted sleepovers, school dances, and the mischief of the secular world. She was wrong. Life was not Disney, there was no prince charming, no kisses to wake you up from a deep slumber. Life was complicated, painful and hard. My sister (my best friend) had moved out not too long before and I was all that was left at home. I wished she were there. She would know what to do. After all she was the one who told me the real truths about life, and how things really were. I learned from her mistakes and I saw the things she went through as a teenager. I missed her. I felt so alone, but right now I needed my mom more than anything. I was a seventeen year old rape victim with a broken memory of the details of that day. I don’t remember the inner workings of my conversation with her. I can’t tell you the day or time or where we were. I think my mind repressed these details to shield me from the pain of her disbelief. That’s right, her disbelief. She did not believe me. I think this was a hard truth for my mom to hear. I think maybe she thought it was a way for me to gain attention. I think she just didn’t want to believe it. The funny thing is, is that my mom is not that lady. She isn’t the woman who doesn’t believe her child when something of such severity happens. She is the fighter. She is the protector. She is the woman who would go to the ends of the earth for justice for her children. I think she had just had enough at this point in her life. I think that she was just exhausted by life – her past, her new marriage, and her children. Regardless of what her reasons were it was still a horrible thing for me. Things just got worse for me and I was out of her control now. There was only one thing left to do. The only thing that she knew to do was send me to my dad’s.

            I now found myself living with a man that I knew only to a certain degree, with a wife who hated me because I reminded her of my mother. I was taken from the house I grew up in, all my friends that I grew up with, the high school that I was a year and a half shy of graduating from, and a community that no longer was mine. All this piled on top of my sexual assault. This felt like rock bottom. My pops lived in another part of San Diego and my life literally had to start all over again. I was in a new home, new high school, with no friends, and no sports to help pick up the pieces. I was a mess; but I was free. I had the freedom to do as I pleased. My dad had a less restricted house than my mom. It was great. He expected decent grades and communication on my whereabouts but he didn’t try to control me. I don’t think he knew how. He had never had his daughters living with him beyond the weekend sleepovers. Now he has a seventeen year old to deal with. I began to pick up the pieces of my young life. I tried out for the swim team to regain some of myself back. I tried really hard to get good grades – something that was never a struggle before. I made friends but kept my secrets hidden away. I was tired of everything being taken from me. I tried to put the rape behind me and the friends of my past, who promised to call and visit, that never did. I was nonexistent to the memories of my life before the move. I honestly became okay with that. I wanted to move forward. I wanted to get past the pain of all the change that had happened. I was never able to forget though. My mind and my body wouldn’t let me. This became clear in my relationship at the time. I was dating the same guy I had been for the last year. I was now eighteen and things were going as well as they could for all that had happened. I just wanted to finish high school and continue with my life. Living at my pops was not the easiest as my stepmom and I really couldn’t get beyond our differences. This would be the core of our relationship.

            I didn’t tell my pop what had happened to me. I didn’t tell anyone after telling my mom. I was prepared to bury that day with the innocence of the girl that went with it. I couldn’t remember fully the details of that day still. It would however, come back to me in pieces. They say that the memory is faint after a date rape drug experience. It can takes weeks, months, years for things to reveal themselves. This was true. I didn’t remember it all right away. It took some time for me to even want to go back through that day. Sex was hard to fully enjoy with my boyfriend after my rape. He knew what had happened to a certain degree but I didn’t want to deal with it, so we never spoke of it. I loved him and had been dating him prior to the incident. He was safe to me. I trusted him, and I knew he would never hurt me, but my subconscious didn’t care who he was or what my heart knew – it was concerned with protecting me. One night we were locked in a moment of passion with him kissing and embracing me. Adrenaline was running through my veins, heart beginning to pound faster and shortness of breath becoming more rapid. He removed my top and continued to move excitedly in the realm of exploration. The tighter he embraced me the more uncomfortable I became. I didn’t stop kissing him. He was my best friend, my lover, my trusted partner. The level of passion heightened and so did my fear and anxiety. He held my wrists with one hand and moved his other hand over my breasts, caressing me with just enough force to provoke my protective reflexes. I moved my hands and began squirming out of his hold. He let my wrists go knowing something was wrong. He held me tight trying to calm me down. I begged to be let go. “It’s okay”, he said. I couldn’t calm down. He tried to pull me into him even tighter to assure me I was safe. This just made me more protective. My anxiety took over and I released myself from his grasp yelling to “let me go”. In my mind it was a struggle for freedom. I got my arms free and before I knew it I was swinging in his direction. I hit him again and again. I pulled back and swung one more time landing on his eye and upper cheek bone. I had given my boyfriend a black eye. I knew I needed to get help – professional help. Our relationship suffered from my pain and mistrust along with the normal issues of young love. We didn’t make it.

            I didn’t know where to begin when looking for a therapist. Mental health was not a subject that I was overly familiar with and my parents were not necessarily advocates for it. I believe they came from a generation where toughing it out, and getting through things on your own was good enough. I decided to trust the sanctity of my inner being. I knew that I had a hard role to play in the days ahead, but I was tired of being broken. I was tired of letting this rape run my life. I met Patricia (last name removed for privacy reasons) in her office with an uncertainty on how the session would go. I didn’t know what to expect when meeting with a therapist. Is it like they portray in the movies? Will she just stare blank faced at me with a pencil taking notes? It was a positive fear though, if there is such a thing. I was afraid to vocalize this deep secret that I had been harboring with me over the past couple years. I was afraid to walk back through that memory and relive all that I had gone through. I was afraid that it wouldn’t work. Our first encounter was slightly awkward. It felt like a first date. I asked her questions to avoid being asked any that I was not ready to answer. She was so kind and had a warmth about her that made me feel safe. She did not press me in any way and completely respected my boundaries. I knew that she was going to be the one to help get me beyond my rape.

            I stayed with Patricia for the next few years. We worked tirelessly on moving me past the rape. I hated how I couldn’t remember everything but was amazed at how randomly my mind recalled certain details of that day. It all kept coming back to me in pieces. That horrible event happened on a day just like any other day in school, except someone decided a party was a good idea in the middle of the day. The word had spread fast and a bunch of us ended up at my best friend’s house at the time. My abuser was a new student among the group. He was a transfer from another school and seemed to weasel his way into the circle of trust that we had built over the years. I remember he had this beautiful red truck that everyone loved and envied. A few of us piled into it as he drove us down the street to where the party would ensue. The house was packed and there were the usual provisions of alcohol, marijuana, and drugs. The last thing I can remember was sitting on a couch with a joint in one hand and a beer in the other. Anything beyond that is completely blank. I don’t remember being slipped anything. I have no idea if I was in full conversation with my peers or what I was doing in the midst of my blackout. It was the banging of my head, on that wooden dresser, that woke me from that deep slumber. Walking the rooms of that house in my mind during therapy, and hoping for some new evidence to reveal itself was exhausting. I think my mind only let me have enough information to get me through the rape. Therapy helped me uncover and face the truths of that day. It helped me overcome all the feelings that were mixed up inside me about it. I didn’t feel like the word rape was appropriate for my situation at first. I felt that because I wasn’t brutally assaulted, conscious and tied up against my will that I didn’t have the right to justify the use of the word. That mentality I would soon find out was my own self guilt. I felt that because I wasn’t awake through the entire assault that use of the word rape just didn’t justify the actions. I struggled with these emotions for quite some time. I was raped though. I was taken advantage of by a man who took my mind, body and spirit into his own hands. He chose to hear a yes when I wasn’t even conscious. I will never forget his face. I will never forget what he said to me, and I will never understand why he thought we were friends. I hardly knew him. I continued with my therapy for years after my first meeting with Patricia. It was comforting and it meant more to me that I had someone who would listen, not judge, and just be there in the moments when I needed solace. It has not been easy and that is the honest truth. I have cried, screamed, sat in silence and pushed my memory to its limits. It has been difficult to move forward and not let the circumstances of my past hinder me from my future. It was trial and error when it came to dating and my views of love slowly corrected their course. Therapy helped me move on the upward path and I didn’t care how long it was going to take to heal. I was ready. If I could survive the trauma I could survive the healing.

            I am now thirty four years old, a Psychology major, and I have a daughter of my own – she is only two. I write this for her. I want her to know that the world can be many things. It can be what we make it and even what we don’t. Bad things do happen to good people but we cannot let them ruin who we are. I could have let that rape ruin me and my spirit for the rest of my life. I could have let all the changes that followed suit keep me in a dark place and angry at my situation. I could have stayed on a destructive path and let my abuser be the center of my world for the rest of my life. But I chose me. I chose to walk through the hurt and pain, over and over again, no matter how many times it needed to happen so that I could heal. I chose to go against a societal norm and provide first aid to my mental health. It was the best decision I have ever made. I am thankful for Patricia and the career path she chose to do in her own life, so that I may have one. I am thankful for the struggles that I have experienced because without them I do not know who I would be today. The memory will never be forgotten and it still creeps up from time to time. But now I am stronger. I am able to talk about it and share my story without tears or fear of judgement. My mom and I have revisited our conversation many times and she still does not remember me telling her. This doesn’t bother me. I know what she would have done if she could go back and change it, and in that I find comfort. To this day she wants us to find him and press charges. I don’t even know his last name.  I am thankful for her perseverance but I have made peace with my past and remain looking forward. I hope that one day I will be able to help someone as Patricia helped me. I share these words in the hopes that it may help some of you overcome your own fears. We are not alone in the suffering we go through and I hope my story provides hope and light.