americandyke

I am a very real person.

I exist, I have feelings, emotions, ideas, intents and purposes. I’m a smoker, a drinker, a fighter and a lover.

On top of all of this, I’m gay. I logged into my email account today and realized I had this blog sitting around, unused, still practically brand new and shiny and the thought struck me that this could be it — this could be my legacy. You’ve heard my coming out story, now for the rest of my life.

I was raped three weeks ago.

Three weeks ago I was still in Spanish Fork, Utah doing the same shit day after day, digging myself into a deeper and deeper hole of depression. Then come to find out my friend Travis was ran off the road. When I say ran off the road, I mean someone intentionally targeted him, and on the freeway, swerved towards him, causing him to roll his truck nine times, throwing him and the other two people in the truck through the windshield. Travis didn’t make it. Now, Travis and I have been friends for years; we used to run shit together back in the days when I used to be in the business of running shit. I got out, he didn’t. Except that recently, I was getting back into it, warming up cold connections, getting my name back out there. Travis’ death threw me for a loop though, one that I didn’t know how to handle.

So I took two Ambien CR pills and sat in my friend’s basement and drew. It was a good vent, just sitting and drawing and letting the pure raw emotions manifest themselves on paper. My friends wanted me to take them from Payson to Spanish Fork, as I was the only one with a car. So I agreed. I had just enough room for them, when Brains comes outside and tells me that his girlfriend is coming too.

“I don’t have room for her dude.” Brains looked at me and then threw his hands in the air and said, “Then YOU tell her that.” Then he climbed into the driver’s side of my car and shut the door (I was on Ambien, I had no plans of driving).

I guess something in me just snapped. It was too much, you know? Too much to handle. Travis’ death, my overwhelming debt and a constant sense of feeling trapped in my life, and here I was, trying to do them a favor and the last thing I wanted to do was tell Faith, someone that I genuinely cared about, that I didn’t have room for her in my car. She wasn’t my fucking girlfriend, I shouldn’t have to tell her anything. I’d rather have to walk then tell her I didn’t have room for her in my car.

And then I did just that. I started walking. I threw my keys in the window at Brains and just kept going. It was dark out but I couldn’t have cared less. As I was walking my head started clearing a little and I started processing what had just happened. I figured Brains would just sort it out amongst our friends and then on their way to Spanish they’d see me on the side of the road and pick me up along the way. I kept looking over my shoulder, expecting to see them pulling up, and as I started getting further and further and them taking longer and longer, I didn’t check anymore. I went to call them, but my phone had died at some point during the day because I had forgot to plug it in the night before. So I shoved it inside my pocket and pulled inside myself, ignoring the rest of the world completely, letting the drugs completely take full advantage of me as I began to walk along the old highway between Payson and Salem, as I passed the Hospital.

It was at this point that I didn’t see the black car parked down one of the blind turns. It was at this point, that I didn’t see the car pull onto the freeway behind me, didn’t hear the crunch of the gravel behind me, didn’t see the door open, the man get out, and aim a black handgun at my head, until it was too late. I turned, and I panicked, and I immediately started to run.

But I was on Ambien. Funny thing about Ambien — it’s a sleeping pill. But if you stay awake instead of going to sleep, it puts your mind to sleep and makes your reality nothing but a dream like state. When your mind is asleep, it’s hard enough to put one foot in front of the other, and when you ask your body to do it at an accelerated rate, chances are, it’s going to fail. I tripped, flew and skidded through the gravel. I popped up but by that time he was already on me. I turned and tried to hit him, tried to fight back but my arms were like gellatinous lead. He pistol whipped me hard and I went down. He dragged me to the fence, behind the tall weeds so if anyone DID pass, they wouldn’t see.

He checked my wallet, looked at my driver’s liscense, then put it back in my pocket, pulled my pants down and raped me on the side of the road. He used gloves, used a condom, even took the damn thing with him in a little baggy. Then he got in his car, told me if he saw me get up he’d stop the car, blow out every single one of my joints, and leave me for dead. Then he drove away.

I got up, disoriented, bleeding and scraped up and covered in dirt and weeds. All I could keep thinking was that for all the years I spent in self-defense classes, all the time I spent in classes learning how to prevent exactly what had just happened, I had thrown all of that preparation away for the sake of two little white pills. There was nothing I could do.

Nothing to do with all my knowledge, all my strength.

So I kept walking. Cars passed by, but it was dark and the strip of road I was on had no lights. It wasn’t until I was in Salem that a cop pulled over, thinking I was an underage kid out past curfew. He ID’d me, and that’s when I realized that the motherfucker who raped me also knew where I lived. The officer looked at me, shined the light on me, saw my torn clothes and bleeding lip and asked if I’d had some trouble. He asked if I wanted to talk about it. I told him to not worry about it, I was fine.

Think about it, what the fuck could the police force do except for make me feel even more violated by getting a rape kit that could tell them absolutely nothing? He was nice though. He gave me a ride to Allen’s, where I then called Brains and told him to get my fucking car there so I could go home. He was a total dick to me. Hung up on me, and it wasn’t until I was almost on the brink of tears and asked Jessica to call him (my phone was still dead) that he finally agreed and headed up to Spanish. I had a smoke, and when they pulled into the driveway, they didn’t even say thank you to me for letting them use my car. They just got out, left it running, and went to the fire pit. So I crawled in my car and drove home, still in shock, still numb from the drugs.

It wasn’t until I collapsed on my bed and plugged my phone in that it hit me. And I started crying. So I called some people, told only my closest friends what had happened. Then I went to sleep.

I didn’t go to work the next day, instead I went to Salt Lake to see my ex girlfriend who I was still madly in love with. She had no idea how to help, how to comfort me, and in fact, made me only feel worse.

So I decided to kill myself. I had just had my prescription of Seroquel filled for three months, that’s a lot of white pills to overdose on. But I didn’t want to do it where someone I loved would have to clean me up. So I threw all of my stuff in my car, and pawned off everything I owned that was worth anything, and left. I was going to go to Oregon to stay with my friend Kaylee so I could write out my life story and then kill myself.

But as I was on that freeway, I realized something.

I was free.

Finally, I was completely and totally free. And a sense of unprecedented happiness welled up within me and started to overwhelm me, and I realized I didn’t want to die, I just wanted to LIVE. Really, truly live. And it was finally possible.

And that’s where I’m at. I’m in Oregon, and I’ve never been happier in my entire life.

I’m going to get my degree in Anthropology, maybe double major in Theatre too, and I’m having an incredible time finally being able to be myself. No more being trapped, no more waking up and wishing I was dead. It was under absolutely horrible circumstances that I found this freedom, but I thank God every single morning that I’m still alive, and that I have a chance to make things right.

My next post should be more informative, and a hell of a lot more uplifting. I just… I needed to get that out there.

Have a good night America.

~Alisa

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