This has been keeping me awake at night the past couple of weeks, and so I finally decided to put it here so that it will hopefully stop tormenting me.  I was sexually assaulted for the first time when I was five years old, then I was raped when I was 19 by the cable television installer, and when I told my parents, they did nothing about it, because they didn’t want to “…ruin the boy’s life,” then things went downhill from there.

This is the story of the first time my husband raped me.  You don’t have to read it, but if you have been sexually assaulted, please know that you are not alone and if you need to talk about it, I’m here.

Way back in 1999, Mr. Control Freak, our best friend GD, our 10 month old son and I went camping together one warm late-Spring weekend.  We had been given a camper van that we loaded up with food and supplies, and drove to a beautiful campground a couple of hours away.

We hooked up the electricity and water and set up our campsite and had an enjoyable evening of cooking, eating too much, laughing, and just spending time together while our infant son played in the baby jail we set up for him.

All too soon, it was time to put the cranky baby to sleep, so I took him inside the van and got him ready for bed, then stayed with him until he was asleep, then I went back out and sat with Mr. Control Freak and GD for a few more hours, until the camp fire had burned out and it had cooled down a bit inside the van, and we all decided that we should probably try to get some sleep.

GD decided that he would sleep sitting in the passenger side captain’s chair up at the front of the van, and Mr. Control Freak and I converted the table into a bed and climbed on.

He climbed into the bed first as I wanted to be closest to our son who was on the floor beside the bed, and when I climbed in beside him, he immediately grabbed my breast and started trying to get me to have sex with him.

I told him no, our best friend was just a few feet away, and I was not comfortable having sex with him sitting right there.  He started trying to take my shirt off, and I fought him and managed to keep it on.  After several minutes of struggle against him, he grabbed the inner seam of my shorts in both hands and literally ripped my shorts in half, then while I was trying to get him off of me, he did the same thing to my underpants, then he held my wrists above my head and raped me.  I tried to fight him off, but he was much stronger than me, and I was so afraid.  At least it was over quickly.

After he finished and rolled off of me, the only thing I could think of was getting away and getting cleaned up, so I carefully let myself out of the van and started walking through the pitch black night toward the shower house.  I had only made it a short distance when he caught up to me and grabbed my elbow and demanded to know where I was going.  I told him and he insisted on walking me there, waiting for me, then walking me back to the van.  I guess he was afraid I wouldn’t make it back or something.

I wish I could say that was the only time he forced me to have sex against my will or do something that I didn’t want to do, but it isn’t.

I feel my will being crushed, my resolve faltering.  My life is a stinking, fetid cesspool that I have fallen into and I don’t know if I have what I need to keep trying to fight my way out.