OK.  I’m going to try and do this in more detail.  Bear with me.

I was going to the Wholefoods on Bowery so I got on the F train.  Someone followed me and somehow despite all my precautions I didn’t notice.  The first I knew of it was when this guy started walking really, REALLY close next to me until my left arm was brushing along the wall, and all I’m thinking about is looking straight ahead and getting up the subway steps and away from the creep, and then I hear him whisper ‘scream and I will kill you,’ over and over.  Why didn’t I run the other way?  I don’t know.  My wonderful mother asked me right afterwards when I phoned her sobbing, along with a list of questions about why I’d done this and that and why I hadn’t done this and that.

Anyway, now he’s grabbed me by the shoulder and shoved me against the wall (I didn’t know this now, but I got a few cracked ribs out of that) and he has a huge fucking knife against my throat, and I just freeze, I don’t scream or shove him, I just freeze.   I have no idea why.  He demands my ID wallet.  I give it to him.  He looks at my driver’s licence, smiles and says ‘nice to meet you, Rebecca’ and then shoves it in his pocket.  He now has my phone number, email address, home address, date of birth, full name, the name of the college I go to and even the course I’m taking.  This doesn’t occur to me until later, at which point I immediately change my name and cancel everything (not early enough - he emptied my bank account within the first day, and I didn’t know until I checked to find out why all my bills had bounced.)  My mother gave me hell about changing my name, turning on all the tears and manipulations and guilt tripping, but then again she’s been pretty insensitive about the whole thing.

Back to the subway.  The guy likes women in skirts.  I am of course wearing one, and may never wear one again.  He demands I take off my tights, and I do.  He grabs them and puts them in his pocket, shoves the knife harder against my throat, and demands I give him my underwear.  I just do it.  I don’t even say no, you can’t have them, or no, that’s not right.  It was as if he’d asked if I had five cents for busfare.  He immediately realises that it is that, ahem, ‘time’ for me.  This does not make him happy.  He screams at me and says that I’m dirty and that this is God punishing me for being such an evil little bitch.

I honestly do not remember much after this.  Apparently that’s pretty common in people developing PTSD - forgetting key parts and getting sudden flashes of it afterwards.

I remember him ripping the pad out of my underwear and throwing it at my feet before stuffing them in his pocket.

I remember feeling the point of the knife stabbing into the back of my neck.

I remember being kind of crumpled up on the floor with my knees pulled up to my chin.

(All of this cannot have taken more than about 3 minutes, because it was between my train leaving and the next one arriving.)

I remember just getting up and carrying on to where I was going as if nothing had happened.  I didn’t actually properly break down until almost 45 minutes later when I sat down in the Wholefoods cafe with my hot meal and my puzzle book.

She managed to get out of me a vague idea of what had happened, and phoned 911.  They sent some very unhelpful cops, and then Wholefoods Woman got really pissed and phoned 911 AGAIN, demanding they send the Special Victims people (yes, really) and despite the mutterings of the initial cops about that, and I quote ‘he said she saids’ turning up, they came out and were much more handy.

So, the NYPD took my coat, my scarf, and my skirt, I promptly refused to talk to them (I have no idea why and I am now KICKING myself like you would not believe) and then nice Wholefoods Woman (I think her name was Rony) walked me back to the apartment where I was staying, and where I told no one what had happened for days.

Anyway, that was it.  It took me three days to write in short bursts… and now I feel sick.  But, like I always say, transparency for me is key, and if you don’t talk about it, it takes on more of a power.   I cannot sit here and preach about how you have to talk about what happened to you and then not do it myself.  I pick a more public forum than most, but what can I say - this is what I’ve chosen for myself to do, so I’m damn well going to do it right.

I haven’t actually told the whole thing before, and probably this isn’t even the whole thing and I’m subconsciously holding stuff back, so it’s kind of a big deal.

Now, I have nightmares all the time.  The other day I nearly hit a guy in the face.  My mum (she of the insensitivity) made me go in an underground car park and I flipped, started crying and had a panic attack, and she got really irritated with me.  I cannot sleep with the light off.  I cannot go on public transport.  My mother is expecting me home for Christmas but this will involve a plane ride and I’m not sure I can do it, so she’s going to rip me a new one for that too.  Whenever we have a repairman or the landlord in, my poor housemate has to take time off work because I can’t be on my own with them.

But…

As difficult as all this is, in a way I am relieved that it happened to me and not someone else.  I can deal with it.  It’s awful, and scarring, and… but, I have enough experience, self-assurance and I hope mental strength to live with it and not let it destroy me from the inside.  Hell, maybe I can’t deal with it, given the insomnia and nightmares and PTSD and other stuff, but at least I have enough resolve to be able to live with it.

If the alternative was something like this happening to someone who couldn’t take it… well, I’m glad it was me. 

(I know that sounds really trite and insincere and fucked up, but it’s true.)

Anyway, I changed my name, with the help of some of my friends, and I really like it.  It feels like it’s been mine forever.

Don’t you all think ‘Olivia Devlin’ has a nice ring to it?