Alabama, Go Fuck Yourself

***Authors note: Im so sorry that after months of not posting, I write this incredibly sad, and politically charged post. This is not my usual agenda. In fact, I’ve never made a political post on my blog. HOWEVER, I am SO upset at the current laws trying to be pushed in my country, writing is my avenue. It’s how I release my anger. Sometimes I write and don’t post it, just for my own release. Other times, I just feel it’s an injustice to not say something. Don’t read if you want a laugh. Don’t read if you want an escape from the never ending political war and posts that are happening in the USA. DO read, if you care about women, or women’s rights. ***

Currently, I’m sitting on my patio in the beautiful place of Cancun, overlooking the pool and Caribbean ocean, all at once. While this is usually my most comfortable time of peace, and finding my center, I’m sitting here with so many emotions. Anger, rage, confusion.. hatred. I tried to nap it off. Can’t sleep. Tried to youtube puppy videos myself to happiness.. no such luck. I can only feel anger and pain from what I know has recently passed in the good ole’ U. S. of A.

Alabama.

Never really a word that catches someone’s attention  but now more than ever, and as usual, for all the worst reasons. I’m livid. You have GOT TO BE KIDDING ME. I’m trying to understand. I’m trying to be empathetic to those that voted for this and I am failing. I’m trying to not be emotional and to stay clear headed about this, but it’s hard.

How is it possible people voted for the strictest abortion laws in 2019? How is it possible you want to make a woman keep a child, that was conceived via rape? RAPE. What a disgusting and ugly and volatile word. I only know that the people that voted for this have never experienced it. And since I can’t vote today, and I can’t pull every eyelash out of the white male conservatives that voted this in, I can only think of one thing to do to maybe help, or shed light, and what I’m most capable of for this moment, right here, right now…

I’m going to tell a story.

If you can follow with me, if you can feel yourself in that moment, put yourself in the shoes of the main character, maybe, just maybe, you can understand why this could be so important to another person’s life. Just maybe, I can only hope.

Once there was a young girl, 6 months shy of 21 years old. She was starting her third semester at a college she had dreamed of going to, with parents that had sacrificed most of what they had to put her there. Her father had sold their house when she graduated high school, and loaned out some other properties in order to get enough income to pay for her extremely expensive school, because it was his dream, and hers, to have a family member graduate from University.

That little girl wanted nothing more than to make her dad happy. She wanted nothing more than to have and more importantly, eventually give him, a life they would never have. Her dad felt college was the key, he never had that opportunity given the life he grew up in and sacrificed it all to put her through there, no matter the cost.

On August 11, 2011, a 20 year old girl got in a fight with her boyfriend of 2 years and decided to go out with friends. It was the last Saturday before school started and she was having a bad night. Some dancing with her girlfriends would help her feel better and so she agreed.

They went out as college girls do. They had some drinks, danced their butt off and life was pretty good for the night, But this one girl, she got sick. Probably too much alcohol too fast, and ended up in the bathroom at this club. She sat her purse down with her phone in it when she went to the bathroom because all she could think about was not getting sick in front of anyone. Someone stole her purse.

After the bathroom, she couldn’t find her friends. This was a large club-type place and she couldn’t see them. After searching and searching, one nice man offered to help her. She told him what they looked like. He walked the club with her. After a bit of searching, the nice man offered to drive her home. He promised to take care of her and he was so nice and helpful. She agreed. She had no other options. Her purse has been taken, she had no other way of contact or getting home.

They got in his 2002 Firebird and drove. They arrived at a place that wasn’t her home. She asked what was going on, as she still felt sick (probably too drunk) and just wanted to go home. He said they had to stop at this place first but then they’d go.

The girl went in. What other option did she have at this point? Walk when she didn’t even know where she was? She decided she’d call from inside the house. Someone had to have a phone.

She went in the house and sat on a bar stool  located next to the refrigerator, closest to the door. There were some other people at this house and that made her feel okay. She asked the nice guy if she could use his phone, he said it was dead but he’d take her home soon. He went away somewhere, and she asked someone in the room if she could use their phone. She called her roommate that was at the first place, and explained what happened. She asked her roommates to come get her. She asked the second man that gave her the phone to give them the address. He did.

They said they’d be on the way soon. The girl felt better.

Then, the nice man, came back. She told him her friends were on the way and would be here soon. He said okay. He said to come with him. That she looked sick and needed some water maybe. He took her to a room. She said that she was fine and can wait outside. He said, no, its okay, I got you some water.

*TRIGGER WARNING* The next things I’ll say are somewhat graphic, perhaps if you’ve experienced trauma well, read with caution, if at all.

The girl had been sitting on the end of the bed, on the corner. She didn’t want to give off “the wrong signs’. He came back and sat next to her. He kissed her neck and she pushed away.

He had told her to relax and she’d be fine. She told him again her friends were on the way and she needed to go. He said it’d be fine.

The next few minutes were an aggressive fight.

He was much stronger than her and pushed her on the bed. She tried to push him off. They were on the left side of the bed and she could see a door on her right. If she could just get him off of her.

She started screaming. Yelling at the top of her lungs. But there was music from the main room and no one was coming.

She fought. She threw her arms. She kicked.

She felt her hand bleed. And then her leg.

She didn’t understand where all this blood was coming from. He had her bottoms. Her shirt was in half. She was still screaming. She was still kicking. She was still crying pointless tears.

The entire time she was violated, she was screaming. She was yelling for help. She never wanted to be there. She just wanted to go home.

After what seemed like an eternity, someone opened the door. She had never stopped screaming the entire time, even though she felt it was useless. In the 2 seconds it caught the man’s attention, she pushed under his arm and ran out that door she had seen. She didn’t know where it went, she just knew she had to run.

And she did. And she ran out of the house. And she ran out of the driveway. And she ran down the street. And she was naked and crying but she didn’t know what else to do. She had to run.

In what was the worst case, but maybe later for the argument of rape victims, the best, a police was patrolling the area. He tried to stop and approach her. The court records would tell you she was inconsolable and a female cop had to be called in. The male cop could not come near her. She hid behind a tree, trying to hide from the world the shame and pain she felt.

The cops saw she had blood on her body and called an ambulance as well. At that time, her roommates had found her, as she was just down the street from the address, and they tried to help. Against her wishes, she was taken to a hospital.

The hospital was bright, invasive and horrifying. They performed a “rape kit”. They swabbed her body. She had to, yet again, against her wanting, have strangers touch and poke and prod her everything. EVERYTHING.

A detective came in and she had to immediately relive what happened. She had to tell, detail by detail, what had happened. She had to tell about the place, the bed, the smells she could remember, anything and everything. She had to relive every detail. She kept asking for a shower but they wouldn’t let her. They said they couldn’t.

They gave her a few pills at the hospital. They said some were preventives, and one was if she had gotten pregnant, it would help release it from staying attached to the uterus.

PREGNANT.

She hadn’t even thought of that.

Her boyfriend was long distance and she had so many issues with birth control, she used other options when needed.

PREGNANT? With this man’s baby? Her stomach sank. She wanted to throw up, all over again. She wanted to jump off a cliff. Pregnant with THIS MONSTERS baby?

At 630 in the morning, she was allowed to go home, along with her roommates who had slept in the waiting room, unwilling to leave her side.

It was a quiet ride home.

She walked into her house and went straight to the shower. She scrubbed and scrubbed and quietly cried in the shower. She didn’t want all this, but more, she hadn’t wanted everyone to know. That was almost worse than the rape itself.

She laid in bed, but she didn’t sleep. In fact, she didn’t sleep for a very long time. She didn’t eat, either. Her roommates extremely Christian mother had shown up at the house when she got there.

“Are you okay?” She asked.

“Yes,” the girl lied.

“Were you drinking?” She followed up.

…….. I’ll let you sit and think about how that felt for that girl, 6 hours after being raped.

She then asked “you didn’t take any of the pills they give, did you? You know, those make you lose the baby. It’s against god’s will to abort a baby.”

The girl doesn’t remember what she said or did at this point, just how she felt. It hurt her. So much.

A few hours later, the calls started. Her mom. Her dad. Her dad was so upset.

“What is going on??? Your sister called me saying you were in the hospital and no one is telling me a GOD DAMN THING?!”

“Im fine”, she assured him.

“Fuck if it is!! Everyone knows you’re in the hospital and I don’t get a call what is going on?!!!!”

“Nothing.” She meekly replied.

“God damnit! WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON!!” He was so worried, but it came in a form of anger. Finally, she conceded.

“I WAS RAPED, DAD”.

Silence.

“Oh god. Honey, are you okay?” He sweetly asked. He felt so bad. He had no idea.

“I’m fine. I just want to go to sleep”.

“Okay honey”,  he replied, “call me when you’re up”.

And then she took some pills the hospital gave her and went to sleep. And when she woke up, her dad and step mom were at her house. And her Aunt had written her a doctors note for sleep and an excuse from school. And she tried to go to school 3 days later, and a few weeks after that had to withdrawal. She wasn’t sleeping, she had lost 20 something pounds, her stepmom had pulled her aside in a mirror and said “look at yourself! Look at you!!! You are not okay!!! You tell me whatever you NEED, and I will make it happen. Don’t worry about school, or your dad, or anything else. What do you need??”. And she cried as the words came out “I just need to go home”.

Her dad (and her, via loans) lost A LOT of money (about 15k), with her withdrawing, because she was raped.

She tried seeing a counselor, who when she reluctantly told what happened (she hated and still does talking about it) said “do you think that would’ve happened if you weren’t drinking? Have you considered your drinking is to blame for this?”

And then the girl decided no more counseling for her.

And ahe kept praying and begging and hoping the Universe and every other 2401 God’s out there she wasn’t pregnant and would do anything not to be.

And that, had she of been, she would’ve hoped in her rights as a woman, as a rape victim, and a human, to be able to make the decision SHE needed to to continue on with her life.

That girl lost a lost that night. And worse, she gained a lot more. A lot more pain, a lot more suffering, a lot more financial burdens, a lot more humiliation, a lot more repeated nightmares she doesn’t tell people about.. she gained a lot.

The very LEAST that can happen in the horrific situation as such, is at least, bare minimum, knowing that she is capable to decide if she wants to trek on and carry her rapists baby, or not.

And that is what Alabama is taking away from women.