The Couragious Story of a Rape Victim

Mary Chapman exhales the cigarette smoke from her lungs as she rubs her cigarette butt into the dirt. With shaky hands she reaches into her pack of Turkish Silvers and lights another one, her third one today. She looks tired, eye liner from the night before smudged under her eyes and the smell of stale beer on her breath. This is who she likes to call “weekend Mary”, the Mary who lets loose every Friday night after spending all day meeting with women who have a history that is just as tragic as her own. She deserves those weekend drinks and cigarettes.

Her life has been surrounded by tragedy since she turned thirteen. It used to be just her own tragedy, but she’s moved on from that. Now, it is other women’s lives that she is consumed with; other women who grew up like her, other women who can relate to her story.

“I will never forget the night my stepdad stole my innocence, I was thirteen. It was the night my life changed forever.” She sucks on her cigarette, breathes in deep, and then looks up at the sky and exhales slowly. “That night I saw the world for what it truly was, I was no longer a child.” The cigarette smoke escapes her mouth and slithers up into the sky, gone forever.

Mary was a happy young girl. She loved soccer, Brittney Spears, and her corgi named Dandy.  She lived in a happy little bubble, surrounded by safety and people who loved her. She had no idea that the night she agreed to spend at her mom’s house was the night that perfect bubble would be popped.

Friday night, at exactly midnight, Mary’s stepfather tip toed into her room, making sure to be as quiet as he could so he wouldn’t wake up his wife and five year old son that were peacefully sleeping in their bedrooms down the hall. He grabbed Mary, and he didn’t let go until the life that she always knew was torn from her, escaping from her body up into the night sky where it would never be seen again, just like her cigarette smoke.

An hour later, Mary sat on the cold tile floor of her bathroom, silently crying and using hand soap to scrub the memories of that awful night off of her favorite Power Puff Girl printed pajama bottoms. Her stepfather was already back in his bed, cuddling his wife who had a small smile on her face as she slept soundly. No one knew. 

“About a week after that night I tried to tell my mom what happened to me, I couldn’t keep it inside anymore,” Mary says as she stubs out her third cigarette and starts fiddling with the messy bun sitting on top of her head. “My mom called me a liar, and it hurt even more than the actual assault. I needed comfort, and since I couldn’t get it from my mother, I went to my brothers.”

“I was seeing red when Mary told me what happened, it took everything in me to not go over there and beat his face in. I still want to beat his face in.” says Randy, Mary’s younger brother. “Mary made us promise we wouldn’t tell anyone. I was young then; I didn’t know what to do, so I promised I wouldn’t do anything.”

“It was a big stupid mistake to promise Mary we wouldn’t say anything. We had no idea the toll it took on her, we had no idea how big the war in her mind was,” says John.

Mary was fighting a brutal battle in her mind. A couple years went by, and then, at the age of fifteen, Mary was addicted to cocaine.

“My best friend at the time was trouble. Her mom was a coke dealer, she kept a large pile of cocaine on their coffee tables at all times,” says Mary. “After school I would go burry my face in that pile until I couldn’t even remember my own name, numbing out my feelings was the only way I could survive.”

Cocaine was Mary’s way out. It was a way for her to escape her life, a way for her to feel nothing. She lived comfortably numb, and when the feeling wore off, she went back to that pile of cocaine and made the hurt go away. She was a moth to the flame.

Months went by; her father was clueless. He was clueless to the rape, clueless to the cocaine. Until one day he hacked into her Facebook and saw messages she had written to friends about doing coke.

“I just couldn’t believe that my baby girl was doing drugs,” says Mary’s father David. He furrows his brow, still frustrated from the events of the past. “I took action right away.”

Mary was thrown into church groups and sentenced to four years grounding by her father. Every day at school a police officer would stroll into Mary’s classrooms, take her out into the hall, and search her backpack for cocaine. He even took apart her peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, just to make sure there weren’t any drugs hiding between the two slices of bread.

Mary was permanently embarrassed. Students watched her closely as she left her classroom with the police officer every day. Rumors spread, people found out. Mary was labeled a druggie.

“I realized that wasn’t the way I wanted people to remember me. I didn’t want that reputation, so I decided to change,” says Mary.

It had been two years since the rape, and Mary still had those questions buzzing around in her head; pounding in her brain like a bad headache. Why me? Am I undesirable now that I’ve had sex with my stepdad? Will I ever trust a man again? She needed these question answered before she could truly move on and start living a life she could be proud of. She needed the soldiers in her mind to seize fire and for the war to end.

Mary started attending group therapy for women and young girls who had been sexually assaulted. Every night, even though it was for just an hour, she felt free. She was surrounded by people who understood; surrounded by people who didn’t judge her. She finally found the comfort and support that she needed. The war was over, the white flags were raised. She could smile again.

Mary’s father still didn’t know about the assault. So during the day, while she was grounded, Mary threw herself into her studies. All day she did homework and studied for tests, until 7:30 pm when she met with her therapy group. She would heave a sigh of relief as she walked into her therapy session. She would walk around the room, hugging all of the women and young girls who knew her secret. They were the greatest friends Mary had ever had.

“Those meetings and those women saved my life in more ways than one; they are the reason that I am doing social work today. I owe them everything,” says Mary as her eyes well up with tears. Reminiscing on all of her old therapy friends brings back a swarm of feelings and memories.

Mary stuck with her therapy group all the way until she graduated from Westwood High School on June 6, 2010. She left her group behind when she went off the Texas State University, where she majored in Social Work.

“Social Work was something I needed to do,” says Mary. “I need girls to know that they aren’t alone in their fight.”

Now, recently graduated, Mary works for SafePlace, a domestic violence women’s shelter in Austin, Texas. Mary runs therapy sessions five days a week with women who have dealt with sexual assault.

“My therapy sessions were the only place I felt safe. Now, I get to provide that need for other women. It’s the best feeling,” says Mary. She looks up at the sky once again and smiles as the warm sunshine hits her face. The work she does make’s her happy, it’s obvious.

 “There are so many girls who come in here in the same situation that I was in. Society often blames women for being raped, hell my mother still hasn’t talked to me and she is STILL married to that asshole who stole my childhood,” says Mary.

Mary is proof that any women can move on from the tragic events of their past. Her story is so important to the world because thousands of girls are sexually assaulted every day, and most of those girls are too scared to get help.

Ladies of the world, this is a message to you. Don’t ever think that rape is your fault, and don’t ever be afraid to get help.