Hi, I'm Ethan and I have a story I think you'd like to hear.
Now don't worry this is neither rat-shit sappy garbage, nor a go at your
organisation... I just want to tell you about how your site helped me out.
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My best friend, J., is 18 years old (a year younger than me, although
that's irrelevant). We've been very close since we were old enough to talk
(okay, thats a lie. We fought like dogs until we were about ten or
eleven.)
We've been through heaps together as well; - I taught her to ride, she
taught me respect. I taught her to box, she taught me to put the seat down
(via threatening to kill me). In short, she's intelligent, determined,
witty, stylish (er... in her own way), very capable, and she's never even
bothered to attempt to prove herself to any jerk off troglodytes
interested in nothing but a bang to slag off to their mates about.
Two and a half years ago, her friend was caught in what the friend called "a
difficult relationship". Fuckwit. (He was beating on her and it was
blindingly obvious. Her friend is one of these head cases that buys into lame
bullshit like, "I'm sorry, you know I love you, I had problems when I was
a kid, I'll never do it again I promise".) Still, when dickwad finally
came around to the fact that he was abusing her and asked J. for help,
she agreed to try (J. always was too bloody loyal.) She went round to
her friend's place, and it turned out that the prick boyfriend was there at the
time. He hit her friend in front of J. and J. laid right into the bastard.
Right after that, the shit hit the fan.
We were all at a party a week later. J. was on her own and she got
grabbed by loverboy's older brother and his mates. They chucked her in the
back of a car, drove out whoop-whoop somewhere and then the four of them
bashed, and then with wire tied round her wrists, gangraped her.
She came
to school the next day. Didn't say a word. I had no idea what to think,
but I could tell she was upset... I said to her, "Hey you left us all high
and dry last night... Why'd you dash off?". I think after I said that I
noticed the cut marks on her wrists (from the wire.) She wouldn't tell me
a thing. Two nights after that, two of them grabbed her and shoved a knife
in her face. They said get down on the ground (this was in a mate's house
by the way) and told her to count back from ten. She told them to go to
hell. They raped her again. No price human life... mother fuckers.
Next arvo I saw her and I knew straight away something was real fucking
wrong, so I said, "Do you want to talk about what happened?". She said yeah,
she did, and she just kind of blurted everything out. I can't begin to
imagine how she felt, but what she said left me absolutely shattered. I
think in one go I lost faith in everything.
As I got myself together, I wouldn't let her out of my sight.
Everywhere she went I was asking her what she was doing or where she was
going and why. I treated her like she was my damaged property (I was an
idiot, yeah.) I started getting really pushy - asking her if she was okay
every 5 minutes, that kind of thing - and she got jack of it, turned
around and said "I know you care about me and hate what happened, but I
don't need you to save me. I was raped, it fucking hurt and it still does,
but don't treat me like a victim". What she said made no sense whatsoever.
I couldn't get it through my thick skull.
Anyhow, I was browsing one day and someone gave me a link to your
website... I was glued to the computer for nearly four hours, little
brother hanging off me saying "it's my turn now". I was absolutely rapt in
it... After I finished laughing my arse off until I bawled, I actually read
some things people had said and written. It sorta gave me a whole, um, I
dunno. It changed the way I thought about J. I thought "fuck, she's a
real person and she's hurting a lot right now, and she needs to feel in
control". I figured out my wanting to be her shadow was far from helping,
and I told her how I really felt.
For the end of my bloody life story (yeah I crap on), she's great and our
friendship is twice as strong. She told me - and this is why I'm writing
to you - "If I had never been through it, I wouldn't be the person I am
today, and I would never have known my real strength. I was a fucking
awful thing to have gone through, but with no bad experiences my life
wouldn't have the meaning it does because I never would have learned
anything" (I've probably missed some of that) So...
I guess that's the story...
Like I said, I just wanted you to know you helped me out.
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... and in case you are wondering, yeah, J. did press charges. Two of them got off,
but one got four years for something like "reckless endangerment" and
another got 7 - 14 for rape.
