Does Any One Know What It Feels Like To Be Shredded Apart?
My writing my autobiography reminds me of when I attended court in Nottingham as a victim of rape. Reaching the time to attend court took many procedures that a person who has never been raped could never understand how this could feel.
So, I will start with when the rape was finally found out. I can not name the perpetrator due to confidentiality purposes and my safety but I can divulge that he was known to us all. This man had done this act for over four years. He had taken advantage of our friendship and had broken our trust. This man has so much to answer for.
During the years that I knew this person, I witnessed him break every rule of kindness and love and he elegantly tore our lives to pieces. When he was caught in the act of raping me, yes caught in the act, he was finally arrested and that was the last time he ever laid a finger on me ever again.
However, then came the statements. Statements after statements, over and over again. All this was taking place with a translator. A remarkable woman who spoke eleven languages. She didn’t know me from Adam and yet professionally befriended me in such a way that she didn’t make me feel the fear that I reeled off for her to translate. Everything came out. The unimaginable beatings and my endurance of four years of being raped.
Again as I did for the following thirty years, I told what had happened as if I was just retelling another story. This kept me sane and safe from my pain. The pain that I just could not let come out. If I had have left the pain seep through I fear that I felt if I did let it surface I would crumble and die. How could I relive those horrible moments. Hence, the way that I told those events was a way of putting up a barrier, a safety net.
Within days of the events unfolding and of the arrest, I was taken to have a medical to prove that what I was stating was in fact the truth. Alas, they did find that I was telling the truth. Medical examiners that I had never met before in my life and whom I was not even introduced to prior to the examinations.
They were not one examiner but several who examined me. They were all dressed in their white coats as they always did back in those days. When the examination was over I was taken by the nurse to the waiting area where my mother waited for me and there I was requested to sit down. For being a good person I was given a ‘Mars’ bar. I felt degraded. I was eleven years of age and I was given a Mars bar for being medically examined by strangers in white coats.
I smiled but inside I screamed and screamed. Oh! my God I felt so alone and isolated. Not understanding what anyone was talking about as I spoke only French back then and every one else was speaking English and no one was translating to me as to what was being said. Not until later and even then I was only told that what I professed was true beyond any word of a doubt. I was gob smacked that I had to endure such atrocity so that what I told them about my rapist could eventually be believed.
My first part of my dissection was over and now all we had to do is wait until we had been given a court date. Was that all. Really, was that all. I had to relive four years of my life to complete strangers and attend a medical and be examined by total strangers and that was all. Eh! lets not worry because I received a Mars bar. So, surely all was okay.
No, it was not. For a week, details was asked to be relayed but in that week and months that led to the court appearance not once was I asked as to whether I was feeling okay. Of course I was not. I soon realised that I could not spend one moment thinking of it, not one moment. As usual I learned to bury the truth until it needed to be resurfaced and that I did with style.
I had no friends that I could speak too as I expressed before, I only spoke French, within months I began to speak pigeon English but certainly not enough to tell them that I wished that I could DIE. I wasn’t afraid of dying, never had been nor have I since but back then I was afraid to die in pain. I had endured eleven years of brutality and physical pain to which I was definitely finding unbearable. I could not bear any more physical pain. yet! somehow, I wonder if I was mistaking unable to cope with physical pain with having to cope with my mental anguish, my inner torments.
Having to own up that I had been raped was the hardest thing in my life but what I never expressed was how dirty I felt and still do, even after thirty eight years. My emotions were violated, yet no one was privy to such mental information, all that mental anguish was safely locked away. Even when we finally attended court.
Several lawyers in turn quizzed me, showed me photos and over and over again, I repeated what was what and all was translated but none of those important physical details stretched over to the inquiry of my mental encroachment that I succumbed too. That part was just by the by.
So, Part two of my dissection was over and by then I was definitely left shredded. Inside and out, I had been shredded and no one asked me as to how I was coping. Hence, I didn’t ask myself that question either. The man in question was sentenced for four years.
Four years did not reflect the poison he had injected my life with. There was no antidote for me just my own life’s imprisonment. They could only charge him for what he had done on England’s territory and not for what he had done abroad. Once again he had got away with murder, leaving the victim helpless and alone.
Yet! That man served less than eighteen months for the crime of my rape. On his return to his country he began his false prophecy of his innocence and those who believed him allowed him to play with their children, it made me feel physically sick and extremely worried for those innocent souls that he prayed on.
I was never taken for psychological help and since then I entered relationships that led me to being a ‘Victim of Self’. Being a ‘Victim of Self’ does not mean I am less of a victim but this time I had more control over my victimization. This time I had the chance to speak up and walk away from the problems encountered. However, this victimization has finally taken its toll and I am now recovering from a life time of persecution and victimization. It is time to take control and thanks to my partner, I am able to achieve this control and start healing.
Gemma Dupont
Gemma Dupont 