I was raped.

The testimosy of Aly Raisman and Jordyn Wieber helped me realize something important: I’m not at fault for what happened to me.

A year ago, I was raped. I haven’t really told anyone, in part because I’ve been struggling with feelings of shame and guilt, and in part because I haven’t wanted anyone to look at me like a victim. I haven’t even told my mom.

Recently, only a few days after the victim impact statements in the Larry Nassar trial started, a friend told me something: “I think you were raped.”

It’s surprisingly easy to ignore your own feelings; it’s much harder to ignore them when someone else acknowledges what happened to you. More than anything, I’m angry that my rapist victimized my best friend, too: he was the one that drank a lone beer and waited for the opportunity to victimize someone — and when he took it, he victimized us both.

I’ve looked up to gymnasts for a really long time; in 2013, I started the Wikipedia article on Simone Biles, who went on to win 4 gold and 1 bronze medals at the 2016 Olympics. I could see her potential even then, because she had something I saw in myself: insatiable drive, a love for the things she held dear, and a draw towards perfection.

When I was younger, I struggled intensely with self-image. I used to work out compulsively, fearing I would never be enough. I struggled with engineering and mathematics problems that are actually pretty hard, but that I felt should be easy. Once, I beat myself up for not intuitively understanding how a camera works (it turns out this is a fairly complicated optics problem that not even undergrad physics tends to cover fully).

I cried for a week.

I was 14.

In college, this self-hatred developed beyond a level I could control. At one point, I forced myself to throw up after almost every meal, because it was the only thing I felt I could control.

Honestly, it felt good.

My rapist preyed on these insecurities, and the ‘mistakes’ I made. But I know now that it wasn’t my fault.

I didn’t deserve what happened to me, and if you’re a sexual assault survivor, you didn’t either. The circumstances don’t matter — the blame rests entirely, 100%, on your rapist. Aly and Jordyn have helped me understand that, just as they helped me understand the importance of repetition in crafting your skills, and the importance of never giving up when you don’t get the competitive results you wanted.

My recovery hasn’t been perfect — and that’s okay, because I don’t have to be perfect anymore.

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