I’m not sure that I have the capacity to unpack everything, but I’m going to try. The last few weeks, I’ve avoided accountability, transparency, and responsibility. Somehow I still have a job. February, March, April, and even May are four of the toughest months to cope. Subconsciously, I guess I kinda enjoy the grief and misery associated with the traumatic events of my life all occurring in these months. Come February 1, I get in a funk, slowly losing energy and the will to focus. If you look throughout my blog archives, you’ll notice that my spike in content comes later in the year. This platform is my public diary and the infant that I often neglect. After I wrote about Lisa, part one and part two, I became exhausted from my blog. This happens every year.
I will say, I’ve used my Instagram stories and Twitter as a way of storytelling and to unleash my realities as I took a hiatus from blogging. Thank you to all of my Internet friends for listening. (Facebook had to take a backseat. My two-month break was beautiful. I swear y’all do the most and I fall into the rabbit hole of toxicity every time.)
A few folks text me and sent messages recently asking for a new Girl Tyler post. I wasn’t ready. To be honest, I’ve considered shutting down my site. The truth is, I don’t have a reason to but also managing a site is exhausting especially when you’re inconsistent. Lately, I’ve been sharing sermons via my IG stories. Because I stopped going to church (I’ll explain in a later post), I’ve become a digital parishioner. Many of you have sent me messages sharing your personal challenges and opening up dialogue about spirituality. In doing so, in recent weeks, I began missing the discussions from my blog. I love when my readers hit me up to say, “I’m struggling too, thank you for writing my reality.” So here I am. I’m back.
A classmate posted on Instagram yesterday that May 8th marks 8 years since we graduated from college. I smiled then frowned. I thought to myself, “Girl you haven’t accomplished shit since you walked across that stage.” Then, I proceeded to take a photo of my graduation pic and added it to my IG story.
Then I went to bed. But, I didn’t go to sleep.
There are times when I feel like a professional failure. I’ve watched my friends grow at their companies, earn PhDs and master’s degrees, or even start their own business. While I never compare myself to them, I do have moments when I become frustrated because I’m not going at full speed. And the reason why? I allow life to knock me down more times than I care to admit. Last night, I had to give myself long overdue credit. My greatest accomplishment in the last eight years, and in my twenties as a whole, is the fact that I didn’t allow external forces to destroy me.
I’m about to cry but I gotta get this out.
2010 is the dumpster trash fire that almost broke me.
- April 11, 2010 I was raped.
- April 14, 2010 my grandmother died.
- Three weeks later I graduated from college.
I don’t know where to start, but here we go.
I knew she was sick, but I thought she’d recover. My grandmother was 97-years-old. Not my great-grandmother… but my mother’s mother. She survived Jim Crow, the Depression, and every other system in place designed to suppress people that looked like her. She even experienced the deaths of her closest sister, husband, a child, and a grandchild. She was a sole survivor and our family matriarch. Mo Mo went through it all. And not to mention, she spent 50+ years of her life in darkness. My late grandmother lost her vision in the 1960’s. She never saw me visually, but she saw me in a way that no one else could. Above all, she never complained.
In my 21-year-old mind, I was sure that she’d live to experience me, her youngest granddaughter graduate and get on TV. That was our thing and truly it’s how I developed my storytelling abilities. She relied heavily on me to be her eyes. I had to be extremely thorough and descriptive in our dialogue. I described the world around us and images on the TV to her as she wove lifelong lessons into my heart. We had a 75 year age difference and somehow our generational divide saved me. Her stories were legendary.
The last time that I visited her in the hospital, I was sure that we’d be sitting down again to swap stories just like the old times.
The first weekend in April I traveled home from college to see her in the hospital. My mom didn’t tell me what was wrong with Mo Mo other than “she’s sick.” I’m a fool for not knowing or asking about the severity of her illness. I went into the hospital room and she was in good spirits considering her condition. Her memory had declined in the last year, but still, she was sharp. I sat at her bedside and we talked for a few minutes then I noticed her tone changed.
She said, “Diane, I need to talk to you about something.” I laughed and said, “Mo Mo, I’m not Diane.” She calls me Ty, but I knew she’d gotten me and my elder cousin confused. She held my hand, looking in my direction and said, “I know who you are. You’re too old to be doing the things that you do.” I was sure that this time she’d really had me confused with Diane. Diane was in her 40’s at the time. I laughed and said, “Mo Mo, I’m only 21.” She said, “You can think that you’re still young and can do the things that you used to do, but it’s time to stop. Time is moving. You need to grow up and be a woman.” I shrugged it off and told her, “Yes ma’am.” Our conversation continued with her urging me to do what I know is right and to trust God.
Her lifelong mantra was, “You must be sweet and kind to folk and God will bless you for it.” Sure, this was a further extension of her spin on the Golden Rule. Little did I know that it would be our last talk and she was leaving me with the advice that I would need for the next eight years.
The next week came final exams. I only had a few classes therefore studying was a breeze. Mo Mo got out of the hospital and I intended to go home to see her in two weeks. That Saturday my friends/sorors went to a regional conference and I stayed local. I went to a show, a party on-campus, then to a house party to follow and had a few drinks. My girls that I normally drank with weren’t there and on this particular day, I consumed more than the usual. At the house party, I talked to a guy that I’d had a crush on for years. He was an alum hanging around with undergrads: red flag. I never tried to get his attention but on this night I guess I did something for him to prey on me. He invited me to his house. I agreed. On my drive over, I called my girls, excited about my late night romp. Usually, my friends encouraged my recklessness, in reason, but this time my best friend said, “Tyler, please don’t go.” For a moment, I got pissed at her. Why was she trying to stop my fun? She said, “Something in my spirit is telling you not to go.” I distinctly responded, “What do you think is going to happen? Somebody is going to rape me or something? There was a man with him that was acting weird.”
There is life and death in the tongue.
Within an hour, my car keys were hidden from me and I was ambushed by a man that I had seen earlier in the evening acting funny. The guy I went to visit watched as his friend raped me. One had consent and the other thought he had a free pass. I will never get his dirty voice out of my head saying, “You know you like it.”
My grandmother was dying at home two hours away.
Never in my life had I been so terrified. I thought they’d kill me if I tried to run. I put up a fight, but that did not matter. Had I not been intoxicated, maybe I would’ve ran naked out the door. All I could think was, “You don’t have keys to leave and you’re in a strange neighborhood.” I felt my soul leaving my body as I screamed, “Stop!” more times than I can count. The next morning I woke up, my attacker was gone and the other was asleep. I tore up his living room to find my keys. They’d hidden my car keys under a hat on the coffee table.
I got back to my apartment and made a conscious decision..something I knew not to do. I remember watching something on TV as a teenager and someone said, “If you’re raped, don’t pee. You’ll lose the evidence.” I was terrified. It was two against one and one of the guys was known as a golden boy in the community. No one would believe me. I pulled down my pants and peed. When I looked in the toilet I saw blood and cried for the next hour. A few hours later, I called one of my guy friends and literally cried on his shoulder. He urged me to go to the hospital. Our friendship later became complicated, but to this day I always consider him to be my safe haven.
The next day, my friends urged me to go to the hospital. The day after that my roommates said the same thing.
My friends had classes and I didn’t want to bother them once I finally decided to go to the police. The organization that I was in had dubbed me a whore. My sexuality was constantly on trial. I still have an email where a “sister” explicitly slut-shamed me with 20+ other people attached. No one came to my defense, not even our advisors. (This is why I don’t talk to y’all.) Because of my reputation, the same as every other sexually liberated college student who had freedom from their parents, I knew no one would believe me if I reported a rape. If I can’t have faith that you’ll stand up for me in public then why would I believe you’d be sensitive to me in private? For the first time, I learned the true definition of sisterhood. This was not it.
I couldn’t bear to hear them say, “She brought it on herself.”
The truth is, I did not. Even if I had sex with 74 men in one night, the 75th man that I reject is not entitled to my body. The moment a woman says, “no,” all bets are off. We talk about consent and #MeToo in 2018. We also need to condemn victim shamers. They are the reason why the vast majority of victims do not report their assault. These are thugs that perpetuate rape culture and men aren’t totally to blame.
I went through a list of names of older “sisters” who I hoped wouldn’t gossip if I asked them to come with me to urgent care. I found one and even now I’m not certain that she didn’t tell people about my situation. I still love her, though, for taking time off work to be at my side.
By Wednesday, that older sister said to me, “Tyler, don’t let them get away with this. I know you’re not the first person they’ve done this to and you need to make sure you’re the last.” I had three marks against me: I peed. I waited to report. I had been drinking prior to the attack.
Wednesday afternoon I took my ripped panties to the hospital and endured the most traumatic moment as they photographed my vagina and drew blood. The rape counselor was an angel.
Hours later I went back to my apartment to study for my finals. Even when you endure trauma, the world around you never stops. I had to keep moving. Around 10:00 p.m., my real sister called. On the other end of the phone, she sounded restless. All she said was, “Come outside.” No hello just, “Come outside.” I was in no mood to be played with. I asked why she was playing on my phone because I knew there was no way that she had driven two hours to see me on a weeknight. Her tone grew deeper as she said, “I am not playing with you. Come outside, we’re here.”
I jumped up from my bed and ripped the bandage from my arm where I had drawn blood a few hours prior. I got on the elevator, my heart was racing. I walked through the lobby of my apartment trying to look “okay.” If my family was outside, I didn’t want them to sense that something was wrong. I walked through the doors and saw my mom standing there. In the back seat of her car, was my 2-year-old nephew asleep, my 8-year-old nephew waving at me with the saddest eyes, and my sister appearing as though she’d saw a ghost. I felt a gravitational pull in the opposite direction. I looked at my mother and she said, “Mama died.”
I collapsed.
I’ll forever have to live with my grandmother’s death anniversary as the same day that I had a rape kit. I went upstairs and packed my bags. Mom took me home. Two days later, the guy that raped me called and left a voicemail. Apparently, the police had contacted him for questioning and he felt as though I “misunderstood” what happened. You never forget the face or the voice of the person who violates you. (Btw, I still have that voicemail.) We buried my grandmother and I screamed loudly as I looked at her lifeless body for the last time. A bit of my soul went with her in that casket. I am still mad.
When they lowered her casket into the ground, my family walked away and I just stood there feeling lifeless as if I saw a piece of myself being buried. One of my cousins put her arm around me and said, “Come on Ty, Mo Mo isn’t here anymore.”
Neither was I.
My friends were so good to me at the time calling and sending text messages with words of encouragement. I went back to school business as usual. One of my professors pulled me to the side and asked what was wrong with me because he could tell I was becoming detached. I told him what had happened and he offered to help. Looking back, he was a powerful man and maybe his resources could’ve helped me. The detective called me to the police station the same day to notify me that chose not to pursue the case. She said because alcohol was involved, me testifying would be more detrimental than the rape itself. The detective said that the rape kit had concluded that there were tears to my vagina but waiting three days did not help. Ironically enough, she also informed me that both guys had turned on each other in their interviews. Three separate accounts about one night. At this point, it looked more like a sexual encounter with an acquaintance than an actual assault. She told me that the statute of limitations would expire in five years and if I wanted to proceed, I could.
Fast forward to April 2015, I finally put the case behind me. I didn’t tell my mother until the year prior.
Graduation came and went as did the night terrors and the bloody scratching in my sleep. My counselor said that I was experiencing PTSD. Everywhere I looked I saw the guys and I didn’t know who I could trust. In 2010, I ended several relationships and embarked on a period of isolation. In 2010, I was living but I wasn’t alive. I felt empty. Before I knew it, I weighed in at 250 lbs. During our third session, my counselor told me that she was leaving the organization and they would be pairing me with another therapist. I didn’t want to relive my story with another stranger. I made another decision to quit therapy and battle this on my own.
The next eight years would be a series of highs and lows. But I did what I set out to do. I graduated from college and finally got on TV. The dreams that I had promised my grandma came true.
My grandmother sparked my earlier interested in television and I followed through with it.
In hindsight, my last conversation with her was not a warning, but instead her blessing for me to go forward without her and live fully. I’m continuing to learn about rape culture as a source of healing for me and other women around me. Ironically, earlier this year, I had to take a young lady to the hospital after she was raped. All of my missteps from 2010 came full circle. In a way, I feel as though God put me through this experience for her.
For years I played a number of scenarios in my head. “What if I would’ve just stayed at home?” “Maybe I should’ve went to the regional conference?” “Why weren’t you at your grandmother’s side?” “You shouldn’t have drank at all.” “Why did you go to his house?”
No matter how I replay the scenario, the end result will always be: You did not deserve to be raped.
It took me eight years to realize my strength, but eight years isn’t nearly as long as people who’ve perished with dreams in their hearts, unaware of their full potential. My grandmother gave me the courage that I didn’t know I needed. People tell me all the time that “Tyler, you’re living your best life ever,” and in a way I am. I’m experiencing all the people, places, and things that my grandmother could not see. My journey is to finish hers. She had 24 grandchildren, 41 great-grandchildren and 10 great-great (I think). I was the youngest grandchild and I am blessed to know that God waited for me to become an adult before He took her back.
There have been two times that I’ve distinctly heard the voice of God. The first came in 2015 when God said, “I have something greater for you,” and I immediately resigned from my job. The other came yesterday when I heard Him say, “Stop playing it safe.” I’m not sure what exactly that means, but I do know that it started with this blog.
If you’ve made it this far, my first course of action is finding a therapist to pick up where I left off eight years ago.
A lot of us are fighting silent battles and the people beside us are in the trenches too. As I penned this essay and wondered if I should delete it, an old classmate sent a message thanking me for one of my past posts regarding middle school insecurities. She’s also dealing with childhood wounds. Her message saved me today.
Open up to someone, be it public or private, you never know who needs you. It is my hope that this post vindicates someone.