I am having a hard time after being emotionally and mentally abused, and finally raped by my friend a couple years ago. I suppose "friend" is no longer the right word, but that's who I thought she was. Basically, she had Borderline Personality Disorder and was extremely needy and manipulative, but not in a way that you'd notice like being threatening, but more like mind games and taking advantage of the fact I was vulnerable. We met when I started college and she was my RA in the dorm. I was having extreme anxiety about starting school and she was there as a "supportive friend" who had experience with mental issues (no $hit), and also was a psych student like me (before I eventually changed majors and schools). So she became my friend for the next two years, until this happened. I look back and from the very beginning she had groomed me, making me identify with her in a way I felt like she was trying to sort of mold my identity into something that benefited her, like she had an idea of me, and if I presented something that didn't agree with that she acted "nice" but condescending, like she was trying to psycho-analyze me and be my therapist with an I-know-better-than-you attitude. It's a complicated thing to explain, but it felt like she was trying to define who I was for herself, and then imposing that on me in a really subtle way.

Then there was a night I was feeling pretty down because I had just lost a family member to a long disease, and I had a big fight with my parents who didn't want me changing schools. I invited her over for pizza and movies, typical girls night stuff. We ended up drinking, because society tells us that parties and dark parks are dangerous, hanging out with a girl friend and drinking while watching Netflix is not. But anyway, she started coming onto me and I told her no verbally and physically (moving away, pushing her hands away and her face when she tried to kiss me, moving from the couch to the floor...pretty clear signals, wouldn't you say?) I must have said no at lease half a dozen times. (One should be enough, yes?) But she didn't stop. I pushed her off of me, but I didn't have it in me to hurt her because at this point she was still a friend in my mind...this was also due to me being totally wasted until I didn't comprehend much of what was going on and I was hardly able to move. So she did what she did. But see, because we were two girls, only a couple of my other friends and my boyfriend believed me. Everyone else who I told either did not believe me, or if they did, they tried to make it my fault-my parents, the Title IX office at my school (actually they even mocked me), the health clinic (who refused to test me for STDs because it was "a waste of money since it wasn't a man"). I didn't even consider pressing charges because if these people didn't believe me, would the police or a jury? Plus, the thought of having to relive it and go through every detail in court made me want to jump off a bridge, so I didn't report it.

I'm so angry and sad. My views of people, the world and myself have been unhinged. My body and mind have been violated, but I can't talk about it with anyone except my therapist (and even then there are some things I can't make myself say). I feel like I can't connect to who I really am any more because things have become so twisted and I have all these fears and triggers for anger and depression. It has ruined my life. Yes I can still attend class, yes I can still work, but I feel either dead or crazy most of the time, things that were never part of my personality. She made me question myself all the time and wormed her way into the deepest part of my head. This part is almost as hard as dealing with the sexual assault part. I can't make sense of any of it. I try to love myself and be compassionate, but that doesn't help me understand myself or get rid of the memory of not being in control and having my mind and body used against me for someone else's will. I just have no idea how to move on and stop feeling dirty and used, how to own myself again.