Anonymous
“I have struggled for decades, since December 24th, 1993. I was driving home from a night out. A car followed me which I noticed it beforehand. I made swift turns to get away when I thought I had. I entered through a driveway into the property where I lived and where I was raised. At the time I was 18. There were no gates closing the property off from the street. I got out of the car and a man approached me. He told me he needed to make a phone call because his car had a problem. He said he needed to come into my house. I refused. He asked for money, I gave it to him. As he thanked me and walked away, I turned my back to unlock the door to the house. He came from behind, put his hand over my mouth and asked me to not say a thing. I panicked. He held me from my throat until I begged for air. With force he ripped my pants and sexually abused me. It all happened very fast and he left. I collected all my things from the ground and went into my house. I went directly to my sister and my mother who were asleep and asked them to take me to the hospital for a DNA test. Then I asked my mother to take me to the police to report the incident.
I live in a country where such cases were very rare and no one could help me. I never got a DNA result from the semen, nor was this man ever found. To this day I walk down streets and think it might be him, or the other one, or that one. I will never know who it was. It was dark. My story has been in the dark all these years. I have never known how to deal with it, or if not dealing with it is the best. But I do suffer, so I feel like I am doing something wrong.”
The #NotGuilty campaign would like to add that as a victim of assault you are not doing anything wrong. We encourage the fact that remaining anonymous does not have to be the same as being silenced, and there is no shame in seeking the help that you need. Our ‘About’ section has useful contacts in the UK for receiving appropriate help after assault and we hope that this can be of assistance to survivors.