Editor’s Note: Alex Stuckey is an investigative journalist at the Houston Chronicle who has covered issues ranging from NASA to the sexual assault and harassment allegations against Deshaun Watson. Before joining the Chronicle, she was part of a team of reporters who earned a Pulitzer Prize for reporting on sexual assault.
Trigger Warning: This essay contains potentially triggering language about sexual assault.
It comes back in flashes in the middle of the night, lying next to my sleeping husband. In the bread aisle of the grocery store. Searching for my car in a crowded parking garage.
I can’t breathe.
Deep breath.
The time ticking by on the dashboard clock.
Deep breath.
Deep breath.
The phone just out of reach.
It’s been 10 years since I was raped in the backseat of a stranger’s SUV — 10 years since my life became a story of Before and After.
Before I flirted and accepted a drink. Before I gave my number to a handsome stranger.
And still, all it takes to plunge me back to that night is the sound of a certain song playing on the radio.
The sight of a certain car in my peripheral vision.
The smell of Jack and Coke and sweat.
Deep breath.
Deep breath.
The cut on my arm, weeping blood.
Deep breath.
His deep voice whispering in my ear: “You like that, don’t you?”
So I remained silent for years. Silenced by the pharmacist who scolded me to be more responsible when I purchased emergency contraception the morning after, by the friend I confided in whose first question was “Are you sure?” when I said I’d been raped.
Society has since become a friendlier place for victims to speak their truth. But when I look around, there is still so much work to do.
I’ve watched the Washington Post bar Felicia Sonmez from covering sexual misconduct because she, herself, is a survivor. I’ve watched Americans hurl death threats at Christine Blasey Ford for coming forward. I’ve watched trolls and gadflies eviscerate Lady Gaga for not naming her attacker.
Do people understand that the pain of not being believed — of being questioned — is almost as agonizing as the assault itself?
Deep breath
My legs being forced apart.
Deep breath
My voice shaking as I beg him to stop.
Deep breath
Bile rising in my throat when I realize I’m trapped.
In the early weeks, months, years after being assaulted, I did my best to stifle the pain.
I thought if I worked hard enough, I could will myself into believing it never happened.
If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around, does it make a sound? If a terrified girl is raped and doesn’t tell anyone, did it actually happen?
I buried myself in work and school, trying to forget. I did what was expected of me, went where I was expected to go. But I felt numb and empty, the outside world whizzing past while I was stuck in an endless loop of that night.
Friends that know today can pinpoint the weekend it happened — the very moment I folded in on myself and stopped laughing, stopped eating, stopped being.
Worst of all, I found myself unable to stand up for myself.
When a crush continually forced his hand down my pants even as I struggled and pushed him away.
When a peer who walked me home one night forced his way into my apartment — even as I struggled to close the door behind me — and tried to drag me into my bedroom.
When a senior colleague at the office where I interned found my cellphone number and bombarded me with inappropriate, sexual messages.
Where did I go? Who have I become?
Years later, I had more good days than bad. With the exception of a few tearful nights a year, I had even convinced myself it never happened, that it was all just a fevered nightmare.
Then I moved to Salt Lake City.
Deep breath
His lips on my throat as I try to squirm away.
Deep breath
My head smashed against the car door.
Deep breath
Did I do something to deserve this?
My first week working at the Salt Lake Tribune, a woman stood up at Brigham Young University and said she was punished by the school after reporting her assault to police.
My brand-new boss approached me: “Can you help look into this issue on other campuses?”
I felt like I was under water. I gripped the top of my desk.
Yes, I responded. Of course.
I locked myself in a bathroom stall, seized by my first panic attack in years.
The flashbacks brought me to my knees. Hunched on the chilly bathroom floor, I willed myself not to throw up.
I was hired to write about medicine. I shouldn’t be touching this topic.
But as I gasped for breath, something inside me told me I had to do this: For me. And for all the women like me who couldn’t find their voice.
The following year-and-a-half was a nightmare. My life consisted of interviewing rape victims, reading police reports of rape victims, listening to recorded interviews where I cried alongside rape victims.
I started drinking more, eating less. I withdrew from my now ex-boyfriend, not knowing how to express a pain so deep it had settled in my bones.
Sitting in a drive-thru line at a fast-food chain, I choked back tears as I confided in a friend via text. That friend’s support saved my life.
“You’re safe,” he’d assure me. “He can’t hurt you anymore.”
But he could. He was.
With every interview I conducted, every story I wrote, the guilt compounded. Guilt for not telling people what happened to me — for not reporting my assault to police. Had my silence allowed my rapist to ruin the lives of other women? How could I live with myself if that were true?
I would never know. I didn’t even know his name.
Every day, I panicked that my bosses would find out — that I would be kicked off the project, or worse, fired, for not disclosing my trauma.
Objectivity is a cornerstone of journalism. One that demands reporters distance their life and opinions from the area they cover. One that assumes they have control over that. One that isn’t forgiving for those of us who had that control ripped away from them.
I had just started working at the Tribune. The editors didn’t know me — my work ethic, my dedication to getting both sides of the story, my commitment to righting wrongs.
Would they hold this against me? Would I feel violated all over again?
I didn’t know.
“You don’t have to do this,” my friend said after a particularly bad night.
But then my rapist would win. Again.
I put my head between my legs, my hair brushing the soda-slick movie theater floor, as I struggled to breathe at a showing of “Guardians of the Galaxy 2.”
Deep breath
My body shaking as he climbed off me.
Deep breath
My hands rushing to cover exposed skin.
Deep breath
His voice husky with pleasure: “We should do that again soon.”
I practically sprinted out of the Tribune offices when the Houston Chronicle offered me a job.
It didn’t matter that my reporting had helped dozens of women find their voices. I was still voiceless.
It didn’t matter that my reporting had forced a college to change its sexual assault policies and helped prompt a Department of Justice investigation. I still had no justice.
It didn’t matter that my reporting had resulted in an NFL player being charged with multiple counts of rape and sexual assault, sentenced to 26 years to life in prison. My trauma has no parole; no end date.
It’s hard to feel like a survivor when every day you’re struggling to survive.
So, I ran from my pain, I ran from my trauma, I ran from the constant panic sitting in my gut that I would be outed.
But you can’t outrun a nightmare.
I went public a few years ago, bolstered by the thousands of women who found their voices before me. I share my story because I want to help others, to show people they aren’t alone.
I continue to write about this topic because the perspectives of myself and other survivors are so important — that the crimes that were committed against us doesn’t preclude us from participating in this coverage. I’m thankful that my current bosses agree.
But speaking my truth never gets easier.
I can feel it coming in a conversation, the panic rising in my throat, my eyelids blinking away stars and trying to keep myself present.
How are people going to react? Am I going to be believed?
Before I went public with my assault, I worried people would find out. Now, I worry that people will use the information against me.
Will I be barred from covering sexual assault cases because of the crime that was committed against me, like Felicia Sonmez?
Will I be crucified for not reporting the assault, like Lady Gaga?
For days, sometimes weeks, after the phrase “I was raped” passes through my lips, my hands shake.
The images of that night plague my sleep, leaving me restless and fearful. I panic when hugged too tight. I struggle to leave the house, and lose my cool in crowded rooms.
I thought covering the Deshaun Watson case would be different now that I was no longer trying to hide.
I was wrong.
“You’re safe,” my friend texts, as I struggle to handle the coverage, unable to shake the feeling of my rapist’s weight on my chest. “You’re safe.”
I don’t feel safe.
Will I ever feel safe?
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