Doubt. Shame. Fear. Anger. These are just a few emotions sexual assault victim Jane has experienced. Though the violent act that shifted her life is in the past, the reality of being a victim can sometimes creep into the present.
There are thousands of young women and men every year who are sexually assaulted, and although the crime is committed, it isn’t always reported.
Every sexual assault victim deals with the mental torment it causes in their own way. For Jane, whose identity is being protected, the initial coping mechanism was to make it less real.
“It’s going to be a super, super long road, and it’s okay to feel like it’s never going to end, because I definitely dealt with that,” she says to victims. “It felt like a personal hell, basically. I tried to make it feel like it wasn’t real. I tried to downplay my feelings. I tried to just make it less real. I tried to come up with excuses to make my feelings invalid, and it really just hurt my heart.
“I was at the lowest point in my life,” Jane continued. “I had lost a lot of self-respect for myself, and I wasn’t able to carry myself with confidence. It took a lot for me to build myself back up and reach out for help.”
April is Sexual Assault Awareness Month, and the university recently held an event about consent to provide information to help ensure there are fewer victims.
“We have a lot of students on campus who have experienced these things prior to coming to campus. Some of them may unfortunately experience this here while they’re on campus. Part of our role is not to just be punitive but to also offer education and services to try to prevent some of that stuff from occurring here in Kingsville,” Director of Student and Community Standards Karey Barnes said.
Consent in sexual interaction is the number one priority, without consent any sexual interactions that may happen can be considered rape or sexual assault.
Alcohol has been proven to have a major impact on one’s ability to give consent in sexual interaction and is a contributor to a large number of rape cases.
“One of the biggest things for sexual assault awareness is to be aware of how alcohol can impact consent. It’s important to know what some of the warning signs of incapacitation are – if somebody has been passed out, if they are throwing up, if they can’t follow a conversation. And, if they’re in that particular state of mind, even if they’re the ones that are telling you they want to engage in sexual activity, typically in those particular moments, they may have lost that capacity to decide,” Title IX Coordinator Tasha Clark said.
If you have been raped or sexually assaulted, remember no matter how hard it is to believe, you are not alone, reach out to local officials, such as Kingsville PD, University PD, or visit the Texas A&M University-Kingsville’s Office of Compliance located in Lewis Hall, Room 130.