The Night Haunts Me Even When I'm Awake

July 1995.

I was 18 years old. I had fallen asleep on the couch. That was my bed when I moved in with some friends. I fell asleep watching a movie.

I woke up and his fingers were around my throat and I felt like I was suffocating. He was biting my breasts and trying to have sex with me. His fingers digging into me.

I don't think he thought it was assault. I think he thought it was rough foreplay. I don't think he meant to hurt me, not in a mean sense.

I think he thought I wanted to have sex with him. I think I'd been flirty too many times, an 18 year old can be. I told him, while he was assaulting me, that I would have sex with him, but not while his wife was in the next room sleeping.

I didn't. I didn't want to before that happened and I didn't ever have sex with him. I just needed a way to get him off of me. It worked. He didn't rape me. We didn't have sex.

I woke up the next morning to bruising on my breasts, bruising on my neck, bruising on my arms and legs.

I also woke up the next morning to a new fear of my surroundings; a new fear of who I was. A new fear that somehow I had caused this. He winked at me that morning and asked if I was ok and I said "of course."

I didn't have anywhere to go. I had no car, very little money, no place to stay. So I made sure that I was never alone with him. I double thought about every word I said before I said it. I made sure that I didn't flirt. I made sure I didn't fall asleep at night and would only fall asleep in the day, when I felt it was safe.

When I have had surgery and woken up with the oxygen mask on my face, I had a horrifying panic attack that stayed with me for days. The doctors now put the nasal oxygen tubes on me before  waking me from any ssurger. My husband and kids know not to wake me up by touching me. At least one of our children has been hit, accidentally, for waking me up by touching me.

Now I have to have a CPAP machine. I'll be connected to a machine while I sleep. I go in the morning to try a "nasal pillow" because I can't have anything on my face while I sleep. I've told the nurse my story and she promised to work with me to try to make this work. It's the least invasive one they make. 

Pray for me? Pray for it be tolerable? I want to breathe while I sleep again and not have such high blood pressure. I want to not wake up with such horrible headaches anymore and I want to wake up and feel like I've actually slept. This "pillow" should help with that, if I can stop seeing his face and feeling his hands on me every time I think about.