Maggie's Story

My name is Maggie. I am 25 years old and I am a sexual assault survivor.

My first recollection of sexual assault was in elementary school, at a sleepover. I remember waking up to my friend’s brother touching me over my clothes and kissing my face, I was around 10 or 11 years old.  I never brought it up to anyone in the morning and quickly repressed the memory until I recalled it years later – after my worst experience but unfortunately not last experience involving sexual assault.  An experience being prevalent and very common for many women and men, everywhere.

I moved back to Hamilton, where I grew up after a breakup and dropping out of my university program after struggling with my mental health for a prolonged period. I moved in with a close friend from high school and began working but also partying heavily to keep me distracted and cope with both my breakup and move - feeling completely lost. It was late July, and I was with my cousin in the parking lot outside the bar, when 4 men approached us. They were in their 20s, I was flirting with one of the guys for a bit before deciding to go hangout with him at his place while my cousin made her way home. He drove us back to his “student” apartment near McMaster University and I sat quietly with his friends in the back seat. During the car ride there was little conversation, except for the driver mentioning his friend who was seated next to me thought I was pretty.

When we got back to his apartment, they started rolling joints but also, they stopped speaking English. They continued all the conversations between them in French, while I played with their dog and waited to smoke weed. Up until this point, the only red flag was their decision to speak French – everything else was normal. I had drunk at the bar and was beginning to feel a little drowsy, we sat down to smoke weed and watch tv before his friends cleared out of his room to supposedly go to bed. Shortly after they left, we got undressed and began hooking up. Before things went too far, he paused and asked if I wanted to have a threesome – to which I immediately and clearly responded no. We continued for a little bit before he pressed the subject again, so again I clearly explained I was only interested in being physical with him.  We started to have sex, he paused and said he would be right back - then quickly left the room. I was facing the wall, naked myself and beginning to feel very physically sick and drowsy when I heard his door click. I turned around to see the 3 men undressed in front of the closed door and I realized my choice in the matter was gone.

It was around 8 am when I woke up the next day feeling incredibly ill, the driver of the car still laying beside me naked and asleep. My phone had no service, so I woke him up to call me a cab and got dressed then bolted to the stair well to throw up.  I slept the entire day before waking up and realizing what had really happened to me, happened - recalling his friend touching and video taping me on a phone as I passed out unable to do anything.

After resting and contemplating how to handle the situation, at the end of the night ultimately decided to tell a friend and his mom before we all went to the Hamilton Police station to report the incident.

Reporting the incident to the Police and everything that follows is unfortunately arguably as traumatizing and physically uncomfortable as being raped.  It’s an incredibly long and tiring process, where you must recount your trauma in grave detail to multiple strangers. Following verbally recounting your story, in order to have DNA and evidence and to ensure your safety, its recommended that you participate in a rape kit. This consist of having your body swapped head to toe by another stranger and answering more questions about your experience. When I reported this to the police, my personal safety or what might’ve happened to my body did not cross my mind because I was in shock and slightly dissociating simultaneously being swallowed by my emotions. Although reporting it to the police and having to relive the experience several times to multiple strangers is beyond uncomfortable, it was worth it to ensure my body was indeed safe after this. I had obviously never had a rape kit done before this, so I did not know all the health risks I was at stake for; I was more concerned about having them charged. The nurse swabbed my body head to toe to collect any DNA that may still be on or in me for the police then followed this with blood work. After that uncomfortable process, she gave me a plan B to protect me from an unwanted pregnancy and proceeded to explain my next prescriptions. I left her office with a few more prescriptions to take to prevent HIV and Hepatitis B, medication I had to continue to take for the rest of the summer and a follow up appointment. I continued to return to the hospital every week to receive blood work to monitor the effects the medication was having on me and ensure it wasn’t causing further damage. The medication did not have serious effects on anything internal but did cause me to severely lose my appetite and become nauseous to the point of vomiting daily. I had begun to slowly lose weight when I moved back to Hamilton but the effects the medication had on my body drastically sped up my weight loss, taking me from my heaviest (230lbs) down to my lowest weight I’ve had in years (125lbs). Thankfully the hospital does set you up with a sexual assault therapist for the weeks following to help you deal with the trauma if you have no other resources, I found this appointment to help with my healing in combination with a lot of other resources.  Luckily, I had previously sought out mental health help in the Hamilton area and immediately re-entered myself into a program to monitor my mood disorder and behaviour as I dealt with this trauma.  

It was difficult to identify how this trauma started to affect my wellbeing while I was going through it but looking back on my behavior that followed my trauma – I can recognize now that I was not myself and I am just beginning to find myself again.  

I began feeling so disconnected from my body and wasn’t satisfied anytime I looked in the mirror.  I felt like my body didn’t belong to me anymore and experienced extreme PTSD symptoms that made just existing in my body very physically uncomfortable. I constantly felt itchy and would describe it to my therapist that I often felt as if bugs crawling all over me. I was always nauseous and as a result of not eating or drinking water, I always felt faint and had low energy.  I felt dirty and no matter how many times I showered, changed my clothes, changed my hair/nails/makeup – it didn’t change how disgusting I felt, which was the only feeling I could associate with my body and face for a long time after the assault. I started getting more serious with my intention to “change myself” to find myself again, except I was changing the wrong things. I had fake hair extensions put in and began fake tanning frequently and my relationship with makeup quickly changed. Before the incident, makeup was a huge outlet for me and not a necessity. It would bring a sense of relief and act as a creative outlet but I in no way felt like I needed makeup to leave the house or feel comfortable with myself. After my trauma, I began obsessively investing in my “look” thinking it would make me feel new again, but instead I would feel dread and disgust anytime I went to do my makeup, but I also started being unable to leave the house without it. I don’t think there is anything wrong with changing your appearance and I often find a lot of joy experimenting with my face/hair/body and creating different looks or characters. But I don’t think it’s healthy if you’re using these tools or treatments to “fix” yourself or how you feel, I know from experience you won’t find healing in this.

 I couldn’t be alone and kept myself as busy as I possibly could, surrounded by anyone that would spend time with me whether they were a healthy person to be around or not.  Being alone or sleeping allowed for the uncomfortable thoughts to creep in and my physical discomfort would become increasingly noticeable to the point of being painful. I slept as little as I could to avoid encountering the men all over again in my nightmares.  I thought that if I found someone, I could find healing and that is simply not true. I learned after a few years or trial and error, a few years of delaying my own healing – that you cannot find healing in another person, in a substance, through weight loss/extensions/makeup/tanning. You can only find healing inside of you and it is not the most pleasant experience, but it is the most worthwhile.

I didn’t recognize this behavior was a problem until another year or so later after I made more questionable life decisions and found myself in a toxic relationship with no real direction or goals for my own life, barely taking care of myself both physically and mentally. I had lost an extreme amount of weight in a short time with no real effort, I had bald patches from the removal of my extensions that got increasingly worse with my lack of nutrition, I was living in a subsidized cockroach filled apartment in downtown Hamilton to achieve “space” from people who were genuinely just trying to help me. I felt suffocated by my loved ones and accepted by a man who was truthfully just using me for his own gain, but I was far from myself I couldn’t see it. It wasn’t until I met my best friend Daisy in hair school along with a lot of other lovely women, who supported me and showed me I did not deserve the behavior I was enduring from this man and other toxic people I was living with at the time. I should have been putting all this energy I was wasting on other people into myself and finally, almost 2 years later I was ready to take charge of my life again.

I’ve always had a negative relationship with my body even before being sexually assaulted. I went through puberty and high school as a curvier girl at a time when being a size 0-2 was considered attractive and anything outside of that was considered unhealthy, there was no body positive movement at the time. I’m sure plenty women can relate to being insecure and feeling uncomfortable in your own skin when all you’re being bombarded with throughout society is a type of woman that looks nothing like you. I constantly experimented with my hair and clothes because I never felt like I fit in or met anyone’s expectations of what I should look like, not even my own. The unsolicited opinions of boys in my school, friends, family never helped me navigate feelings of insecurity and only amplified them until they came up in almost every relationship I had.

After gaining a significant amount of weight in university and then quickly losing a drastic amount of weight after being assaulted, I felt incredibly insecure. My skin was loose and stretchy in weird places, and I felt weak and had low energy from a lack of nutrition and poor sleeping habits.  I had a negative relationship with food and would only use it to cope instead of healing myself. My gut health was ruined from medication, eating habits, and abusing substances – I couldn’t keep food down.  Simultaneously almost anyone I interacted with was telling me how great I looked or ironically for the first time in my life – started telling me to eat more. I was frustrated because before this I was too heavy for everyone and now because of other circumstances beyond my control, I wasn’t eating enough for everyone. I still felt a lack of ownership of my body and having comments about my weight from everyone while I couldn’t even keep a sandwich down was emotionally taxing. It wasn’t until I shaved my head during hair school when I finally started to feel like myself again.  

Before shaving my head, I was emotionally attached to my hair and changing it usually brought me a great deal of joy. After being assaulted, I put my hair through a great deal trying to feel connected to myself and my body again. When I finally let go and shaved my head, I felt like I had the opportunity to start over and some of the disgust I felt towards myself shed with the layers of my hair (If shaving your head is something you’ve ever considered doing – I highly recommend doing it) I started speaking with my family nutritionist about different ways to address my gut health and although I still struggle with my nutrition, it is better then it has ever been.

This was just the beginning of the many steps I am still taking to repair my physical and mental well being after being assaulted. I still have some insecurities about myself/my body, but they are no where near the amount I had when I first was going through this. Shaving my head was just the beginning of feeling better, I have since found many other things that have helped me let go of that body and time in my life. Working on my general health like my poor relationship with food and substances, exercising regularly, and trying to work through some of the issues I have with sleep have been the most helpful to feeling like a brand-new person.

Allowing myself to feel the negative emotions for a short time and then speaking about them with people I trust as well as a therapist as been the most helpful for my mental health. Everyone is different, prescriptions for my mental health issues were not helpful to my physical state at the time so therefore were not helpful for my healing, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t helpful. I have found a great deal of healing through psilocybin, but this is also not for everyone. Forgiveness has been a huge part of my healing – it really is important to forgive yourself. Forgiving yourself for harbouring negative feelings towards yourself and your body, forgiving yourself for the choices you may have made to cope with your trauma, you must work towards forgiveness.  Forgiving myself has been one of the hardest but most helpful things I have done to help myself let go of this and move on, to love myself again, and to finally feel comfortable in my own body.

I have spent the last year focusing on myself and my healing and I have progressed and regressed a thousand times over, I have grown so much in such a small amount of time – if you told me a year ago I’d be where I am, I would’ve laughed in your face. I have so much advice for people going through this, but my piece is to start within and have patience. Healing doesn’t happen over night and the time and effort you spend here will be incredibly rewarding. Prioritize yourself and your health both physical and mental health, it took me a really long time to realize they go hand in hand and spending time taking care of my physical health is just as important and worthwhile as seeking therapy.

Another important step in the healing process for me was talking to someone. I don’t necessarily mean the Police, as I found aspects of that experience deleterious

 to my healing, but I don’t think I would have gotten through this experience if I didn’t work through my emotions with people I trusted. It’s important to talk to someone, especially when dealing with trauma because it can help you make sense of the traumatic experience, identify your emotions, and get support to deal with your experience. Most importantly for me, talking to someone made me realize I am more than my trauma, and everyone is dealing with or has dealt with their own traumatic experience.  Don’t let your trauma stop you from having a life, I used mine as an excuse to not live my life for years. Trauma isn’t an excuse, but it is context to understanding yourself and being understood by others. Everyone is filtering life through their own lens of experiences (context) and the best piece of advice I have is to lead your life with empathy, kindness, communication, and understanding. Talk to others because you have no idea how many other people are also struggling with loving themselves, fitting in or finding themselves, and life experiences that have shaped them whether it be positive or negative. The biggest lessons I have learned in life are from other people or hearing about their life experiences and how they’ve endured them. Another huge lesson I have learned this year is change is inevitable whether you ask for it or it smacks you hard across the face – change happens, life happens and leaning all the way into it is far more rewarding than fearing and fighting change. Do not hold yourself back because something happened a lifetime ago or you don’t feel like you can get where you want to be or be the person you want to be. You’ll never get there or be that or move on from it – with that attitude. Life is fucking amazing, and I will have the life I want and I’m not forever damaged from one experience, I have and will always be fucking beautiful, I am incredibly strong, and I am one of the kindest people I know. I am so grateful everyday I am not letting myself be stuck anymore, I am not letting myself live in that experience anymore, I am not waking up everyday thinking I am not worthy/skinny or pretty/smart enough. Your brain can be a powerful tool or a harmful weapon depending on how you chose to use it – you deserve happiness, to be loved, to feel comfortable and safe in your body and if you don’t believe those things yet you must repeat them until you do, because you DO deserve all of the above.  Everyone does, and I’m going to keep sharing my story and spreading that message and I hope you do too.