Reporting a crime - Part II

This is the second half to my earlier blog post about reporting a crime. In the first blog I discussed what happened with T when I tried to report the rape to the police. This blog I want to focus on what happened with M. You see, that time I chose NOT to go to the police, I didn't report the rape and I made no attempt to press charges, and I want to use this post to explain some of my reasoning behind that decision. 

There was a staff party, and a large amount of alcohol was being consumed, I remember everything clearly up to a certain point and then things got sketchy and my memories of the night become blurry. I remember falling down some stairs and twisting my ankle, I remember getting off a coach in Liverpool, I remember needing my inhaler and starting to panic when I realised I didn't have it with me. The next thing I remember is waking up in the dark and trying to move, and realising I couldn't, because someone was on too of me, they were moving, I remember struggling to make sense of the situation and not having the ability to move my body the way I wanted to. I realised that someone was having sex with me, but I had no idea who it was or where I was. He suddenly moved, said "shit, someone's coming" and was gone, but hearing his voice I suddenly realised who he was. Then just like that, he was gone, and I must have passed out again. 

Next thing I knew, it was morning. I was on the floor in my mums best friends house. I had vague, fuzzy memories of someone on top of me, I remembered hearing M's voice and I knew that I'd had sex, I felt sore, I struggled to make sense of everything. 

It took me days to process all the thoughts in my head, I was so confused, I didn't know what to do. What if I had said yes but I just couldn't remember saying it? Was it still rape? I didn't know what to think. 

Phoning the police was never an option to me, I had no memories of what had happened, I wasn't sure if I'd consented, I really didn't think anyone would believe me to be perfectly honest. 

When I'd gone to the police with T, after hours and hours of questions they just told me to drop charges anyway, so even the police hadn't believed me. It just put me off even trying to do anything this time. I told someone I thought I could trust but they then told someone else, who told someone else and one person told me I was lying, M wasn't like that. So I just decided to keep quiet and figure out a way to deal with it myself. 

Except here I am, almost 14 years later still trying to figure out how to deal with it all.