Breaking The Silence of Sexual Assault
**Trigger warning **
I just wanted to let it be known that I will be talking about sexual assault in this article.
Sexual assault is a sensitive subject, a lot of times it’s hard to read or hear stories of people who have been assaulted, it’s even harder to be the victim of assault telling your story. I hate that word, Victim. Makes me think, “ooohh, feel sorry for me.” But that’s the last thing I would want people to do. As a sexual assault victim, I want people to learn from me.
With all the allegations coming out about YouTuber, David Dobrik and the vlog squad, I wanted to share my thoughts and my SA story. If you’re not familiar with this particular situation, Business Insider put out an article a few days ago that a young woman under the US drinking age was given alcohol and raped by a vlog squad member during one of David’s vlogs back in 2018.
It’s been about 3 years since the “alleged” incident. I have to say “alleged” because this case is still ongoing but I believe the victim. It’s hard coming out about sexual assault, especially if the person who assaulted you is a person in power such as politicians, actors, or officers. Going against any one of those types is intimidating and scary. Now we have YouTube and other social media sites censoring words like sexual assault and rape. If you dare talk about those things you have to skate around it by saying “SA” or “R word”. Look, I get it, it’s a sensitive topic but really? I personally feel like that makes it even harder for people to come out with their stories. Personally, a trigger warning is enough for me.
It’s time we break the silence and kill the shame behind sharing our stories. A lot of times, the reason why victims don’t come forward is because of the victim blaming society tends to do. “Oh, you shouldn’t have worn that skirt.” Or, “you shouldn’t have been around him.” Or whatever crazy, outrageous reason it’s our fault, it’s always us who subconsciously asked for it when in reality, that’s far from the truth. Another reason is the shame behind being assaulted. Sometimes we inadvertently put the blame on ourselves without others doing it for us. Every individual story is unique and no one should feel like they can’t tell their story or come forward.
This is my first time sharing this story in such detail publicly.
A little over 5 years ago I was a single 24 year old living alone in a one bedroom apartment. I was carefree doing exactly what Bre’ wanted to do. Despite my being in a wheelchair, I was very confident and was never afraid of telling a man that I was interested, whether that was by flirting or blatantly saying hey, you’re cute, I’m interested. I lived in an apartment where the fire alarm was constantly going off, so there was always a young good looking fireman there. Since the alarm was going off so frequently, often times l’d leave my apartment to go outside because, 1. It was so loud and high pitch and it would last so long sometimes I had to get out and 2. I didn’t want to get stuck there if there was a real fire because I lived on the 4th floor, being in a wheelchair on the 4th floor during a fire would not be ideal. Usually as I was going out the firemen would be coming in so we’d see each other every time. Most of the time it was the same group of firemen so we kind of grew accustomed to seeing one another. It got to the point to where one of the firemen would talk to me every time he saw me. He would ask me how my day was, tell me I looked beautiful and just do a little harmless flirting. There was this one time where I was coming in the lobby from the store and they were coming out, I’m guessing the alarm went off while I was gone. He sees me and hears me talking to my mom and he says, “is that mom?” I laugh and say yeah, that’s my mom, then he said “tell mom her future son-in-law says hi.” I laughed but man, thinking back on it, that was so disgusting of him to say and you’ll see why later.
It was quiet the next few days before another alarm went off. When that alarm did go off I ran into him again and we exchanged numbers. I remember feeling giddy and excited because he was a cute fireman who was interested in me. Later that same afternoon the texting and flirting began, it was definitely intense. We flirted for a couple days before I finally invited him over for the first time.
Reliving these moments is hard for me for several reasons. This incident was just a couple months before I got with my husband, before my husband came along I was in some dark times of my life. My walk with God wasn’t anywhere near where it is today. God definitely got me out of some bad situations, even when I wasn’t going to glorify him for doing it. I guess he knew he’d get the glory later.
The next few days was such a blur, I feel like everything happened so fast. He came over a couple times to hook up. During those days I was perfectly fine with that lifestyle, I felt no conviction whatsoever. After doing that twice with him I was starting to catch feelings as they say so I decided to search for him on Facebook and when I found him I immediately felt sick. Relationship status: Married. My jaw dropped and I thought no this can’t be him but it was. We already had plans for him to come over and he did. Before he came I texted him asking him if he was married and he told me yes. I didn’t know what to say. He proceeded to tell me he didn’t love her, they’re divorcing. He came over that night and we had sex. I’ve never felt more disgusted with myself.
I knew that what I was doing was not right whatsoever so I had to end things. I texted him telling him that I can’t see him anymore because I didn’t feel comfortable with the fact that he’s married. I remember him going on about how they weren’t doing good and that he just wanted to come over to explain everything face to face. I told him no, I don’t want to do all that, there’s no need. He begged and pleaded for about 20 minutes before I finally said fine, but I distinctively remember saying these exact words, “But no funny business” and he replied “okay, I promise.” That night when he came over. I wanted to occupy myself so that I won’t be persuaded into doing something that I didn’t have intentions on doing, so I got on my Xbox and started playing halo. He came in and sat on the couch next to me. “You like playing video games?” He asked, and I replied, “Yeah, so what’s up? What’d you want to tell me?” He proceeded to tell me how he wasn’t in love with his wife anymore and that he wanted to continue things with me.
**Trigger Warning**
This is where the assault begins and I will be sharing in detail.
He begins caressing my face as he’s still trying to tell me that he wants me and he’s in love with me. I turn my head and tell him no, he needs to go home to his wife, “you don’t love me you love your wife, you barely know me, go to your wife.” He began to kiss me and forced himself on top of me as I kept saying no, leave. He proceeded to kiss me as he puts one hand in my shirt. At this point, I’ve accepted what’s about to happen and I just lay there in silence as he continues. I remember thinking, God please don’t let me get raped, please make him leave. At that very moment he stops what he’s doing and just stared at me, then he gets up and practically runs out the door. As soon as that door shut I got up and locked it. I couldn’t believe what just happened.
I sat on my kitchen floor and began to cry. I thanked God for getting me out of that situation and I asked him to take the wheel of my life because I couldn’t do it anymore. I didn’t want to continue living a lifestyle that had been proven detrimental to me in the past. I felt God really protected me that night.
I felt so beside myself, I felt like I couldn’t tell anyone because I slept with a married man, I was going to be judged so hard and I deserved it, but I did not deserve to be assaulted. This man tried to take advantage and I wasn’t having it.
I told a few friends and then later told my parents. I never actually came forward because the fear of nothing really happening because of who he is and the fact that he was married, I was just embarrassed, but that’s not a good excuse. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one. I’m still going back and forth whether or not to do more about this, but I do know I’m done being silent, I wanted to share my story and help others. I wanted to also share that my faith in God really helped me and continues to help me through this situation
If you’ve ever been assaulted don’t be afraid to open up about it or come forward. I know it’s hard but no matter what the circumstances were, you didn’t deserve it.
If you need someone to confide in or just vent to talk about a situation, please feel free to email me at bredonda09@gmail.com. I will gladly be there for you.
I’m glad I was able to share my story with you and I hope that this was helpful to you one way or another. Don’t be silent anymore.
You can read the business insider article here.
https://www.businessinsider.com/vlog-squad-durte-dom-rape-allegation-david-dobrik-zeglaitis-video-2021-3
