WHAT I DESERVE: A LETTER TO MY RAPIST

The following is the majority of my victim impact statement which I shared in front of a courtroom of people, including my rapist and the judge deciding his sentencing. I am very grateful to say that after two and a half heartbreaking years, the judge listened and understood the pain this caused, and my rapist is now in prison and will be for a long time.

“Your Honor, it is extremely difficult to stand here. Especially after hearing you say today that you believe the Defendant’s rights are more important than my rights. That my convicted rapist’s rights are more important to you. 

Today I would like for the majority of this statement to address the Defendant directly. 

I have had to hear about you constantly for the past two and a half years. I didn’t know who you were when you raped me. And I didn’t care to know who you were after you raped me. But I didn’t get a choice. Just like I didn’t get a choice the day you decided to lie to me, manipulate me, and violate me in a way no one should have to experience. And for over two years, this has all been about you.

But right now, this is about me. And just like I have had to hear all about you, right now you get to hear all about me. You get to hear all about how your disgusting, selfish actions have impacted me and my life. 

I thought that surviving the physical rape was going to be the hardest thing I had to do. I thought that because I had survived the physical pain, I would be okay. 

But I was not okay. And in many aspects I am still not okay. 

Because what you did to me when you raped me was far more than invading my physical body. It violated the deepest, most sacred and personal parts of me. 

Your despicable assault on my body and soul left me broken in ways I did not know were possible. Suddenly the life I had worked so hard to build, crumbled. Suddenly I didn’t trust people. I didn’t even trust myself. 

I started feeling alone. I  felt afraid, emotional, depressed, anxious, and worthless. 

I started feeling like I was dirty. That I was broken. That I was never going to be as good as I was before. 

I started to hate myself. 

That hate grew stronger every day. I hated myself for how deeply getting raped by you was impacting me. I hated myself for feeling so unsafe and triggered every time I went to school. I hated myself for not feeling comfortable around my friends. I hated myself because I no longer felt close to God or like I mattered to him. I hated myself because I was not a good girlfriend or wife or sister or friend. 

And every day I cried. I cried because I couldn’t understand how someone could be so evil. I didn’t understand how someone could disregard completely how I felt. How someone could sit there and watch me cry and wince in pain as they raped me again and again and again. I didn’t understand how someone could use my trust, and my goodness against me. To manipulate me. And to violate something I held so dear. I didn’t understand what I did to deserve it. What did I do to deserve to have you treat me like I was worthless? 

The thing is, I know now, that I didn’t deserve it. I didn’t deserve a single second of what you did to me or how it has impacted me every day of my life. I haven’t deserved to shed a single tear because of how disgusting and vile you are. The past two and a half years have been nothing that I deserved. And that is on you. 

But I will tell you what I did, and what I do deserve. 

1. I deserved to hear the truth. I deserved for you to be honest about what you were doing and why you were doing it. But I didn’t get that. You lied every step of the way. You lied about your name, about where you worked, where you lived, about what you were doing. You lied and made me feel like I was doing something good. That I was doing something that was going to help other people. You manipulated me and made me feel ashamed that I was a virgin. You made me feel embarrassed that it was so painful for me. I deserved  to know the truth of who you were and what was happening because I deserved to be in control of my body. And you took that from me. 

2. I deserved to have my sexuality and my sexual life to be mine. I had never had any sort of sexual relationship when you raped me. I was saving that to be with my husband and I had been saving that my entire life. My choice was deeply personal, and I deserved to have that be something special to me, something that happened when I wanted and how I wanted. But you took that from me. You knew that I was a virgin. You knew that and you used that against me. You used it as a way to manipulate me and hurt me over and over again. You violated my body and tainted something that was and is so sacred to me in a way that can never fully be healed. 

3. I deserved to enjoy school and the many opportunities I had worked for. I had spent my entire life working to be able to not only be in law school, but to excel in law school. Before you raped me I had been at the top of my class, had just had an amazing summer of job opportunities, was on a very competitive trail team, and I was extremely hopeful and excited about all I had worked to achieve. After you raped me, I lost all of that. I instantly didn’t feel comfortable at school. Because, as you were aware of when you raped me, I was in school with your wife. I was in multiple classes with the woman who was at that time defending you and who my school was defending. I was left alone to try to handle what I was going through. I didn’t fee l comfortable around my classmates or my professors. I was constantly unable to even go to class. My grades suffered. I lost important job opportunities. I spent the last two years of law school wishing everyday that it would be over. I became convinced that I could never be a lawyer because I couldn’t even sit through a class without getting triggered. Countless times I walked out in the middle of a class or a final in tears. I constantly felt embarrassed, ashamed, stupid and completely inadequate. The years I spent working to get into law school, all the work I had put into being successful in law school, was completely taken from me the day you raped me. I look back on my experience in law school and feel nothing but sadness. Sadness that something I cared so deeply about was taken from me. That I didn’t get to learn and work and grow. I deserved to enjoy law school. I deserved to be successful. And you took that from me. 

4. I deserved to feel safe. From the day you raped me I never felt safe in Utah. I was constantly afraid of seeing you. I was constantly afraid you would somehow find me and hurt me. I was too afraid to sleep alone. I was afraid of even being alone. The burden of not feeling safe in the place I was living, and a place I couldn’t leave, was a burden I didn’t deserve to carry. I deserved to at the very least feel safe in my own home. But I never did. 

5. I deserve to have a good relationship with God. My entire life my faith and religion, and most importantly my relationship with God had been the center of my life. I worshiped often and deeply. I felt great peace and joy in my life because of my faith and because of the closeness I felt to God. After you raped me, I felt dirty. I felt broken. I felt unworthy. I felt like I wasn’t good enough to have God love me. I felt uncomfortable and ashamed being at my church. I felt too ashamed to pray to God, something that before you raped me had been a second language to me. I spent months and months feeling too broken to and too worthless to even try. Months have turned into years. It has been one of the most constant sources of pain for me, to feel so worthless and so far from God. The depth of this pain is still very real for me, and only came because you raped me. And I didn’t deserve that. 

6. I deserve to feel good about myself. I deserved to be confident. To be happy. To feel in control of my life. But after you raped me, my emotions and mind weren’t mine. The positive outlook I always had was replaced with fear, distrust, cynicism. I get upset, irrational, emotional. I frequently deal with PTSD. I get triggered in places and situations that I can’t predict. It doesn’t matter if I am on vacation, at work, with my friends. I never feel fully safe emotionally, because at any moment I can get triggered and be right back to feeling so completely broken and empty that nothing anyone can say or do really helps. I never have deserved to feel like that. But you did that to 

7. I deserve to feel loved. I deserved to feel like I am good enough to be loved. To feel like I am worthy of love from my family, my friends, and from my husband. But after getting raped, the feeling of not even being good enough to be loved has become constant in my life. The rape impacted me to my core, making me feel and believe that no one could, or even should, love me. This has left me to feel an unexplainable feeling of emptiness. I have often felt heartbreakingly alone. Feeling that you are not, and never will be good enough for love is a feeling that no one deserves. I certainly don’t deserve that. But you did that to me. 

8. I deserve to have a happy relationship. When you raped me, I had been dating my boyfriend Tanner for only a brief time. The dynamic of our relationship was forced to change as my world was turned upside down. I was lucky enough to have his love and support throughout this experience, but I often felt I wasn’t good enough to deserve it. We dated and ultimately got married, and did so amidst extreme emotional anguish. He has had to deal with my constant insecurity, my intense emotions, fears, misplaced anger, anxieties and constant triggers. He has had to see me in emotional pain that no one should have to see. He has graciously loved me through it. But we suffered. And we still suffer. We have deserved and we still deserve to enjoy our relationship and build our life without the constant burden and weight of this rape hanging over us. Without the weight of the trail hanging over us. But you took that from us.

9. I deserve to know that I did nothing wrong. I spent so long feeling like there must have been something wrong with me for you to treat me the way that you did. That I must have been a bad person for something so horrible to happen to me. I deserve to know that YOU know what you did was wrong. That you know you violated me, manipulated me, lied to me and used me. I deserve for you to take ownership for raping me. 

10. I deserved to feel like I matter. This entire process has been about you. My feelings and my experience were constantly disregarded so that you could be accommodated. For over two years of my life I dealt with the constant weight of the criminal trial. I prepared and planned and then multiple times, within days of the trial beginning it was moved. Each time the trial was moved, I experienced very deep and terrifying periods of depression. Each time the trial was moved I was left me feeling like I didn’t matter at all. That my experience, that my trauma, and that my suffering was once again unrecognized and unimportant. That no one cared about what this was doing to me. That no one cared if I got to move on with my life. That no one really cared what you had done. I deserved to feel like I mattered. But I never did. 

11. I deserve to live my life without this burden. I don’t deserve to think about this and carry this for the rest of my life. But I will. This will never, ever go away. What you did is done. It is a part of my life forever. I will deal with the trauma, the triggers, and the feelings for the rest of my life. And I didn’t chose that. I certainly don’t deserve that. 

12. I deserve to have my life. I deserve to want to live my life. After you raped me, my life changed. My view of myself changed. My mind and thoughts changed. And it became very, very dark. Days and nights so overcome with depression, where I felt so worthless and so full of self hatred that all I wanted was to get away from myself. Where I wished that my life could just end so that I wouldn’t have to feel this pain. Over time that got worse. To the point where I hated everything about myself. I hated what the rape did to my life. I have often felt so worthless and so broken that I have been suicidal. I have never experienced a scarier or more horrifying feeling than the feeling of wanting to kill myself.  Feeling so horrible about myself that I want to end my own life. No one deserves to feel like that. No one deserves to feel like that because of what someone else did to them. And I don’t deserve to ever feel like that because of you. But I have. 

13. And what I deserve today, is to feel heard. To feel that for once, what I have felt and what I am experiencing matters. I deserve to know that all of my suffering and pain will not be disregarded. Starting on the day you raped me I felt that my life and my experiences did not matter. Not to you. Not to the court. And I don’t deserve to feel that way today. 

I have deserved so much more than what I have had to endure the past two years. 

I have a full life ahead of me. I have dreams and goals, I have a wonderful  marriage and a future with nothing but opportunities. Despite what you did to me and despite how I have and still do suffer, I have an amazing life ahead of me. I know that I can endure hell, because you forced me to do that. I know that I can help people. I know that I can succeed despite everything being against me, because for the past two years I have done that. And I know that someday I will get everything that I deserve. 

And as I move forward with the rest of my life, I deserve to know that there will be justice for all the pain you have caused me. I deserve to know that you will not have the opportunity to do what you did to me to anyone else. I deserve to know that I matter. That my life matters. 

And you deserve to spend the rest of your life thinking about what you did to me. To think about the pain you caused me. You deserve to pay for every day that I have and that I will suffer. You deserve to suffer for every time I wanted to end my life because of what you did to me. You deserve to experience isolation, shame, fear, and depression just like you caused me.

I hope that someday you realize the magnitude of what you did and the damage you caused. And I hope that someday you truly understand the depths of the pain you caused me.

And I hope that today the judge gives you the maximum prison sentence because that is what you deserve.

Your honor, I hope you have heard what I have said and that you believe and understand the depths of my suffering. I know that there is not a prison sentence long enough to erase the damage the Defendant has caused to me. There is nothing that can ever take my pain away. I will live with this every day for the rest of my life. But there can be some justice. There can be an acknowledgement that you care about what he did to me. Not only the day he raped me, but every single day since then, and every single day moving forward. 

Your honor, I hope that today you know that Kat and I deserve to know that we matter. That our pain matters. That our losses matter. That our LIVES matter. And I hope that today you give the defendant what he deserves, because more than anything, that is what we deserve.”