The Wait After Rape- Pt 2 of 3

She'd chosen virginity until marriage. After college, Chloe was a humanitarian volunteer in Samoa. Near the end of her two year commitment, she woke to the sight of a man in her room. She suggested doing an interview for AnatomyRule.com to support those who share her experience. For the full background, start by reading The Wait After Rape- Pt 1 of 3.

There he was, sitting in a chair in the corner of my bedroom. Just watching me sleep.

He realized I woke up and went into one of the other bedrooms or something. It's a little fuzzy. I tried to get up and lock my bedroom door as he was, like, coming in the door. [They began to wrestle over her bedroom door.]

I had a little Swiss army knife. He had his arm in the door, so I'm trying to stab him with it. But of course it's folding up, not working. I didn't have contacts or laser surgery yet, so I'm also trying to find my glasses so I can see what in the world is going on.  It's what nightmares are made of.

He worked himself into my bedroom, grabbed me, and held a rusty machete against my throat. I remember gripping it with both hands and realizing that it was dull. He ended up dragging me into the living room and had his way with me several times.

This lasted about 1-2 hours.

I started to consider any option for escape. What’s the worst thing that would happen if I broke free and just ran through the locked glass door? Could I make it far enough? How many steps would I have on the porch before I hit the brush? I don’t even know. I haven’t lived here long enough to know how wide it is. I realized that I’d just been bitten by a mosquito so he must have left the door open. I wouldn’t have to break the glass.

Hold up. In the middle of all that, you noticed a mosquito?

Yeah. It’s amazing what where your brain goes when something like that is happening. I mentally detached myself from what was happening and was more in a survival mode. I was able to think and strategize. There was a point when I was lying on the living room floor while he was doing who knows what to me. It was an out of body experience where I was above the living room actually looking down and seeing what was happening. It was bizarre.

The machete must have worked its way underneath me somehow. I had cuts in so many places. I've got like a scar on my arm here, I just have random cuts. Like, I remember there was a real bad one on the back of my heel. I was not being cooperative, obviously.

At one point, I do remember him turning me over and trying to tie my hands behind my back. So since it was dark, I pushed my wrists apart to make room. He left the room to go get something else, so I was able to pull my wrists out and run out the door.

So here I am, running naked across the street. There was a research facility with a 24 hour security guard. He had heard me screaming during the attack but didn’t call the police until I showed up at his station. He gave me something to cover myself with and I camped out at the guard’s desk until the police came. At some point, someone went in to find my glasses. It may have been the security guard before the police got there. I can't remember.

What I did not know is that in this house that I moved into, there was a sliding glass door and the latch didn't work on it.

My roomate felt terrible. We had a short face to face conversation before I left, but it was so awkward. We were in shock and didn’t know what to say. She must have been completely freaked out because the house looked like a bloodbath. Not only did I have countless cuts, I was on a very heavy period and had had my hymen obliterated. She promptly moved her stuff out. I don’t know if she cleaned up the mess or if our landlord did. Come to think of it, I don’t even know how the rent had been paid.

After the police left, all I wanted to do was take a hot shower. I went to a hotel, but had to evacuate immediately because of a tsunami warning. I went to a friend’s house at higher ground, but she only had cold water.

Within days, I got Medevaced to Washington, DC. Having to call [my parents] from Samoa and say, “I'm coming home two months early. This is why,” was a very awkward conversation.

Chloe was being sent from Samoa to DC right before Easter weekend. Rather than sit for days and nights alone in a hotel room in the city, the Peace Corp allowed her a long layover via Chicago, to spend that time with her family.

I did not go into detail with them. I don't think they wanted to know. Obviously they saw evidence of what had happened. I couldn’t wear shoes [due to a significant heel laceration]. It’s April in Chicago, and I’m wearing sandals because they don’t have a backstrap.

Once in DC, they put me with a counselor who tried to talk me through things. A lot of what they were trying to do was identify things that would cause my anxiety to raise, because obviously there's PTSD effect associated with that. For example, riding the public transit to just get around Washington, D.C. When I could identify triggers, like people that looked like some Samoans, or just had similar characteristics and carried themselves a little shady, if you will. I could feel myself get very anxious around people like that. And so, they had challenged me, like, “Don't don't put yourself in an unsafe situation. If you're the only two people in a train car, do not stay. But if it's an entire train car full of people and you can logically understand that you're not physically threatened, we recommend you feel that out and work through that anxiety.” So, you know, those are things that I had to do while I was there, which was an interesting process.

All of that is valuable, yet I was speaking to her about how I was processing things through a religious filter. She could help me with the PTSD but not actually process it and work through it emotionally. After meeting with her twice she was like, “I can't help you. I'm going to refer you to this other therapist who is a Christian and she might be able to help you process this better.”

Even with the best intentions, a secular counselor can never truly understand or provide the necessary guidance to a Christian client. Everything in a Christian life is processed through a spiritual lens. 1 Cor. 2:14 underscores this, “But the person without the Spirit does not receive what comes from God’s Spirit, because it is foolishness to him; he is not able to understand it since it is evaluated spiritually.” They just don’t get it.

I'm with you. I'm glad she recognized it, like, “You're processing this in a different way than I am able to do with you.” The second counselor could understand where I was coming from and how I was processing it more through that filter. I guess I just felt that at some point, God would have a plan for why that happened, and hopefully that I'd be able to help someone someday through that. 

I hope this is your moment.

I hope so too. If I can help even a handful of people, then let’s help them.

A year later, I had to return to Samoa to testify in the trial. I brought a friend who had volunteered in Samoa during the same time as me. She was accustomed to travelling in a third world country and was my parents’ age, which was comforting. I learned that the perpetrator had a prior rape conviction and was on parole when he attacked me. My landlord hired him to do the yardwork. It gave him the perfect vantage point to scope me out when I was moving in and to make a plan. I also learned that, prior to the attack, the lock did not work on the sliding glass door. Perfect access.

Chloe’s husband Joshua joins us in the final post of this series. He shares what it was like from his perspective to learn about what happened and they discuss its impact on their courtship and marriage.