Like most women, I didn’t want to report what had happened to me at first. I was embarrassed, ashamed, and fairly certain it was not worth the fuss of escalation. After all, I was probably being melodramatic. I’d emerged free from any signs of lasting damage. And far worse things had happened to other people. Maybe I’d overreacted.
This was the stream of consciousness that ran through my head for several days in the immediate aftermath of the incident. All of those thoughts told me to do the same thing: say nothing, get over it, and find a way to move on. But that’s not what I did. And because of that, a man was convicted of the criminal charge he deserved. And in what is an all too rare result for victims of violence against women of any kind, my feelings of violation were vindicated by a court of law.
