From Hard Times

I’ve never I am gay ever since childhood. Whilst every other girl would play kiss chasey with the boys, I’d rather have sat under the tree with my head in a book, whilst hiding the fact I was sticking my tounge out in disgust at their actions. When I reached high school, I knew that I was going to be able to hide forever, because whilst my friends were off with their first boyfriends, I was keeping myself busy with activities such as glee and school debates. That was until I was 17 and raped by a boy from our rival school’s football team in an attack that left me hospitalised for two weeks.

Several more weeks passed without me returning to school, due to sickness and trauma. Before long, I was forced to face the fact I was pregnant. This made reporting the issue to the police so much more tramuatising because not only did I have to report the attack itself, but also the fact I was pregnant and convince them I hadn’t consented, as he was saying. It meant telling complete strangers I was gay, and it meant telling my parents their only child was gay.

A woman police officer took my statement. She was very polite, and when I told her that I didn’t consent because I knew I was gay, she didn’t question, she accepted. She then asked what my intentions were for my unborn child and I said that I hadn’t really had time to think about that because everything else was so overwhelming. She offered to call a counsellor for me and arrange for me to visit regularly, and she also called the local clinic. I attended my first appointment and came away sure of what I wanted to do. Six and a half months later I would give birth. At that time, I would give my child up for adoption.

The police officer stood by my during the lenghty court proceedings. She sat with me at my family home when I told my parents I was gay and was going to give my baby up for adoption. She even cried with me when he was charged with my rape and aggrevated assault and given a jail sentence. Tears of joy that he was taken away and that I was safe.

On February 18th, 2008, I gave birth to a chubby baby boy, 9lb. 8oz, and handed him over to his new family. In the months that followed, I became depressed and twice attempted to take my own life. The police officer stepped back into my life one cold, snowing night when I was found passed out at the park, having OD’ed on perscription drugs.

After that, she pretty much refused to leave my side because she was that worried about me. My parents didn’t approve, they wanted her to go back to her job and leave me to heal. What they didn’t understand was that she essentially became part of the healing process.

I fell deeply for her. It wasn’t until almost a year after I gave birth that she told me she was gay, too. That wasn’t big enough, though. She then told me she had a five year old daughter, the result of a rape. We began dating, casually at first, but before long I knew this was it!

Now, some eighteen months later, her daughter says she loves me and she likes that I make her mommy smile. They both came to my graduation. She came with me to visit my son with his new family. He looks so much like me it made me cry and I wanted to scream because I couldn’t believe that I’d given birth to this perfect thing but I couldn’t bare to look at him because of how he was conceived. She understood that and when I told her I wanted to talk to the counsellor about it, she came back with me and now I’m in a support group for the victims of rape.

Things are so much better than they were back then. I’m slowly, piece by piece, working things out, getting my life back together. She and I now live together, with my parent’s blessing. Yes, people frown because she’s nine years my senior. Yes, our relationship is frowned upon because the old town people think it’s wrong when I’m 19 and she’s 28. To them I say what should it matter? We’re so in love and without her, there is every chance my parents would have lost their only child, my son his biological mother, my girlfriend the only woman she’s truly loved. I’m so happy that from such hard times came something so much more amazing that I could have ever imagined I deserved.

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