Britni de la Cretaz

Other girls are awesome. I never had any close female friends. I always said girls were “vapid, “catty,” and “annoying.” In reality, I was threatened by other girls.

Bring something that makes you feel safe. I brought my blankie. It was so comforting to be able to go up to my room after a terrible day of being in immense emotional pain and curl up with my blanket.

"Go ahead, call me a bitch. It’s one of the nicest things you could say about me."

Loving someone who struggles with alcoholism and addiction is one of the hardest things to do. It’s a drain on friends and family in both financial and emotional ways. It comes with ups and downs, characterized by periods of hope followed by devastation when you’re let down yet again.

I stared at the picture of her sitting in the courtroom sobbing; I read the news stories, and I cried, too. As a sexual assault survivor myself, I felt a lot of things in that moment. Above all, the ruling was a reminder to me that, as a woman, I do not matter. Not in the eyes of society, not in the eyes of the law. It was a reminder that I do not deserve safety, nor will I be guaranteed it. It was a reminder that my body is not mine, and it never has been.

When my husband and I looked at the screen in the ultrasound room and saw that we were having a girl, we both breathed a sigh of relief. Not because we didn’t want to have a boy, but because it meant the circumcision debate was off the table.

After the positive test and the cautious excitement of we're having a baby! came what felt like a literal gut punch — intense, chronic, debilitating morning sickness. I'd wake up and be okay until it was time to get out of bed and try to make it to work. As soon as I was vertical, the nausea would kick in and I'd run to the bathroom.

I know you’re probably wondering how that happened, so I’m going to tell you. (You’re welcome.)

The first sign that something was wrong was the weirdly watery discharge. I'd never had vaginal discharge that looked like that before, and considering I'd just finished my period, the large-ish amount was confusing to me. But everything else felt fine. So I put a pantyliner on and went about my life, thinking it would stop soon.

I’m working on an essay about the time I was raped my freshman year of college. For the very first time, I’m naming my perpetrator. Even if it’s only his first name, there’s still so much power in it.