The Final Word

My rapist was finally sentenced and put in jail December 2011. I haven't blogged to update since and I thought that I would post my final words. I was allowed to read a statement at his sentencing, which is totally optional, but he needed to know once and for all how I felt. I thought I'd share.

My Statement

Today Corey Smith also known as Chi G will be sentenced to a jail sentence that is not much longer than the time I’ve spent waiting for justice. Time spent waiting for closure, waiting with my life on hold, living in fear, living with an intense feeling of dread I can’t shake. From the moment I made the 911 call I feared retribution. Corey threatened my life multiple times the night of the attack and there was no doubt in my mind these threats would be followed through on if the opportunity was given. Even with a conviction I still fear retribution from his family. I have spent just over 20 months waiting to die. The night I was raped I never expected to make it out alive and after I did I truly thought it was only a matter of time before I would be hunted down and found.

This fear has changed my life. For the first twelve months I had nightmares about Corey and that night. I woke up screaming, kicking, crying or worst of all sometimes I didn’t wake up. The nightmare is my life now. I armed myself carrying mace, stun guns and later opting for my concealed carry license. I think about how to mace someone. If I could hit someone. If I could fire a shot. What I'd do if a gun was to my head. I wanna hit things now. I'm angry. I never had that before.  Every day I replay those three and a half hours of being locked in my house. Every painful second of feeling like he'd kill me. Every blow to my head. Every second of him touching me, taking from me. There's parts I don't have to remind myself of...like the look in his eyes. The one that I've never seen before. Hate, anger, a desire to punish, beat, kill, rape. That's a look that doesn't go away. I'm afraid of dying every day, but now that I assume one day he'll find me and kill me it doesn't faze me as much. It became a fact to me, not a fear. Every time I meet a man I wonder if he knows Corey. I wonder if he's just talking to me to find out where I live and how to get to me so Corey can kill me. I'm paranoid now. I have a million fantastical situations built up in my head about all the ways he could find me and mess with me through other people. I jump at every knock, every bump in the night, every tap on my shoulder. The paranoia, the anger, the fear has effected everyone in my life.  They are stuck dealing with the aftermath of Corey’s  choices that night.

I lost more than I can put into words that night. I lost myself. I feel like I lost a huge innocence and even if it’s just a perception I think my parents look at me differently. Corey didn’t  just do this to me, he hurt them because they had to deal with the changes their little girl was going through and they couldn’t fix it for me. I worry that all they see is a girl who has been raped. My mother had to read the details of the rape. They had to think of me in a new way. I lost my part time job because  I missed work the next day and they were worried about bad press. I lost all my friends including my best friend of 17 years. She was worried this danger would follow her if she took me in and she couldn’t handle supporting me through the trauma. We never spoke again. I had to move so he wouldn’t find me.  So much was taken from me. They took my sheets, my clothes, my body fluids, his DNA and my dignity when they asked if I was making it all up because I was mad that he had a girlfriend.

I spent a year feeling lost and scared while Corey was a free man. I thought about him every day and replayed that night in my head over and over again so that I would be ready if and when the case was prosecuted. I doubt Corey thought about me at all. The original prosecutor assigned to the case let the file sit unread on her desk. I called daily for awhile, then weekly and later monthly. I begged and pleaded and no one would give me answers or let me talk to the prosecutor to find out anything else. Everything was on pause for me for the first year of the 20 months it has taken for justice to be served and the since then I have  had to deal with the stress of waiting for a trial, false hopes of a severe sentence, constantly rescheduled court dates, learning that evidence was lost and ultimately having to settle with a plea deal I don’t find just at all.

Social drinking progressed into full blown alcoholism. I drank almost every night to forget. I made myself physically and mentally ill. I tried to take my own life more than once. I can’t hold a normal relationship and my views on sex have changed. A million little things remind me of that night. I don’t know when I will feel safe again.

This incident has been a huge financial burden on me as well. After the rape I felt forced to move so that Mr. Smith would not know my location or be able to find me. This was costly and came at a time where I was collecting a small amount of unemployment. I had to borrow roughly a grand from my family in order to move which I still owe today. I have been sent to collections for the cat scan that was taken as part of rape kit and still owe that. Personal items from my home such as sheets and the clothing I was wearing that night were taken as evidence. Driving to Olympia and seeking accommodations in order to meet with prosecution has been costly as well. Luckily my current counseling is covered by the state as it is part of alcohol treatment classes however further counseling will not be covered. I have an unpaid chiropractic bill from seeking treatment to not only enter my physical condition as further evidence of assault, but to help alleviate the pain in my neck caused from the blows to my head. Due to lack of funds or medical insurance I still have not had full treatment for the pain and the impact to my neck has had lasting effects causing me a great deal of physical discomfort on a daily basis.

Corey is a dangerous individual who no longer deserves freedom. His record alone should attest to that if this incident isn’t enough. He has slipped through the cracks of our legal system more than once. He should be doing life for the sum of his actions. I feel that if Corey was allowed to be a free man this would happen to many more women and it is my belief that it has happened before. That night Corey told me that he was fighting with his family about how he had become physically abusive towards women. He told me that he was pimping various women. He also told me that he was going to move in with me and start paying my bills with the money gained from these women. In hindsight it is my opinion that Corey would have tried to pimp me. His calls were monitored in jail for my safety and he continued to run his illegal businesses from jail. He clearly has no respect for the law and that has been shown countless times. He told me he would rape me, making his crime premeditated. He told me he had shot a woman and that he would do the same to me. A few short hours after raping me he threw up gang signs when officers took his picture. This sentence is NOT enough.

In the last seven months I have started to move on. I’m seven and a half months sober. I am in therapy and most importantly I have forgiven Corey for what he did to me because it is only through forgiveness that I can try to find happiness and regain some of the girl that I used to be. I want Corey to know that I forgive him for telling people I just want attention. I forgive him for telling people there was no rape kit or a positive DNA match. I forgive him, but I won’t ever forget and at the end of each day he will have to live with what he did and no amount of lying can make that go away. I want Corey to know that he didn’t break me completely. He gave me one thing and that’s the desire to fight for life and cherish each second of it.

I can't be witty with the weight of the world on my heart

I'd love to give you a witty, epic title and come back to my blog with a bang, but instead I'm coming with raw emotion, probably a few grammatical errors, a lack of censorship and my heart. I haven't posted since March. Two of my entries have been being used as evidence of sorts in my rape trial since in March, a year after the incident they finally decided to get off their asses, fire a prosecutor and get one that cared...or so I thought and began work on my case.

The whole thing has been an emotional roller coaster, sometimes at the forefront of my thoughts and sometimes buried deep in an attempt to just forget about it and wait. It has been continued a thousand times. I was told ten to life. Then 16 to life. Then "how about a plea of 5 years". Today without so much as a returned call or any inclination of giving a damn I have to read online; Hearing cancelled: Stipulated. Of course I have no idea wtf this means other than the fact that it's not going to trial because no where in the year and a half of crazy court documents has it ever said cancelled. Apparently hearings cancelled due to stipulation are those cancelled in agreement with both parties and stricken from record. Hmmm pretty sure I never agreed to that. Why wouldn't they even think to ask or tell me first? This isn't a wait three more months...we swear it will happen soon deal like the paste, but a finalization without a resolution. It's just done. Here I sit waiting....

Waiting to call and call and call and call tomorrow praying for someone to answer with answers.

I'm broken today.

I feel like all the work I've been putting into myself, all the white knuckling to hang onto sanity, all the strength being sober (oh yeah did I mention I'm six months no alcohol) all of it feels gone. I want to pull out the 9 I bought for safety, the gun I have in case he comes to kill me and just disappear. I couldn't though, I wouldn't. Not for love of myself, but because of what/who I'd leave behind, but don't think my brain doesn't play the different ways on repeat because it does. Take me somewhere peaceful...I've forgotten that feeling.

I just want him to know what he's done to me. Who I've become. What I gave up. I wanted my day in court. I deserve that. For the risk I put myself at even calling the cops...I deserve justice.

How is the system so broken that a man with multiple DV charges, assault, possession, kidnapping, disarming an officer and now rape get to walk away? Why was he even out to begin with? How does someone who disregards the law so much that they're pimping and dealing over a jail phone line and throwing up gang signs in their mug shots have more right than I do?

How did I end up giving him all of the power? He probably doesn't even think of me...not even while he sits in a cell waiting and I give him a million too many seconds, minutes and hours every day.

I felt like when I started this I had a point. A destination too, but I ended up off course and I was so numb and so filled with pain and tears that I wandered. I wanted to say something greatly positive about the whole thing, but I just don't have it right now.

I'm still hoping the Universe has got my back on this one and it's not really over...


Edited to ad this pic. I don't know why on earth I would even think to do this, but when I was hysterically crying and couldn't seem to think logically or breathe I somehow managed to think take a picture. I just think crying is so raw and beautiful and there's no words to express pain that deep...sometimes this does it better.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder

temporarily deleted...sorry guys as tasteful as my nude shoot was law enforcement didnt need to see my tatas while looking at my blog...

In love with love

I've loved a lot of men. I think that love is often times a term that gets thrown around too easily. I know I've said I was in love and in hindsight I was simply in lust if even that. Often times I'm just interested in being wanted or even more the idea of being what they want and convincing them of that, but that's beside the point. There have only really been two men who have told me they loved me. Unless of course you count my ex who had six secret gf's and probably doesn't remember saying it or my high school boyfriend who is really just a best friend. The first guy who loved me back was a total mess and the most unhealthy relationship of my life and the second guy is someone who makes me insane, but I can't get away.

A month ago he was laying in my bed telling me he loved me. A week later he had a girlfriend. I found out on facebook. This guy and I have the most UNHEALTHY relationship on the planet. We absolutely cannot function together and yet when I look in his eyes and see him smile I don't think I can function without him. I've never had a man tell me he wanted to make children with me or that he loved me. Those are the two things in the world that are the most important to me. The two things I need to complete my dreams. It may be silly, but it's what I've always wanted because I know that my goals and dreams are attainable so I put them on hold until I get the two things I don't know if I can ever have, love and children.

I really think that facebook could be the devil. Seeing every detail of someone's life with their new "love" is just down right unhealthy. Thanks for sharing that you love your girlfriend. Thank you facebook for showing me your girlfriend's pictures of you and her child. Thank you facebook for all those photo memories and pictures of him and I together. Especially the ones I look fat in.

Here I am sitting on Christmas sick as a dog looking at this bullshit on facebook. Did I also mention there's a girl obsessed with him even though they've apparently only kissed who writes five million status messages a day about him and how she wants him and blah blah blah puke my guts out...ugh! Now the extra funny part is I'm sick because I kissed him...I kissed his sick ass six fucking days ago. Yes he did have a girlfriend then...the one he loves. The one he is professing his love for on facebook. The one who starred at me miserably the other night when they were out together, probably because she's not as dumb as I was.

It gets even better though. Not only did I kiss him six days ago, but so did another girl. I thought they were friends. I thought we were getting along really well that night and that maybe the hate part of our violent, miserable love/hate relationship was gone. He asked me if I wanted to go smoke at her house and she said she would give me gas money. I agreed to spend a minute more with him. Somehow we all ended up playing a sex dice game/truth or dare and the next thing I know I'm watching the man I love kiss another girl, but he's not just kissing her when the game says to he's kissing her the whole time. I'm jealous, but I play along cuz it's been three weeks since I've kissed him and I need it to survive. When I can't handle the jealous any longer I say it's time to go...but he stays. He stays knowing she wants to fuck the ever loving shit out of him. I have no choice but to leave someone I "love" with another woman to fuck. The next day he begs for a ride. He doesn't understand how hurt I am. He doesn't feel disrespectful. He just doesn't get it. I fell out of love that night. I'm glad I did, but I still can't bear to see him publicly love another woman.

I know that it's not possible. You can't love someone you date for a month. You can't love someone when you're fucking other people. I wouldn't want him anyways...he'd just cheat on me. Even though I know he doesn't love her, even though I'm dying to tell her but can't, even though I don't care, I'm heartbroken as all hell. I also know when I look at that smile too long I'll feel the love all over again. I can't figure out how to be done.

An open letter to a rapist.

Dear Chi G,
There are so many things I wish I could say to you. So many feelings I wish you could feel that are stuck inside of me. Remember when I used to be all gaga over you? How your voice would make me weak in the knees? I played that voicemail you left me over and over again the one where you said "I like you" all sweet and cute with your Chi town accent. Remember telling my mom why she should love you and that you we're a good guy who cared about her daughter? You forgot? She didn't. Do you know what it's like to not know who you are anymore? To not remember that person?

Ya know I have nightmares about you or similar situations to the one you put me in almost every night. I wake up screaming, kicking, punching, crying or worst of all sometimes I can't wake up. I can't shake the nightmare. Sometimes the nightmare is my every day life. I carry mace. I think about how to mace someone. If I could hit someone. What I'd do if a gun was to my head. I wanna hit things now. I'm angry. I never had that before. I'm afraid of dying everyday, but now that I assume one day you'll find me and kill me it doesn't faze me as much. It's a fact now not a fear. Every time I meet a man I wonder if he knows you. I wonder if he's just talking to me to find out where I live and how to get to me so you can kill me. I'm paranoid now. I have a million fantastical situations built up in my head about all the ways you could find me and mess with me through other people. I jump at every knock, every bump in the night, every tap on my shoulder. I met a guy who looks and sounds a lot like you...when I drink to the point of forgetting I hit him because I can't hit you. Everyone around me is stuck dealing with the aftermath of your mistake.

It's been eight fucking months and I'm still lost. You know where you are? You're free. You probably aren't even looking for me because you think you got away with it. I'm sure I don't even cross your mind when everyday I'm hating you. Everyday I replay those three and a half hours of being locked in my house. Every painful second of feeling like you'd kill me. Every blow to my head. Every second of you touching me, taking from me. There's parts I don't have to remind myself of...like the look in your eyes. The one that I've never seen before. Hate, anger, a desire to punish, beat, kill, rape. That's a look that doesn't go away. I called the cops. I shouldn't have even though it was the right thing to do. They took you away in handcuff and yes they took away 45 days of your life, but ya know what else they took. They took my sheets, my clothes, my body fluids, your DNA and my dignity when they asked if I was making it all up because I was mad that you had a girlfriend.

I sit on the phone for hours every week trying to talk to the prosecuter who is supposed to put you away for me. The one who is here to help protect the law and justice and fight for me. Guess what? They're on your side too. Turns out they don't think it's that important to take a drug dealing, raping, beating, lying piece of shit pimp off the streets. I cry and beg every time I call. I tell them I know a conviction will get me killed, but I want you behind bars so you're not breaking other girls. You raped me two days before your girlfriends birthday while driving her fucking car! I met your mother, your brother, your cousins, knew you for over a year, but never saw this coming.

You know what's worse than being lost; then not being able to move on because this isn't finished? The way my dad looks at me. I used to be his little girl who he loved no matter what. I lied a lot to protect him from the parts of my life that he wouldn't like or want to see, but I couldn't hide this. He doesn't look at me the same anymore. My parents worry about me 24/7 now. They use you as an example every time I try to go on a date to prove I'm not capable of making good decisions. They know I'm damaged now and they worry I'll kill myself or that I'll just never be the same. You took even more from me though...because that's what you do you take. You took my job, my apartment, a few cities, all my friends and my best friend of 17 years. She didn't want me anymore either.

One day I hope this ends. I hope my memory of you fades. I hope that I can forgive you, stop hating you, stop pitying you, stop feeling bad that I did this to you (fucked up right? that I blame myself a little too). I hope I get to see you in court and show you I'm still beautiful and strong even though I've wanted to give up. One day I hope I'll be that amazing woman I thought I was before so that you haven't won. But the biggest thing I wish for is that you think of me every once in awhile and remember what you did...

I needed to get that out.

Without regards,
Lindsay DeBoard

Plenty of Fish in the Sea, but why are these the ones attracted to me?

I've been MIA for a little while and since I have two readers and one of which hates me you probably didn't miss me much, but I missed you! It's been hard knowing what to write about or where to start lately with all the crazy dating I've been doing. Being a club promoter has opened up an entirely new arena of insane dating stories and troublesome men. I'll save all that for another post.

So I'm sitting in the hospital room of my brother in law who is having emergency brain surgery in the morning and his prognosis isn't great right now and I'm trying desperately to distract myself...which of course led me to my faithful plentyoffish.com. I did my usual routine of checking my messages from horrifying users, browsing the my matches section, the most likely to respond section, the users who have viewed you section and last but not least the special section for ladies only that is users who find you most attractive.

This section manages to successfully piss me off every time. Although apparently it's pretty accurate because I've dated most of them already. One match is a guy I met in college, one who I totally adored and with whom I hit it off with instantly, but as per usual for your girl he was a dud. He constantly called in the middle of the night asking for sexual favors that benefited him only and said it wasn't his fault I was so darn good at em. Every time I said I was interested in building the relationship further and working towards us being a couple (like he said he wanted) he would say that he was the one who was serious and wanted to date and I wasn't. Apparently his late night BJ requests weren't an indication of his inability to hold a relationship, yeah right! It's been almost two years and he still hits me up begging for it. (he never gets it FYI).

Another match on the list of most attracted is a fellow City Star club promoter. I guess it makes sense since we did meet on POF a year ago, but trust me our whole "City" and the "Stars" in it know we don't work. Although our first date is probably blog worthy.

One match is an ex male stripper that my sister is friends with from when she worked at Centerfolds...trust me he wasn't attracted to me, but I tried. I have a small obsession with male strippers...long story and probably a few more blogs.

There's a guy who ended up one night standing me after we met and later slept together all after professing his deep desires for a LTR (long term relationship). Although I don't think it counts as sex if you can't get or keep it in. Sorry for the TMI, but never in my life have I seen a penis like this. The poor kid had a C shaped dick bending to one side...at least god could have been nice and given him an upward curve for optimum G-Spot pleasure.

The rest of the matches are pure creepiness...ahhh my favorite. Of course some of these other scary looking dudes find me attractive they probably like anything with a pulse.

Oh and I almost forgot...the guy who threatened to kick down my door after hitting on two of my friends and who later broke into my car, stole everything and has left me windowless. Awesome!

 Creeper

 Blow Job Begger

 Co-Worker

Mouth Breathing Creeper

Knock three times on the ceiling if you want me...twice on the pipe if the answer is no?

So what do you do if someone knocks on your door and you don't want them? Last week a very strange first happened to me. There was a knock on the door and I found an unexpected visitor. My roommate and her current lady friend had just left to go to the store and I was running around the house half naked getting ready for our night out when I heard the knock. Assuming it was my roomie and perhaps she had forgotten something I opened the door without checking the peep hole.

There on my doorstep was a vaguely familiar black man. I hid my undressed body behind the door and peered at him with caution. He asked how I was and if he could come in. I said no and cited my nakedness as the reason. We talked through the two inch opening in the door and he told me he had lost his phone and desperately wanted my number again. I stared blankly both in shock that someone would show up on my doorstep just to get my number and at the fact that I couldn't quite place him or remember when he would have had it in the first place.

I politely told him I was dating someone (or someones) and that I was sorry, but he had to leave numberless. As he begrudgingly walked off he told me it was ok because soon it wouldn't work out and that he was the only man for me.

As I closed the door I finally placed his face. This wasn't a man that I had decided to date or one that I was even interested in. Oh no. This was the man that my lesbian (ok she's bi, but she loves the ladies and only goes for boys when she has no other options) roommate had brought over and out with us one night when she needed a little loving to bide the time in between lady lovers. The same guy who hit on me the whole time. The same guy whose dick she sucked in our kitchen with me unknowingly present on the balcony. The same guy that she left sleeping on the couch the next day when she left for work. The same guy who she said she knew for months and trusted, but who couldn't remember her name. The same guy who desperately climbed into my bed after she left as I lay sleeping and tried to beg me to give him a chance. The same guy I had to boot out of my home.

The funny thing is even though I would never date him due to a lack of physical attraction and the blatant fact that I can't have my roomie's left overs I started to wonder if maybe I should have  given him my number. After all I'm usually on the bad end of a one night stand or being stood up for dates and this guy liked me so much he hoofed it to my apartment all for my digits.