Youthful lapse leads to life-long agonies
by Tamara Collins, Reporter

   At 18 and fresh out of high school, I knew everything about life, so who needed college? I went right to work.
   A year later, however, fate led me to what my dad calls the school of hard knocks.
   At a party one evening, I was given a beer.
   I don't remember much after that except waking up in a seedy clinic with two cops and a nurse looking down at me. I didn't know where I was, let alone what had happened. What a shock to find out I was a victim of rape.
   Rape was something that happened to other people, not me. I was lost. Did I need help; did I want to press charges? I could not function. My life had turned upside down in the span of a moment.
   I not only was a victim of rape, but was pregnant. I faced some tough decisions. I refused to bear a child in these circumstances, so I chose abortion. Several years later, I thought I had put these events behind me; I was married and a mother. Yet something still wasn't right. I was remained afraid of people, even my husband. Our marriage didn't last long.
   This January, things finally came to a head, and I was forced to look deep inside myself and answer questions that I had buried. There was definitely something wrong with me. I was thinking suicide was the best alternative when something clicked. I needed help right away.
   A Mental Health and Mental Retardation of Texas evaluation showed I suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, but am also manic-depressive.
   A few weeks later I met Mary, an amazing woman at the Tarrant County Women's Center.
   A rape counselor, she helps people like me recover from events that turn us into broken, battered shells. Mary took me under her wing to start rebuilding my life.
   My dream was to go to college. I didn't care where or how, I just wanted to go. From January until August, my supporters and I worked toward getting me enrolled and in class by the start of the fall semester.
   Along the journey, several people stepped in to form a support network to keep me from failing in this scary task.
   Triesha Light of the South Campus saw that I got all the classes I needed. The Collegian provided me a place to use my creative ability. My mother and father have been supportive. My son and Mike, my boyfriend, saved my life.
   These people have seen to it that rape didn't end my life, but, in a way, made my life begin. So, here I am living my dream and planning new ones, all from one beer.