My Fault; I didn't realize you were going to take advantage of me.

My name is Cristina Johnson.

I won't even go into the drama of this past week, although it brought me to my knees one night (Saw the ex's father...and a bunch of other stuff happened within two days...just brought me down).

But I am going to talk about the fucked up notion that women put themselves in the position to be raped/beaten/taken advantage of/etc.

******Trigger Warning******

When I was 12, I had a night of hell. I'd just hitchiked from Florida to North St. Louis - the only home I had ever known - on the streets.

First I was robbed and beaten by a group of guys who were clearly on (what was then called "whack" and is more commonly known as PCP). Fortunately, though they knocked me around in the slushy snow, took my coat, and my bags, they didn't rape me.

I was freezing. Winters in St. Louis can be brutal. And in the ghetto, they're dirty, too. Everything is grey, instead of white, like in the post cards. The dirty doesn't go away; it settles in the gutters like dirty crushed ice.

A small white car pulled up. He rolled down his window. I was wet and freezing. He asked, "Did they just rob you?"

I didn't know what to say so I stood there for a moment and he asked again, "Did they just rob you?"

When I didn't answer, he held up a gun and a police radio (or so I thought) and told me he was a police officer and to get in the car and he would help me find my things.

I got in the car.

He took me to a motel...attempted to rape me. Couldn't. He was too large for my little body, but that didn't stop him from repeatedly attempting until finally he put me back in the car. I don't know where he was taking me or what his plans were. Just knew he had a gun.

At one point, we turned down a dead-end road and were surrounded by a group of guys. I know some of their names to this day: Charlie, Mistreatie, Black, Anthony...there were others.

The "cop" stopped the car, realizing he was surrounded. He pulled out his gun. One of the guys was approaching my window, asking me to roll it down.

"It's okay. I ain't gon' hurt you," he said. "My name is Charlie. I know where yo stuff is."

I was scared and confused. I was in a dangerous situation. It was about 2 a.m. and I was exhausted, freezing and just plain confused.

Charlie looked comparatively harmless, considering what the "cop" had done (in hindsight, by the way, I now know it was a police scanner that he'd shown me and not a police radio).

Charlie was a light-skinned guy with a gentle demeanor. "I will take you to yo stuff," he promised.

So after a short stand-off, I got out of the car and Charlie immediately gave me his coat. I was almost instantly disarmed, although I was walking down the streets of the ghetto with six grown men at 2 a.m.

True to his word, Charlie took me to where one of my bags had been thrown in the gutter. Most of it salvageable and thankfully still had my makeup in it.

Charlie told me that I could sleep in his basement, if I needed to rest.

Up to this point, I'd been given no reason not to trust him so I let him lead me to his house. In the basement, it was cold but there was a back room and all the windows were boarded up. In the back room, there was a chair and a bed - that's all I remember - and he welcomed me to sit down in the chair, as he walked out of the room and closed the door.

I heard them whispering... I heard it. I knew it was coming...I could hear them outside the door and the only sensation I can recall is my arms resting on the arms of the chair, as if immobilized, utterly exhausted. I couldn't move my arms.

Charlie came in first. Threw me on the bed. Ripped off my clothes and hit me if I cried.

"Shut the fuck up, bitch!" he would snarl, if I whimpered.

He proceeded to rape me.

Although I'd been molested most of my childhood, I had not (to my knowledge) ever been penetrated.

This was my first experience.

He, like "the cop," was too big but it didn't matter...he forced it to happen and it hurt worse than anything I'd ever known. I lay there, praying to a God I didn't believe in, that he would stop moving. Just stop moving...please stop moving, it hurts so bad.

As he "finished" he called in the next guy but I clamped my arms around his neck, begging him not to get up. "Please no no no!!"

And he shoved my arms away and the next guy came and repeated Charlie's actions.

Each time, I clung to their necks, begging them not to get up. Begging.

As if I was asking for it, right? Laying in this dark, dingy basement, unable to fight off six attackers who did everything they physically could to my body as I cried and begged.

When they were done, they locked me in the basement and they did the same thing the next night....and the next night...and the next night...

Finally, one day, a little boy appeared in the basement. He was about five or six years old. He opened the door and came in and I felt such fear for him. Ironically, his nickname was "Daddy" I found out quite soon.

When I met "Daddy" I was afraid to leave the basement because I felt protective of him. I knew he was being abused and neglected and I knew his daily visits down to see me were a refuge for him.

The guilt I have carried over this ever since then, is tremendous. I, like most people, wonder, "why didn't you leave then, when you had the chance?"

I've hated myself for not leaving when I could.

But then something happened that changed everything....

After another round of rapes (they often brought more guys in), they brought Daddy in as I lay helpless on the bed. Helpless to do anything. They held my arms and legs and they lay Daddy on top of me, nude.

They pushed his buttocks to simulate sex and hooped and hollered and laughed as if it was the greatest thing they'd ever seen. No sex happened, obviously, but when Daddy looked up and saw me crying, while also hearing his big brother and his friends urging him on and telling him how good he was doing, the child was completely confused.

It was after this, that I was "sold" by Charlie to a pimp and endured another week of gang-rapes and beatings. Being primed to "go on the stroll." But that's another story.

*****End Trigger****

So I put myself in that position, didn't I? My fault, right?

Just like this weekend when a male friend came over and crossed a couple of lines. I was here listening to him tell me that he loved me, all the while putting Bill down (who I quickly and unequivocally defended). I told him repeatedly not to say those things to me but he continued.

He never touched me - just verbally was out of line.

Last night I was accused of putting myself in that position.

To me, this cut down to that 12-year-old. That guilt that sits there like a ball of  tar in your gut. The incessant chanting in your brain about how bad you are, how wrong you are, how you fucked up, how it's all your fault because if you'd done or if you'd done that or if you hadn't done this or hadn't done that, then this shit wouldn't have happened.

Right?

So it IS my fault??

Don't get me wrong. Cognitively, to a large extent, I understand no woman (or child or girl) deserves or asks to be beaten and raped. But cognition is far different than the emotional baggage of such a trauma. And when the same trauma happens repeatedly, you start to believe, yes...yes it must be my fault...

And then someone comes along and unknowingly or not, blames you for being taken advantage of.

There are absolutely no words for how lost I feel right now.