I'm a little nervous to share this part of my life this week, but I feel like I'm ready and it needs to be shared. It's almost been 10 years since I moved away from my hometown to go to college in Huntsville, Texas. Within the first few days I had made several friends and we became inseparable. School hadn't even officially started yet and we were already going to events and frat parties probably more than we should have been. Looking back, I definitely should have spent more time preparing for how hard school was actually going to be. We live and we learn, right?

Every night was filled with a new beer pong game, deciding if we could see if we could stay up literally all night and still function the next day (the answer is no) and exploring the town's small country clubs and bars. When we weren't all together, we were group texting or Facebook messaging each other. Naturally, I grew to know and trust these people.

We had gotten through less than half of a semester and John*, Daniel *, Brian*, Liz* and I had become more like a family. We were far beyond friends. As someone who was actually very terrified of leaving my life and friends behind, I was happy and excited to know that I was a part of something I honestly wasn't sure I would get back when I moved.

The last night I ever saw any of them was one I don't remember but one I'll also never forget. It was almost the same as every night had been. We listened to some pretty terrible music, ordered a pizza and sat around drinking some pretty gross cheap beer — I think. I don't even remember making it through a full beer before everything was empty and dark.

I woke up the next morning in a bed I didn't recognize without any clothes on. As I scrambled to find my phone and missing clothes I noticed an opened condom wrapper on the floor. My Initial thought was, "How could this happen to me? I know the people I was with." In fact, I had basically convinced myself that there was no way I was raped. I had made excuses for the person who raped me to the point that I legitimately believed that it was my fault.

That's the thing, though — it wasn't my fault at all. It wasn't my fault that, after half a beer, I blacked out from probably being drugged. It wasn't my fault that I trusted people that were my friends to not be terrible, because that's what normal people do, and it wasn't my fault that I was taken advantage of.

I'm not really sure where any of my "friends" went after this party. When I went to find my clothes they were all gone, including the man who assaulted me. I got dressed, I left and I never went back. I never talked to any of them again.

Looking back I wish I could have been stronger. I wish I could have been able to talk to someone about this. Maybe I would have finished school and not dropped out. Maybe I would have been able to get up and go to class and not do terribly in my first year.

I made new friends, but they didn't know what happened and to this day I haven't really told anyone. I have been afraid of what people would say of think. I was even more afraid of how they would treat me when I told them how I handled it mentally afterward. Long story short, it hasn't been easy.

I know it isn't easy to talk about it, but rape culture is real. Rape culture led me to believe that being raped was my own fault. Rape culture led some guy to believe he could, in the words of Donald Trump, "do anything."

I haven't told this story to anyone because I wasn't ready to share my pain, but after recent events where tons of people in the United States, and tons of people I know and love, seem to think that a man stating that he wants to sexually assault someone is "normal," I wanted to let anyone who will read this know that it isn't. This isn't normal. It can't be normal.

We cannot let each other think that wishing we could make unwanted sexual advances is okay. Mine is just one of many more stories that could be told about unwanted sexual advances becoming reality and we, as a nation, must make it very clear that we are tired of supporting the mindset that this disgusting behavior is somehow okay. The time is now to make that a reality.

*Names have been changed.