One in five.

In a class of 35, that's 7.

In a dorm of 500, that's 100.

One in five.

One in five girls will be sexually assaulted in college. One in ten girls will be sexually assaulted before they graduate high school. Every 98 seconds, there is a sexual assault. Every 8 minutes, that assault is on a child. Women are stalked, harassed, threatened, and assaulted every single day.

One in five.

The worst part? Of all those cases, maybe around .6% of these victims will get the peace of knowing that their attacker is behind bars. Chilling statistics, isn’t it?

We're all aware it happens. Our first semester of college, we had to take Title IX training. We see the "No More" signs around campus. We know this is happening…but I don't think we know to what degree.

One and five isn't as appalling until you are the one out of those five. And I was. I was the one out of five, and it changed everything.

My first semester of my first year of college, I became a one in five. It took not even a month into school for me to find this world that I had heard about, but never seen. It took one guy who thought I was pretty and saw me at work. It began with unwanted advances and flirting, that were clearly not reciprocated. He realized we went to the same college as well…that’s when things escalated. He was always there, refusing to listen to my pleas that he leave me alone. The more I pressed for him to leave, the more crude the comments got. Then he was sitting in parking lots after dark waiting for me to get off work, and I was would be sitting, knuckles white, hoping to God this wasn't a reality. That surely no man would actually sit and stalk a 17-year-old girl.

Three months later, I stopped hoping.

Things weren't getting better. He was calling me at work. He even brought me flowers. He was everywhere. I worked in a place where children were around constantly, and he would say things to me and ask me things that no child should hear.

Things that would paralyze me, because no person should have those things said to them. They were things that made me ashamed of my body, how I looked, and how I dressed.

Things that make you want to crawl in a cave into the deepest, darkest depths of a cave and never see humans or the light of day again.

Words that were said so often and so frequently without anyone stopping them that I started to believe them. I started to hate my body and who I was. I despised myself because for some reason, I thought this was my fault.

Things that make me check the locks three times.

Things that made me check under my car every time I was near it. Things that made me check my backseat.

Things that made me carry keys between my knuckles.

Things that made me unable to see myself as who I was.

To him, I was meat. I was an animal. I wasn't human.

Then, on the 95th day, he said something to me that I still hear when I sleep:

"No one can protect you. I can do anything I want to you."

It took me 95 days to tell anyone. It was on this day that I decided things were going to get very bad very soon.

I filed a police report on November 11th, 2015. All I remember from the blur of that day was sitting with a office phone in my hand and barely being able to see the numbers. I remember an officer with his hand on my shoulder, blocking me from anyone else's eyes, reminding me that this wasn't my fault. I remember having to call my parents and tell them. I remember getting home that night and my dad sitting and holding me (also giving me a Taser, thanks dad!). But everything after that day, after that moment, I remember clearer than I remember what I had for lunch today.

The following Monday I got a call from someone on my case saying that they were dropping it. That they had talked to the guy and he said it wouldn't happen again. I began the Title IX investigation that day. I had a witness. I had everything I needed to win that case.

In a box at home, I have a crumbled up stack of case summary that was crushed in my fist from the walk to my car following the final meeting. It says not guilty. It says there was not sufficient evidence. It says the three months I lived terrified, he was joking around, and he was never going to actually do it, so it's okay.

What's notokay? He's scotch free. I live with the emotional burden of knowing I will never look at men the same again. And yes, it's irrational. But you will never know what it's like to be afraid to go into Target alone. Or be able to find a moment where you are not scared. For six months, I still checked under my car. I checked my backseat. I checked every lock three times. I would close the blinds in every room I was ever in. That’s what happens when YOU are the one in five.

I live with the emotional toll every moment of every day. But the worst part of the whole thing is all the girls who came forward to me and told me their stories. All the girls that had been subject to the same comments I had. But most were worse. Most were full out rapes and no one would believe them or they weren't able to prosecute.

In perspective, my story does not meet the gravity of others, but it still hurt me, and still impairs how I am able to see people, trust people, and have relationships. It changed the way I trusted the people whose literal job is to protect us. And I don't think that's reversible. Its over a year later and I am still seeing a counselor to help me get over the fear. Every week I am told, "This is not your fault. You did not choose this. Someone chose to do this to you." And every week, I have to make myself believe it a little more.

And I am only one in five.

Sexual assault happens every 98 seconds in America.

Don't ask. Don't tell. That's 100% B.S.

No. She wasn't asking for it. It wasn't her fault.

No, it wasn't the alcohol.

No, there isn't a blurred line of consent.

No, An absence of a no is not the presence of a yes.

One more time for the people in the back:

An absence of a no is not the presence of a yes.

No more one in five. No more every 98 seconds. No more killing women's sense of worth. No more.

We need change. We need change in the system that gave Brock Turner three months. That change starts here, on college campuses. By the time my future children are in college, I don't want there to be a one in five or every 98 seconds. And yes, that's possible. I promise to do whatever in my power to change that statistic, and as a female, a son, brother, boyfriend, or husband, I hope you join me.