Rock Bottom
It has to get better, right? Right?
TW: sexual assault, men being men, sad girl shit
This time last week I got super drunk. I think it was the right thing to do, given the circumstances. I got so drunk my best friend had to change the contact details of my ex-boyfriend to “STOP texting him - Isobel”. It’s a good reminder – one that served me well the following morning, when I was in the throes of hangxiety.
On that morning, I wrote the following:
I really hope this is rock bottom. I’ve been down here for a while now, at varying degrees of bottom. I’m losing count of the number of times I’ve said “it has to get better, right?” – but surely now, this time, is Rock Bottom.
I’m not convinced it gets much lower than being deemed “unfit to work” by a GP who called me last week to let me know that my therapy referral had been rejected. He never told me why. In fairness, he’d only scheduled me in for a 10 minute call, but it ended up being 40 minutes of me explaining - between me muting myself to exhale gallons of snot into the already-used tissues littering my bed – my current situation. My consultation notes read like a cry for help; he even described me as “desperate”. Desperate for what?
I was sexually assaulted (almost) two months ago. In a shop. In Leicester Square. I had to pee. I did not realise that, by doing so, I was entering into a contract with the two men who worked (still work) there.
I’d only been at my new job for two weeks. It got to 4:30am in the police station and I suddenly remembered “shit, I’m supposed to be at work tomorrow”, then “who’s going to present the Friday slide?”. So I did what every good employee does and let my manager know that there’d been an “incident at Leicester Square” and I was therefore “unlikely to make it into the office tomorrow”. My WhatsApp messages were troubling enough to warrant a call from her at 5:00am. By that point I’d given my swabs, my statement, my top. By that point I was inconsolable.
I took two days off, worked from home for a day, then reimmersed myself in office-culture. Making small-talk with the coworkers about their weekend. Writing emails. Signing off “All the best, Alice”. That kind of stuff.
My boyfriend of 18 months unceremoniously dumped me over FaceTime (almost) a month ago – less than a month after it happened. I don’t think he really understands the magnitude of what he’s done. I don’t think he gets that, whilst there’s “never a good time for a break-up”, there are certainly bad ones. This was a bad one.
The police called me up the other Friday. They’ve called me a few times since it happened. Each time they’ve began by tentatively asking me questions like “how are you feeling… about it all?”. Each time I’ve answered with “oh, you know, I’m getting by!”. Something socially acceptable that the average victim-of-crime might say. Then they tell me things like “we got the CCTV”, “forensics are looking into it now”, “were you… uhhh… sorry I have to ask this… were you wearing a bra?”. And I say things like “cool, thanks for letting me know” and “no, I was not wearing a bra”. On Friday they called me to let me know that, for want of evidence, they can no longer pursue my case.
I had also tested positive for covid that morning, so it was extra difficult getting what few words I had to say out. I managed to ask “but what about the mouth swabs?” and he explained that – here’s a fun little factoid for you – we don’t have much DNA on our mouths (saliva tends to destroy it). I thought about the consolatory lollipop I snatched when the two men, panicking, told me I could take something after I’d escaped back into the shop. I wish I’d taken something better, maybe even taken some time to load up a pic n mix – really fill my boots and capitalise on their offer of free candy.
You know what they say: never take candy from a stranger (especially when said stranger has just sexually assaulted you).
I’ve since had a medically mandated week off, to process. It all feels a little dramatic.
In that week off I’ve:
Gotten super drunk, twice.
Drunkenly text-bombed my ex – once was more than enough.
Cried, quite a few times.
Thrown myself back into online dating with reckless abandon (emphasis on the reckless).
Subsequently, been on two dates.
Smoked an alarming number of cigarettes.
Made little in the way of “progress” towards “recovery”.
Received and accepted an offer for a new job!?
All this has been to an unwavering soundtrack of Olivia Roderigo’s Good 4 U, Taylor Swift’s Mr. Perfectly Fine, and – in some of my darkest moments – Carly Rae Jepson’s Tonight I’m Getting Over You. Whether I’m stomping around, showering, or straight vibing to these songs, it is not just my ex who I’m thinking about, it’s the nameless men who cornered me in a dark and narrow corridor and get to walk about unscathed, “so unaffected”, like two Mr. Perfectly Fines.
I’m afraid there’s no resolution, no witty punchline, to this piece. I guess I just wanted to kick things off by being honest, since this is the only thing I can really think about right now. Break ups often are all-consuming. Sexual assaults even more so.
That being said, next week I will:
Go home.
Breathe in some fresh Derbyshire air.
Hand in my notice.
Start to get better.
Because it has to get better, right?