Overdose

I don't know why this loss, of all of them this far, is hitting me the hardest. I just know that since graduating from Naperville North High School in 2012, my graduating class has lost several individuals to drug overdose and suicide. That's not counting the others we knew and loved that were a class or two above or below us, lost to the same two terrible causes.

Life is fragile. We are not invincible. We are not immune from patterns of behavior, or patterns of thought, that end up harming us, or even killing us.

The names of those we loved and lost are tentative on our lips. We grieve together and separately, as we mourn a loss in a community that has become geographically stratified across the country and across the world. Most of us return for the holidays, or visit for the summer, but many of us spend months away from the place we once all called home. We are a divided community trying to collectively make sense of a devastating tragedy. 

The blows never get easier, the shock is always piercing, and the losses can not be justified, anticipated, or brushed aside. Nor should they be. This, losing those we love, should never cease to be a tragedy, temporarily rendering us gutted and speechless, trying to make sense of circumstances that can never add up.

We are a group of individuals so young, so bright, so full of potential, and each time one of us is wrenched so suddenly from this earth, the resulting cascade of emotion and sorrow is devastating. We are all inextricably linked and so we, collectively, lose a part of us. Holes, impossibly wide, appear in our identity and, though we try to show support, to band together, to bridge the gaps of miles and years that separate us, we fail to reassemble the pieces in a way that completes the puzzle. We are irreparably broken.

To all those whom we've lost in recent years, rest easy. You may never know how loved, valued, and irreplaceable you were, and still are, in this community.

To the NNHS class of 2012, as well as the families and friends of all affected, my heart goes out to you. 

My Response

I'm choosing not to engage in a discussion with you about this matter, but if I did, this is what I would say in response to your message, one line in particular in which you said "the fact that you insinuated you could claim I sexually assaulted you when you were blackout drunk has made me lose all trust in you and lose all respect for you whatsoever.":

The fact that you sexually assaulted me isn't a claim I "could" make. It's a claim I did, and still DO make. I made the claim to my therapist and we worked through your abuse for months. It's something that creeps up and haunts me when I least expect it. I tried bringing it up to you at the time it happened and you brushed it off because you had other things to deal with.

I wasn't blackout drunk, I was unconscious because I was concussed. Even if I was blackout drunk, I was still not conscious. But in either case, I was unable to give consent. In either case, I was not in a position to be consciously and consentually engaging in sexual behavior. I was in a vulnerable and unprotected position. And you did take advantage of me. You may not have meant to, and you may not have done it maliciously. But you did engage in sexual activity with someone who was unable to consent. That's sexual assault. The fact you had to tell me that we had hooked up the next day should have been a major red flag.

I don't give a shit if you don't trust or respect me anymore. When you sexually assaulted me, you broke my trust in you. And when you sent me this uninformed, and quite nasty, message, you completely obliterated any and all respect I had left for you. So honestly I don't care what your opinion of me is. Think what you want.

The fact is, I left that encounter feeling taken advantage of. I knew that if I had been in a mindset to make rational choices, I would not have chosen to hook up with you that night. The fact I have made different decisions on other nights does not invalidate the fact that on that night, I would have said no. That's the reason why I made that claim.

[Sexual Assault] Education is Key

How do you explain to the man who sexually assaulted you what consent means?

This isn't a rhetorical question: I'm in this position. This weekend, I saw a friend of mine who sexually assaulted me about a year and a half ago. We got into a drunken shouting match, one thing lead to another, and the incident got brought up. He told me then that I was the reason that all women in tech get a bad rep for calling 'rape'. He told me again, just now in a Facebook message, that I, by implying that making out wasn't consensual when I was unconscious, made him lose all trust in and respect for me.

So here's my conundrum: how do I inform this particular individual that the definition of consent includes a part where you have to be conscious to make a decision about what activities you engage in? That someone who is under the influence of alcohol, or concussed (like I was), does not have those mental capacities engaged at that point in time, therefore can't give affirmative consent? How do I tell him that I'm not just crying 'rape', that I put myself back in counseling because of his abuse, that it seriously fucked me up inside, and that it wasn't just a consequence of me being unconscious?

I can't. I'm not in the position to inform him of these things. Because it would be so difficult to even have the conversation with him, because it wouldn't be healthy for me, and because quite frankly, he wouldn't listen to me at this point.

I know so many women in my life who have been raped and sexually assaulted. Until this weekend, I didn't fully understand how difficult it is to navigate the waters of being a victim/survivor of sexual assault, especially around your assaulter. And I don't know where to go from here.

Why I Refuse to Diet for Spring Break

Hey y'all,

We're in the swing of the spring season all over again- every year that the temperatures threaten to warm up, social media whips into a frenzy of diets, cleanses, and detoxes to get your "Spring Break Beach Bod!" My roommate made it her New Year's resolution to work out every single day (to each her own, but the only things I do every day are wake up, brush my teeth, eat, and go to bed). Over the years of living with so many women, I've seen girls through the ups and the downs of juice cleanses, gluten-free periods, vegan trials, and in more extreme cases, disordered eating and full blown body image disorders.

I'm not at my skinniest right now, and I'm not at my most athletic. In less than three weeks, I'm going to be wearing a swimsuit for a week straight. Yet, I haven't changed my workout pattern or my diet at all. I'm still chugging along at normal pace, despite the fact that I'm going to have pictures taken of me, and quite a few of them at that.

"The horror! You're not worried about how you're going to look? Pictures are forever!" But honestly, I've gone through periods of disordered eating. I've had an unhealthy relationship with my body before, and that was a rough couple of years. I know now that I look back on those periods of my life, both figuratively and through pictures, and see myself having a good time. I don't look at my stomach, or my thighs, or my insecurities. I look at my smile and my friends and focus on my mentality. And there are some pictures that I absolutely hate. But, the pictures exist whether I love them or despise them, whether I notice my "problem areas" or not. So the thing I've learned to do is make peace with them.

If you had asked me five years ago what one of my biggest fears was, I would have responded "being anything bigger than a size four on my 21st birthday" because, apparently in 16-year-old me's mind, my 21st birthday was some sort of milestone that I really didn't want to be "fat" for.

I have given 16-year-old me a lecture on what "fat" means and that apparently I wasn't designed to be a size four. This is okay, because I'm 5'8'' and not a small person. I have made peace with the fact that I'm not a small person, and now embrace the fact that I'm a strong, solid person that may never be thrown over someone's shoulder aimlessly, but could probably do some damage in a boxing ring. I've run two half marathons now, taken dozens of kickboxing classes, gone rock climbing in Yosemite, and I can leg press my dad. So what if I've got almost fifty pounds on my roommate? I also have seven inches on her, killer curves, and an athletic lifestyle. My body allows me to do so many things, and it takes care of me. So I take care of it.

Yes, the pictures that are taken on my coming vacation will last forever. But when I'm 40, I'm going to be showing them off proudly to my kids and mentally focusing on the fact that I was in Bonaire with my dad and one of my best friends, both of whom I love dearly. I'm going to be focusing on the fish and the wildlife and the laughter, on my goofy windbreaker and my horrible mask lines. I'm not going to be focusing on (or even remember) what size swimsuit I wore or how much I weighed (I honestly haven't stepped on a scale for months so I couldn't tell you if I wanted to).

And with that peace of mind, I can sleep soundly knowing that I ate a whole pizza today.

-AG