Note to self. Reporting is empowering. Don’t be disempowered if the prosecutors don’t feel they can move forward.

(My first statement consisted of me sitting in a room with the detective. He asked me if I would like a female officer present. He asked me what happened, and I was free to talk. It was mostly conversational. For me, the anxiety anticipating this meeting was much worse than the anxiety during the meeting itself. While it was a challenge to begin talking, the environment felt very professional and safe, and telling this story got easier the longer I spoke. It is worth noting especially because of the time elapsed in my case and the amount of work I have done in healing, I went into this step already mildly familiar with what it is like to tell my story. I found it helpful that I had previously shared my whole story with people I knew and trusted, so it didn’t feel quite as foreign and uncomfortable as it might have.

I had brought with me, at the advice of the rape hotline, some evidence I had like text messages, journal entries, etc. The detective asked me to send him pdfs of most of what I brought, and I spent six hours compiling everything that could possibly be considered evidence. After I had finished telling my story and answering any questions he had, he let me know how things would go forward, generally. He said he will write his summary of the investigation and forward it on to the prosecutors. He let me know that because of the time elapsed and that it happened multiple times it was going to be very difficult to move forward, but he informed me of what the process would be like and when I said I wanted to take it as far as we can, his job seemed to become being on my side, advocating for me, and doing what he can to forward the strongest possible case to the prosecutors.)