Today's story comes from a high-IQ girl who was admitted to a prestigious American university at the age of 18 to study for a doctorate, and in the second year of school, she was raped by a professor. After that, she was riddled with nightmares, unable to face herself, unable to study and live a normal life. In order to survive, she began a long road of self-redemption...
1
My name is Li Lin, and I was born in a small town in Anhui Province in the late 80s. My parents were engineers, and my grandfather was a professor at a university before he retired. Ever since I was a child, they have been proud of me.
Because I have shown an amazing talent for learning since I was a child, I jumped through elementary and middle school. When I was 14 years old, I took the national examination and received an admission letter from the University of Science and Technology of China. I'm studying neurology.
In my junior year, like many of my classmates, I completed all the courses, took the TOEFL GRE, and successfully applied for a full scholarship to a prestigious university in the United States to study for a Ph.D.
In 2007, at the age of 18, I packed my bags and went to the United States alone to study for a doctorate in biology. When the plane landed at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, I thought that I would be a biological scientist in the future. My family and myself were confident that I could handle everything.
However, what I didn't expect was that in my second year in the United States, I was raped by a professor named Richard at the school.
He was in his thirties, personable, humorous, witty and gentlemanly, and his students had a good opinion of him.
It was a theme day for the school, and Richard was one of the guests. After the event, he said to drop me off. I didn't have a car, and I heard that the security around the school was not very good at night, so I happily agreed.
When I passed by his house, he said that he wanted me to accompany him back to get something first, so I stupidly followed up. A 4 or 5-year-old who was known for his high IQ had a brain short-circuit on that night when I was 19 years old......
Because of the event, I drank some alcohol, but the amount of energy has little to do with drinking, but I still blame myself, if I hadn't drunk, would I have more strength and escape? After that, I didn't drink a drop of alcohol, not even touching alcoholic beverages.
Afterwards, Richard tied me up and didn't let me go until noon the next day. He also threatened me that if I called the police, I would find a way to make it impossible for me to stay and have to go back to China.
When I came out, I was in a trance. My parents are thousands of miles away, and even if I tell them, it will not help, it will only make them worry about me. What's more, I have always been a self-reliant child who reassures my parents.
Eventually, I staggered to the police station. I was greeted by a middle-aged white policewoman, about the same age as my mother, but I didn't see any expression in her eyes. The procedure for reporting a case is to open a case for investigation and then go to the hospital for an examination. She gave me a form to write a statement as usual.
I thought my English was okay, but I couldn't read some of the words on the form that described the parts of the human body, and then the thought of going to the hospital and going to court to state something I didn't understand was timid, or maybe Richard's threats worked, and I didn't want to end up going abroad to study and return to China in this name.
So, I told her before I finished my statement that I would not file a case. Without asking me why, the policewoman gave me a pamphlet on how women could help themselves after being victimized, and found a car to take me home.
2
Back at that makeshift home, I rushed into the bathroom, turned on the faucet, and rinsed my body over and over again, as if that would wash away the dirt. I'll be able to change back to who I was.
Now that I think about it, I would have handled it better if I had been older.
For example, I may not be naïve to follow men to my home, I grew up almost being held by my family, teachers and students. Before, I thought that the campus was safe and that acquaintances could be trusted.
But it is precisely because of this incident that I know that at least a quarter of women in the United States have been sexually assaulted, and the vast majority of them are done by acquaintances. I thought that only strangers were dangerous, but in fact, on the contrary, danger often came from the side.
If I had been in the U.S. longer, had more friends, and had better English, I wouldn't have been afraid to go to court. I can't describe it to the police, but that doesn't mean I can't describe it in my head countless times myself.
In particular, my brain would involuntarily repeat this in the dead of night, as if to complete the reporting process, and I felt like I was going crazy.
I don't dare to tell my parents that they don't allow or accept that such a "child of someone else's family" who has been praised since childhood has become a "tainted" child.
But I really couldn't digest it myself, so I told my brother in the laboratory. This senior brother is also in the domestic junior class, and we always encourage each other when the subject is stressed. However, as soon as I finished talking to him, I regretted it.
I'll never forget the look in his eyes, and he said to me in shock, "Professor Richard has a good reputation, he definitely wouldn't do that kind of thing, you're kidding......"
Later, when I was less and less able to concentrate on experiments, when I found that I could not communicate with people smoothly and normally, when I spent more and more nights with my eyes open, when I couldn't swallow at all, I understood: a doctorate is no longer so important.
At that time, I just wanted to live.
3
I knew there was something wrong with my psyche. Psychiatrists in the United States charge expensive, and I don't have any extra money, but I have to go.
In order to raise money for a psychiatrist, I went to a Chinese restaurant to serve dishes and brought a few tutoring classes for Chinese American children.
Because my parents call me for a fixed living allowance every semester, if I ask for more money for no reason, they will definitely be suspicious and may know that something has happened to me.
I've seen and changed several psychiatrists, and most of them believe that people are the product of their past, especially their childhood experiences. These experiences become subconscious and determine our lives.
Therefore, they either asked me to describe those details over and over again, and every time I mentioned them, they broke my heart, or they kept asking me if my parents, relatives, and neighbors had sexually assaulted me when I was a child, like an emotionless robot that prescribed drugs to you according to a predetermined procedure.
I feel that they are insincere. Later, instead of going to a psychiatrist, I went to a victims' support group.
It was a public welfare victims' mutual aid coalition. Once a week, about ten people talk to each other, listen to each other, and people who are sympathetic save themselves by telling each other's tragic experiences and resonating with their friends.
A lot of people in the league have committed suicide, and many of them are scarred and very scary. However, after listening to their stories of something even more horrific than what happened to me, I felt as if I had stepped into the abyss of society, and I often had nightmares.
But I don't blame them, they couldn't get out of their own pain at that time.
And I realized that no one could comfort me, no one could save me. If you want to save yourself, you can only find another way. I quit the organization again.
I naively thought that love might be able to give my heart a place to stop and rest.
After that incident, I talked about a boyfriend, but I couldn't get over that hurdle psychologically, I didn't know how to get along with him, I wanted to tell him about it, but I was afraid that he would care, so I didn't tell him, and I was very miserable.
As a result, instead of solving my original problem, I added a lot of pain. The taste of struggling with contradictions all day long is too tormenting. It didn't take long for us to break up.
Soon after, I talked to a Taiwanese boyfriend who immigrated with his family at a very young age and grew up in the United States.
We talked for more than a year, and he was considerate of me, because of his company, my mental condition was relieved, and I gradually talked more, but I never dared to mention that past.
Although the nightmares still come with me from time to time, they visit me significantly less. Originally, I thought that love was really magical, and this relationship was my salvation.
But who knows, it was almost time to talk about marriage, and they were all planning to take each other to meet their parents, and he suddenly told me that his family did not agree.
It is said that his family is a relatively prestigious family, and when the people in his family learned about our relationship, they specially hired a private detective to investigate me. I don't think they should be able to investigate that because I didn't file a case at all.
But his attitude made me understand that what I thought was that "this relationship can redeem me" was just a joke. Eventually, we parted peacefully.
Ironically, a few months later, he got together with my "best friend" in the United States.
4
And I had to explain to my parents why my "fiancé" suddenly disappeared. My parents also asked me with concern if I had encountered any difficulties outside, but listening to their voices, I seemed to be able to see their eager eyes, and I couldn't say anything about the hurt I had been hurt.
As a result, that incident became an unspeakable secret buried deep in my heart.
It wasn't until 2009 that I met a handsome doctor, Steven, who was a psychiatrist at a hospital and studied under Freud's school of psychoanalysis, during a public interest counseling event.
I don't remember what he said that touched me, only that I cried in his office. Until then, I hadn't cried.
I had also taken a psychology course, and I scoffed at Freud as an outdated antique. In the eyes of me, a researcher who has been engaged in empirical scientific research for many years, the argument that is not supported by experimental data is simply untenable.
Unlike other psychiatrists who try to dissect my past, Steven doesn't ask me exactly what happened, but says that it's not the past that matters, it's how you see it.
And our perception of the past can be changed. He also said that you are the only one who can save you.
I am noncommittal about what he said. Theory, everyone will say, but I want results.
Steven recommended that I go to see Aanalyze this, a comedy about a psychiatrist and a gangster patient. I watched this movie very seriously, and the Xueba mode was turned on unconsciously, and I effortlessly grasped the main point.
However, when we met the next week, he didn't ask about my condition, but actually discussed the movie with me all morning. We had a lively conversation. I was able to communicate with people smoothly and that feeling I hadn't felt in a long time returned!
A week later, he recommended me to a book called Felling Good, and the following week, he discussed it with me. He didn't persuade me to do anything, he just told me to go back to what I was good at, to find the self that I was once familiar with, but now I am extremely strange.
Through his inspiration, I found that on the road to salvation, I blindly looked outward for help, but I lost myself again and again. Once you encounter denial, you will be even more scarred.
Steven's method awakened the inner me. The experience of being a top student is familiar to me. Let me understand: what can save me should not be looked for outside, only myself!
In order to heal myself completely, I decided to take a psychology course systematically. This meant that I was going to give up my biology major, which I had studied for many years, and give up my PhD program. Since then, it has gone against my previous major.
Eventually, with Steven's help and recommendation, I chose to apply to the University of Southern California for a master's degree. At the end of 2010, I received an offer from the University of Southern California.
After briefly reporting to my parents about my studies, I headed for Los Angeles. At that time, I thought this would be the beginning of my new life. On the day I left, I threw away all the books related to school and major, and only brought a suitcase with a few changes of clothes.
Fortunately, I left, and a year later, something happened to my old laboratory again: a girl shot another girl, and the motives were different, some said it was a dispute over the subject, some said it was a love killing, no matter what the reason, the pressure was the biggest murderer.
They all think that the United States is a good place to do research and produce results, but that is based on the inhuman pressure of foreign students.
In the United States, discrimination against foreigners is well known. The psychology professor I talked to was very interesting. He gave lively and humorous lectures and took us to do a lot of interesting experiments. However, my gains, except for all A's in all my homework, do not seem to improve in other aspects.
Obviously, on this new path of salvation, I have hit another bottleneck.
5
The path of self-healing that I have been searching for has been so difficult and has had little success. I was a little distressed, and I studied some legal knowledge on my own in my spare time, hoping to gain something.
An unexpected turning point has quietly arrived.
One afternoon in May 2011, I was wandering the streets of Los Angeles and bought a cup of coffee at Starbucks, bought a newspaper, and flipped through the newspaper as I drank it. A notice suddenly popped into my eyes and made my coffee spill all over the floor.
I can't tell if it was a shock or a surprise, but I remember that my heart was beating so fast that my coffee accidentally spilled on a passerby, but I ran forward and heard someone behind me call me a "madman".
I didn't care about it, I hailed a taxi back to my accommodation, ran to the bed and cried under the covers, the second cry I had since I cried in Steven's office.
It was a notice for a girl to entrust a lawyer to solicit clues about the victims of sexual assault, and the protagonist of the sexual assault was the beast professor Richard.
This time, the victim was a local white man, and her parents found a lawyer to accompany her throughout the process, but the process of collecting evidence was very difficult and tortuous, so she published newspapers in many cities across the United States to solicit clues, hoping that more victims would come forward to testify against this "beast" professor.
After crying, my mind couldn't help but relive the experience of being victimized. Impulsively, I wrote down the whole story in detail and sent it to the email address left in the notice. Perhaps, in my subconscious, I still hope that the evildoers will be severely punished.
The email was quickly replied to, and then a lawyer came to me for evidence. Having learned a little bit of legal knowledge, I already understand what it means to testify in court.
After much consideration, I rejected the lawyer's request.
The lawyer emailed back and said that several girls had agreed to testify in court, and that they would respect my choice if I chose not to appear in court. I admit that I am not brave enough, I have broken free from the brink of death, and I don't want to "die" again.
After leaving that school, I threw away everything related to that school, and I didn't even want to touch anything related to that city, because I didn't want to be recalled with those bloody memories.
America is not small, and it is lonely when I am hidden in the corner, but safe. If I go out into the public eye, I'm afraid there will be several invisible murder knives attacking.
During this period, the lawyer kept informing me of the progress of the incident by email, and many girls joined the plaintiffs' team. Obviously, the lawyer wanted to encourage me to join in this way.
The case went through several trials, and almost a year later, another trial was held. The lawyer revealed that this time, it may be the final trial.
A few days before the trial, I finally mustered up the courage to write an email to my lawyer with just a few simple words: I agreed to testify and bought a plane ticket to Chicago.
God knows how hard I've been these days. However, when I made the decision, I slept soundly.
Like a pilgrim, the worship of the saint cannot be replaced by someone else, I have to go there myself to confirm that it is not a dream.
When the beast was brought to court, my ears and eyes seemed deaf, I couldn't see or hear, and my mind replayed over and over what had happened that night. When the lawyer asked me to speak, I couldn't remember exactly what I had said.
But when the judge pronounced him guilty, I heard and saw that solemn scene.
It has been two years since Professor Beast was indicted before he was finally convicted and will spend six years in prison.
I saw him bow his head and a few girls in the gallery sobbing quietly. The girl next to me and I hugged each other and smiled with tears in our eyes.
Although justice is long overdue, it is not absent!
That day, the sky was blue and the sun was warm, and I went back to my former campus. There are things that need to be thrown away, things that need to be picked up, and I am still me, but I am not the same person I used to be.
On campus, I didn't meet a single acquaintance, but I wouldn't mind sharing my smile with those young alumni.
In the evening, I called my parents and grandfather separately and told them that I was doing well. Telling them such a solemn and extremely simple sentence made them feel inexplicable.
But they didn't ask much, and I knew, as always, that I was self-reliant and that I could settle myself.
Yes, I finally settled myself and solemnly told them that it was nothing more than a self-certification ritual.
6
When the person who hurt me was judged, I could finally face my future and my career plan.
That year, after graduating with a master's degree in psychology, I decisively ended my psychology course. The reason for not continuing is that although psychology is popular, Westerners do not seek Chinese psychologists, and Chinese people do not like to consult psychologists. And my original intention of studying psychology was just to heal myself.
At the end of 2012, I pursued a Ph.D. in statistics at the University of Southern California. In 2015, at the age of 26, I finally got my doctorate, which I should have received a long time ago.
Of course, there are still pressures, such as being often sent by the tutor to her house to watch the children clean, and I heard that the tutor in the same hospital asked the female students to sleep with the person in charge of the fund, but these pressures are small compared to that incident.
It is in response to Nietzsche's words: Anything that does not kill you will make you stronger.
After the "beast" professor was imprisoned, I finally opened the shackles and reconsidered my love life.
I decided not to "embarrass myself" anymore, to change the appearance of the "house" in the past, and no longer refuse to be friends and classmates, in fact, before that incident, I was a cheerful girl who was more popular with my classmates.
In 2016, at a gathering of friends, I met my current husband, who was still an intern at the time. I was impressed by his humor and talkativeness at the party.
Unexpectedly, after that meeting, he began to ask me out alone. Do you want to tell him? I began to have a fierce ideological struggle. In the end, I decided to be the first to be honest about it.
I remember that it was a night, on a quiet path outside the campus, the solar decorative gardening lights on both sides of the road stretched out into the distance, merging into the starry sky, and the moon was nearly full. A few street lamps emitted a soft light, and some small flying insects were dancing in the halo.
I greedily looked at it a few more times, and I wasn't sure if I would have been able to see such a beautiful view if I had told him about it.
Originally, we were walking side by side, and I said, but he didn't interject, and I didn't realize that I was walking faster and faster, and I had already pulled him down half a step. Suddenly, I heard a "bang" behind me, and my heart sank, it turned out that my business still shocked him!
I slowly turned around, and he was already up from the ground.
He said, "You see you fall, I fall, we all get up, what a common thing!" He stretched out his arms and pulled me into his arms, and lay down on his shoulder, I raised my head, and in the hazy eyes of tears, the lights and stars shone brightly, and it was even more beautiful than just now!
His move made me completely unload my demons.
A year later, he proposed to me, and I didn't hesitate to say yes. After we got married, we moved to another city, he worked in a well-known hospital, and I also got a job as a survey and statistics related to medicine.
He often uses his "practical" experience to clear the fog in my computer data, whether it is work or life, we cooperate seamlessly. His work is busy and tiring, but he is still so humorous and lighthearted.
With him, I am very happy.
7
I also know that I was able to reap happiness this time because my heart came out first. The heart came out, but he was no longer afraid to see any news related to sexual assault.
In 2018, Ford, a female professor of psychology in California, accused Supreme Court Justice Kavanagh of sexually assaulting her 36 years ago. Unable to obtain evidence, she was accused of being framed.
I firmly believe that what she said is true, even if she is a psychology professor, if the abuser does not get the punishment that matches it, she will not be cured for thirty or fifty years.
I'm a big supporter of the ME TOO movement, and only one who has experienced it doesn't need proof to appreciate that authenticity. No matter how good a psychiatrist is, it can't compare to the kind of healing of psychological wounds given by the law when a bad person is punished by law.
Occasionally, people ask me if I don't regret not becoming a scientist, there is no regret, but regret is inevitable. When doing research work, the people around me are very smart, and they can quickly interpret each other's meanings, and they are not tired of working with smart people.
But so what, no one can relieve anyone's pressure, and no one can enter anyone's heart.
But there is another reason that convinces me that I don't regret it: the places where I did my research are relatively remote, far away from Chinese restaurants, and I have good food.
I'm not afraid of your jokes, my dream when I was a kid was to sell popsicles!
Author | March
Fortunately, Li Lin finally came out, hoping that her experience can remind female friends. Don't trust acquaintances and put yourself in a dangerous situation. At the same time, don't be afraid of problems and face them bravely.