'I was raped by a married man, in my own home, after I had fallen to sleep.'

There’s a meme circulating on Facebook at the moment, with hundreds of thousands of woman across the globe admitting they have experienced sexual harassment or abuse. Hundreds of thousands – and this is just the tip of the iceberg.

This issue is universal and it is global.

So, yes, #metoo.

I’ve never shared this outside my GP and a close friend.

I always thought of myself as a trailblazer, as a feminist by default because I never let any opinion or limitation stop me from a doing any great thing I could dream up.

I lived in Japan at 18 and travelled the world on my own for next 20 years. I went to New York in my 20s to work with an Academy Award winning producer. I owned my own media company and had a coveted film and TV producing cadetship with some of the best producers in the industry – dammit I was unstoppable!

But in 2008 something stopped me.

Dead in my tracks.

I worked in the film industry as a producer in my 20 to 30s.

After a film industry Christmas party a group of friends and colleagues decided to continue partying back at my place. I decided to walk home to clear my head after a lot of wine, and a colleague I knew well – who was a newly married director with a young baby – offered to walk me back. The rest of the party were grabbing another drink before taking a taxi to my place. On arrival at my place, we got a message that everyone else was going onwards directly to the city bars instead and invited us to join them.

Arriving home I realised I was dead tired, had drunk a little too much and decided to stay home to go to bed. The director decided he should go home to his wife and their new baby too. So I called him a taxi.

We waited for a long while because being Christmas party season the cab company said to expect a delay. So while we waited we drank a cointreau, chatting in my lounge room and I felt comfortable with him, especially knowing he had just had a baby with his wife. After some time with still no cab arriving I said I had to lay down as I was feeling dizzy – I had drunk too much and it had begun to really hit me. I was grateful I was home and safe.

I remember him talking, I remember apologising for being so tired, for drinking too much and telling him that I was likely to fall asleep soon so hopefully, the cab would come. I remember asking him to close the door to lock it when his cab came if I had fallen asleep.

I remember not much else, and then woke up on my couch in morning, not in good shape.

I remember walking to my bathroom and wondering why I had no knickers on, I remember wondering why my skirt was on the floor as I walked up the stairs.

I sat in the shower under the water beating down on me with a feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach, drenched in shame and guilt. I had drunk too much and fallen asleep. Something had happened but I couldn’t remember.

But something had happened, that was sure.

That day as I lay on the couch all day in tears – I just buried it. I didn’t meet my boyfriend that night for a birthday party of our friend we were supposed to attend together, I just curled up crying on my couch and hid from the world – for two days.

The women of Mamamia Out Loud talk about what is happening with Harvey Weinstein. (Post continues after audio.)

I asked a mutual friend if they’d heard anything about how our friend had gotten home without asking anything directly, saying I had fallen asleep and felt ‘rude’ for doing so – did they hear if he got his cab safely? He told me a few pieces he had heard, but nothing that I could work out. My shame prevented me from asking anything more specific.

I never told my boyfriend at the time. I never told work colleagues. I decided it was my fault whatever happened
I could do nothing about it. I never thought of it again for years when I told only a GP many years later when it popped up in my mind and I was trying to make sense of it all.

I blamed myself, I never allowed myself to get angry. I turned it all on myself for being so stupid to drink too much and falling asleep. It was my fault, right?

My close friend who I told months later mentioned to me that it should be okay to fall asleep and not expect a work colleague to potentially rape you in your own house. She said I had been careless, maybe, but I was not responsible for his choice to take advantage of the situation.

I left the film industry and my beloved career after an emotional breakdown, becoming suicidal eight months after this incident. Keeping it inside almost killed me.

What that man did to me - it almost killed me.

Sometime later I stopped drinking alcohol completely (not a drop for almost eight years now!)

With each woman who has dared to speak out this last week, I’ve felt both suddenly devastated, and empowered with an urgent need to SPEAK UP to empower our young women to not stand for this in their lives, in their careers as normal, or because there is seemingly no protection, or they blame themselves.

The conversations we are having this week in person, online and in the media are just the start but we must remember it has taken several high profile victims to speak out - to finally get this global issue its air-time.

For change to happen REAL CHANGE and not just pay this lip service we must go through this process of unveiling all of the rotting foundations that our world is built upon when it comes to being safe as a woman, in and out of our homes, our offices, our streets.

It made me wonder how many of us have shut up, shut down and not spoken about our experiences with harassment or attack. Keeping it inside believing there is nothing to be done.

THIS is all backwards.

We as a collective, not just women but men, need to speak up, create new rules that protect the victim and give them a safe space to heal while teaching our daughters that they are safe, they are valuable, they have the right to say NO and stand up, call it out when that is abused.

They need to know we will stand by them when they do speak up and call it out EVERY TIME.

There is no turning back. Have these conversations, take action to see change in your home and offices and let's put the blame, the accountability, back where it belongs so this can be a new era.

If you or someone you know has experienced sexual assault, please seek help with a qualified counsellor or by calling 1800 RESPECT.