Dear Tufts Administrators Who Expelled Me After My Sexual Assaults

It’s 5 a.m. I didn’t take Ambien the night before since I’m running low and unsure when I’ll get a refill. I don’t love it as much as I used to, anyway; it still helps me fall asleep, but it no longer provides the nightmare-free slumber it first provided.

Motivated by suspicions of his infidelity, I find public forum posts my boyfriend made online. My heart drops when I read the series of posts he made to tell the other members about me and our dating life. My blood runs cold as I see the MRA-style quotation marks around “rape case” in one of his first posts about me. They joke about me lying and falsely accusing him of rape. He joins in. I cry myself to sleep; the man who says he loves me thinks I’m a liar, too.

***

I rush into the accountant’s office, late for my morning appointment. Mornings have been a lot more difficult these past few months. The nightmares and depression have worsened since I was humiliatingly laid off in January and now I have the humiliating breakup to handle, too. When we start crunching the numbers, I realize that I don’t have everything I need to file that day. If I hadn’t had to hoard my ADD meds in the wake of losing my insurance, I know I would have had my shit together. Then, the appointment gets even worse: Thanks to my dad negotiating to settle my…