It took me nearly two decades to unblock the memory that I had been raped.

I heard the soundtrack from the movie I had seen hours before I was raped, and it all came crashing back to me. I’d never told anyone.

All this press slamming the women who are coming forward about Bill Cosby makes me cringe. A disturbingly large portion of our society takes an absurd stance on rape.

In my case, I was a 15 year old Nobody and my rapist was a big-shot, football hero in a small town that idolized jocks.

All the people who are questioning why it took so long for these Cosby victims to come foward don’t have the first clue about what being raped can do to a person’s life.

The damage is so deep that it can take decades for it to simply surface. But I can clearly remember every dirty detail and for me, now that both my parents have died, I can try to write about it.

When I finally did allow my memory to surface, I sought counseling. And eventuallly found the courage to tell my parents, I had to relive part of it and that hurt all of us deeply.

Mom died last March. Dad’s birthday is November 27. To honor him, I am writing this to share my tiny part of the rape story, my story.

I was raped. I didn’t tell. I was afraid my dad would kill the guy who raped me.

I was embarressed, ashamed, and wounded in a way, shape and form that is not logical. It changed the 15 year old teen that I was- into something that anyone who had known me before that devastating night could not recognize.

Along with my blood-stained and torn (brand-new) bell bottoms, I threw  my just-emerging self, into the trash can. The zombie-teen that remained, stumbled carelessly and confused through a few decades, desperately searching for her discarded life-force.

Cut these rape victims some slack; not tellling – is a way to cope.

When you are a Zombie, you barely get through a day. At last, I can speak up.