An Open Letter to Avenged Sevenfold

To the boys and fans of Avenged Sevenfold:

My name is Carmen, and this band saved me. I've talked before about my extended health issues. I've talked about how the music of A7X helped me through my surgeries and the pain of learning about my family. I've talked about the strength this music has given me.

Today, I am going to talk about something absolutely no one knows about. This has been something that has been festering inside of me for more than a year now. I don't like that I have to talk about it, but school keeps bringing it up. This is the best thing I can do to help myself heal, and it started with Nightmare.

I was an incredibly late bloomer. I didn't start puberty until 14 and never got my period until I was nearly 15. I developed breasts when I was 16 and still haven't got the hips of women. I still look very much like a twelve-year-old, and that's okay. In high school, I never dated or kissed anyone. The things that interested me were school, track, soccer, tattoos, and an emo band called Avenged Sevenfold.

In college, the same things happened. I was more focused on getting that summa cumme laude than I was on anything else. When I became a resident assistant, my kiddos became my life. I was invested in them, and I wanted to make sure they succeeded in the same way that I was.

Right before my 21st birthday, I met a man who we will call Greg. Greg was 32 and an ex-Army ranger. He was an assignment for my journalism class, and I was intrigued by his life. We were working on part of my story, texting back and forth and a friendship was forged. We texted every day about various things, and about a week in, he asked if we could hang out. So, we did.

A week before my birthday, he was in my dorm room. We started by asking a few more questions about my paper, and then he kissed me. Truth be told, I wasn't that attracted to him. I thought he was far too old for me, but I didn't protest his kiss because no one had ever bothered to kiss me. I always thought I was too boyish for that.

We kissed and it was okay. He moaned and made all kinds of noises, noises I found strange. It turned into hot and heavy kissing in which Greg implied he wanted more.

For a solid week, I freaked out, listening to Avenged in an attempt to calm my mind. I panicked because he was so much older than me, so I asked to just be friends. We were friends until I started to feel like a bitch for rejecting him. He was so nice. Why was I rejecting the male attention? So we started to pseudo-date.

One night, he invited me to a house he was house-sitting at. He put his hands down my running tights and grabbed my ass. I pulled his hands out, obviously very uncomfortable with this gesture. I had never had a sleep over with a boy, let alone have someone touch my ass.

When it was time for bed, he held me very close and tight. Greg played with my breasts and vagina. I wasn’t aroused. None of this felt particularly good, but I didn’t say anything. I had a panic attack where I couldn’t breathe and just played it off like I was okay, like I was afraid for a resident. It wasn’t technically a lie; I was worried about my resident.

He held me for a little bit until I was calmer. Once I had calmed down enough, he turned us on our sides. I was pressed up against his back. Greg took my hand and made me play with his penis. Every time I pulled my hand away, he moved it back and used my body as something to dry hump. I woke up in his arms.

Once again, I freaked out and turned to darker Avenged songs. Before, it had been songs like “Dear God” that helped me through the kiss. Now, it was songs like “Victim” and “Fiction.”

I connected with them in a way I didn’t with the softer, almost country-like songs.
I tried to rationalize what was happening. A big part of me just enjoyed receiving male attention. I am so ashamed of those feelings. I wish I had not played into the side that craved someone finding me attractive. I had never had real dates or a boyfriend. This was all completely new to me.

The last real interaction we had, Greg came to my room, drunk. He had asked to see me, and I had agreed even though he said he had been drinking. I had just finished up my ovarian surgery, and Greg knew that. But he climbed into my bed ang got naked and pulled my close anyway. Fighting was pointless. This man was nine inches taller and eighty pounds heavier. Not to mention, he was a former Ranger.

Once again, I became his personal masturbater. He knew I was a virgin and didn’t want to deal with all that that entailed. So, instead, he rubbed his penis over my vagina, moaning and groaning and getting turned on. I was not wet, not even close. And then he fingered me while I was dry, post-surgery. And it hurt. It hurt so incredibly badly that there are no words. That was in the January before I graduated.

I did not tell anyone what happened. I refused to believe it had and chose to not talk to Greg anymore. I went on with my life, knowing I wouldn’t let men touch me for a long while after this incident.

I turned to Avenged again, delving into “God Hates Us” and “Burn It Down.” These were songs that represented my soul. These songs reflected how Greg had harmed me, how I did not feel like a person anymore.

There is a night that has been foggy since it happened, and I’ve been okay with that for a year now. My brain clearly didn’t want me to know, that’s why I repressed it for so long. That night haunts my mind and my body. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t wonder what if, but I never had the full details. Once I remembered, I wish I never had.

In part, some of the blame is on myself. It had been drilled in to me to watch the amount I drank. I knew from a young age that my family had issues with alcohol. I always tried to limit my intake. That night, I got lazy. The alcohol affected me more than I realized, and it got the best of me. I should have been more observant. I should have paid more attention to how much I was drinking. Maybe then all of this would have been avoided. Maybe then I wouldn’t be as broken.

It was meant to be a fun night. I was drinking with some other resident assistants and some journalism students. It was a night with no curfew, so the RAs felt a little more relaxed than we would normally. We had a chance to be free, a little more uninhibited. April was the final true month of school. Most of us didn’t have official finals. We were excited, ready to graduate and truly be adults.

Ever since my 21st birthday, my alcohol tolerance had been awful. I basically get 2 drinks or shots in and I’m done, drunk that easily. With 2 drinks, I still mostly know what’s going on, can still remember the night.

That night, I pushed past my known limit. I went for a fourth drink and that’s when my night changed; unfortunately, not in a good way.

At the bar, I ordered a shot or a drink. A friend approached me and ordered as well. We started talking about our mutual appreciation for our ethics in journalism professor. He was good and usually quite engaging. Then the conversation changed into the changes in Housing.

About halfway into the conversation, I ordered another drink. As our conversation progressed, things started to slow down and get foggy. My brain started reacting to all the alcohol that I had put into my system.

Usually around this point in my memory, I only remember the next morning. My memory is back now, and I wish I could stuff it back into the part of my brain it had been hiding in. it came from the deep recesses of my mind that never need to see the light of day.

What happened hurts my heart and soul to think about. My supposed friend hurt me beyond repair. When the fifth or sixth drink took over my body, he decided to take me home, letting our friends know that we were leaving. He told them I had had too much to drink. It was true. I had had far too much.

He took me to his room. It’s a room that makes my skin crawl to even think about. I can’t look at dorm rooms the same anymore. They all remind me of that night now.

His room, in particular, will now haunt my nightmares. It was neat, no clothes on the floor and it smelled like him. Cinnamon and some smell I’ll never be able to identify. It’s his bed that will terrify me the most. A little dinky twin size with a plaid green comforter. That’s where he put me.

My brain was still groggy, but I vaguely remembered he asked if I wanted water. That was the only question he asked. He knew me; we worked together. Maybe we weren’t in the same residence hall, but we worked in the same realm. More importantly, he was a friend.

He knew things about me, things I now wish I hadn’t shred. Isn’t that the way it always goes?
I sat on his bed and watched him, not truly understanding what was going on. None of this I remembered until recently. He kept smiling at me, telling me to sleep, that I was safe with him. I lay back on his bed, clearly wanting and needing rest. I had nowhere I needed to be. At least, not until late the next day.

The next thing I remember, there are more men in the room. I am the only woman there. Now that I know, the fear chokes me up. What they did next is indescribable.

My friend stripped me. I was naked in front of strangers. No one had ever really seen me naked, and my friend knew that. He knew I was a virgin, that until recently, I had never been kissed. Now I was stripped bare. They could see every inch of me. I don’t like that now, and I didn’t like it then.

My friend was the first. My body and mind didn’t resist. They couldn’t protest. I couldn’t fight back. He took something from me. He hurt me, and he let people watch. They laughed. They enjoyed themselves. And then the next one went and the next after him.

The only thing I do remember with any certainty is waking up alone, naked, and bleeding.

My mind had blacked out everything else. I hadn’t been drugged, just plied with alcohol… my own doing.

When I woke up, I went to a clinic. There the doctor told me about the damages, the tears. I was broken. I had been violated, and I never reported it.

Now that I remember, I wonder. I wonder if anyone will want to be with me. I wonder if they want to be with someone who cannot do missionary without crying. My body doesn’t work like it used to. Things hurt. Sex hurts. And now I keep flashing back to it, remembering a night I so desperately wish I could forget.

And after remembering, it was Avenged that got me through. “So Far Away,” “Radiant Eclipse,” “Streets,” “Second Heartbeat,” and more heavier songs kept me out of my mind. I was supposed to see them in September, maybe even meet them again. But Matt got sick, and so did I.

I have a brain cyst that they claim is benign. It’s still growing, and I fear I will never see my boys headline. I fear my brain will continue to hurt me. It’s hard to write, to learn when everything keeps reminding me of either my rape or my cyst.

The boys have always gotten me through in the past, and I hope they do now. Any song suggestions that help you guys through rough times?

Notes