Elizabeth Arutyunyan

This academically rigorous institution and its remarkably challenging English program have given me the tools and strength to tell my story.

I thought about how I was taught that our outcomes were predetermined by a higher power. I realized that God did not have a map of my life. Rather, God’s plan was to allow me to regain agency in my life.

I accepted the various forms of physical and emotional abuse from my partners because they filled this void and reminded me of my father.

I refuse to accept the narrative that I and other women are responsible for their assault. I’ll wear a short skirt, get drunk at a party and flirt with men all night — it doesn’t mean I am asking to be assaulted.

By having sex, I’ve tried to sever ties with the culture that equated my worth to my unpierced hymen and has so blatantly taught me, along with other Armenian women, that our virginity is the sole source of our value. Although in the eyes of many people in my community, I am impure for having premarital sex, I am at peace knowing that I had sex on my own terms.

It wasn’t until I started journaling and addressing the root of my pain that I realized how my trauma had impacted my sex life. Being a survivor of violence has meant unlearning my dangerous coping mechanisms and unpacking my unhealthy relationship to sex.