SM: Did they suggest therapy?
Lindsay: At that point I thought I would have to take an incomplete on my thesis and told my advisor there’s no way I’m going to get this all done. He was like, “You will get it all done and we will help you but first you need to fix yourself. You need to get better.” He offered me an extension on my thesis, but only if I was actively seeking therapy. It was about 27 months after the rape.

Lindsay Young SM: How was therapy?
Lindsay: I started seeing a therapist until I started feeling better and was the captain of my ship again. Then you pull yourself out of therapy and learn real quickly that you’re not really as good as you think, so you go back. Not even as long ago as 2005 I quit drinking for 60 days. That was huge for me.

SM: How can sexual assault victims get past blaming themselves?
Lindsay: In hindsight, I don’t know how I blamed myself but the thing that I can only take away from my sexual assault and everyone else’s I’ve talked to is no one in the world deserves to be forced, bribed or pressured into having sex or anything sexual or intimate. I was wearing corduroys and a fleece, but I don’t care if I had on a short skirt and a halter top, no one deserves that, no one asks for that. It doesn’t matter if you’re drunk or where you are or if you’re flirting or if you make promises that you have no intention of keeping. None of that matters. It’s 100% your decision. I knew that before I was raped and I know that now, but during the months after the rape I didn’t believe it. I kept telling myself I should have been a better decision maker. I wasn’t out jogging and held at gunpoint. I walked into the situation and that was the way I justified not doing anything about it.