Our Guest Donna Grisham
SID: Donna Grisham was born prematurely and literally had to fight for life to survive. As a child, her father took her and her siblings and left her mother stranded on the side of the road. And when she was 16, things got even worse. Donna, you look strong, healthy, vibrant, but what happened at 16?
DONNA: Sid, the worst nightmare of my life happened. I happened to go to a bowling alley with a friend of mine. Her parents picked me up and we went to the bowling alley, met two guys, and during the time we were bowling, she started talking to one of the guys and she really got close. And they were talking about going riding. They wanted us to go ride and she came back over to me. She started talking, she said, “They want us to go riding.” And I said, “I can’t do that.” I said, “My grandmother told me not to leave the bowling alley.” She kept on and on. And as you know, sometimes when you’re 16, “peer” pressure, you just fall into the peer pressure. So I left with them. And honestly, when I was leaving the bowling alley, as we were leaving, driving off, my thought was, “I’m leaving with two people, strangers, that I don’t even know.”
DONNA: And in the back of my mind, “What am I doing?” But I never said anything, so I went ahead and the other guy that she liked wanted to go and pick up his truck. And so they stopped to pick up his truck and she got out. And so I went to get out also. And she said, “No,” she said, “He’s going to take you back to the bowling… He’ll take you back.” And I thought, “I don’t want to go with him. I want to go with you.” And she said, “You’ll be fine.” He ended up pulling off. And we pulled off. He drove a little ways and pulled into an alleyway and raped me. And after that, he opened the door and said, “Get out.” And he dropped me on the side of the road. And I remember when I fell, I skinned my arm up.
DONNA: And so as I’m walking, trying to get back to the bowling alley, and that wasn’t very far from the bowling alley. So I finally made it back to the bowling alley. And as I made it back to the bowling alley, I went in and I saw her and the other guy, they had already gotten back there. I don’t even think I said anything. I just ran to the bathroom. I went to the bathroom and she came in after me. After she came in, she said, “What is going on? What is your problem?” And I said, “He raped me.” And she said, “No, just say what it was, Donna, it’s consensual.” And I said, “He raped me. Do you hear me? He raped me.” And she just kept saying, “It is consensual.”
DONNA: And she walked out and I was standing there going, “Now, let me go back. When he dropped me off, the one thing he said to me, he said, ‘Nobody’s ever going to believe you.'” Then the girl, my friend, supposed to be my friend, telling me that it’s consensual, that it wasn’t rape. And I was like, “It’s happening. It’s exactly what he said. She doesn’t believe me, who else is going to believe me?” So I took it and I packaged it and I wasn’t going to say anything. I was never going to talk about this.
