Editor's Note: Photographer Teresa Prince created three powerful videos of the stories told in this series. Watch them at www.dailynebraskan.com/assault .
As soon as Lee Heerten's appointment was over, he threw on his clothes, rushing from the doctor's office to his car.
Heerten sat inside, calming down, then found the encounter form from the appointment.
Under the description of Heerten's injuries was a section titled: "Cause of Injury."
The doctor wrote: "none."
The senior political science and ethnic studies major at UNL had recently been raped by a man he met at a club. Advice from a friend, as well as physical injuries, including bleeding, led him to see a doctor.
After the doctor examined Heerten, he asked what had happened.
"I was just sitting there on their table in the scratchy robe and just burst out crying and just told him everything," Heerten said.
Sitting in his car, Heerten was stunned by the doctor's report.
Heerten knew the assault wasn't his fault, "but you still think, 'I should've done more,' or, 'I really could've stopped it,' or that maybe nothing happened," Heerten said. "It's one thing to think those thoughts, and then to see it there, written on paper, that yeah, it is your fault - no, it didn't even happen."
There were more than 270,000 known sexual assaults in the U.S. in 2006 - more than a quarter million men and women victimized and left to sort through the physical and intense emotional aftermath, according to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network.
The crimes - about 60 percent of which go unreported - have affected many Nebraska youths and University of Nebraska-Lincoln students. Feelings of shame, guilt and confusion often prevent survivors of rape from sharing their experiences - with friends and family, let alone with the authorities.
"It's a silent crime," said Martina Running, a junior social work major at the University of Nebraska-Omaha. "People don't want to talk about it. They don't want to face it. So people just hide from it."
However, several survivors, hoping to help bring the crimes out of the shadows, decided to share their stories with the Daily Nebraskan. None of these stories led to legal action, but they show the difficult journey from victim to survivor involved in sexual assaults.
"Sexual assault is probably the most personal violent crime," said Marla, the victim's advocate at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Women's Center. "Somebody is completely violating your entire person."
Renee Boyett, a UNO alumna, was raped by her best friend when she was 18.
"We were best friends; we were like brother and sister," Boyett said. "At least I thought so."
The circumstances of Boyett's rape are alarmingly ordinary. Nearly 75 percent of rape victims know their perpetrator - whether it's a classmate, date, friend or family member, according to RAINN.
While Boyett was living out-of-state, she remained frequent pen pals with her best friend back home.
When she moved back, the two were hanging out at his house while his parents were out, just as they'd done many times before. He invited Boyett into his room to look at an art project.
As the door closed, Boyett didn't suspect anything was out of the ordinary until he had pinned her to the bed.
"He proceeded to take my clothes off of me and pinned me down, spread my legs and raped me very viciously," Boyett said. "When he was done, he just rolled over, didn't think anything about it."
The minor depression Boyett suffered from before the attack grew to a near-suicidal level after the assault. "Because my best friend did this to me," said Boyett, who now talks about the assault openly.
Jenn Piatt, the director of UNO's Women's Resource Center, was raped when she was 14.
Piatt's assailant wasn't as close or trusted as Boyett's. It was someone she met at a party.
"One thing led to another, and before I knew it I was in a room where no one could hear me because the music was so loud," Piatt said. "I had no idea what happened to me; I couldn't put it into words."
Piatt is now open about her experience. At the time, she couldn't tell even her friends.
"It was a shattering experience for me," she said.
Alyssa Bahler, a 20-year-old Omaha woman, told the story of her assault for the first time in an interview with the Daily Nebraskan.
When Bahler was 4 years old, a 6-year-old neighbor wanted to show her how adults have sex.
"He pushed me to the ground and pulled his pants down and pulled my pants down and started humping me," Bahler said. "(My mom) yelled at me and told me, 'No, don't do that. That's wrong. You shouldn't do that.'"
Later that day, she got the same lecture from her father and her aunt.
A month or two later, a 7-year-old friend of Bahler's older brother began sexually assaulting her.
"I was playing 'cowboys and Indians' with my brother and his friend," Bahler said. "My brother never wanted me to play with him; he always made me play with his friend. And I always had to be the wife."
The assaults continued regularly for about two years, but the memory of her mother's reaction from the first assault kept her silent. That silence haunted her for nearly 15 years.
"(My brother's friend) would take my pants off and he would start touching me, and I didn't know what was going on," Bahler said. "I knew it wasn't OK, but I knew I couldn't tell anyone because I didn't want to get in trouble."
Boyett, Piatt, Bahler and Heerten chose to show their faces to encourage other survivors to tell their stories.
"I'm not afraid, and they shouldn't be afraid or ashamed either," Boyett said. "I refuse to be ashamed. I refuse to be put down, under the rug and forgotten."
To perpetrators of sexual assault: "I'm here, I'm strong and, forgive my French, but fuck you."
andreavasquez@dailynebraskan.com
