In eight days it will have been two years since the day I was completely violated and forcefully raped in the back of my own car. Eight days.

It has been four days since Chase Hardin was sentenced to 20-50 years in prison and 30 years of supervised release once he gets out.

It has been 723 days since October 7th. It has been 723 days since the old Ripley was torn away and transformed into someone I don’t even recognize anymore. There are parts of me that have changed for the better, but there are also parts of me that I wish did not exist. In this post, I want to be brutally honest. I want to express the positive and the negative changes that I have seen in myself throughout the past 723 days, so that is exactly what I’m going to do.

For the past 723 days I have been working towards a goal. I have been working toward Chase’s conviction. It wasn’t until after he was convicted that I realized while I have been working towards this goal, I have not dealt with the reality of what happened to me. I have been fighting for years to get him off the streets and keep every other girl safe from him, that I have forgotten to fight for myself. I have forgotten the reality of the pain and trauma I went through. So now, 723 days later, I am dealing with two years worth of pain. Two years worth of bottled-up angst and anger. Two years worth of tears. And I am not the same.

If you knew me before October 7th, 2018, you remember that I was always up for a conversation. Whether it be a casual hello, or a conversation full of depth, I was always eager to join. I was such a people person. There were days that I would just go sit on campus outside the student center so that I could wait for someone I know (or didn’t know) to walk by so that I could talk to them. That was me. I was always the one for social situation. But that is not who I am at this point in my life anymore and I hate it.

I think it was the beginning of quarantine that flipped a switch for me. Up until then, I had done a pretty good job of keeping a social life no matter how much I was hurting on the inside. I was an RA which basically forced me to be social even when I didn’t want to be. But when quarantine started and I moved back home, I realized how much easier it was to be alone. I didn’t have to put on a fake smile or pretend that I wasn’t falling apart on the inside. I just got to hide from the world and it was a relief.

Now, six months after the beginning of quarantine, I am acting as though I am still quarantined. Every time I am in a social situation with more than five people, I feel like I’m going to throw up. The bad thoughts outweigh the good, and I no longer enjoy having casual conversation and I hate it. I am not who I used to be and I absolutely hate it. My friends have been to every trial, every court hearing, and some even sat on the witness stand and were questioned for me. But here I am, not even texting them. Not even making plans with them. Distancing myself from anyone who cares because the pain and suffering I finally have to deal with after two years is too heavy. I know that I should reach out, and I know that I should make plans, but I can’t make myself and I hate it. I hate certain parts of who I have become.

I could sit here and continue to write about the ways I have changed for the worst, but I would also like to share ways that I have changed for the better, because if I only focus on the negative, then I will never get out of the hole I seem to have dug myself into.

People say I am strong. People say I am brave. I say that I am resilient. Through the past two years of my life, I have not only overcome going through trial, but I have done well in nursing school up until this point. Nursing school is hard enough as it is, but when you are going back and forth to the courthouse countless times as well as trying to pass exams, it makes it even harder. This past year on my birthday I studied for an exam all day and also had to go to the courthouse to prep for trial. And guess what… I passed my exam. I don’t think that’s something that most people could get through and for that, I am proud of myself.

As I am so happy with the outcome of the trial and I couldn’t be more thankful that God was on my side through the whole thing, I also feel a sense of dread. A sense of dread because now that I am not working towards a goal, I have to deal with my built up emotions for the first time in two years. When I was prepping for trial, it was easy to disassociate from the situation. I kinda made myself forget that I wasn’t only fighting for every other victim, but for myself. Now that it is over, I must deal with the reality of my trauma. I went through something horrible and it’s hard for me to fully comprehend it.

I’m not sure if this blog will help anyone or mean anything at all. But for all the strength I show on the news, on the stand, and over social media, remember that this journey was not and is not easy. I have been slowly falling apart from my old self for 723 days and starting today, I’m going to try and put myself back together. I may never be the exact same, but I hope that I can become something even greater than before.