Emma was a patient at Mount Carmel and she was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD).

She’s been admitted into the hospital four times and during her second stay, she had a constant watch carer at night. His initial demeanour was friendly and that made him feel like a safe person to talk to.

Eventually, Emma was discharged and she found a friend request from the night carer. She accepted the request and he soon started checking up on her. At that point, it just seemed like he was trying to help – nothing that felt like a red flag, Emma said.

However, the carer began to insist on checking up on her wounds, something Emma said she didn’t want. Yet, he guilted her into accepting what she thought was his help and he ended up in her home.

“When he raped me I was asleep,” Emma said.

“I was sleeping and I need to explain this because the stigma and victim blaming is at its peak.”

Victim-blaming happens when people excuse perpetrators by criticising a victim’s reaction or lack thereof. And Emma explained that she’s often bombarded with questions and whys.

“‘Why did you accept his friend request?’ ‘Why did you let him in?’ ‘Why did you give him your address?’ ‘What did you expect?’” she said, mimicking those who question her story.

“I expected help. I expected a friend to listen. He was my carer so that’s what I expected. But instead, he put me in a corner.”

Emma had previously been sharing depictions of her experience through her art uploaded on her Instagram account @personifikazzjoni.

Emma went on to recount that as he was cleaning her wounds, she broke down and started crying. He made her feel as if she needed to be taken care of because she “couldn’t do it herself” even though that was far from the truth.

“At that point he took me to bed, he demanded that I change into my pjs, he took away my bra, he came in the same bed with me and he put me to sleep.”

And while Emma acknowledged that people would wonder why she didn’t kick him out of her bed, she explained that she wasn’t herself. She had been “tricked” and manipulated into placing her trust into someone who she didn’t expect to hurt her.

“Then, at 2am, he started touching me and kissing me – he raped me.”

“I was exhausted, I remember shaking uncontrollably when he was on top of me. When I opened my eyes I saw him staring at me. That eye contact made me feel like this wasn’t his first time,” she continued.

While Emma admitted that she can’t confirm whether he had raped anyone else before her, she said that the look in his eyes made it feel like he knew exactly what he was doing, like he’d done it before.

“My body froze, I couldn’t push him off because I was scared that if I did, he would put his hands around my neck. I didn’t know what he was capable of, he had already crossed every line.”

She was scared that he would kill her if she didn’t let him rape her.

Emma went on to say that he noticed that her body was shaking uncontrollably and he strangely seemed concerned.

“He kept saying ‘stop shaking, stop shaking. It’s okay, nothing happened. It’s okay.’ His words ‘it’s okay’ still echo in my mind.”

Emma assured that she wanted to scream, to shout, to push him away and “destroy him like he destroyed” her. But while she couldn’t do that in the moment, she knew that she would go on to fight for justice.

“He violated me. And at that point, I knew I had to fight for justice. I couldn’t let this monster destroy other people’s lives too,” she said in a powerful tone.

The next day, the carer messaged her asking if she was okay.

After the appalling crime, Emma called a helpline that convinced her to call the police and she eventually ended up in Mater Dei.

From here, she had to endure the process of the rape kit and the forensic investigation, which was an exhausting procedure.

“The process at Mater Dei was a nightmare.”

Emma explained that she was thrown into an environment filled with people going about their normal lives, and it gave her no time to process what had happened to her. She admitted to feeling as if she was floating, that she was put in a place where she didn’t have the power to decide what was good for her.

The rape kit followed.

Emma explained that the process was a shock.

“Your body has already been tampered with once and you have to let other people tamper with your body once again, but this time for the right reasons. Your body becomes a crime scene that’s preserving evidence.”

She went on to say that at one point, she felt okay because she was able to detach herself from her surroundings, from her own body.

“I couldn’t accept the reality that there’s this normal life that’s still happening. There was no space for me to accept and process what had happened to me the night before. The atmosphere was too hectic.”

“There was no structure during the rape kit. You have to go from one place to another and to another leaving forensic pieces of yourself scattered around the hospital. You have to go from this room, to that room and you have to repeat the story to each and every person.”

At some point, she said, she recounted what happened so many times that she became a narrator of a story that was no longer hers.

A lack of sensitivity coming from the nurses that tended to her made the intensely tough situation all the more unbearable.

“The nurses at Mater Dei know how to deal with a rape kit but they don’t know how to deal with a raped person. I remember the nurses being almost frustrated at me for not staying still while they were swabbing me. The psychiatrist had to explain to the nurses that I had just been raped and that putting something in my vagina would make me feel like I’m being raped all over again – they couldn’t understand that.”

They then began asking her if she wanted to continue with the swab and the police report, questions that felt extremely cold to the young woman.

Of course she wanted to continue with the swab she said, but “be reasonable with me, be gentle with me”.

Meanwhile, she sang the praises of Victim Support Malta and the police officer there to guide her. She explained that Victim Support knew the right words to say, they knew where to go and what to do – she felt comfortable allowing them to guide her.

She was also provided a morning after pill.

Eventually she texted her fiancé about what happened, she tried to be strong for him and everyone else that loves her because knowing that her pain could break them is traumatic in itself.

“You feel like a shattered mirror and you don’t want to hurt people with your broken pieces, you want to protect them from what happened.”

Her fiancé travelled straight from Gozo to Mater Dei. The pair then went back to her home, back to where she was raped.

“I had just bought this place, it was my safe haven and suddenly it became a crime scene but I had to live with it. I couldn’t let him steal my place from me.”

“I still struggle with this every day.”

She explained that her and her fiancé spent weeks sleeping on the carpet until she was able to go back to her bed.

Emma was tragically honest during this interview and her bravery shone through. One thing that she stressed was the fact that nothing prepares a person for what to do when they are raped.

“These are things you see on TV, not in real life. No one prepares you for this, for the aftermath of being raped, for filing the police report, for having your panties taken from you and having to leave hospital without them. That’s a problem.”

A magesterial inquiry has been opened but a case has not due to the need for two more reports to be submitted. In the meantime, her rapist is walking free “with his wife” while Emma has been forced into a dark reality that she is still struggling to navigate.

“Last week I was back in Mount Carmel because of the PTSD from the rape. It feels like it happened yesterday, not seven months ago.”

Nonetheless, Emma’s strength and vulnerability is truly admirable. She has become an advocate for rape survivors and mental health. She even showcased her rape sketchbooks at Groundwaters which was a collective exhibition at Valletta Contemporary.

Have you been inspired by Emma’s strength?