A woman who was sexually assaulted by a man she'd been friends with for years in a hotel while her roommate slept beside them has told how the ordeal left her terrified of being violated again.
Ishita Gupta, 25, from Mumbai, was attending a conference in Bangalore (officially known as Bengaluru) when she went out for drinks and ended up back at her male companion's accommodation.
The counselling psychologist told how she was 'quite drunk' and her roommate had passed out when the man put his hand down her pants, believing she too was asleep.
When Ishita pushed him off and took her female friend to the bathroom to explain what had occurred, she claims her roommate dismissed the incident as 'something that happens when you're drinking'.
Shockingly her roommate then returned to the bedroom and began having sex with Ishita's abuser, while she lay on the floor traumatised until morning.
When she confronted her abuser via text, she told how he 'gaslighted' her, denying everything and accusing her of making it up.
Ishita shared her story on Twitter, inspired by the #MeToo movement in India - a manifestation of the international campaign that began in 2018.
Speaking to FEMAIL, she said despite not having a large online following, she feels it's important to talk about incidents like this to make other women realise it's not OK.
'It's not normal, but it's common,' she said. 'I thought I was dealing with this alright, but the last couple of years have been really hard for me. I struggled and I don't really have a solution, but at least I can talk about it.'
Ishita said the ordeal, which happened in December 2017, has had a profound impact on her - intensified by the fact she was previously in a sexually abusive relationship.
'I feel like over a period of time it affected my mental health - I get trauma counselling for it now,' she explained.
'It's made things difficult for me; I have a hard time in my relationship, and I have developed vaginismus [where the vagina involuntarily tightens whenever penetration is attempted, causing a great deal of discomfort].'
Ishita, then 23, had travelled to Bangalore for the two-day conference, and said her male friend, whom she'd known since she was 18, took advantage of her both nights they were there, which made her feel 'stupid'.
'He was staying in a hotel and I was staying in another one across town with my roommate,' she recalled.
'His hotel was closer to the pub, so we decided to stop there and drink some coffee.
'We were watching TV on his bed and my friend passed out, and I was trying to wake her up. I was in and out of consciousness myself, and I remember at some point when I was half asleep, thinking "It's really late and we should get going but I'm really tired" - and my male friend stuck his hand down my pants.
'He didn't know I was awake and he started feeling around. I just quietly lay there and waited for it to be over because I didn't want to confront him and have that conversation.
'He stopped at some point and two minutes after that I pretended to wake up and said, "It's 3am, it's really late, it's time to go." I woke my roommate and we left.
'I feel really stupid but I did the same thing again the next day. We went to the conference, went to the pub again, and for whatever reason stopped at his hotel again.'
This time Ishita said her abuser had 'grown in confidence' and was more 'grabby' when he thrust his hand beneath her underwear.
'It was more pushy, there was more pressure,' she recalled. 'I pretended to be asleep again, but at some point I said, "This is not OK," and I woke up and pushed him off and took my roommate into the hotel bathroom.
'I told her he'd been touching me and I didn't know what to do, and she said, "That's fine, that's something that happens when you're drinking."
'We came back out and we were watching another movie, and they started making out. I felt really uncomfortable, so I just kind of lay on the floor and waited for it to be over again.
'I slept on the floor, the two of them slept on the bed. I'm not super sure that they had sex but I think they did.
'This sounds strange but I've had an ex who was sexually abusive to me and any time something like this happens, my brain and my body just shuts down. The only thing I could think of was, "Just, lie here, close your eyes and wait for it to be over."
'When I was on the floor I couldn't think of leaving because they were on the bed - I could hear things and it bothered me.'
The following morning the two women returned to their hotel, where Ishita suffered a 'huge meltdown'.
'I didn't eat for ages and I was sobbing, I wasn't coherently speaking,' she said, adding that her roommate was remorseful and helped her when she realised she was 'losing it'.
'She fed me and pushed me in the shower before helping me back in bed,' she explained. 'It was very conflicting for me because she didn't help me at all the night before.'
A week later, after both women had been on separate vacations, Ishita said her friend broke down and apologised for what had happened.
Ishita didn't report her male friend to authorities because he had a flight to the US from India the following morning, and knew he'd be gone by the time police tried to contact him.
She did text him to say what he did was not acceptable, but claims he accused her of making up stories.
'He said, "You were asleep, you were drunk, are you sure you're remembering?"' she recalled.
'I was like, "Yeah I was drunk but I wasn't imagining things." It's a really serious accusation to make. I knew what was going on, I wasn't asleep, and it happened twice; I had to be right at least one of the times.
'He never apologised or admitted it, and that's the last time I spoke to him – he flew to the US the next day. By the time I was in a fit state to report anything, I too was in a different state and a different city.
'He was a really good friend of mine. I don't really know what happened.'
Ishita said what happened, coupled with the sexual abuse she received at the hands of an ex-boyfriend, makes it difficult to trust and be intimate with her current partner.
'The way I was treated by my ex, it was extremely manipulative and I was never really allowed to say no, I was coerced into having sex a lot,' she said.
'I was really young, I was kind of stupid and taken advantage of, and I know that now.
'I feel constantly like I have to be careful, because the next thing I say is going to make him mad or it's going to hurt me. I'm not able to switch that part of my brain off where I don't have to worry about something constantly, and the anxiety builds and builds, and then after 10 minutes I'm like, "I need to stop, I feel extremely overwhelmed and I need a break." It's just incredibly hard now.'
She added: 'What's funny is, I'm a therapist, so I see people who have the same problems as I do, anxiety related to sexual assault, and I do what I like to think is a good job, and I can help them through it. But when I try and turn it inwards I just can't; my brain shuts down.'
Ishita, who now only goes out socialising with close girlfriends from school and her boyfriend, said she was pleasantly surprised by the outpouring of praise and support she received from strangers when she spoke out on social media.
'The week before I talked about what happened in the tweet, I was feeling very lonely not being able to talk about it. It's such a big part of my life and what's going on,' she added.
'If I tried to have this conversation with my partner, he doesn't understand because he's a man - he doesn't understand vaginismus or what it's like to feel unsafe. He can sympathise with me, but I didn't have anybody to talk to about this.
'A lot of what I talk about online, mental health-wise and sexual assault-wise, is so somebody else knows that other people are talking about things like this.'
This article has been adapted from its original source.
