“COMPLETELY POWERLESS”
The first woman recounted her experience of him raping her, saying she managed to “open her eyes for a few seconds during the sexual assault” and felt him thrusting against her.
She recalled being “completely powerless, and could only use all her strength to demand he stop, which he did not”.
“His face in that moment will clearly stay in my mind forever. Even as I type these words, waves of nausea and disgust keep overwhelming me,” she said.
She noted how the incident had affected her to this day, saying “the memories trigger migraines and an overwhelming urge to scrub myself clean”.
“Words cannot fully capture the emotions I felt then or the pain I carry now. Whatever happened that night is etched into my soul forever. I will never forgive him,” she added.
A second woman wrote how she could not sleep in the days after the incident, “no matter what she did”, as the events of what happened replayed in her mind.
She found that her anxiety became overwhelming and she was unable to make any decisions.
She described how for “a long time” she “could not socialise with others normally” and that before the attack, she “was not aware a human could do such cruel things”.
A third woman who reached out to police said she had deliberately tried to forget the attack, but when she saw the police reports after he was arrested, “her body responded faster than her conscious mind”.
She wrote of having to spend 3,000 yuan (US$417) on sexually transmitted disease (STD), human papillomavirus (HPV), and HIV testing, and she had worried for three “agonising” months over contracting a disease from Zou after he raped her.
She also described how “for years, nightmares haunted” her.
She was “unable to be alone after dark” and “developed insomnia and bipolar disorder,” turning to “frenzied self-harm during breakdowns”.
This, she explained, had produced “endless self-loathing”, and that “to this day” she “feels gagged by shame”.
