Make good decisions. Do the right thing, no matter who is watching. Those words have been repeated and instilled in my mind since I was a young child. My parents always harped on doing the right thing, and making good choices, because some decisions made at an early age can follow you into adulthood. Unfortunately, sometimes making a wrong decision only helps you to learn from the mistake. When I was 15 years old, my friend *Alyssa Brown (Pseudonym) was raped. She was my best friend and someone I care deeply about.
We played volleyball together on the same team, had breakfast at the diner every Sunday, and watched movies in my basement every weekend. Like any relationship, we had our differences. At that age, many of my friends were maturing at dissimilar rates, and it was confusing to me some of the changes that were happening to their attitudes and opinions. Alyssa had an older sister *Lindsey, who was 19 at the time, and who wasn’t particularly the best behaved; she had been arrested a few times and needless to say didn’t surround herself with the best company.
Alyssa couldn’t help who her sister brought around the house, and neither could I—although now I wish I could have. One night I walked over to her house, just like any other night to see her. When I arrived at her house, she was hastily gathering a bag of clothes, and said to me, “Omg you will never guess where I got invited. ” “Where? ” I asked curiously. “Lindsey invited me to her friend’s house to a party, there’s going to be a lot of her college friends, and drinking, and music and it’ll be so much fun! ” She shouted. “What no way!
Lucky, I haven’t been invited to a party yet, we have to find something for you to wear so you look older! ” I said to her while quickly snatching at random clothes in her closet. This was her chance to meet people who were seniors or just graduated high school (19 or 20 years old), and as 15 year old girls it sounded like the best thing in the world. I was excited for her; however, I was also experiencing a quivering feeling in the pit of my stomach. This was the same feeling I felt when her sister picked me up with one of her friends who had just been exonerated the week before.
Alyssa didn’t see a problem with her older sister or her sister’s friends, so I trusted her judgment. I senselessly ignored the feeling in my stomach, and told her she would be fine going to the party by herself. Before I left to go home, she made me promise not to tell her dad where she was going, and I told her I wouldn’t say a word. I stayed up that night anxiously awaiting her text, but it wasn’t until early the following morning (about 2 or 3 am), that she called and woke me up.
She was hysterically crying and trying to talk, but all I could hear was mumbling and long breaks between her words as she gasped for air. “What’s wrong Alyssa” What happened!? ” I said groggily, whipping the drool from the side of my cheek. “Courtney, I think I was raped. ” She managed to say through her crying. “What do you mean you think you were raped? What happened? Are you okay? ” I shouted, and hastily sat up in me bed as a feeling of nausea consumed my entire body. My throat filled with knots. “I was drinking and I don’t know. I don’t know Courtney….
He was on top of me, and I didn’t know what was happening. I tried to push him off…” I remember she was crying so hard I could barely make out what she was saying, and everything went numb when she was explaining what happened. I tried to hold back the tears, but at one point I just burst out crying as well; I felt personally responsible for her being sexually assaulted. I knew that I should have said something to someone. Call her dad. Call the police. Tell my mom. I did none of those things though, because I thought if I did, she would get in trouble.
We were both terrified. How could I have let her go out in the first place? I had a terrible feeling about it from the start, but still didn’t stop her from going. Even after the incident I didn’t say anything to anyone that could have assisted her because she didn’t want anyone to know. It’s a mistake that unfortunately will stay with me forever. A judgment call I made when I was 15 years old, a wrong decision is now going to be in my mind until I’m old. We make decisions every day, and there are a number of factors that contribute to what choices we make.
The way of knowing that applied to my decisions that night most commonly aligns with emotion. Although there are a few ways in which emotions can help someone to make a decision, there are more ways it can encumber decision making. Unfortunately, in my situation there were more unsound aspects in my judgment than there were sound. When looking at emotions as an obstacle to knowledge, it can lead to distort perception, twisted reasoning, and irrational behavior. In my case, twisted reasoning and irrational behavior take place. Before my friend left the house I minimized the dangers in my head that she could potentially face.
I knew that there was going to be illegal activities at the party, and I knew that Alyssa most likely wouldn’t know what do if she was put into certain situations. I ignored this though, because I was so excited for her, that it clouded my judgment that night. Another form of twisted thinking that I still exhibit is that of blame. I blamed myself that night for what happened to her. I also experienced irrational behavior that night; my emotions not only distorted my perception and reasoning about the party, but it also lead me to make a poor decision.
Apart from the initial bad judgment, I moreover, did not tell anyone about the rape because I was scared for her. If I was not so emotionally flustered that night, I might have been able to make a sound judgment and call the police. Just like emotion can cloud judgment, it can also be a source of knowledge. Now that I understand some of the positives and negatives of emotion in terms of a way of knowing, I can hone in on being more emotionally intelligent. Two ways I can do this is by knowing my emotions, and controlling my emotions.
I know that I will inevitably have a reaction to every situation that I am put in, but I should align my emotions with reason instead of adjusting my emotions, since that is difficult to do. Unfortunately, there is no way to control my mind emotionally to react a certain way in a given situation—I’m human. One way to mitigate my emotional responses when making judgments, is by stopping for a few minutes before reacting in a situation where I am experiencing strong emotions. When thinking back to what happened the night Alyssa was raped, I could have made a few choices that would have made a huge difference.
To begin with, when I sensed that there was something wrong with her going I could have told her how I felt. I knew that my parents always warned me about going places with people who are in a different state of mind than I am at 15 years old. You can never truly know what their intentions are. My irrational thinking that night lead me to believe that I should dismiss the bad feeling I had, because she was going to have a good time at the party. Another poor judgment I made was not telling anyone about the crime. It was a crime. I knew it was at the time, but for some reason I didn’t even think to tell someone.
If this were to happen to her today, I wouldn’t hesitate to call the police or report it, because I know how wrong sexually assault is. An additional way of knowing that I could have tested my emotions with to enhance my understanding is intuition. Intuition is like emotional knowledge because it does not involve conscious reasoning, mostly I would feel something without realizing what that feeling means. The night that I made the wrong judgment to let Alyssa go to the party alone I had a bad feeling about the party, yet I still told her she would be safe.
I think that intuition coincides with ethics and knowing the right thing to do versus the wrong thing. I knew that there was going to be under aged drinking, and drugs at the party which is wrong. I think in the future when making judgments, trusting my gut feeling about certain situations will lead me in the right direction. Of course other ways of knowing like emotion, sense perception, and memory. All of the ways of knowing play a tremendous role in making decisions, which is why I should be able to understand and incorporate these aspects into everything I do in life.
