Sexual assault robbed me of traveling. The only way to heal was to travel again

In July 2019, after solo traveling on a round-the-world backpacking trip, I returned home to New York City.

Only a year earlier, I’d given up my apartment, sold my belongings, and quit my bartending job in exchange for a one-way ticket to Tahiti. I thought starting as far away from home as possible on a romantic, tropical island was the proper way to begin. The plan was no plan. From Tahiti, I road-tripped around New Zealand, got PADI-certified in the Great Barrier Reef, crashed a motorbike in the Philippines, rented an apartment in Japan (and ran out of space on my passport), and climbed Mount Kilimanjaro. And anytime something went awry, I went to Italy, a place I knew well, loved, and where I could understand the language. While Italy was never part of the plan—well, nothing was—I ended up there five times during my jaunt from Tahiti to Portugal. But when I reached Portugal’s Cabo da Roca, continental Europe’s most western point and the closest I’d been to New York since Tahiti, something in me told me it was time to come home.

So I did.

I didn’t have a plan for what was next; maybe go back to school, take time to decompress, or get a remote job and continue traveling. However, I had no idea how my life would change in less than 12 hours after returning to the US, when I found a video of myself being raped online by my ex.

Any post-trip ideas and dreams were immediately halted as I began what would become a long journey to hold my perpetrator accountable via the criminal justice system.

Immersing myself in the legal system quickly consumed my life. Despite never wanting to work in the service industry again, I went back to my old bartending job within a week of returning, just to afford an attorney. To feel I was working toward something other than slinging drinks, I also went back to school in January 2020 to finish my Bachelor’s Degree in Musical Theatre with a minor in Gender Studies.

I was unprepared for how much my everyday life would change. I often had to miss class and give up bar shifts to spend time in the District Attorney’s office before testifying in court in November 2019. I had confided in some close friends and family members, but no-one knew what to say. Trying to exist in social situations, from my friend’s wedding in New Orleans to family dinners robbed me from being present. When people saw me, they’d ask about my trip, to which I sometimes replied, “What trip?” New events had blurred those memories. It gave social anxiety a new meaning, and I found previously unimaginable levels of inner strength.

In March 2020, the global pandemic took hold, and by May, my case was officially at a standstill until further notice. I needed a distraction, applied for a summer internship at United Nations Women and got the role.

The end of my first semester was the first halt to my survival mode, like a car going 180mph before coming to a sudden stop. My body crashed.

That summer, I wrote policies for the Global Compact for Migration, with a focus on objectives to further protect those who have suffered from sexual assault and/or domestic violence. My internship became more than an internship; it helped transform my pain into power, gave me a sense of purpose, and not only saved my life, but fooled everyone around me that I was productive. So when it ended, I panicked. With very little thought, I signed up for the LSAT (Law School Admission Test).

Come March 2021, I was accepted into my top law school of choice. I paid the seat deposit, but when I clicked ‘Submit’, I felt absolutely nothing. Shouldn’t I be excited? Nervous? Proud? Yet the only thought that lingered was I’d finish law school, and this case would still be open. By this point, my perpetrator had been arrested, but released on his own recognizance and therefore, technically free. Often, months went by without an update. But morning after paying my law school seat deposit, my two-year legal battle abruptly ended when I learned he had unexpectedly died by suicide.

I felt shock and betrayal, among many emotions, and so much I wanted to know was left unanswered. More than ever, I needed to get away. I kept imagining myself on an island, cocktail in hand, miles away from the confusion scrambling my brain.

I never went to an island; in fact, my therapist advised me against it. But deep down, my fear was that once I started school, I’d never get to travel again. I saw law school as a tangle of chains, waiting to shackle me, a slow ticking time bomb against my freedom. And so, without my desired Antigua and Barbuda getaway, I began law school. During my first semester, I founded a club called SACSA, Students Against Cyber Sexual Abuse, to raise awareness around issues important to me.

On paper, I was thriving, but in reality, I was exhausted, and reaching unfathomable levels of misery. Between the stress of studying and residual stress from the case, I had gained over 50 pounds, lost hair to the point of balding, experienced frequent migraines and violent shaking, and picked my skin until it bled. I was afraid to answer questions in class, nervous that anything I said would be used against me, like I’d been trained to believe during the case. Law school was supposed to be healing for me, a moment of turning my pain into power, like my UN Women internship. Instead, every day was triggering.

I finished my first semester, and kept telling myself, “You did it!” forgetting that I still needed to actually to “do it”—finish law semesters (five more times), take a Bar exam, and then, you know, become a lawyer. The end of my first semester was the first halt to my survival mode… Like a car going at 180mph before coming to a sudden stop, my body crashed. I laid on the couch for four days straight. I didn’t brush my teeth or shower. I couldn’t even cry or explain my feelings.

With the COVID-19 Omicron variant rampant, I knew traveling was irresponsible, but my depression had reached a terrifying level, and this was my one window before going back to school to solo travel again. I had Airbnb and United Airlines credits from past canceled trips, so I searched until I found a ticket to anywhere my credit would cover. 48 hours later, I was on a flight to Liberia in northern Costa Rica.

It was while on a river safari in La Fortuna that I was punched in the gut with the reality of how much I hated law school. I admitted that I never wanted the policy writing, SACSA, the law degree. I missed the old, spunky, creative, free-spirited Kaitlyn, the one who flew to Italy just because she was having a bad day, who trusted people enough to hitchhike her way around Tahiti; not this new unrecognizable version, too afraid to raise her hand in class, whose face had lost all color. I mourned her and wanted her back.

I went back to my room, googled ‘travel writer jobs,’ applied to every listing, and logged into my blog, No Man Nomad, for the first time in nearly two years. When I arrived at the airport a few days later, I had a panic attack. I called my mom. “I don’t want to go back to law school,” I told her, through stifled breaths.

“So don’t go,” she said. “It’s your life.”

Sexual assault not only robs autonomy, but it robs identities and former selves. It’s far more than the event; the aftermath is often more grueling than the assault itself.

I did return to school, but about a month into my second semester, I received an email offering me a freelance writing position. While it provided some hope that travel journalism was possible, it wasn’t enough to pull the plug on law school. That summer, I balanced my legal internship with my blog and freelance writing. Shortly before beginning my third semester, I had another knee-jerk reaction, mass-applying for every writing gig under the sun.

I landed a few more opportunities, but stayed in school, sitting in the back row so I could write blog posts while ignoring lectures about contract law. I watched my website traffic grow from a few hundred readers a month to a few thousand, I got invited on press trips and to eat at restaurants in New York City, and more editors started saying yes to my ideas.

Right before midterms, my classmates headed to the library—and I headed to my happy place, Italy. It was here, while solo traveling in Naples, Italy, that I made the decision to drop out.

Sexual assault not only robs autonomy, it robs identities and former selves. It’s far more than the event; the aftermath is often more grueling than the assault itself. Victims are left to carry it around, learning to navigate life with flashbacks, not being believed, all among broken systems, trust issues, depression, isolation, anxiety, PTSD, suicidal thoughts. In my darkest hours, in an attempt to make sense of it all, I believed it was my mission to help survivors, to be the change I wished to see in the world.

And, sure, it’s radical to turn lemons into lemonade, to pick yourself up, turn pain into power, but perhaps it’s more radical to not let it consume you, to live a free and beautiful life of your choosing. It took a solo trip to Costa Rica to remind me I’m so much more than what happened to me—and that while the assault changed me in irreversible ways, it didn’t have to be the death of me.

I will never be who I was, but I’ve made progress in getting my sparkle back. Step one was walking away from law school,  as much a moment of resistance as it was of acceptance. It’s easy to believe you’re throwing away a good thing, a lucrative career, when everyone is telling you that, but my mental and physical being were telling me something different.

Shortly after dropping out of school, I solo traveled to Brazil to see my final world wonder, Christ the Redeemer. As I climbed to the top to meet the giant statue, the tears flooded. It was more than just reaching my final wonder of the world: Even after law school, surviving the legal system and the assault, I’d got ‘that feeling’ back, a resurrection of the ‘old me’ who I’d been searching for since that July morning in 2019. I now knew I could rely on myself and only myself, whether testifying against my rapist in court, getting into law school, or solo traveling the globe.

Brazil was only the beginning. Instead of spending every waking moment thinking about the assault, I stared at maps, deciding where I wanted to go. I spent my birthday in the Dolomites, where I hiked to a winery in a sequin dress. And I did get my cocktail on a Caribbean island, several, in fact, including Barbados’ Food & Rum Festival, Dominica’s black sand beaches, and the remote island of Saba. And almost a year after dropping out of school, I was published in Forbes as an expert in the travel space, a recognition that felt especially sweet. I thought, if only the puffy-faced, couch-ridden Kaitlyn could see me now, I’d tell her, hang on, it’s going to get better.

I’ve accepted that healing is not linear. On bad days, depression and anxiety can find me anywhere from New York City to Namibia. But my redemption speaks to the only person it needs to: Me. Because, everything else aside, I am finally free.

Help and assistance

If you’ve been affected by anything you’ve read in this article, here are some organizations that may be able help.

Crisis Text Line (global)
Cyber Bullying Research Center (USA)
New York Cyber Abuse Task Force (USA)
Victim Support (UK)
eSafety Commissioner (Australia)
The Cyber Helpline

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