In-depth Story: Cola Bennett Shares Inspiring Story of Surviving Multiple Rapes and Losing Her Son

In the midst of insurmountable pain, a ray of sunshine appeared. His name was Kayshaun. Finally, she had a reason to live. If no one else on earth loved her, he did. Life was now bearable because he made sense when life didn’t. Until his birth, love had been a convoluted concept to her, and efforts to find said love had left her a victim of rape four times over.

Cola Bennett grew up as a pastor’s kid and had a very active yet sheltered life in and out of the church. She sang in the choir, played the piano, participated in the arts, and was involved in a slew of extracurricular activities.

Life was normal and fun until one fateful day when she was gang-raped at the age of 14.

Bennett had gone to her aunt’s hair salon to get her hair done. And since she was family, she had to wait until all paying customers had been styled before her hair could be done.

That day was a particularly busy day at the salon, and fumes from hair spray and other chemicals overwhelmed Bennett.

“I went outside to get a breath of fresh air, then I went into a convenience store that was right next door to the salon,” Bennett told The Weight She Carries. “I met a group of guys there and one of them asked me if I wanted to go for a walk.”

She agreed.

Following a brief walk in a park nearby, Bennett went back to the salon to check in with her aunt.

The young man she had walked with invited her to go back out with him, but instead of going back to the park, he led her to a secluded area which had an abandoned staircase.

The man, who said he was 18, disappeared and a different man suddenly appeared. That was the beginning of Bennett’s nightmare where at least six men took turns raping her.

“One by one they would come down the stairs. They would push me, rip my clothes…just one by one, by one,” Bennett said. “I was too afraid to leave, and when I did try to, two men dragged me back down the stairs, and the rest of the guys stood at the top of the stairs and blocked the way.”

Three hours later, Bennett arrived back at the salon in excruciating pain but couldn’t bring herself to tell her aunt what had transpired.

“I swore I wouldn’t say a thing and kept it to myself,” Bennett said. “I didn’t know how to deal with it. I was sodomized, I was forced to give oral sex and I was penetrated vaginally. The only person I told was my best friend.”

According to a National Crime Victimization Survey, only 310 out of every 1,000 sexual assaults are reported to authorities, meaning 2 out of 3 cases go unreported.

Of the sexual violence crimes not reported to police between 2005-2010, fear of retaliation was the number one reason why victims chose not to report the assault, according to RAINN, the largest anti-sexual violence organization in the U.S.

Other reasons for not reporting the crime were belief that:

• the police would not do anything to help


• it was a personal matter


• it was not important enough to report


• the police could not do anything to help

Another reason provided was that the victim did not want to get the perpetrator in trouble.

Try as she might to keep the ordeal a secret, word soon got out. The boys were bragging about the act and Bennett’s aunt caught wind of it.

Bennett’s parents were informed, confronted her about the ordeal, and took her to the police station.

Bennett refused to admit that she had been raped, and in an effort to avoid discussing the matter further, lied and said she had consented to everything.

“I just knew I didn’t want to deal with it. I wanted to be over it, I didn’t want to talk about it, I just wanted it all to just go away,” she said.

Her parents took her to the hospital to be examined, and on the way home, Bennett’s mother asked her father if they could send her to a group home.

“That broke me, and I thought, ‘She doesn’t even want me.’ That began the conversation in my head that I’m not good enough. I’m not a good girl and they don’t want me. That created a whole bunch of unhealthy relationships with different men and different situations.”

– Cola Bennett

As the days passed, not only was Bennett tormented by physical and emotional wounds, she was chastised and alienated by her entire extended family, who believed she had willingly participated in the sexual acts that had occurred.

“My cousins called me every name you can think of. I still had to go to my grandmother’s house, and I would sit in a room and they would sit outside the room and taunt me constantly,” Bennett said. “They would text my phone, they would send me emails and write on my social media. The taunting was endless.”

A sole supporter emerged, it seemed. It was her aunt’s boyfriend. He was the only person who would speak to her.

“What I didn’t understand at the time was that he was grooming me. He understood that I was isolated around my family, and because he was the only one who was talking to me, I felt comfortable with him. And eventually, he took advantage of me in the worst way.” – Cola Bennett

Soon, he began sexually abusing Bennett every time he thought no one else was around.

Fearing no one would believe her, Bennett stayed mum. But certain family members noticed a pattern in her behavior.

“Whenever he came around me, I would move,” she said. “So people began to wonder why I would do that when he came close to me. They asked him if anything was going on. He said no, and they believed him.”

Feeling alone, devastated and misunderstood, Bennett turned to the internet for solace and struck up a relationship with someone she met online.

Bennett opened up to the man about the sexual abuse she had suffered, not knowing that he would eventually track her down and do the same…and bring a friend along to watch.

“I felt so low. Nobody wanted me; nobody wanted to make the effort to get to know me. I told myself that I was really that unlovable. I was really struggling, but I always did whatever I could to make it seem like everything was OK.”

– Cola Bennett

At the age of 16, Bennett discovered she was pregnant.

The birth of her son, Kayshaun, brought her immediate family closer, but further alienated her from her extended family and her church family.

Despite all the turmoil in her life, Bennett had maintained good grades in school, so her teachers were willing to accommodate her situation so she could still graduate high school on time.

When her son was one, he was diagnosed with Duchenne muscular dystrophy.

“The doctor explained that he would probably never walk. He would have difficulty talking and learning, by the time he was 10 he would be in a wheelchair, and by the time he was 18, he would probably pass away,” Bennett said. “I had to sort through that and navigate what that meant.”

More on Page 2...

Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) is a genetic disorder which causes progressive muscle degeneration and weakness. The condition is caused by the absence of a protein that helps keep muscle cells intact called dystrophine.

Symptoms usually present between ages 3-5. According to the Muscular Dystrophy Association, the condition primarily affects boys and has a prevalence of approximately 1 in 3,500 males worldwide.

“It was difficult, but I thank God because my son was made for me. He was flexible to how I was growing and gave me no trouble,” Bennett said. “He was the perfect child and allowed me to be me. No matter what happened to me, I knew my son loved me.”

“My strength came from God – one hundred percent. I understood from a young age that God is the source of life, and when my church told me that I couldn’t get baptized because I was pregnant out of wedlock, that hurt a lot. I wanted to show the world that I wanted to serve God, but here was someone else telling me that I wasn’t good enough. So, I had a complicated relationship with God because I loved Him, but the church made me feel like He didn’t love me back.” – Cola Bennett

While her strength came from God, her will to live came from her son. He reassured Bennett that there was at least one person on this earth who truly loved her.

Two years later, Bennett was raped a third time.

“I struggled the most with that one because I allowed certain things to happen, which could have given the impression that I was open to other things. So how do I grapple with this? How do I make sense of it and say it was fully rape when I allowed him to do some things? But as I grew older, I realized that it doesn’t matter how much you allow. The moment you tell someone to stop. They should stop.” – Cola Bennett

At this point, Bennett had become numb. She suppressed her pain. She wanted love but kept finding herself taken advantage of. By the time she was 21, she had been raped a total of four times.

 “People ask me how I ‘allowed’ it to happen four times. And I tell them that every single time it happened, it happened in a different way. So it would happen one way and I would say, ‘OK, I got this. I’ll never let this situation happen again.’ And then it would hit me from another blind spot that I didn’t protect myself from. Every time I strengthened one side of the wall, another wall would get plummeted through.”

– Cola Bennett

Meanwhile, Bennett continued to care for her son as best she could.

“The day we found out that he had congestive heart failure and only had five percent of his heart function left, I told God that if He took my son, I would be going, too,” she said. “My whole life was about my son, so it didn’t make sense to me to keep on living.”

The doctors did not expect Kayshaun to last the weekend. Bennett poured herself out to God and delved into scripture, determined to discover God for herself.

Bennett also ended an engagement, impressed that her fiancé was not the person God had in mind for her. She spent her days creating lasting memories with her son and believed God would heal him.

“Every time the doctors said he wouldn’t live past the weekend, he always surpassed it,” she said.

Six months later, Kayshaun succumbed to his illness and died in his mother’s arms. He was eight.

“I didn’t understand what God was doing, but it taught me a lot about His character. As much as my son was only eight when he passed, he fulfilled his purpose, which was to save me and to bring me back to God,” she said.

Despite all of the challenges, Bennett describes her current relationship with her parents as good, and she was eventually baptized at the same church that once tuned her away.

She shares the details of her remarkable story in her autobiography C.O.L.A – Casualty of Love’s Apologies. It has taken her seven years to complete her book, which is now available for order on her website.,

In addition to being an author, Bennett also owns a natural skincare company with her sister called U.P. Beauty – UP stands for Unforgivingly Pur.

To connect with Cola Bennett, find her on the following social handles:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MisscolaBABI

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/livingcola/

Website: https://www.livingcola.com/

Watch her interview with Delafe` Testimonies: