A student nurse has told how she allegedly had her drink spiked on a night out by a friend - who later admitted she thought it was would a 'laugh'. Gillian Reilly, 29, went to her student's union bar at Queen Margaret's University in Edinburgh for her end of year night out.
Having studied drama for three years she was excited to spend the evening saying farewell to who she thought was her close pals. But during the night she noticed she was feeling strange and she felt "like my insides were getting pulled out."
Gillian was then sick for "weeks and weeks" but wasn't until later that a friend helped her get to the bottom of what happened. She informed her that one of their other friends had allegedly spiked her at the bar and also claimed they "thought it would be a laugh to put something in her drink".
Gillian said: "We always had an end of year celebration at university, and I went with all of my friends I had known for a while. I was in my final year so it was going to be goodbye for a lot of us.
"I was drinking anything that was handed to me, and was having a really good time, but soon I started to feel weird. When I got back to my flat I felt really weird, it wasn't how being drunk usually feels.
"I started to feel really dizzy at first - but then I got these sharp pains in my stomach, and I started to feel violently sick. The day after was when I knew something was really wrong - it felt like my insides were getting pulled out, I was sick for weeks and weeks. I felt so unwell I honestly thought I was going to die.
"It's scary to think that it's not just strangers you need to look out for. Sometimes, it's people you know." The ordeal happened in 2016 but she has only recently been able to address it and speak out.
She said "I felt really betrayed, you feel like you can trust people and it just made me doubt who I can trust. At the time I didn't tell anyone because I had been attacked physically before and nobody believed me.
"They even said that I'd hurt myself rather than believing it was my attacker - so I've been really wary of coming forward since."
Ms Reilly has now begun studying Adult Nursing at Sterling University, says her past experiences still haunt her. It's made me wary of going out and going to clubs." Said Ms Reilly.
"I was really cautious in freshers week and I'm very careful about who I go out with. Even now though, there needs to be so much more security to help people on nights out.
"There's drunk, vulnerable people walking around campus, where's security making sure they get home okay?" Spiking's at university reached dangerous levels last year, where reports of needles being used to spike people came to light.
Gillian said: "Starting university is supposed to be exciting - you don't want to have to think about these things happening. You're meeting lots of new people and you want to think these people could be friends, but it's not necessarily the case.
"You may meet people who do this to harm you, or in my case, people who think it's funny to spike people."
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