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The first time I saw a penis I was 11 years old. A man flashed open his coat when he passed me by in the street and there I saw it, that odd fleshy bit hanging out of his open zip. I remember feeling panic, disgust and shame, as if it was my fault somehow. When I was 12 and on a holiday camp, one of the older guys working there invited me to his cabin to play some music and made me wait while he took a shower, coming out from the bathroom with his robe semi open. Again, panic and shame. In my first job, age 20, the boss became obsessed with me and I had to literally run around the conference table in order to avoid his hands on my body. Every time I was called into his office I asked my colleagues to interrupt the meeting after 5 minutes, so I could safely escape his harassment. I told my mother and she laughed it off, saying it was just classic men behaviour. I eventually had to leave the job cause he was becoming more and more persistent. I'm 56 years old and I personally don't know ANY woman of my generation who hasn't been through similar situations.

My story begins long before the day I finally escaped. I was 18 years old when I met the man who would become the father of my children. At that time, I was young, inexperienced, and still trying to understand who I was and what I wanted my life to become. I had grown up in the country, but because my father had moved our family to country when I was young, I found myself building my adult life in a country that never truly felt like home. When I was 19, I became pregnant with my first child. The pregnancy was unexpected, but I was determined to do everything I could to become a good mother. I had been raised with strong personal beliefs about pregnancy and motherhood, and I made the decision to continue my pregnancy and welcome my son into the world. At the time, I believed that starting a family would bring stability and happiness. I believed that becoming parents would bring out the best in both of us. Instead, the abuse began during my pregnancy. The first incident that I remember clearly happened when I was eight months pregnant with my son. I was working because we needed money to prepare for the baby. One day, while walking home from work, I began experiencing intense pain and physical discomfort. My body was preparing for birth, and I was struggling to walk. At one point, my hips felt like they were giving out, and I had to stop and hold onto the side of a bridge while people around me asked if I was okay. I was eight months pregnant, visibly struggling, and the people around me showed concern. But when my phone started filling with missed calls and messages from my partner, his first reaction was not concern. I was only about 15 minutes late. Instead of asking if I was safe, he accused me of being with another man. He knew I had been at work, but he assumed the worst and demanded explanations for where I had been. At the time, I did not recognize this as abuse. I was young, and I did not understand that jealousy, accusations, and controlling behavior were warning signs. When I arrived home, I found our room destroyed. My books, which were incredibly important to me, had been thrown around, damaged, and ruined. I have always been a reader, and I am also a writer, so those books represented years of memories and a part of who I was. Objects that mattered to me had been destroyed. Things that carried sentimental value were broken. I remember feeling like I had walked into a battlefield. I tried to explain what happened. I tried to make him understand that I had not done anything wrong. Instead, he became increasingly angry. His face changed, he was yelling, and he became physically aggressive. During that argument, he pushed me while I was eight months pregnant. At the time, I did not understand the medical consequences of what happened. A few days later, during a routine appointment, doctors discovered that I had a tear in my amniotic sac and almost no amniotic fluid. I was immediately sent to the hospital. My son was born prematurely after an induced labor that lasted approximately 17 hours. He was born with serious complications and came into the world struggling because of the lack of oxygen. I remember being exhausted beyond anything I had ever experienced. I remember feeling alone. I remember being pushed to continue when I had almost nothing left. When my son was born, I thought the experience would change everything. I thought becoming a father would make him realize the importance of protecting our family. I wanted to believe that he could change. So I stayed. I tried to make it work. But the pattern continued. After my son was born, my life became centered around protecting him and trying to create a stable home. I was a young mother trying to balance everything: working, caring for a newborn, and trying to understand how to navigate a relationship that was becoming more frightening. At first, I kept hoping that the incident during my pregnancy was a one-time event. I wanted to believe that he had lost control because of stress, fear, or immaturity. I wanted to believe that once we had our child, he would become the partner and father I hoped he could be. Instead, the behavior continued and slowly became part of my everyday life. Over the years, the abuse took many forms. It was not only physical. There were constant insults, yelling, intimidation, and emotional attacks. I was called degrading names and made to feel like I was worthless. There were also racist insults that deeply affected me. Slowly, my confidence was worn down. At the same time, I was trying to be the best mother I could be. My son began experiencing serious medical challenges. When he was around two years old, he had his first seizure. At first, doctors believed it was related to a fever, but the seizures continued throughout his childhood. When he was around eight years old, he experienced a severe seizure that caused significant concern and led doctors to discover that he had epilepsy. I remember carrying him and running through the streets trying to find transportation to get him emergency medical care. He was already more than half my size, but in that moment, none of that mattered. I was his mother, and I needed to get him help. After further evaluations, we learned that my son was autistic. We began noticing differences in the way he learned, his writing abilities, his sensitivities, and the challenges he faced compared to other children. Instead of receiving patience and understanding, my son was sometimes insulted by his father because of his differences. He was called names and made to feel less than he was. That was one of the hardest things for me as a mother. I could endure many things directed at me, but watching my child be hurt emotionally was devastating. I tried to leave multiple times. By the time my son was about five years old, I reached a point where I knew I could not continue living in the same way. I decided to separate from his father. We attempted to move into a co-parenting arrangement, but because we were living in the same country without a strong support system, separating was much more complicated than simply walking away. I was isolated. My family relationships were already difficult, and I did not have a reliable support system around me. Many of my friends did not know the full extent of what was happening. I had become used to hiding what was happening because I was ashamed and because I did not know who could actually help me. During this period, I experienced some of the most frightening incidents of my life. One of the incidents happened after he looked through my phone and found innocent messages from someone I had known as a teenager. They were simple conversations, but he interpreted them as betrayal. He became enraged. He grabbed me, dragged me through the home, pulled my hair, and forced me outside while yelling at me. The force of him pulling my hair was so severe that hair was torn from my scalp, leaving a bald spot that I still have today. He threw money onto the street and told me to find a hotel because I could no longer stay there. What made the situation even more painful was that I was the person paying for the home. I reported what happened. The people I was renting from no longer wanted him living there after what happened, and this became another attempt to separate myself from him. But leaving was never simple. The years that followed were a cycle of trying to leave, trying to protect myself and my children, and trying to survive the consequences of each attempt. During the time that my son's father and I were separated, I was trying to maintain some kind of normal life for my son. I wanted him to have stability. I wanted him to feel loved and protected despite everything happening around us. But even after separation, the control did not end. One of the most painful parts of my experience was realizing that leaving the relationship did not automatically mean I was free from him. The emotional abuse, intimidation, and fear continued. There was one night during that period that changed my life forever. I had been invited to go out with a friend. It was one of the first times in years that I had gone somewhere socially. I was not someone who went out often. I was usually at home caring for my son, working, or dealing with everything happening in my life. Many of the people there were part of the same social circle that my children's father had, because we had shared many of the same friends. I had one drink that night, a non-alcoholic drink because I was never much of a drinker. Shortly afterward, both my friend and I began feeling unusually dizzy and unwell. The sensation did not feel normal, especially because the drink was not supposed to contain alcohol. I remember feeling unsafe and deciding that the best thing was to leave. I made sure my friend got home safely first. During the taxi ride, I tried to remain aware of my surroundings. I was trying to stay calm, stay alert, and make sure I arrived home safely. When I reached my home, I discovered that my children's father was there. He still had keys from when we had lived together. I do not remember everything that happened after he came inside. I remember feeling confused and disoriented, and the next thing I clearly remember is waking up the following day and realizing he was in my bed. Approximately four weeks later, I learned that I was pregnant. I struggled deeply with what had happened because I did not understand how I had become pregnant. I carried a lot of confusion, fear, and pain. Because of my personal beliefs and because abortion was not a legal option available to me, I continued the pregnancy. My daughter was born, and once again I tried to believe that this could be a turning point. Her father told me that because we now had two children together, and because he was attending organization meetings and trying to change, we should give our family another chance. I wanted to believe that people could change. I wanted my children to have a family. So we tried again. We moved into an apartment connected to his family, hoping that living somewhere different would create a safer environment. For a short time, things improved. But eventually, the same patterns returned. The anger returned. The insults returned. The violence returned. He began slapping me, pulling my hair, spitting on me, and verbally attacking me again. I found myself back in the same cycle I had been trying so desperately to escape. I reported incidents to authorities multiple times. I sought help. I documented what happened. But each time, I felt like the consequences fell mostly on me. Every time I reported him, I had to deal with the aftermath. I had to worry about retaliation. I had to worry about my children. I had to worry about whether seeking protection would actually make us safer. Over time, I began to lose hope that the system would protect me. The abuse also affected every other part of my life. I had opportunities that I worked extremely hard for, but maintaining them became almost impossible. I had a job at a software company where I taught students, something I was proud of and passionate about. I worked there for two years. But he would create situations where I would be late, interfere with my ability to maintain my schedule, and even appear at my workplace. Eventually, after struggling to keep everything together, I lost that job. It was devastating. I was not only losing employment. I was losing pieces of the future I had been trying to build. Still, I continued working. I continued caring for my children. I continued advocating for my son through his medical challenges. I was exhausted, but I kept going. Because my children needed me.By this point, I had spent years trying to create a way out. I was working constantly, saving whatever money I could, and trying to create some kind of security for my children. I knew that if I ever wanted to truly leave, I needed a place where we could be safe and stable. Before the pandemic, I managed to save enough money to purchase a small apartment unit that belonged to his mother. She was no longer using it, and she agreed to sell it to me. I paid approximately amount for it, and I worked overtime to make it possible. I invested my own money into restoring it and turning it into a home for my children. For me, that apartment represented something much bigger than a place to live. It represented independence. It represented the possibility that one day I could finally have a life that belonged to me. But the pandemic changed everything. When COVID began, I was forced to spend two years confined with the person I had spent years trying to escape. The isolation made everything worse. There was nowhere to go, fewer people to reach out to, and no easy way to create distance. The abuse continued in front of my children. They heard the yelling. They saw the arguments. They saw their mother being hurt and degraded. As a mother, one of the most painful things was seeing how much it affected them. I was trying to protect them while feeling like I had no way out. During this time, I reached a point where I stopped taking care of myself. I stopped caring about my appearance. I stopped feeling like the person I had once been. But I never stopped being a mother. Even when I felt broken, I continued working. I continued making sure my son received the medical care he needed for his epilepsy and autism. I supported him through school. I helped him learn. I advocated for him when he was struggling. Later, he was also diagnosed with juvenile arthritis, adding another medical challenge to a life that already felt overwhelming. I was carrying the responsibilities of raising two children, managing their medical needs, working, and surviving abuse at the same time. I was drowning, but I was still moving. During those years, I tried repeatedly to find help. I reached out to my father. I showed him evidence of what was happening. I showed him police reports. I asked if my children and I could have somewhere safe to go. But because of complicated family relationships and circumstances, I did not receive the support I needed at that time. I also did not have many friends I could turn to. The years of isolation had taken a toll. Many people around me did not understand the reality of what I was living through, and I felt like I had nowhere to go. I had tried leaving before. Several times. But every attempt ended with him finding a way back into my life. He knew how to convince me to stay. He knew how to create situations where leaving felt impossible. He knew that I had limited options because I was in country, without my documents, without a strong support network, and with children whose lives were tied to the country. Eventually, I began planning my escape more carefully. I knew that if I tried to leave without preparation, I could put myself and my children in greater danger. That was when the control escalated. He began taking away the things that made leaving possible. One of the most devastating examples was my passport. He took my country passport and destroyed it. Without my passport, my ability to travel, replace documents, and leave the country became even more complicated. My work equipment was also destroyed, including my laptop, which I relied on professionally. These were not just objects. They were tools that represented my independence. Taking them away meant taking away my ability to rebuild. I felt trapped. I had spent years trying to survive, and I reached a point where I understood something clearly: If I stayed, I did not know if I would survive. I had received threats. I feared what would happen if I truly left. I feared what he might do if he felt he was losing control. But I also knew something else. My children needed me alive. They needed me to keep fighting. And that became the reason I continued.By the end of 2024, I knew I was reaching the end of what I could endure. For years, I had been trying to survive inside a situation where I felt trapped. I had tried leaving. I had tried asking for help. I had tried working harder, saving money, documenting what was happening, and creating a future for my children. But I was exhausted. I had learned that sometimes leaving is not a single moment. Sometimes it is a long process of quietly preparing, waiting for the safest opportunity, and trying to protect yourself and your children while living with someone who has repeatedly shown that they will not respect your boundaries. During this time, money was another way I was controlled. There were many occasions where he would leave for days at a time, taking money with him, leaving me responsible for the children and the household without enough resources. There were times when I had to rely on his family for food because I had no other option. I had previously helped set up a credit card account as a backup because I needed a way to provide for my children during those moments. When he was gone and I needed groceries or necessities, I would use it and then pay it back little by little. I was not using it as a luxury. I was trying to make sure my children had food and basic needs met. When he discovered that I had been using the card and paying it back through small payments, it became another source of conflict and another situation that ended in violence. Three days after Christmas in 2024, everything reached a breaking point. He became extremely angry and decided to remove me from the home. The home he forced me out of was the home I had worked for. The home I had paid for. The home I had restored and created for my children. He packed my clothes into two trash bags and threw them outside. Then he forced me out. I recorded what was happening because I knew I needed documentation. I remember repeatedly saying that I would leave, but I would not leave without my children. That was the one thing I would not compromise on. I would not walk away and leave my children behind. When I tried to get back inside because my children wanted to leave with me, he shut the metal door and injured my arm. I went to the police station nearby because I needed help. I explained that he was keeping my children from me and described what had happened. But I was told that because he was their biological father, there was nothing they could do at that moment. I walked away feeling devastated. The system that I had hoped would protect me was not giving me the immediate safety I needed. That was when I called my father. Our relationship had been complicated for many years. There had been distance between us, and there were many family issues that had affected our relationship. But during that period, I had still worried about him. After he separated from his wife, I would secretly visit him when I could. I would bring him food, make extra meals, and check on him because I felt he was struggling and becoming isolated himself. This time, when I called and told him what happened, something changed. For the first time, he said the words I had needed to hear for so long: "Come here. You can stay here." That moment changed my life. I moved in with my father and started rebuilding. I worked harder than I ever had before. I focused on healing. I started therapy. My father helped me pay for my first month of therapy, which became an important step in beginning to recover from years of trauma. Slowly, things started changing. I received two promotions at work. I began rebuilding my confidence. I began remembering that I was not only a survivor. I was a person with skills, dreams, intelligence, and a future. Most importantly, I continued fighting for my children. Although I was able to create a safer environment for myself, the situation with my children remained complicated. Their father continued trying to use financial demands and access to the children as a way to control me. He demanded that I pay him large amounts of money, including child support and other expenses. Later, I discovered that some of the payments he claimed responsibility for were not actually being made. I continued documenting everything. I continued fighting. Then came the moment that changed everything for my children. The school called me. They asked me to come immediately. When I arrived, I learned that my daughter was sitting outside the classroom and had not been participating. My daughter has always been social, intelligent, and engaged, so the school knew something was wrong. At first, they believed she was struggling because of the separation between her parents. But then my son arrived. He was crying uncontrollably. He was overwhelmed and could barely communicate what had happened. Eventually, he told the school staff that his father had kicked him in the chest and that he could not breathe. For a child with epilepsy and autism, extreme stress and trauma can have serious consequences. The school told me they could not send my children home with their father that day. They told me I needed to take emergency custody because they were concerned for their safety and would otherwise have to involve child protection authorities. So I took my children home. That day, I knew I could not continue hoping things would improve. I had to protect them.Then came the moment that changed everything for my children. The school called me and asked me to come immediately. When I arrived, I learned that my daughter was sitting outside her classroom and had not been participating in school that day. My daughter has always been social, intelligent, and engaged, so the school staff immediately recognized that something was not right. At first, they believed she might be struggling emotionally because of the separation between her parents. They thought she may have been processing the changes happening in our family. But then they told me about my son. My son arrived at school that day crying, overwhelmed, and unable to calm down. Because of his autism, communicating during moments of extreme stress can be especially difficult for him. The school staff brought him to the principal's office so they could understand what was happening. That was when he disclosed that his father had kicked him in the chest and that he had been unable to breathe. Hearing that was devastating. My son already lived with epilepsy and autism, and I knew how vulnerable he was to extreme stress and trauma. I had spent years advocating for his medical needs, his education, and his emotional well-being. The thought that he was experiencing fear inside the place where he was supposed to be safe was unbearable. The school told me that they could not allow my children to return to their father's care that day without further action. They told me that I needed to take emergency custody measures because they were concerned about their safety and that otherwise they would need to involve child protection authorities. So I took my children home. That day, I realized that I could no longer hope that things would improve on their own.After I took my children home, my entire focus changed. For years, I had been trying to survive while also protecting my children. I had spent so much time trying to prevent situations from becoming worse, trying to keep peace, and trying to find a way forward in circumstances where I felt trapped. But after what happened at the school, I understood something had changed. Waiting for things to improve was no longer an option. My children needed stability. They needed safety. They needed a mother who was willing to keep fighting for them. I immediately began taking steps to protect them legally. I gathered the documentation I had collected over the years, including police reports, messages, recordings, photographs, and other evidence that showed the history of what had happened. I had learned through painful experience that telling the truth was not always enough. I needed documentation. I needed records. I needed evidence that showed the pattern of behavior and not just one isolated moment. During this time, I continued rebuilding my own life. After years of being controlled, isolated, and made to feel powerless, I was slowly discovering that I was capable of standing on my own. I had a home for my children. I had employment. I had support from my father. I had started therapy. I was beginning to find the person I had been before years of abuse had taken so much from me. But the conflict with their father did not end. Even after separation, he continued finding ways to maintain control through financial pressure, demands involving the children, and continued attempts to interfere with my life. I continued documenting everything. I wanted the legal system to understand the complete picture—not only one event, but the years of abuse, intimidation, and control that had brought us to that point. Then the situation escalated again. After years of abuse, separation, and conflict, his behavior became increasingly frightening. For approximately a month, I experienced a period of intense harassment and stalking. I felt watched and unsafe. I feared that losing control over the situation was causing him to escalate his behavior and that he was trying to find a way back into my life. This time, I refused to stay silent. I saved messages. I preserved evidence. I documented what was happening. I contacted authorities when I needed help. For years, I had wondered whether anyone would truly believe me. I had reported abuse before. I had gone to authorities before. I had provided evidence before. But each time, I felt like I was left carrying the consequences of trying to seek protection. This time, I continued because my children deserved safety. Eventually, the situation reached the courts. I presented the evidence I had collected over years, along with the evidence from the more recent harassment and stalking. The legal process was extremely difficult. At one point, the case was at risk of being dismissed despite the amount of evidence I had provided. I refused to give up. I appealed the decision and continued fighting to have my concerns heard. Eventually, I was granted a full no-contact restraining order. That moment was significant for me. It was not just a legal document. It was recognition. Recognition that what I experienced mattered. Recognition that my fear was based on real events. Recognition that I had a right to protection. Although the outcome was not exactly what I originally hoped for, there was finally legal intervention. Instead of going to prison, his family intervened and he was placed in an involuntary psychiatric facility. While that was not the outcome I expected, the court recognized that the situation required serious intervention, and I was granted protection through the no-contact order. But even with that protection, my fight was not over. Because my children and I were still in country. And I was no longer fighting only to escape abuse. I was fighting to bring my children home. During this new chapter of my life, I met my husband. He entered my life after I had already survived years of abuse, isolation, and fear. He saw what I had been through and supported me as I rebuilt myself and fought for my children. For the first time in many years, I experienced what it felt like to have someone beside me who believed me, supported me, and wanted a safe future for my children and me. He is now waiting for us in state as we continue navigating the legal process that stands between us and being together as a family. My dream has always been simple: A safe home. A stable life. A future where my children can grow without fear. But because our situation crosses international borders, the process is complicated. My son has a path toward obtaining country citizenship through his connection to the country through the proper legal process. My daughter's situation is more complicated because she is a country citizen, and bringing her to the country requires navigating additional legal requirements. So even after escaping the immediate danger, the battle continued. I escaped the relationship. I survived the abuse. But I am still fighting for my children to come home.

I was raped by my uncle when I was 11 years old. Most of my family didn't believe me. That was really painful and prevented me from getting the support and help I needed at the time. I developed an eating disorder and started self-harming as a trauma response. I had no other way of coping. I wish I had known more about SA when I was younger. Not to prevent it because I believe that it's the perpetrator that makes the choice to harm. But to understand that it wasn't my fault, that I was a victim and to report it when I still had time.

it still hurts. sometimes i feel like i am too harsh on myself. i only spoke up about waht happened when many years have passed. i knew i wasnt comfortable with what happened but i could expressed it, i kept it deep down and try to supress it from my mind. when i finally spoke up a long time have happened, i am hard on me because i knew it could have get better sooner, i am hard on myself because sometimes i feel like i am making a big deal out of something small. i try to remind myself that i am strong, that i am caring and this shall pass too.

From the time I was around nine years old up until I was seventeen, my twin sister coerced me into having oral and penetrative sex multiple times. This continued over many, many years. It started as a game--we played "characters", students at a school that had crushes on each other in the midst of a universe we created playing pretend. The realization that what we were doing was wrong--that she was my sister and that we were really doing this--didn't kick in until I was around fifteen years old. I should've stopped her then, I know that now. The guilt was enough to crush me. I tried to call her off. It worked for several weeks. But we'd been close for so long, and she was my only source of comfort. Without what I thought was an expression of her love, I grew depressed and upset. And when I saw a poem she wrote, describing in detail the love she felt for me in the slant of the "characters" we always played, I thought it was a sign that I had been wrong. I came back to her and the abuse continued from then on. I started to feel guilty again and began trying to find a compromise--ridding myself of the urge to listen to her before the manipulation started, before she came in. I dreaded her nightly visits that had become our routine. As we went on with life, her feelings towards me started to bleed into real life, outside of the fantasy world of our "characters". She'd act weird about me crushing on people at school, dating people at school or online. When I found another poem of hers lamenting about my online boyfriend that she'd discovered reading my diary, not in the voice of the "characters" but in her own voice, I knew it had to end. During an argument we had later when I was seventeen, I asked her how she thought /I/ felt after going back on my promise to stop what we were doing. She smiled in my face and told me, "I think you like it. You're a masochist." The following weekend my mother left to vacation with my grandmother and my sister was moved to my room. I was terrified that it would happen again. One night when she tried I called her out and told her to stop. I thought it wouldn't work...but it did. My relationship with my sister has never been the same. We lack the closeness we once had. As a now adult going into my sophomore year of college, I'm starting to notice depressive behaviors again at my lack in love. Maybe everyone has someone and my someone was her, I keep thinking, over and over. I need proof that I'm not alone, that someone else out there won't hate me for what happened. I need to know there's someone out there who loves me, who fate has picked for me, that isn't her. I'm so, so glad to have a safe space to express my truth.

My best friend invited me to a party at her mums house. Everyone was drinking. I’m bad at drinking. I notoriously can’t hold my alcohol and fall asleep. A drinking game started, so of course everyone picked on me. Predictably, I fell asleep on the sofa. My best friend made me comfortable and covered me in a blanket. I woke up later to find her boyfriend touching me under the blanket between my legs. I froze. Was this real? Was this really happening to me? It was. I’ve never told my best friend. They got married, and then divorced. I don’t know why I’m still keeping his secret.

I didn’t expect to feel so angry, but I do and it comes back in waves. I’m trying my best to heal. it’s been months since the last incident, but it’s really impacted me. It’s been two occasions now within the past couple years, where a man who was supposedly safe, ended up harming me. These are men who have a good reputation in the community and supposedly offer guidance and healing to others, which makes it so much harder for me because these are the men that are supposed to be safe and trustworthy. So now my trust in men is absolutely destroyed. I’m angry at them. I’m repulsed by them. I want nothing to do with them. In my mind if the supposed good guys can do this kind of thing then what does it say about the rest of them? I know it’s not an optimistic mindset, but I’m tired of being told that I need to think more positively. My experiences really harmed me. And it’s not a positive experience for me to pretend like they didn’t. I’m tired of stuffing down my feelings to make others more comfortable. Every day I think about my pain. And how I suffer the consequences while these men go about their lives, getting support and praise from others publicly. I do want vengeance. But I could live with just having my suffering understood. I’m a kind hearted person. I didn’t deserve what they did. I’m someone who has a big heart and desires love. I’m someone who cares about doing the right thing. But now because of my scars love doesn’t even feel like an option to me. I don’t want to be angry. I want to live in a world where abuse and sexual violence don’t go unpunished.

I was in 6th standard when my neighbour touched me, forced me onto his lap, hugged me from behind and asked if he could kiss me. I was terrified and stayed silent because we were on a terrace and I feared he might push me off. I cried, and he told me not to tell my parents. I was only a child and didn't know what to do. Even now, remembering it can make me dizzy and bring everything back. It wasn't my fault.

I could never remember my childhood well, even as a kid. But I started to be hypersexual at 3, and so thats when I believe me and my brother started touching (hes 3 and a half years older). When I was 12 I remembered and told my parents, my mom freaked out and screamed at me. She said it was my fault and that it wasn't too bad if I didn't tell anyone. I fear thats she's right. When I was 14 and in deep psychosis, I felt like there was more to remember. I started to feel my brother's hands over my body and mouth. I remembered us having sex 3 times. The first time when I was 6 and the last when I was 8. One of those times he was hitting me and pinning me. I dont know how real those memories are because I recovered them in psychosis. I started doing really bad cus all I could think about was me and my brother fucking. A couple of months ago I remembered my brother fucking me with his hands around my neck (which was painful). Im so scared that really happened because I see my brother daily and hes my best friend. Im worried ill remember more.

I don't know if what my brother did to me can be classified as sexual abuse. I was staying over at his house. It was late at night, and we were watching a movie. At some point, he asked if he could initiate some cuddling. I actually agreed, since we are really close and both enjoy physical affection. While we were spooning, he snuck his hand under my shirt. He didn't say anything, and I didn't say anything. As the night went on, he alternated between different caresses, kisses on my head or the side of my face, and words of affection. I idly stroked his arm back because I felt awkward just lying there. He eventually asked "is this okay?" in reference to his hand inching up my stomach. I was giving him the benefit of the doubt and still thought the action was platonic, plus it felt nice, plus I am a timid person and have a hard time with confrontation, so my brain thinks saying "no" to people is provoking them, so I said "yes". I didn't really want to say it I, though. I don't think I wanted to say "no", wither. I don't think I wanted to say anything at all. I was tired. We both were. His caresses smoothly progressed to the point he was caressing the underside of my breasts. That's when I started really questioning his intentions. He asked "is this okay?" again. I said "yes" again. When the movie ended, I got scared. I had been using it to distract myself from what was happening, and I was afraid that now that there was no distraction, he would shift his whole attention to me and try to initiate something; so I sat up. He lightly squeezed the underside of my breast as I did so, maybe on purpose, or maybe as a reflex. When he realized I was genuinely pulling away, he took back his hands, said: "I'm sorry. Your brother's a creep", and got up to take a shower. I think that's the moment I started freaking out. It's what confirmed my suspicions that his touches really had sexual intent behind them. I had been trying to gaslight myself into believing they were innocent affection, but those words were forcing me to face the reality of my situation. I remember running my mouth non-stop about random topics when we were having breakfast because I was afraid he was going to bring up what just happened and would want to have a conversation about it. I didn't want to talk about it. I wanted to pretend it never happened. I still try to. But it haunts me. He and his wife (who had been sleeping peacefully in their bedroom through the whole night) left early in the morning for their honeymoon (I was there to house-sit, and had come the night before to hang out with them before they left). Once I was alone, I quietly went to their bed to sleep (with their permission and insistance, since there were no other beds in the apartment). As I tried to fall asleep, I still could feel his hands on me, like a phantom touch. I broke down right there. I felt guilty, and disgusting, for not having stopped it and for having enjoyed it too. I felt like maybe I was the creep, and maybe I was the one turning this interaction into something inappropriate. The following weeks, I tried to suppress my feelings. Some days before Christmas, I was on a plane with my mother, about to start our holiday vacation. I was close to my period and my breasts felt sensitive. That triggered something in me and I suddenly teared up right there, in public. That vague ache reminded me of the feeling of that one squeeze he gave to my breast. My mother noticed me about to cry, but I lied and said that's just because I'm close to my period and feeling gloomy (I had been struggling with depression for a while, which she knew.) During the trip, I would get random flashbacks to that night, sometimes even accompanied with feelings of nausea. I felt like I was making my brain overreact somehow, since I hadn't been raped and I shouldn't be traumatized for touching that can barely even be considered intimate. When we got back home, I did something I'm not sure whether I regret it: I talked to him about it. I sent him a long text (he lives in another city, which actually made me feel safer about confronting him) which I barely remember anything about, except that it mentioned "that night" and how I had been upset by it. I broke down while typing it, and it probably wasn't very coherent. My brother sent me many short replies in quick bursts when he saw it. He apologized profusely. He said "I don't know what's wrong with me", "I'll get psychological help", alongside many things I don't remember. That had me freaking out a bit. What did he need psychological help for? Was he admitting he's got urges he can't control? But I didn't say anything related to that. I was afraid of accusing him, and I made sure to clarify I was also to blame for not setting down any boundaries. We were both replying to each other without thinking. We were panicking, and full of adrenaline. I was scared of losing him. He was the only connection I had in the city we both lived in (very far from our hometown, where our parents and my friends all live). I didn't want to upset him, because he's a very sensitive person and I already felt guilty for how I was reacting to it. We somewhat resolved the issue over text. Except we didn't. At all. I pretended we did, but I was still plagued by doubts and paranoia. More than the touching, what haunted me were his words: "I'm sorry. Your brother's a creep." They shook me to my core. All I had wanted was to be in denial about what happened, but those words wouldn't let me. The story goes on to this day, but I don't want to write too much about the aftermath of "that night", since I'd be writing for too long and I want to focus on whether it was an instance of abuse. At this point, I feel a little more grounded and able to accept that what happened had sexual undertones. I am still full of shame and guilt. I did consent to some of the touching. I'm not certain I wanted to, but it is something I did. That would usually make me think this is a consensual encounter and that I simply regret it now, but there are many factors that also contribute to my belief that this could potentially be an instance of abuse too. First of all, my brother was 38 at the time. I was 20, which yes, is an adult, but still; he is my much older brother. He was already nearly an adult by the time I was born. He's been a figure of authority my whole life, even though he likes to pretend he's not. He's a little clueless when it comes to what's appropriate or not in social contexts, but I do think someone his age should know better than to sneak his hand under his little sister's shirt and go up her body so much his fingers actually brush against her areola. Secondly, I am neurodivergent, though I hadn't told him at the time. However, when I did tell him, he said he already had suspicions. Regardless of that, I've always been quiet and withdrawn, so it upsets that he initiated touching under the guise of innocent affection and then expected me to be able to express my discomfort when it escalated without him specifying it was going to. I don't think his form of seeking consent was productive at all either. He only asked me if two specific touches were okay, and only after starting to do them. He didn't ask for explicit permission for anything but the cuddling at the start. What I want to say is that I was vulnerable. I am young, inexperienced, autistic, and he has always been an emotional support and almost parental figure to me. I don't know how he can be so naive as to think he doesn't have any power over me. Maybe he does know that, but wasn't thinking at the time. I still don't get why he would touch me like that. I find a little solace in thinking that maybe I didn't have any control over it after all. But I don't know. Maybe I did. I am an adult after all. And I do believe he would have stopped if I had told him to. But I definitely never gave any enthusiastic consent. I feel betrayed. I feel lost. I feel angry. I feel sad. I've been avoiding thinking about it for months. Tonight, it all came back to me once more and I broke down again. I truly don't know what to do. I don't want to tell anyone close to me what happened because I am ashamed. I certainly don't want to tell my parents. I kind of want to cut ties with him, but at the same time I don't because I truly believe he is remorseful about it and I don't want to make him sad. I can't help being naive. I don't know if that's comforting, or embarrassing.

I don't even know if this is sexual abuse/cocsa honestly. My cousin was 9/10 i was 8. All I know is he started touching me and I wasn't allowed to tell anyone. I don't know if this counts as cocsa and I don't want to take away from people who were sexually abused.

In the wave of the Cornell 7, people forget about small colleges. I have since transitioned and identify as a transman. But at the time I still looked like a woman and didn’t know I was transsexual. In 2018 before I graduated, I met this guy at my small private art college. We had a small library and an editing bay at a different room. I always stayed behind to finish my projects. The library student worker was usually there with me alone since it was late into the night. I went there one night to check out the room. He seemed kind of weird but I didn’t think much of it. I contuined several days doing my work etc, staying late at night. One night he came in to check on me and was really weird. I felt off but had to get my project done. He sat on the floor of the room as I ate the dinner my mom packed. Then after I ate he started to kiss me and I felt weird. I didn’t move or say anything. He told me we would continue this later. I was just shocked and didn’t go home right away as I wished now I had. Later he came back to tell me the library was closed and started to kiss me and hug me which I felt weird again. I lived down the street from the college so after security locked up and the school was closed he offered me a ride home. Told me folks were scary out there. Now thinking back I wasn’t very smart because I accepted the ride. Instead of driving me down the street home, he drove to a nearby park and parked on street then pulled out his 🍆 and told me to do things to it. I was scared and didn’t know what to do so I used my hands. He told me to go to the back seat where this contained till he finished. Then he drove me home. The next few days he didn’t really talk to me and started dateing one of the popular girls. I always felt sorry for her seeing them together. If she knew what he was really like but she mean like Regina from Mean Girls. I didn’t tell the college anything because I didn’t know how this would end up or if people would hate me so I just let it go. So SA happens on small campuses as well even more so since they don’t have any kind of security department or have to follow Title IX laws. Plus they are not well known like Cornell or UCLA and won’t face pressure and public backlash to do things right and protect their students.

I was assaulted by a man, who was an acquaintance, in my apartment. We had hooked up once before, and it had been quick but fine. Things started consensually, but at one point it began to hurt me and I asked him if we could stop. At that point, he pushed down on my upper back, high enough that my mouth was half pushed into the pillow. I froze, and couldn't move at all. I just waited for him to finish whatever it was he wanted to do. The aftermath was extremely confusing. I first thought that it was just a bad experience. But as the months went on, I realised it was playing on my mind too much to be dismissed as that. Six months after the assault, I sought some medical tests. It was a year after, amid a particular run of sexual assault stories in the media, that I contacted rape crisis centre to get help. I also reported to the Gardai several years after my assault, and while they handled it well they also warned that if I was to pursue an investigation that the process could be very exposing and I chose not to take it further. My assault took place only six months after I had come out as queer, and so it felt like much of what I had worked hard to accept about myself and to go through as part of coming out was impacted -- the freedom to be who I was and to enjoy my sexuality was taken away for a long time. My assault was not the first time nor the last time I experienced non-consensual behaviour, although was by far the most serious and impactful occurrence.

Having YOUR voice is the most important thing that you can have as an abuse victim. After going through abuse for multiple years at Location, I felt like everything was stripped away from me. My dignity, self respect, confidence, happiness, and strength felt like were taken by the age of 9. Summer after summer i went to this dark place that was supposed to be a positive experience. My parents thought they were dropping me off at a place to help grow my walk with the Lord. What they didnt know is that Name 2 told me that if I did the sexual acts he wanted me to do, he promised that I would become closer to God. He was a sick individual that constantly broke Location's guidelines and the law. The worst part is that Location had insight and knew these events were happening but did nothing. Leaving camp and going back home I remember feeling empty and depressed. You are not at a maturity level at this age to be able to grasp what has happened and how to process it. I went to child advocacy centers to get professional help and struggled to even talk about what happened because it did not make sense in my head and could not verbalize the events or the impact it had on me. As i moved into my teen years I became more depressed. Every night I would have a dream of Name 2 abusing me and I felt like every night I went to sleep, I was going to be abused again. The fear, anger and depression I went through weighed so heavy on me that I was close to not wanting to make it to the next day. After years of this cycle, I decided I needed change to be able to live a full life. I started to to work on my physical, spiritual and mental health. The biggest part of this is having your voice. You have to be able to share your experience so that you can get the help you need and to express the pain you have been through. That is why I am thankful for Trey's Law. This removes the ability for organizations like Location to silence victims after they put them through horrendous experiences. It gives the power back to the Survivor. Treys Law will save lives. It will allow for someone to stick up for themselves. It will allow for less criminals/organizations to get away with what is the worst crime someone can commit. If anyone is reading this and needs help, I am always happy to listen to your voice! Name

I am still in the mid for 2 1/2 year battle in the courts and so I want to remain anonymous through this, but also help myself and others because we all deserve to be heard. I hear you I Hear You For a long time, I thought domestic violence had to look a certain way. I thought there had to be bruises. There had to be blood. There had to be scars that someone else could see. Because that is what we were told. He didn’t beat you with a pipe. It wasn’t that bad. You’re making a bigger deal out of it than it really was. Everybody has marital problems. But I know something now that I didn’t know then. Domestic violence is not defined by the size of the bruise. Sometimes there are no marks. Sometimes there is a pattern: A pattern of intimidation. A pattern of fear. A pattern of screaming and humiliation. A pattern of threats. A pattern of pushing and grabbing. A pattern of destroying things. A pattern of control. A pattern of provoking someone until they finally react—and then using that reaction as proof that they are the problem. And sometimes, there is physical violence too. But the absence of a visible injury does not make what happened less real. Domestic violence can change the entire atmosphere of a home. You learn to listen for the front door. You learn to read facial expressions. You learn the difference between a normal sigh and an angry one. You learn which words are safe and which ones aren’t. You learn what subjects to avoid. You learn how to answer. You learn when to be quiet. You learn how to keep the children quiet. You learn how to keep the peace. You learn to wait. Always waiting for the next shoe to drop. When that becomes your normal, you don’t always recognize that you are living in survival. You just think you’re trying to have a good marriage. Because that is what you wanted. You wanted a good marriage. You wanted a safe home. You wanted happy children. You wanted a close family. You wanted your children to grow up knowing what love looked like. You wanted the family you believed God had given you. And that is part of what makes this so difficult to understand from the outside. The victim often isn’t trying to destroy the family. She is trying desperately to save it. That desire to preserve the family can keep her in survival for years. It can also make the truth harder for others to see. When the Abuser Controls the Story Sometimes the abuser has been telling the story for years before the victim ever finds the courage to tell hers. The abuser doesn’t have to lock her in a room to isolate her. Sometimes they isolate her by controlling the narrative. They tell family members she’s unstable. They tell friends she’s controlling. They tell people she’s difficult. They say the children are disrespectful. They say the wife is turning the children against them. They say, “You don’t know what I have to deal with.” They tell everyone how unreasonable she is. Slowly, people begin to see the victim through the picture the abuser has painted. So when the victim finally speaks, people aren’t hearing her story for the first time. They’re hearing it after someone else has already explained who she supposedly is. That makes being believed even harder. Her tears become proof that she’s unstable. Her anger becomes proof that she’s controlling. Her children’s reactions become proof that she’s turned them against their father. Her attempts to protect the children become proof that she’s keeping them from him. Her frustration becomes proof that she’s difficult. And the abuser can stand back and say: “See?” “See how they are?” “See how crazy she is?” “See how disrespectful the kids are?” “See what I have to deal with?” But what people don’t always see is what happened before that moment. They don’t see the pushing and pushing and pushing. They don’t see the intimidation. They don’t see the hours of screaming. They don’t see the threats. They don’t see the humiliation. They don’t see the destruction. They don’t see the name-calling. They don’t see the financial control and manipulation. They don’t see the fear. They don’t see the gaslighting. They don’t see the years of walking on eggshells. They see the reaction. And sometimes the victim’s reaction is the only thing they remember. But a reaction is not the beginning of the story. And it is not the whole story. The Person Everyone Thinks They Know There is another reason this can be so difficult for people to understand. The abuser can be charming. He can be the guy everyone says would give you the shirt off his back. He can be silly. Funny. Generous. Helpful. Loving with his family. Sometimes he really can be that person, even when no one else is around. And that is where the victim finds hope again. Because she remembers that person too. She sees the good moments. She remembers the laughter. She remembers the tenderness. She sees the version of him that she hoped was the real him. So she tells herself maybe that is who he really is. Maybe things will stay good. Maybe this time will be different. Maybe if she does better, communicates better, mothers better, keeps the house better, says the right things, or stops upsetting him, the good version will stay. That hope can keep a woman trying long after she has been hurt. And when other people only see the charming version, they may have a hard time believing the woman describing what happens behind closed doors. But sometimes the manipulation happens in a way that is even harder to recognize. When we would go away on trips together, just the two of us, he would sometimes use that time to convince me that our problems weren’t really between us. He would say things like: “See how good we are when your child isn’t around?” “See? They’re the problem.” Or he would talk about one of my friends. “See how good we are when you’re not hanging out with that person?” These were the friends he felt intimidated by. The ones who would speak truth to me. The ones he did not have fooled. And because I was away with him, away from my child, away from those friends, and things could feel good, I would believe him. I would think, Maybe he’s right. Maybe my child really is the problem. Maybe that friend really is influencing me. Maybe we really are better when they aren’t around. That is what manipulation can do. It can make you question the very people who are trying to help you see what you cannot see yet. And that is why those trips could be so confusing. Because for a moment, things really could feel good. And then I would come home and my children would tell me what had happened while I was gone. For years, I didn’t know how to reconcile those two realities. The reality I experienced when I was alone with him and the reality my children experienced when I wasn’t there. Eventually, I had to understand that both experiences were real. Because charm does not erase a pattern. Funny does not erase fear. Generosity does not erase intimidation. Tender moments do not erase violence. And the person who can make everyone else laugh can still be the person whose family is afraid of what will happen when the door closes. The reality inside the home can be very different from the picture everyone else sees. Because my child should never have been hiding in the backyard. They should never have been hiding because they were afraid of what would happen when their father came after them with a large wooden spoon. There should never have been holes in the walls. There should never have been a fist in my face while I was being screamed at and yelled at. I should never have been prevented from using a phone when I was trying to call for help. My children should never have been physically thrown around. Items should never have been thrown and broken. There should never have been marks. There should never have been closed-door conversations where I was belittled, told what an awful mother I was, and given instructions about how I needed to correct my children, what I was doing wrong, and what I needed to expect from them. But those things happened. And sometimes the manipulation looked like something else entirely. He would tell me what I needed to do as a mother. He would tell me how I needed to correct the children. He would convince me that he knew better. And I was afraid of him. So I listened. I went out and did what he told me to do while he sat there playing the hero. And I became the bad guy to my own children. I carried out the correction because I was afraid not to. I believed that maybe he was right. That maybe I needed to keep him happy. That maybe he knew better. That maybe if I just did what he said, the anger would stop. That is one of the most painful things for a mother to look back on. Because she can see what her children saw. They saw Mom delivering the correction. They didn’t necessarily see the fear behind it. They didn’t know what had happened behind the closed door. They didn’t know that Mom was sometimes making decisions from a place of survival. And that is how abuse can distort an entire family. The person causing the fear can sometimes look like the hero. And the person trying to manage that fear can end up looking like the problem. When the Veil Begins to Lift But sometimes, something begins to change. There comes a point when you stop doing what he tells you to do. Not because you suddenly become fearless. Not because you have everything figured out. But because something inside you begins to see what you could not see before. The veil starts to come off. You begin to question the things you have accepted for years. You begin to hear your children differently. You begin to hear yourself differently. For years, my children would call me at work and tell me something was wrong. And I would tell them: “Just respect your father.” “What are you guys doing wrong?” I was telling them the same things that had been told to me. I was repeating the very words that had kept me doubting myself. And sometimes, while one of my children was telling me what was happening, he would call on the other line telling me how disrespectful they were. “Don’t believe them.” “They’re disrespectful.” “You don’t know what they’re doing.” And for years, I believed him. But my children kept trying to tell me. Over and over. “Mom, he is different when you’re not here.” “Please don’t leave us here alone with him.” “You don’t know how he is.” “He has you fooled.” Those words are hard for a mother to hear. Especially when you have spent years believing the person you thought you were supposed to trust. And I had spent years hearing another version of the same story. When we were away together, he would tell me: “See how good we are when your child isn’t around?” “See how good we are when you’re not listening to that friend?” He wanted me to believe that the people around me were the reason we had problems. And because things could feel good when I was alone with him, I believed it. I thought maybe my child really was the problem. Maybe that friend really was the problem. Maybe I was listening to people who were making things worse. But those were the very people who would speak truth to me. The people he felt intimidated by. The people he could not fool. And eventually, I started seeing that. Eventually, I started believing my children. And then something even more important happened. I started believing my own reality. I stopped automatically explaining everything away. I stopped automatically asking what they had done to cause it. I stopped automatically assuming that he must be right. And when I stopped playing the role he had given me, something changed. The control he had held for years began to slip. And the anger intensified. The manipulation intensified. The pressure intensified. It was as though losing control of me was different from simply being angry with me. Because for years, I had been responding the way he wanted me to respond. I was believing what he told me. I was correcting my children the way he told me to. I was questioning myself instead of questioning the behavior. I was trying to keep him happy because I was afraid of what would happen if I didn’t. Then I began to stand up. I began to believe my children. I began to trust what I was seeing. And the person who had controlled the narrative for so long no longer had the same control. What I had once understood as simply him being angry began to look different. I could see the pattern. And sometimes that is when the behavior becomes even more frightening—not necessarily because something new has begun, but because the control that existed for years is no longer working the same way. My children had been trying to tell me for years. They had called me. They had begged me. They had pleaded with me not to leave them home alone with him. They were telling me that the person I knew was not the only person they knew. And eventually, I heard them. Eventually, I believed them. Eventually, I believed myself. And then I began to see that what had happened to me was not something that existed only in my imagination or in my marriage. The same patterns were showing up in what my children were experiencing. The same fear. The same manipulation. The same need to manage his anger. The same feeling that something was wrong, followed by the pressure to believe that they were the problem. That was when the picture became harder to deny. Because my children had been trying to tell me what I could not yet see. And sometimes the people closest to the truth are the ones we have been taught not to believe. The Breaking Point Is Not the Whole Story Sometimes when people finally show up at the door, the victim isn’t calm. She’s crying. She’s angry. She’s shaking. She’s defensive. She’s exhausted. She’s done. Because she has been pushed beyond what she can carry. The abuser may be standing there completely calm, looking like the reasonable one. Then comes: “See?” Suddenly, the victim’s breaking point becomes the evidence against her. But ask what happened before the breaking point. Ask what the pattern looked like. Ask what happened when someone said no. Ask what happened when the children didn’t comply. Ask why the children were afraid. Ask why everyone in the home learned how to keep the peace. Ask why the victim was always trying to prevent the next explosion and be the wife and mother the abuser demanded she be. Don’t judge the entire story by the moment the victim finally couldn’t hold it together anymore. Sometimes the person who looks the least composed when everyone arrives is the person who has been holding everything together for years. That is why the pattern matters more than a single moment. The Hidden Cost of Motherhood There is another part of abuse that mothers carry almost silently: the grief of the motherhood they dreamed about but never got to fully experience. Before your children ever arrived, you imagined their tiny hands, their laughter, protecting them, raising them, and giving them a safe and loving home. You didn’t dream about surviving motherhood. You dreamed about being a mom. But when you are living with abuse, motherhood can become another form of survival. You are watching his moods, measuring your words, protecting your children, trying to keep the peace, and wondering what will happen when he comes home. You are not simply raising children. You are trying to raise them while navigating someone else’s anger. And that can leave a mother looking backward with tremendous guilt. You may think about the moments you wish you had handled differently. You may grieve the childhood you wanted your children to have. You may wonder whether they saw you as the bad one because they couldn’t see what you were carrying. But before you condemn yourself, ask yourself: “What was I surviving?” You can acknowledge the moments you wish had been different without taking responsibility for the abuse. You can grieve what was stolen without believing you failed your children. Because your heart was there from the beginning. You wanted to be their mother. You wanted to protect them. You wanted them to be safe. Your heart was never to destroy your family. Your heart was to have one. You Deserve to Be Heard If you have lived something similar, I want you to hear what I wish I had heard sooner. I hear you. I hear the woman who doesn’t have a perfect timeline. I hear the woman who can’t remember every incident. I hear the woman who stayed. I hear the woman who defended him. I hear the woman who made excuses. I hear the woman who wondered whether she was the problem. I hear the woman whose friends and family may have believed someone else’s version of her. I hear the woman who finally reacted after being pushed too far. I hear the woman who began to question what she had been told. I hear the woman who started believing her children. I hear the woman who finally started believing herself. I hear the mother who feels like years were stolen. I hear the mother who looks back and wishes she could have given her children something different. I hear the woman who is ashamed that she stayed. I hear the woman who is ashamed that she reacted. I hear the woman who wonders whether anyone will believe her now. I hear you. You don’t need a perfect story. You don’t need to remember every date. You don’t need photographs of every incident. You don’t need a visible scar. You don’t have to have called the police the first time. You don’t have to have left the first time. You don’t have to prove that someone else had it worse before you are allowed to acknowledge what happened to you. You don’t have to minimize your pain because someone else doesn’t understand it. You don’t have to accept the identity someone else created for you. And you don’t have to believe that because you had imperfect reactions, the abuse wasn’t real. Your reaction does not erase the pattern. Your anger does not erase the fear. Your mistakes do not justify someone else’s choices. The story someone told about you does not automatically become the truth about you. Sometimes the realization comes slowly. Sometimes you can only see the pattern after you are finally far enough away from it. Sometimes you have to look backward and recognize that what you called “marital problems” was actually a pattern of fear, control, intimidation, and abuse. Sometimes the hardest realization isn’t admitting that someone hurt you. It is realizing how long you were taught to doubt yourself. Where We Are Now And then there is the part nobody always tells you about what comes after. Healing is slow. Sometimes it is two steps forward and one step back. Sometimes it is one step forward and two steps back. There are days when the doubt comes back. The fear. The confusion. The instinct to question yourself. Because when the abuser is finally out of the home, it is easy to instinctively go back to what you knew for years. You may hear his voice in your own thoughts. Did that really happen? It really happened. Was it really that bad? Maybe I misunderstood. Maybe I was the problem. And when that happens, you take the next step toward truth. You tell yourself what you know. Yes. It happened. The hitting happened. The pushing happened. The name-calling happened. The screaming in my face happened. The phone calls I received while I was at work happened. The threats of violence happened. The actual violence happened. The broken items happened. The intimidation happened. The financial control happened. The lying and hiding of money happened. The fear was real. The pattern was real. It was all true. And you may have to tell yourself that more than once. Not because you are weak. But because you spent years being taught to question your own reality. So healing may not look like never doubting again. Sometimes healing looks like recognizing the doubt and answering it with truth. I know what happened. I know what I lived. I know what my children experienced. I do not have to rewrite the truth to make someone else’s narrative more comfortable. The story may still be told differently by the person who caused the harm. The narrative may still be manipulated. Other people may still believe a different version. But their version does not change what happened. You do not have to spend the rest of your life arguing with every version of the story. Sometimes you simply stand in the truth you know. And then you take the next step. Then another. And another. Healing is happening. Redemption is happening. Restoration is happening. Little by little. God is restoring what was taken. Not all at once. Not on the timeline you imagined. But piece by piece, He is teaching you that your life is more than what happened to you. The years cannot be rewritten. The things that happened cannot be undone. But what was stolen does not have to be the end of your story. There can be truth after confusion. There can be peace after fear. There can be identity after years of being told who you were. There can be motherhood after survival. There can be life after abuse. And there can be redemption. There can be restoration. So if you are somewhere in this story right now—still questioning, still afraid, still trying to understand, still grieving, or just beginning to see the veil lift—I want you to know: You do not have to figure it all out today. Take the next step toward truth. When the doubt comes, tell yourself what you know. It happened. It was real. The pattern was real. And you are allowed to heal from something that really happened. You are allowed to grieve what was lost. You are allowed to believe your children. You are allowed to believe yourself. You are allowed to rebuild. You are allowed to become more than the woman who survived. You are still here. And little by little, God is restoring what was taken. I hear you. Your story is real. And you matter—not because someone else finally believes you, but because you were always worthy to be heard.

I don't know how in detail I can go here because I do not want to pursue legal action for anything. I truly do not know how bad everything was and how much is gaps in my memory, I only know that he hurt my dog in front of me and yelled at me and cursed at me and called me things at such a young age that I couldn't understand. I was a defiant child and I learned to be sexually exploratory at a very young age due to not understanding what was happening. I just knew I was forced to hug others without clothes on and that I was pinned down upon occasion for money incentives when I was really young and that I was touched by someone for something necessary and medial but that the wrong person did it to me and got carried away and made it about more than the medicine. I learned to be okay with it in my relationships as well and my first one was very weird, I was forced to act ways I did not want to and forced to go on dates or else the person would threaten to hurt themselves. I am in a healthy relationship now though. I don't really know how to describe what has happened to me because I don't think I have been raped per se but I feel like I have been taken advantage of my whole life.

People think moving on means letting go, closing the door, and never looking back. As much as my nervous system would like that, it's not my path. I am staring the monster dead in the eye and doing my best to learn what happened to us in hopes we will heal—mind, body, and spirit. Don't give up, whispers a flickering light on a dead battery, let the thoughts come. Answers will bring closure and protection in the long run, but for now there's cancer inside the ravaged shell. Welcome to your crash course in psychopathy—put your seatbelt on, because it's a brutal ride. We now step into the realization phase. Cognitive dissonance. Watch your step, it's going to hurt like hell as it crushes you from the inside out. Close your eyes, rip off the electrodes, and let's find out who you are. We don't bury memories in this sobering abyss. My ears bleed as my heart listens to everything it knows but doesn't want to understand. It has a name now, a sequence, and a chill to the aftermath. She challenges me, the mother part, she begs me to let her protect me. The sirens are piercing as reality blazes. The merry-go-round of flashbacks is like a non-stop slideshow that fits perfectly into place. Nothing makes sense, yet it's all right there. Everything I thought was, wasn't. I'm dizzy. I always pictured the beginning as a gentle shining thing, but that's not right. God is a woman with sweat on her skin, blood on the floor, and no honest man to be found. So here we are, moving back and forth in the stages of grief, but this is not like normal grief that others know. This is the insidious type—unique to the encounter of a psychopath. It's a spiritual malady, a soul rupture if you will. The poison that's been bestowed upon us is called PTSD, and all its symptoms are vile. This is about what is the same, familiar, and repeated. It's complex to live in a house with a security system that is always scanning for threat. The house was the abuser, the alarm system is you, and once you moved in, the security was broken and replaced with coercive control. The eye of this storm is ugly, nasty, cunning, baffling, and powerful—it lives in your mind, body, and soul. This is with you at the doctor, you see it in the mirror. You hear it alone in bed at night. It haunts the pages in your journal, rolls around your tortured mind, and cries through your voice in the moments you feel like dying. But none of that, not one bit, is as horrifying as watching someone benefit from consuming your daughter's soul and tossing her aside like roadkill. This person is no person at all, but a parasite—self-centered, self-serving, and devouring. She's living this experience right along with you, as it tries to kill her too. I cannot express the brutality of witnessing that the most important thing in my world is the exact thing he infested. That's what evil looks like—the greatest trick the devil ever played, convincing the world he wasn't real. As a mother, this is the blunt force that leaves no visible mark. This is the gentle force into acceptance. Please stop, it says. You cannot make them understand. They must seek it on their own. Only if they do will you be safe to give them pieces of your story. This is the uncomfortable mothership of truths about human beings. Those who don't educate themselves as passengers on this flight will continue to inadvertently trigger survivors with insensitive responses. That won't change unless they do. Where there's no lived experience, there's no understanding; understanding is the necessity for connection—and connection is life. And what a disturbing realization: you've been caught in this endless loop. Crumbs of attention were the only hope you had to cling to. Trapped in desperation, you've been searching for something to make you real, but it doesn't sit right anymore. Survivors don't thrive held in purgatory. The stars look very different today as we step into the unknown. Floating in the most peculiar way, it's time to exit the painful space of bargaining with others. My dream for you is that someday you'll be able to talk about trauma from your core self with clarity, serenity, and certainty. It will glow with the resilience of new limbs you grew from a deadly climb. Those willing to hear will learn from you, but for now, we stop translating while we're drowning and we start sitting still in the muck. When we don't sit with our parts, when we give them away, we cannot fully integrate them; when we cannot fully integrate them, we stay fragmented. We are not the professor, we are the student, and our spirit is in line. I release you from the job of hurting, healing, and helping all at once. This was never a fair assignment. The mental torture you've endured was terrorism. You never had to apologize. You didn't take anything; it was taken from you. "They tried to bury us, but they didn't know we were seeds."

I am a child sexual abuse survivor living in Canada with an NDA for childhood sexual abuse for the past 28 years. When I sought to lift my NDA in 2018 after my abuser had died, the British Columbia court denied me and refused to lift the NDA. So, for the past seven years, I have been advocating both provincial and federal politicians in Canada to ban the misuse of NDAs for childhood sexual abuse survivors. With the passage of Trey's Law in both Texas and Missouri (and more states soon, I hope!), this will place pressure on the Canadian government and the provinces to pass similar legislation. I'm very heartened (and healed too!) by all of the survivors sharing their stories in the Missouri and Texas legislatures. All of this testimony is very important as evidence to prove the long-term extensive damage of an NDA on a childhood abuse victim for ensuing court cases. (This kind of evidence of long-term damage was missing in my BC court case; as a result, my application to lift the NDA was denied). We all need to keep speaking out to change the future for children. We might not be able to change the past, but we can certainly change the present and make the world safer for others. After a great deal of suffering for many years, I can see now that the suffering has had a meaning. As a result, I have become a stronger person. I am not thankful for the abuse, but it seems to me that a greater force in the universe is helping all victims to completely change the world right now. It is an unprecedented moment in human history and we all need to keep moving this incredible change forward. Thank you to Trey's Law and to all the survivors who have spoken in support of Trey's Law.

I survived. I got out. You can too. Insidious and devious are the words I think of when I've wondered how I got trapped. My ex-spouse was so charming, everybody thought he was a great person and I did too. So much so that I decided to ignore the fact he raped me and chalked it up to us drinking. Then gradually as we dated and then married he tried to spin a web of control around me by being angry and violent when I would spend time with friends or go to the gym or go to the library to study. Telling me I was not allowed to go to the gym because there were men there. Being told I couldn't go to work events. Calling my work when I was working late and accusing me of having affairs, then being verbally and physically abusive. He was so successful at manipulating others even my dad, initially, didn't believe me when I told him about the monster and the horrible things I had endured. I finally told my dad what had been going on when he threatened to kill me and chased me with a baseball bat. I was able to get in my car and get away and called my dad crying and screaming. He thought I had lost my mind. Some of my friends also thought I had lost it, and told me oh he is so nice and scoffed when I said I was filing for divorce and a protective order. After the first two calls to the sheriff they believed me and were so kind, frequently driving by my house and making sure I was safe. There is power in being believed. There is strength in knowing that others have made it out both alive and eventually became whole. I still experience occasional flashbacks and certain situations will trigger my anxiety, but I am able to trust people again and no longer fear "being in trouble" if I spend time with friends. Even more, I have allowed myself to become emotionally vulnerable with other people again after all these years. That was a huge leap for me. And I genuinely feel like a good person again.

I was only 6 years old when I was sexually assaulted. The first time I talked about it with anyone and said it out loud was this year. I'm now 22... that means it's been 16 years later. But I am so thankful to have the support system I do have - the support system who has been strong enough to give me the courage to finally speak up for myself ❤️