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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.

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.

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.

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.

At the age of 8-9? I can’t really remember clearly but I had a cousin who was really close with me she and I would be inseparable almost she and I were practically besties ! Until when we were in the closet one day she showed me things I didn’t want to see and I don’t even remember vaguely but I was touched and didn’t consent but also didn’t stop it she showed me things and I can’t tell if its cosca, i dont want to be wrong because we did things together that was absolutely gross and so wrong to do i feel so dirty so icky and weird about how i am supposed to just forget it or am i not?

He and I met on date. I was 17 and he was 19. I had just gotten back to Australia after living in America for a year when I decided to text him that I was back. We had been talking on Snapchat for a few months so he invited me out for a walk to get coffee. Our first meeting went well and we started hanging out regularly. During the course of our year and a half relationship, moments turned sour. “What else are you into?” he asked while we were having sex. “I don’t know. What about you?” I replied. “Slapping.” I was taken aback, but since I had feelings for him I wanted to impress him. Big mistake. “You want to slap me?” I asked hesitantly. “Kinda.” “Okay. We can try it.” So he slapped me across the face. It stung but I didn’t show it. “You like that?” he grinned. “Yeah.” I didn’t but I was too caught up in my feelings to say that. “You can slap me too if you want.” I never consented to slapping again; he never asked. Some time after, I refused to give him a kiss so he grabbed my hair and pulled me towards him. I pulled away and he slapped me. I kissed him so he wouldn’t do it again. I felt scared when he did that because he hadn’t asked to slap me and he did it because I had refused him a kiss. Similarly, another time he was asking for a kiss when I was on top of him. I laughed and pulled away. “Please.” He begged. “Nuh uh.” I giggled. “Please?” He asked again. I shook my head as he puckered his lips. I kissed him everywhere on the face except his lips. He didn’t say anything after that, just looked at my necklace and grabbed it, ripping it from around my neck. We stared at each other for seconds before I laughed so I wouldn’t cry. He said something about it being cheaply made. He offered to buy me a new one but I said I’d fix it at home. I learned later that it was too damaged to be fixed. That shocked me. I was going to cry but I put on a brave face for him because I didn’t know what he would do if he saw me cry. I was scared when he reached out to grab it and he pulled me forward as I tried to pull away and it broke the necklace. Another day we were curled up in front of the TV when I blurted out: “What’s your weirdest kink?” He thought for a moment before answering. “Blood,” he said. What was I supposed to say to that? I went along with it because I was curious and I didn’t expect it to go as far as it did. “Huh. Want to add more?” I asked, indicating the scars of self-harm on my arm. Stupid answer. Was I trying to impress him? Maybe I thought it was hot at the time? He chuckled. “Don’t have a sharp enough knife, I’m afraid. But when I get one, would you like to add some to me?” “Only if you want me to.” A moment of silence broken only by the TV. “How about you?” He asked. I was staring at the TV and distracted from the conversation, kind of hoping if I disappeared into the video that was playing the conversation would end. “Huh?” I eventually answered. “What’s your weirdest kink?” “Similar to yours; I like knives.” Again, I was trying to impress him. I was thinking about the time a guy I hooked up with name gave me a hunting knife because I said I sold mine. “I have a knife.” He had a pocketknife that he opened packages with. “I know. Want to give it a try?” “Do you want to?” “Sure.” No. Why did I say that? He got up, retrieved his pocketknife and returned to the bed. We made out, got undressed and soon enough, he slipped inside me and brought the blade to my throat. Maybe he asked where and I said hold it against my neck? I dunno, just not near my tits. That’s really funny now because I have my nipples pierced. He had his eyes closed and was focused on our lips and he accidentally poked the side of my neck. That hurt. I pulled away from his kiss to hold his hand as he held it. I was worried because I thought he should’ve been paying more attention so I wouldn’t get hurt. I didn’t mention it until the next time we hung out. The next time(date 2), he begged to cut off my underwear. I said okay, as long as he didn’t bring the knife near my throat again. He started hacking away and once there was a giant hole, he gave up and pulled them off before positioning himself between my legs and thrusting. He brought the knife to my throat. Thinking he had misheard me, I asked him to put it down. Through kisses, he asked why and I explained that he had poked my neck last time and I wasn’t interested in that happening again. He promised it wouldn’t and we kept going. I felt annoyed that he didn't move the knife when I asked him to but he kept kissing me so I was distracted by that. I think I asked him to put it down again after that. Perhaps not, I really don’t remember. I did try to push it away but he wouldn’t move his hand so it ended up being me pushing and him holding it in place. I stopped fighting against him but I kept my hand there. This was really frightening. I didn’t want the knife there and he wouldn’t move it. He asked if I wanted to top and I said sure so we switched positions and when I was settled, he handed me the knife. As I went to put it down beside us, he took my hand and assisted me in holding it against his throat. Full on holding my hand with the knife in it against his throat. This was uncomfortable and disturbing because I wanted to put it down. I kissed him and told him I wanted to put it down and finally he gave in. When we were finished, I told him again that I didn’t want the knife near my throat because he poked me before. He shrugged and said, “oh sorry.” I don’t understand why he didn’t respect my initial no, I figured it was because of that old saying that everyone thinks at one point or another. ‘Boys will be boys’. When I asked him to stop, he should’ve stopped. Instead, he put me in an impossible situation where I had a knife at my throat and a man on top of me who refused to remove it. He made me complicit by putting the knife in my hand. I went to his house again after that and his hand tried to go up my shirt but I stopped him. I said, “No sex; just kisses.” “Just kisses?” He asked. I nod. “Okay.” He said. We kiss every few minutes while taking breaks to watch TV. His hand kept running up and down my hip and thigh. I took his hand and placed it on my thigh, telling him to ‘stay’. We kept kissing and his hand slowly trailed along my thigh and down to my butt, squeezing and stroking gently. I didn’t want him to do this. I wanted to kiss, cuddle and watch TV. He continued to escalate. I moved it back to my thigh and told him to leave it there. He tried to put his leg between my thighs like he’d do when we were naked before sex and doing a bit of foreplay. “Move your leg.” “Sorry.” He grumbled. His hand kept moving so I rolled over and put his hand on his thigh. “Stop touching me.” My turn to grumble. He asked, “Why?” “Because you’re making me horny.” “Good; be horny with me.” He said as he started kissing my neck and pressed his erection against my butt. “Not today. Don’t feel like it.” I moved my legs up and wiggled forward so my butt and his erection were inches apart. He stretched and moved his thighs so they were pressed against the back of my thighs and his erection was back against my butt. Every time he asked again or moved so he was touching me it annoyed me and made me uncomfortable but I gave in because he kept asking and I figured I’ve had sex with him before and he’s not taking no for an answer so why don’t I just give it up to him? I rolled back around to face him and we kissed again. “Please, I need you.” He begged against my lips. I’m sure his boner wasn’t comfortable. So, I gave in. “I need you too, pretty.” “Can we fuck?” He asked. “Okay.” I did not want to have sex with him. I was just there for kisses and cuddles. I gave in because he wouldn’t stop asking. His hand went under my shirt and bra and he pulled both up. I removed them for him and he removed his own before settling back down with his thigh between mine. “Grind for me.” He commanded. “But I want you to fuck me.” “I will. Grind first.” I tried to protest but he started kissing and sucking on my nipples and instead, I moaned. I didn’t want to grind. I just wanted to get sex over with. But he kept telling me to grind and he started grinding so I couldn’t really do anything else. He started grinding so I followed and grinded against his thigh as we made out. As I got closer to orgasming, I said, “Please stop.” He paused and asked, “Why, baby?” “‘cause I’m gonna cum.” He continued to grind even though I had stopped. This was frightening because my body was like yes I want to orgasm but my mind was like no not like this. “Good girl,” he moaned. “Cum for me.” “But I’m wearing pants—“ Valid reason for stopping, again not sure why he pushed through. “Shhh, that’s okay.” He took hold of my hips and guided me along his thigh, causing me to orgasm. My face was hot with embarrassment and I hid in his neck. When he stopped, he asked, “Did you cum?” “Mhm.” I nod against his neck. I had which frightened me even more because I didn’t want to but the friction against my body forced me over the edge. “Good girl.” No break, no warning; his hand wormed its way into my pants and underwear and he began to finger me. This is another example of how he refused to respect my boundaries and coerced me, wearing me down until I said yes. He would play games when we were done, logging onto Discord to voice chat with his friends. When he was in the middle of a game, I overheard him say, “how to give a bitch Stockholm Syndrome”. Again, I brushed it off as him being edgy. I realise now how disturbing his mindset had to be to say something like that. I told him I don’t beg for anyone. The next minute, we were undressed and he was rubbing himself against me, instructing me to beg or he wouldn’t put it in. I tried to resist, but he pinned my hands until I gave in. This was terrifying because I had just said I didn’t beg. I didn’t want to beg. I was stuck underneath him until he forced it out of me by rubbing my parts. He slapped me then he would say, “you’re such a desperate slut.” I replied, “only for you.” And then he kissed me. Once he even told me that he was researching psychological warfare, and when I asked what that was, he said, “manipulation tactics.” Which truly highlights his mindset. I thought I might be pregnant and I sent him a text about it, expecting comfort and emotional maturity. What I was met with was a photo of a gun and cleaning supplies. This startled me because I was expecting him to have some maturity but instead he met me with a threat. Before I went to university, I joked about him getting together with an old lady to keep him company since our town is basically a retirement village. He said nah, he’s going to scout the high school for a 17 year old. With all the bad times stacked together like this, it’s easy to see the toxicity. However, it wasn’t all just bad times. He drip-fed me affection to keep me hooked on him, so that every time I tried to leave, he knew I’d come back hoping for the good version of him. We were watching a show when a scene depicting criminals getting shot at when I had a thought of what if one day it’s late at night and I’m at home with our future kids and he’s out somewhere and something bad happens to him but I can’t help him? A tear fell down my cheek and landed on his bare chest. I froze. I knew he felt it but I wasn’t sure how he’d react. He gently kissed the top of my head, changed the channel to ‘channel’—a YouTube channel we always laughed at while we watched. I felt good inside when we had moments like this. That kept me coming back. I knew he could be decent and kind to me but he just chose his own desires over my comfort a lot of the time. We were at his house in his new room and he kept trying to engage in intercourse with me. I told him no, that I just wanted to cuddle and watch TV. He got grumpy at that and told me “if you’re not going to have sex with me, you can leave.” I got up, started grabbing my stuff and he asked where I was going. I said I was leaving and all he said was okay. That response was so dry that I decided to stay. I climbed back onto the bed and he kept asking, “can I touch you?” I kept repeating, “it’s probably dry.” Without warning, he shoved his hand down my pants and started rubbing me, moaning about how wet I was. I didn’t want to lose him. I care about him so much and the thought of just because I didn’t want to do something like sex would lose him was too overwhelming. I didn’t want to lose him and him saying that put a lot of pressure on me to have sex with him. We started having sex because he wanted to and I didn’t want to get kicked out. His bed was too squeaky so we moved to the floor. I asked him to pass me a pillow and he dropped it on my face. Then he came over, stood above me and started waving his dick around over my face and squatting lower. This was horrifying. Why was he squatting over my face? I still have flashbacks about this where I can see everything going on up there. I asked him what he was doing multiple times and he was just grinning without responding. Finally, I crawled out from under him and asked if he was about to take a shit on me. He replied that he was just going to get me to suck him off. I didn’t agree to any of that. This, again, was horrifying. I didn’t want sex that day. I was visibly stalling sex that day by saying we should go to the wall (didn’t work I was too tall) and then the floor and when I ended up on the floor I had one of the worst and most absurd sexual experiences of my life. It wasn’t all bad. We were eating Domino’s BBQ chicken in bed when a drop of sauce fell onto my breast and he pointed it out. “Lick it up.” I grinned. “Ew, that’s gross.” He grimaced. “You weren’t complaining ten minutes ago.” He nodded. “True.” He licked it off. Some time later, he made a joke about getting me BBQ sauce for my birthday. I brought a pair of handcuffs over to his house and he put them on himself and got stuck in them. I had to help him out. Another time I was tickling his feet and he grabbed me and put me in a headlock with his legs and tried to fart on my face. This happened more than once. Christmas came rolling around and he asked me what I wanted for Christmas. Excited, I told him to surprise me and I went shopping for him, buying a bunch of items I thought he’d like including a music note necklace, a dragon-skin bauble, dice, fidget toys, incense and an incense stand. Of course, his favourite expensive chocolates too. When I gave him his presents, he had nothing for me. I saw a cat statue on his desk and he said it was for his ex-girlfriend. He never got me anything. One time he just stood in the corner, pointing the knife at me and smiling. I told him he was being creepy and he put it away after standing there for a few more seconds. His ex called and he stepped out of the room, coming back to tell me that her dog had humped her leg. He showed me a video on website of a vagina turned into a crack pipe and asked if he could do that to me. I made a deal with him that if he got sex, I had to get at least 10 minutes of cuddles afterwards. Sex usually lasted about an hour. Sometimes when we cuddled he would fully wrap me up in his arms while I laid on his chest. Other times he would throw a lazy hand over my waist. Most times he would get me to spoon him (him as little spoon). Although, one time we were half asleep and I was cuddling him when I rolled over and he rolled over to spoon me and I don’t think I’d ever been happier with him. The third time we used the knife he wasn’t responding to any of my texts so I texted him, “fuck me with a knife against my throat.” He finally responded and told me to come over. I did and he told me to go get the knife while he stepped out of the room. I did and it wasn’t in the spot he kept it. I climbed back on the bed where I was before he left the room and felt a hard object under the pillow. I looked and there was the knife. He slid it under my pillow before he had left. That confused me. Why ask me to go get it? He got two bottles of cold water and brought them in, giving me one and putting a pill in the other right in front of me before shaking the bottle and drinking it. He put the bottle next to mine and I don’t know if they got jumbled up while I wasn’t looking. I asked him for a brush when I was at his house. He got one and tried to brush my hair. He messed with my part so I got the brush and told him he ruined it. Silly moment. He liked choking. Sometimes he would direct my hand to his throat. I asked him once if he’d like to choke me to see how long it would take me to black out. He agreed and his hand was wrapped around my throat for about five to ten minutes before he stopped because his hand started cramping. I was trying to be someone he’d accept. Early in our relationship, he mentioned that he had a stalker before. A girl. I wonder where she is today. Once he wanted to have sex while I was on my period. I didn’t have tampons so we agreed that the next day when I came over I would bring some because I was staying the night. I got to his house but I forgot the tampons and my pajama pants. I called Mum and she brought them down for me. name and I had sex after he put towels down. It was normal I suppose, a bit drier. We showered after. The next time I was on my period he didn’t want to have sex again. I sucked him off and that continued until one day we had period sex again and he got two garbage bags for my tampon. Another time we were at my house and he wanted me to make out with him while he jerked himself off. Usually I swallowed his semen when he was about to finish and he’d let me know. That time he didn’t tell me after I asked him to and instead, cleaned himself up with toilet paper and didn’t give me an explanation. Later into our relationship, I asked if he still saw a future with me like he said he did. He said, “not really anymore.” I asked why. He replied, “you’re not my type.” I asked what his type is. He said, “alternative.” I tried to leave him. A lot. I left his house and said, “see you never.” He replied, “that’s what you said last time.” On my bed, watching the TV that I bought because he made a comment about my lack of one. We were making out and his arms were around me. He trailed a hand up and down my body. He kept asking through kisses, “sex?” I kept saying ‘maybe’ at first and then I said, “can’t we just hang out and not have sex?” He kept asking. I didn’t want to have sex with him, I just wanted to cuddle and watch TV. He replied, “but you make me so horny.” “We have sex all the time, I’m trying to just be friends here.” “But sex would feel so good right now.” He continued to pressure me in subtle ways like that, asking over and over again. We kissed. His hands explored my body. My hands stayed in his hair mostly. He kept grinding himself against me, pushing his boner against my thigh. He rolled over, positioned himself between my legs and asked me to grind with him. I caved. Feeling him against me made me aroused and I gave in. I didn’t want sex in the first place. This hurts to think about because I always gave in after he continued to touch me. I liked kissing him and I tried asking him to keep his hands still but if I moved them to my thigh he’d trail them to my butt and if I moved them to my hips he played with my boobs. I just wanted to watch tv and kiss. But because he was now on top of me and his dick was pressed against my privates, I gave in. We did and afterwards we pulled our clothes off and went back to making out. We had sex. It was lasting a while. name said he was going to finish and then didn’t twice. I suggested that we take a break. He didn’t listen and kept going. “Should we take a break? It’ll be ten minutes, baby, and we can go back to it.” He shook his head. “I’m almost there.” I waited like twenty more minutes for him to finish, watching the tv over his shoulder while he thrusted into me. Luckily, I asked him to move his head and I positioned my deaf ear to face it towards his moans while my good ear was positioned towards the TV. “Have you finished?” I asked. A few times. He shook his head and I asked again. “C’mon, let’s take a break. Ten minutes of watching TV then we’ll go back to it, I promise.” He still didn’t agree, I had to ask a few more times after that. When he reluctantly agreed and climbed off, he laid next to me on the bed. He started stroking himself while I was watching TV and he told me to touch myself. I asked ‘why?’ And he responded, “because it’s hot.” I did it for two minutes and then stopped. He started touching me. I pushed his hand away after a little while. “Do you want head?” He asked. I nodded and he pulled me down to the end of the bed. He was alright but I pulled him back up to get him to fuck me so it would be over with. He positioned himself as we made out back on top of me and we continued having sex. He finished and without bothering to pull out he fell asleep on top of me, taking a nap and drooling all over my hair and cushion. I asked him to come to the town’s show with me. He called it a shit show. When I asked if he’d come to the local event with me, he said that it’s even worse than the show. He wouldn’t go to lunch with me unless I begged and paid for both of us. He refused to meet my parents and he’d sneak in and out of my house, one time even hiding under a blanket when I was saying goodbye to my aunt. He used to drop tissues on my face when he finished, telling me to clean up. When I was on top, I did the same to him. He just smirked and dragged the tissue across his face, making a funny face every time the tissue passed over it. That made me giggle and he told me to keep doing that because it felt good. Mind you, he was still inside me at the time. He never said we were dating, always that we were ‘friends with benefits’ or ‘a situationship’. He swiped right on my sister’s social media handle and pretended it was a joke. He hooked up with my friend while we were seeing each other. We walked down to restaurant once because they forgot his drinks so we walked down. Sometimes he would be getting a tissue or passing me something and he would randomly thrust into me to see me gasp. I called him handsome and he said ‘actually I prefer pretty’. So I started calling him pretty boy. He sniffed his fingers after fingering me and said he was testing the pH levels. He said his ex had BPD. Later said he got diagnosed. When I was on my period he asked if he could touch himself and i said yes then the next time he’d just whip it out without asking. He asked me to sit on his face. I giggled and said no id crush you. He says I wouldn't and stuff I refuse again. He tells me he’s not gonna come around much anymore. We kissed and I asked him if he just wanted a break for a while. He said yeah and I asked him if he was gonna come back. He said maybe. He asked me to sit on his face again. I again refuse. He used to blow vape smoke into my open mouth. I asked him why he kisses me if we’re just friends he said because it’s fun. I told him he was good at making out and he said I was average and I have thin lips. He made these funny noises the first time we had sex and he just came and I started laughing and he’s like you’re the first person to laugh at that. He stopped during the middle of sex to watch his dick go in and out because “it looks like a piston.” We were listening to song and he came over, kissed me and grabbed my arms saying “your arms look like little cigarettes”. I started singing the next part of the song. We laughed. I was high on weed most of the times I went down there. He knew, we brought it up occasionally but he didn’t slow down when it came to sex. He finally left me after I tried to commit suicide, told him I went to the hospital when really I was scared and hid in my room. I told him I lied and he freaked out, sending me a message that said, “my point is whilst you were idealising your own death I was stressed like a mf and everytime you declined my help it didn't make me feel really all that good, then you lied to me about getting help you made me feel like shit.” I wouldn’t stop messaging him, trying to get him back and understand why he treated me the way he did. He got an AVO and is actively using it against me. I can’t talk to him to ask him to explain this even though I want to. I tried to contact him before and he reported it. I just need to understand what happened because this is really overwhelming me on a daily basis.

The Story I Never Thought I Would Have to Tell It started at my job. He got a job where I worked, and at first, I would notice him walking by my desk. He would smile and wave at me. Eventually, he started talking to me. He was very handsome, charming, and attentive. He made me feel noticed. Very early in our relationship, he started talking about the future. He told me he wanted a family. He talked about getting married and building a life together. He even gave me a ring very early in the relationship. Looking back now, I recognize the first red flag: love bombing. But at the time, I didn’t know that. I thought I had finally met someone who knew what he wanted. Someone who was serious about me. Someone who wasn’t afraid to show me that he cared. There were flowers, nice dates, and little surprises left at my desk. He made me feel special, and everything seemed exciting and romantic. He had two children, around the same ages as my own children. We started spending time together as a family. We would take all the kids to the park and spend time together. Watching our children play made it feel like we were building the family he had told me he wanted. I believed him. He told me that he and the mother of his children were separated. Because he was bringing his children around me and including me in their lives, I never had a reason to believe that he was lying. But there was something I didn’t know. He was still married. And I had no idea that the relationship I thought was becoming my future had already been built on a lie. When Everything Started Changing Within about three months of our relationship, he told me he wanted me to move in with him. He started looking for a house for us, and eventually, we found one. It was a three-bedroom house, big enough for all of us and the children. I remember feeling excited. I thought this was the beginning of the family he had talked about from the very beginning. Then one day, everything changed. He told me, “My ex-wife lost her job and doesn’t have anywhere to live. Can she move in with us while she gets back on her feet?” It sounded like a question, but it really wasn’t. Eventually, he told me, “I can’t leave my kid and mother to fend for themselves. You can come live with us or not, but she is coming to the new house.” I gave in. I told myself it was temporary. I told myself it was about helping his children and that eventually she would get back on her feet and move out. He even arranged for the three of us to meet at a restaurant so we could talk about the living arrangements, rules, and expectations. She agreed to everything. She told me that she and him were no longer together and that this was only temporary. She needed somewhere to stay while she got back on her feet. So I believed both of them. I moved forward thinking I was moving into a home with the man I loved, and that his ex-wife was simply someone we were helping through a difficult time. I didn’t understand yet that I was slowly being placed into a situation where my boundaries, my comfort, and my choices were becoming less and less important. The Day I Moved In The day I moved into that house, I found out that she was in the master bathroom with him. I remember thinking, What is happening? This wasn’t what I had agreed to. This wasn’t the relationship I thought I was moving into. But somehow, he convinced me that this was just the situation we were in. He made me share a room with both of them. Eventually, I couldn’t do it anymore. I moved into one of the kids’ rooms with my children because I just couldn’t sleep in that situation. She eventually did the same. She slept with her children in one room, I slept with mine in another, and he had the master bedroom to himself. From time to time, I would still join him in the master bedroom. And somehow, in my mind, I kept trying to make sense of everything. I thought, At least he’s being honest with me, right? He had told me she was his ex-wife. He had told me they weren’t together anymore. He had told me she was only moving in temporarily because she needed somewhere to live. So I tried to believe what I had been told. I tried to convince myself that this was just an unusual living situation. I didn’t realize yet that I was already learning one of the most painful lessons of an abusive relationship: Sometimes the manipulation begins by convincing you that something completely unacceptable is actually normal. I was confused. I was uncomfortable. But I loved him. And when you love someone, sometimes you don’t want to believe what your instincts are screaming at you. The First Time He Put His Hands on Me Up until that point, he hadn’t physically abused me. There had been confusion. There had been manipulation. There had been things that didn’t make sense. But he had never put his hands on me. Then one day, everything changed. He went out with another coworker. Looking back now, I realize he was probably cheating on both of us—which, honestly, I can almost laugh about now because of how ridiculous the situation was. He came home late. Someone had apparently told him that before I met him, I had been involved with another man from work. It wasn’t true. But that didn’t matter. He came home angry and started yelling at me. And then he picked me up from one couch and threw me onto another couch. I was devastated. I cried and cried. I remember feeling shocked—not only because he had hurt me, but because I couldn’t believe the man I had fallen in love with had just done that to me. I started gathering my things. I was going to leave. But he wouldn’t let me. And somehow, just like so many of our fights after that, it ended with sex. Then he acted like nothing had happened. Like the screaming hadn’t happened. Like he hadn’t put his hands on me. Like he hadn’t thrown me. And I went along with it. Not because I was okay. Not because I had forgiven him. I was scared. I had already learned that fighting back or trying to leave could make things worse. So I did what I thought I had to do to get through the moment. Looking back, I understand something I couldn’t understand then: That wasn’t making peace. That was survival. When the Abnormal Started Feeling Normal Eventually, he found a bigger house in a nice neighborhood for all of us. By then, I had been with him for about a year. Somehow, I had become accustomed to the living situation. What had seemed completely unbelievable when I first moved in had slowly become my normal. And something else happened that I still have a hard time explaining. I had started to care about the other woman. Or, more accurately, I had started to care about his wife. We were living together. Raising children under the same roof. Sharing the same strange reality. Over time, I became attached to her in a way I never expected. Meanwhile, his family didn’t even know about me. At work, people knew there was something going on. But even there, he would tell people that we were just friends and that he was only helping me out. He had another woman there too. Sometimes I still think about how he managed to live this double—or triple—life right in front of everyone without seeming to feel any shame. I couldn’t understand it. Eventually, we moved into the new house. The house was bigger and in a nicer neighborhood, but the environment inside it didn’t become better. The emotional abuse continued. And the physical abuse became something that happened here and there—another slap, another incident, another time when I told myself it wasn’t that bad. Eventually, it became the norm. The house had to be spotless. I was constantly walking on eggshells, always trying to anticipate what might make him angry. There were cameras throughout the house. I felt watched all the time. And eventually, even the children began learning how to manipulate me. I want to be careful when I say that because they were children. They were kids. They were learning from the environment they were growing up in. And I didn’t blame them. Instead, I tried even harder to take care of them. I wanted them to be happy. I wanted everything around them to be peaceful. And, if I’m being completely honest, I was also trying to protect myself. I would make sure the house was clean. I would take care of the children. I would do everything I could think of to make everyone happy so that he wouldn’t find a reason to be angry with me. I was constantly trying to prevent the next explosion. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was no longer living my life. I was managing his moods. The Fresh Start I Thought Would Save Us After about a year in that house, he decided he wanted to start over. In a different state. Fifteen hours away from our families. Looking back, I can see how desperately I wanted to believe this was going to change everything. The way I saw it was simple: We’ll be away from his family. Maybe now he’ll finally see me as his girlfriend. Maybe now I’ll finally have a real place in his life. I thought maybe the problem had been his family. He wanted to maintain the perfect family image for his very religious mother, and I convinced myself that once we were far away from everyone, things would finally be different. What an idiot I felt like later for believing that. But I wasn’t an idiot. I was hopeful. I followed him. We all moved to another state to start over. But the new beginning didn’t look anything like the future I had imagined. We moved into a small apartment. I shared one room with two of my children. He wouldn’t even let me bring my other two children with me at first. I had to beg. And beg. And beg. Eventually, after so much begging, I was able to bring my other children. I started working at the same place again, and on top of that, he had me take an additional part-time job with his wife. I was exhausted. I was beyond tired. I was working, taking care of my children, trying to keep the peace, and trying to hold together a relationship that was taking more and more from me. My children kept me going. At that point in my life, they were the reason I got up every morning. When Control Became My Entire Life Once we moved to the new state, everything got worse. There were cameras. There was GPS tracking. He controlled my phone. We worked at the same place, so even work wasn’t really a place where I could have space from him. But the control didn’t stop there. He had complete control over my bank accounts. I was working, but I didn’t really have access to my own money. He would leave me just enough to buy groceries for the week. And somehow, no matter how much I worked or how much I did, it was never enough. He would tell me I didn’t do enough. I didn’t make enough. Nothing was ever enough. He would regularly take my phone and go through it. If there were messages, conversations, or anything that could make him look guilty, he would delete them. I became terrified of having anything on my own phone that might upset him. I knew he checked it, and I knew that anything he didn’t like could become a problem. So I learned to be afraid of my own phone. But there was something else he did that I will never forget. Sometimes everything would seem completely normal. We could be sitting together watching a movie. We could be eating dinner. For a few minutes, it could almost feel like a normal relationship. Then my phone would get a message from him. I would open it, and there would be extremely graphic videos of women being murdered by their husbands or partners—women being shot, stabbed, raped, and killed. I would ask him: “Why are you sending me this? What’s the purpose? We’re okay right now.” His response was: “Just so you know what could happen to you if you don’t act right.” That sentence changed something inside of me. He wanted me to imagine what could happen if I disobeyed him, made him angry, or didn’t “act right.” I became terrified. I remember thinking there was no way out. I started believing that the only way I would ever leave him was in a casket. That is how much fear he had put inside me. The First Time I Left Eventually, I reached a point where I called a domestic violence hotline connected with the District Attorney’s office. They helped me get out. I left. For the first time, I had actually gotten away. But I was only gone for about a week. He made promises. He promised that things would be different. He said he would get a place away from his wife. He said we would finally be together, just the two of us. He promised he would buy me a car. So I went back. And almost immediately, I regretted it. Because when I returned, I discovered that he had thrown away almost everything I owned. My clothes. My shoes. My children’s beds. Things that belonged to me and my children were simply gone. He had even sold the SUV I had been driving. And suddenly, the promise to buy me a new car made sense. He had taken away my transportation, my belongings, my independence—and then presented himself as the person who would provide those things back to me. The Threat Against My Brother After I came back, he did everything he had promised. He bought “me” a car. He bought me a new ring. He bought clothes for me and the kids. He even started the process of buying a bigger house. For a little while, things seemed okay. But it didn’t last. Eventually, the message changed. He began reminding me that I had left him. That I had hurt him. That because I had left, I was going to “pay” for it. I knew then that something inside me had changed. I told him I didn’t want this anymore. I told him I was going to leave. This time, I actually had a plan. My brother was coming to get me. For the first time, I thought I might really be getting out. But the moment he found out my brother was on his way, everything changed. He threatened to kill my brother. He told me that if I didn’t call my brother and tell him not to come, he would kill him and claim it was self-defense because he was on his own property. I was terrified. I called my brother and told him not to come. From the outside, it probably looked like I had chosen to stay again. But inside, something had already changed. I had made my decision. I knew I didn’t want this life anymore. I knew I wanted to leave. But at that moment, I stayed because I was afraid of what he would do to my brother. I wasn’t staying because I wanted the relationship. I was staying because someone I loved had just been threatened. And that was the moment I understood something I had been struggling to understand for years: He wasn’t trying to make me love him. He was trying to make me afraid to leave him. I stayed that day. But mentally, I was already gone. The Day I Finally Escaped After that, I started planning without him noticing. I began using the computer at work to look for information and figure out how I could get away. My manager at the time helped me. Little by little, I reached out to my family back home. We made a plan. Quietly. Carefully. He had decided that we needed a bigger house, and we were in the process of moving. Because we were moving, he had taken down some of the cameras. For the first time in a long time, I had a small window where I wasn’t being watched everywhere I went. I knew I had to take it. One morning, I woke up and acted like everything was completely normal. I followed our normal morning routine. I talked to him like nothing was wrong. The kids went to school. He left for work before me, and normally I would leave about an hour later. But that morning, I had a plan. I packed only what was absolutely essential. My important documents. A few necessities. Everything I could fit into a small backpack. I couldn’t take much. I couldn’t risk him noticing that anything was missing. Before my children went to school, I spoke with my oldest daughter. She did not have a phone. So I made sure she understood exactly what she needed to do. I told her that when the school bus dropped her off, she was not to go inside the house. I told her to take her backpack and only the most essential things she needed and leave. I would be there. Then I went to work. I left my backpack with my manager. Then I walked in front of his office so he would see me and believe I was at work. I went back to the main office. I handed my phone to a coworker and friend. She hid my phone and walked around the warehouse with it so he would think I was still at work. My manager gave me a burner phone so I could contact my family. Then my friend drove me to a parking lot. A family friend was already waiting for me. She had driven about five hours from another state to come get me and my children. Everything had been planned around one thing: He couldn’t know. And by the time he realized I was gone, I was already far away. I had no phone. He couldn’t call me. He couldn’t message me. He couldn’t track me through my phone. He couldn’t threaten me. When the school bus dropped my children off, I was already there waiting for them. They followed the instructions I had given them. I wasn’t leaving my children behind. I was taking them with me. For the first time in years, there was silence. I was finally away from him. I was finally out. And for the first time, I felt something I hadn’t felt in a very long time: safe. Staying Gone Leaving him was only the beginning. For months afterward, he tried to find ways to reach me. Emails. Text messages. Messenger. Different phone numbers. Any way he could find to get a message through. I had blocked him everywhere I could. Sometimes he would even send me money through Cash App just so he could attach a message to it. He was constantly trying to find another door into my life. Before I left, I had read that one of the most important things you can do with someone like him is to block them and not give in. So that’s what I did. I didn’t respond. I didn’t give in. I stayed away from him as much as I possibly could. It took a long time. But eventually, it worked. The messages stopped. The attempts to reach me stopped. And slowly, I started becoming free. Learning How to Feel Again Today, I am free. I am happy. I have my family around me. I have friends. I have people who love me and support me. I have a life that feels normal again. But getting physically away from him didn’t mean I was immediately okay. For months afterward—maybe even a year—I felt almost nothing. I didn’t feel sadness. I didn’t feel sympathy. I didn’t feel love. I didn’t feel like myself. I was completely shut down. Numb. Emotionally, I had already died long before I physically escaped. For so long, survival had been the only thing that mattered. Get through the day. Keep the peace. Protect the children. Avoid the next explosion. Make it through another night. I didn’t realize how much of myself I had lost just trying to survive. When I finally became safe, my body was safe before my mind was. It took time to feel again. It took time to laugh again. It took time to trust people again. It took time to understand that I was allowed to have a life that wasn’t built around fear. But eventually, I started coming back to myself. And now I understand something I wish every woman living through abuse could understand: Survival is not the end of your story. Survival is what gets you to the other side. I truly believe that if I had stayed, I would not be here today. Maybe I would have been physically killed. Maybe I would have eventually died emotionally and never found my way back. In some ways, I already felt dead inside. But I survived. And today, I am surrounded by people who love me. I have my children. I have my family. I have my friends. And I have myself again. For the first time in a very long time, I am not living just to survive. I am living. And if another woman reading this is somewhere in the middle of her own nightmare, I want her to know this: You are not stupid for staying. You are not weak because you went back. You are not responsible for what he did to you. You are not responsible for his choices. And you are not beyond saving. There is a way out. It may take planning. It may take time. You may have to leave more than once. You may be terrified. You may not know where you’re going to go or how you’re going to rebuild your life. But please don’t give up on the woman you were before the abuse. She is still in there. I know because I found her again. And if you’re reading this and you’re still in it, I hope you believe me when I tell you: You deserve to live. Not just survive. Live.

When I was about 5 years old, around 2010, I had a 3-year-old cousin. I don't know exactly how it started. It began with kisses, and I would climb on top of her. I don't remember exactly where I saw it, but my parents just watched them kissing. I remember one time I kissed my cousin on the mouth. That day it was a party. My parents, aunts, uncles, and other relatives said goodbye, and I kissed her. Afterward, I felt strange. Then I kissed her more and more. We stopped in 2013. Then in 2012, with another cousin, it was the same. I would kiss her, and we would laugh. Nobody ever knew, but with that cousin, it continued until 2020. There was also sex in 2017 and 2018. It was consensual. I was 13, and she was 10. Then, around 2017, I also kissed a cousin. He was about the same age as my cousin. I was about 12 years old. Then it happened with her brother, who was almost 14. He gave me oral sex. He kissed me too, and we had anal sex. A lot of time passed until 2021, when I was 16. My 18-year-old cousin went into the bathroom and did the same thing to me: oral sex and masturbation. Every time it happened, it made me uncomfortable. Then he left the bathroom because someone knocked on the door. Nobody knocked. I was scared and felt guilty. Then in 2021, around December, my 10-year-old cousin and I, who was 16 at the time, and my cousin, who was also around 18, told me to get in the bathroom with him. I told him no because I didn't want to. Later, I agreed, and then my 18-year-old cousin put his hand on my penis, and I pulled away. Then, around August 2023, I decided to talk to my mom about it, and she started crying and got very angry.

Just words. You have trouble talking about these things. You realize you have trouble talking about a lot of things. You remember being excited about your first job at Company Name. One of your friends works there and you know a lot of people work there as a summer job. It’s the 1990’s and it’s been grandfathered in that they can pay you less than minimum wage because it’s like a part time training experience for students getting their first work experience. Like a newspaper route. Those are for boys. You got so excited after being nervous you asked for an application along with your friend. You don’t remember meeting him then. So many people want to get chosen for that crap job because for some reason it’s become a sought after thing among the cool kids. You do remember the phone call that you can come for an interview. Walking home you wonder if being cute and having larger breasts than most almost freshman girls had something to do with it. You met Name and remember him for sure this time. The way you look has been a curse far more than a blessing. One reason people would not feel that bad for you. 'God sure blessed you, honey." You have so many bad memories, blocked memories, repressed memories because of Name. You are having second thoughts as tears build up. You need a drink. You quit drinking years ago and today you have three months and eight days sober. Your record is nine months and two days. You are strong. Most of the time. You are hollow. All the time. Name wasn’t the last but he was the first. You change his name although you don’t want to. He is the symbol of your hatred of all that is wrong with men. You were tricked. Name got what he wanted from you. Too many times. Too many times before you stopped going back. Just stopped. You could have just stopped after the first time he held you close and caressed you before your mom picked you up that night. The first time. You still don’t understand or forgive yourself for that. You had let a boy at a party and a boy at an 8th grade dance put their hand up your shirt. You had liked it so much those times. It had been exciting and happy. Name did not make you happy. You went back. You want to talk about something else now. Not the other men who thought your body was their plaything. Not the time you went to Ireland with your Aunts and mom. You miss mom. That was a good trip. You got back to that a lot. You sat down to talk about things you don’t talk about. On a family trip to Adventureland you asked your cousin if was considered losing your virginity of a boy did it to your boobs. You pretended it was a cute boy, not Name. It was hard to breathe with him sitting on your torso thrusting. You sometimes break things and scream. Never when your son is around. You have two jobs and don’t really like the one that pays the most. Your college degree does not count much. How much life is wasted on despair and doubt and taking the wrong path? You feel relief when he finally finished. You hate when he finishes because you know he is stealing his ultimate pleasure from you when he has a wife. He acts like it was just another day at work to keep you on his leash. You are pathetic. His remnants are inside you every time you go home after closing with him. Just another miserable day in the life. You say nothing. You tell no one. You are worthless except as a vessel for him. Your parents say nice things to you, about you. They always have. They have to. They don’t know what you really are. A black shame is the times you felt pleasure in your body while he was doing it do you. At least while you remained quiet and motionless there was some dignity. Defiance. Insult to him. When your body and voice reacted like you liked it it was a betrayal. Like you liked that tub of disgusting man on top of you and inside of you, fucking you on that tile floor, kissing you like a lover. You befriended a group of guys by mid high school. Over a year after Name was more than thorn in your soul. A deep callous. The group figured out what you were. They played football. They were important and had strong will. They shared you and passed you around. They told you they loved you. That you were the coolest girl. They took what they wanted when they wanted. Why? Name 2 was you lab partner for biology. He was the first. He was the only one your age. You went in his car for lunch and met some others. They wanted you. You volunteered. It is all you are good for. Draining them of their juice so they can be happy and feel like men. So you can feel empty and dirty. Even after they graduated they got together for group fun, or had you sneak out at night to go for a ride. You headed far west after you graduated. A fresh start. An exodus. An escape. You went to one reunion. The ten year reunion. Name 2 came with his wife. He introduced you as his ex-girlfriend. You let hm take you to the disabled restroom and have his quickie. You went to the bars afterward and ditched your real friend and let Name 3 take you back to his hotel room to live his fantasies just because he claimed that he always loved you. They say attractive people have sex more frequently with more partners than normal people. The darkness behind that statement is that for females it is no always because they want it that way but because of the relentless pressure from men and how they will do anything if they get the opportunity. You are not a nice innocent girl. Would you have been if it had not been for Name like you want to think? Would you have let your much older cousin you barely know take you back into the woods with him behind their house to the shack where he smokes pot after a wedding. Then wait there for him to call his friends after he found out you were a bad girl and wait for them too. Swatting flies in your underwear while you waited for them. You did not drink because your mom did not allow it even though kids younger than you were. But your cousin and his local friends did. Four of them counting your cousin old enough to be your uncle. Still, you acted like you liked everything they did. They took it so far like you were the world's greatest toy. Porn star, they called you like it was the best thing you could be. The anal was excruciating. It was easier to just wash off all your makeup than to try to fix it after all the sweat and sticky. Smiles and complements followed by the deep hollow feeling of total isolation in the station wagon on the way back home from Kansas city. Hating Name and feeling like you betrayed your aunt because one of them was her fiancé. You got an infection and it was embarrassing when the doctor told you. At least it was a female doctor. The idea of a male gynecologist is unnerving. The one time you were examined by one was terrifying. You were in college. He was way too thorough and talkative like he was working up to asking you out on a date and you decided never again. The only one you ever had that did not wear gloves for the breast exam. The most sensual digital vaginal exam you ever had to check the cervix and ovaries for pain. Was his thumb supposed to be brushing your clitoris? You even wonder if he was recording it on his phone that you saw him adjust twice as it was peaking out of the breast pocket of his lab coat. His stupid November mustache he asked you if you liked. So some days you don’t eat. You exercise to maintain the body they want. It gives you value to them. You are nothing. People always say nice things. Hollow things. What if you had never met Name? What if you never got fucked on the floor for $3.45 an hour. On your back, on your hands and knees, sometimes even on top of him. Your first orgasm on that floor that smelled like stale milk and bleach. Having to tell your mom pick you up 45 minutes after the place closes for your cleaning duties. You used tampons just to keep from his semen leaking out on the way home. You pretended to be a virgin when you were far from it. He told you not to worry because he had a vasectomy. That part must have been true. You don't got on dates even though they always try to set you up. Not a chance. Your son is a good excuse. And a real reason. Real love. The Earth spins in space. Why can’t it just freeze and die like me? Your boss doesn’t go all the way with you because he won’t cheat on his wife. You give him oral because he doesn’t think that counts. Preserves his purity. He says he wants to so badly, like he can take whatever he wants from you but he is strong and valiant. You are nothing. He is handsome. You let him kiss you and fondle you. You long for his touch. He is not a great man but you long for him. The closest thing to a good man you have known. A father figure. Your son needs a father figure. He is everything. He deserves better. He loves you. He tells you are a good mom and that is worth enduring the world for as long as it takes. You put on a good face but he knows you are hollow, deep down. A wounded duck pretending to be a swan. Always pretending. Was there no pretending before Name? Maybe not. The days begin and your mind pretends and it is hard and the days end. Bad dreams on both ends. Will he be a good man? The funny thing is you want him to be a prince because he is your prince but even if he is like most men you want his total happiness. You want beautiful girls, good times, and strong friends for him. You exist to fake it and to have let those men enjoy you but mostly to give your son the best life possible beyond you. You are not worthless. It is not your fault. You are stronger than you know. Hollow words. They have to say it. They always have. No creativity. No insight. No truth. Just words.

Last year I was gang raped. I have an ear ringing called tinnitus that has not stopped since. I have nightmares. I flew with my mom to a wedding overseas. I was excited. She would be busy with her friends and cousin and I would get to spend time with my awesome second cousin who is two years older than me. After the rehearsal dinner we went out. It was fun because I was not legally able to drink there even though the age was lower than in my province, but they did not check ID’s. I did not drink much because it was not my thing and I had a boyfriend but I was able to go to some bars then a club attached to a hotel. So much fun up to when we met two soldiers in uniform who were cute and separated us from her friends because of our looks. My cousin is stunning beautiful. They had a private room at the club and several soldiers were there and two prostitutes also. Those prostitutes definitely hated us being there. I wanted to get out anyway and the cute ones that invited us acted like they understood and took us out of there. We stupidly let them take us to their hotel room where they totally dropped the cute romantic act and made us strip our clothes to music. They showed us a gun they had in a drawer. I was terrified. They made us lay on our stomachs bent over the bed side by side and had sex with us that way. They switched like we were interchangeable before finishing in us with no protection. We held hands. I was crying while my cousin was trying to be strong and cheer me up. We weren’t allowed to leave and our clothes were hidden. Before took our phones we had to text that we were staying at my cousin’s friend’s house. Then they called two other soldiers, one of them a huge tall dark guy with body builder muscles. He was the worst to me. They made us dance and then we had to use our mouths on the cute ones that had lured us there while the other two had sex with us. I vomited and my cousin cleaned it up but then it started again. They had cocaine and made us sniff it off their parts and sniffed it off us. Another one came and I think it was just those five during the night but they kept raping us and making us do things even when we would pass out. I would like to have been more unconscious but cocaine makes you so awake. I want to remember less and think about it all less. We showered many times. The big dark one peed on me and in my mouth the shower. He did it more than once like I was his toilet. The other men even had to tell him to chill out when he was making me scream liking his fingers and pushing them in my arse, but not when he made me crawl around like a dog using my hair as a leash. I remember one of them calling their friends to tell them to turn all their t.v.’s way up to hide the noise in our room. They watched sports news on the t.v. They had me and my cousin kiss each other and stuff. I could not act like it was a fun party like my cousin did sometimes and encouraged me to do. She tried to take some of their attention away from me over and over. I love her for it but they did not leave me alone. My chest is something they were obsessed with. They did not care that I was obviously distressed and freaking out or that in my country I was three years below the age of consent. There I was the minimum. We woke up in the morning on one the beds together with only the two soldiers sleeping on the floor. The black one was gone! They had sex with us again and another man who was much older and who they called SIR came in and had sex with both us but mostly me. They cheered him on and my head was pounding and I was crying and it seemed to last forever. Finally we got our clothes back but they took us for brunch wearing their normal clothes. They showed me pictures on their phones that made it look like I was having fun and warned us how bad it would be if we said anything different than we had a nice party. A nice party in hell! Before that I’d had sex with only my 1 boyfriend ever. One night of hell and now my number was seven!! We had to start getting ready for the wedding right away and I was exhausted. My cousin hid me and I took a nap in my dress, hair and makeup until the last minute. I cried in the ceremony but not for the wedding. I was so sore in my vagina, muscles, and brain that I got so drunk at the reception I barely remember any of it. Just part of being on the plane home. I told my mom the truth when I got back and she got all crazy, so did my dad, and they tried to call over there and the hotel and such but there was nothing the police would do. I saw my dad cry for the first time as I told the whole story. My boyfriend could not handle it and dumped me. I go to group and do therapy. I take a pill everyday and now benzo’s for break through anxiety. I try to hide my large chest under baggy clothes where before I used it for attention. STUPID! My cousin does not seem to have the trauma I do or the nightmares. In her country they are done with secondary school up to two years before us and are more treated like adults sooner. I said mean things to her once because of it. She forgave me but we talk much less since I asked if she has gang bangs all the time. I felt terrible because she even let them have anal sex with her to lure them away from me. I could tell it hurt her so much but at the time was just thinking about my own survival. My childhood is OVER but I do not feel like an adult. Her advice is -Don’t let it get you so down-. Like I have a choice in this!! She went to a therapist ONCE because her mom made the appointment and does not plan to go back. Her life did not really change!! She works reception at a tech company and models on the side and still goes to parties and clubs and dates. How??? It is unbelievable how attitudes toward something like this can be so different in different countries. I am a victim now and I usually feel like it. Definitely damaged. Everybody at my school knows why. I am THAT girl. My new more mature boyfriend is understanding but I feel like a sad little burden to him. I am hypersexual sometimes now and can’t help it. It is a coping mechanism that happens to some victims of sexual assault. I did not ask for it. I worry my boyfriend can’t trust me because of it. I had an older guy friend who’s been my neighbor for years take advantage of me after I told him the story of what happened at his house. We had sex and then he felt guilty for being turned on by my rape story. He admitted it and asked me to forgive him. The sex helped me calm the ear ringing for just short time periods so I did it with him more than once a day for a bit until my dad started to suspect something and talked to him. Since then I don’t trust myself. I want to marry my boyfriend in large part just to protect myself and show him I love him and am loyal even though I am not sure I can be. I worry I cannot love like a normal person. I worry I push him away being too needy and wanting to marry him so soon. I need him more than he needs me. Is that the way it will always be in relationships for rape victims??? I work hard at school not to ruin my future. It is so hard to focus. My ears ring constantly. Thank you for listening.

I want to be a source of hope to the hopeless

He was my boyfriend. We had just had sex and he wanted to go again. I said “no”, he said “but I want to”, and he did. Those words ring in my mind so clearly. It wasn’t violent or aggressive, but it felt like something broke in me then. I carried that with me for a long time, and still do. Part of my shame was that I didn’t leave. Months later, I confronted him about it and he was so angry and not open to hearing me. That is not how someone who loves you, cares for you, or respects you acts. That is not how someone who respects women acts. It took me a long time to see that. Years later, I am seeing someone who is kind and safe. He doesn’t know this story but he cares for me and wants me to feel safe regardless. He has never been angry or upset when I didn’t want to have sex, if I wanted to stop or pause or talk about it or if there was something I didn’t like or wasn’t comfortable with. He listens when I explain a boundary and is always open to changing his behaviour to make me feel as comfortable and safe as possible. That is someone who cares, who inherently respects other people and wants to be a safe space. That is normal and the bare minimum. Abusers, perpetrators, and predators can warp your sense of reality but I promise you, people who are kind and good exist and there are so many more than you would think. You deserve to be treated with respect, kindness, and gentleness. That is never too much to ask for, that is the bare minimum.

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 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.

At the age of four, my mom used to take me out to the trunk of her Jeep and beat me for 20-30 minutes at a time. She would hit me, pull my hair, and scream profanity at me. The physical abuse lasted until I was 11-years-old, and she only stopped once CPS got involved. My dad knew; he did nothing. At the age of 6, I got sexually molested at school by another female. My mother told me it was not molestation, and that I was just "playing around." At the age of 11, I was sexually abused by the neighborhood boys. They were in their mid-teens, and would touch me inappropriately, rub their penises against me, and tell me inappropriate jokes. At that same age, I was also dry humped on the face by multiple boys who I considered friends. At the age of 16, I was raped by a 26-year-old man. He groomed me beginning at the age of 14-years-old, and convinced me he was a safe person. At that same point in my life, I was raped by a 23-year-old that I had known for two years and considered safe. He took me to a room where we could "be alone" then proceeded to force himself on me. I was crying and telling him to stop, but he didn't stop. I dated him for three months after that, and he continued to pressure me into sex and emotionally abuse me. Starting at the age of 14-years-old, I began getting harassed online. I stupidly gave out my phone number and address to someone I had trusted, and they were posted on 4chan (a public image board). I was harassed daily: I received death threats; I received threatening phone calls; I would receive calls to my school. I then found out that the person I trusted killed a girl in his home city, and that they had proof I was going to be the next victim. At the age of 17, my step-dad physically assaulted me and almost broke my wrist. He put a cigarette out on my head, strangled me, and threatened me. My mom watched, holding the phone, and told me it was my fault for "not leaving when [she] told [me] to." The only help I got was from a neighbor who saw me run out of the house, covered in blood. That same year, I was kicked out because I refused to lift the restraining order off of my step-dad, and my mom gave me an ultimatum. I refused and went to live elsewhere. At the age of 18, I moved in with my first serious boyfriend. He was abusive and cheated on me multiple times. He would call me every name in the book and threaten to harm me and break my belongings. I did not get away until I was just turning 19. At the age of 20, I moved in with my dad. My step-mom was jealous of my dad and I's relationship and physically assaulted me and kicked me out on my 21st birthday. My dad did nothing again. At the age of 21, I developed life-threatening bulimia and anorexia and began drinking heavily to self-medicate. My fiance helped me through these disorders and saved my life. I am now 24-years-old and have many stable and healthy relationships--both in friendship and love. I am also receiving help via medication for C-PTSD, GAD, and major depressive disorder. I began therapy recently, too, and am learning to confront my traumas and move on. It's hard, and there are many things I remember each day that send me into a panic, but I want to heal and reclaim my innocence, power, and self-worth.

It started as sexual harassment. And I let it happen. Do not let it happen to you! I was a college intern working on my supply-chain management major. In business school you know you don’t just get a degree and POOF! A job is magically waiting for you. Unless you already have connections. I was a single woman on financial aid and had squat for family connections. I needed to make some connections while still in school that I could use to climb the ladder. It is a very competitive world. A time when we don’t care so much where we work as long as it has prospects of advancement and making money. I was interning at the corporate offices for a rental car company. I got my first choice for a class in which we had to intern at a real company. My group of four was in their logistics offices and we had no clear job at the time but my school had sent students for a while so we had a contact person and some loose idea of a project that my group of four had to put together and execute for our grade. Well that was kind of of dud and I went along with the bad idea of planning more efficient distribution routes for their cars entering the fleet. It was naive because the company had real pros who designed the system. But, because of my feminine wiles, I got invited to come in and help in my free time by a top manager. Just me. I jumped at the opportunity and on my available days I showed up early in the morning and tried to be like part of the team. It was a very masculine environment. I tried to hang in spite of the pretenses for my special treatment. “You’re not one of those feminist types who go crying to HR if a man gives you a compliment or a pat on the backside, are you?” The man who first invited me had asked. We’ll call him XX. I assured him I was not, anticipating his expected answer. “Work hard, play hard,” was something I said in my denial of values he was obviously opposed to. So the couple times XX introduced me as his mistress I went along with the joke. Another stupid mistake. As an example of my environment, after a male Y in the department first showed me how to use part of a program that calculates stock outages, he had me sit and try it and gave me a massage I did not ask for early in the morning. Well XX came up and made a joke about Y getting his hands of his girl. They had some bro moment where the male Y asked him if he was serious, saying something about XX’s wife, to which XX backed down and said something like “It’s just a joke. I’d love to in my fantasies, but she’s company property, brother.” Company property??! I was sitting right there! I tensed up but tried to pretend I was so absorbed in the computer training as XX left and male Y went back to massaging me, but this time more boldly. He got down my lower back and upper buttock then went down the arms to my thighs, stopping me from doing any work as he blatantly brushed his forearms and hands against my chest. I felt so weak and almost paralyzed by the time I forced myself to stand up to go use the restroom, stopping it. I could have just done that at the beginning but did not. Later hat same day, XX had me go to lunch with him and have a beer at a bar and grill with a pool table. I was 20 but they did not ask for my ID because I was with XX. I hardly ever played pool and while we waited for our food he “showed” me how to play. He made fun of the cliché on movies and television where a man has a woman bend over the pool table to shoot just so he can push his crotch against her backside in a suggestive manger and lean over her with his arms on each side of her to show her how to slide the stick. But while he joked about it he actually did those things to me! That was a good day for my two main molesters and an awful day for me. XX hugged me as we stood up giggling and apparently his hands now had a license to molest my body whenever he wanted. I got numb to it in some ways, but emotionally more on edge. My butt was grabbed or spanked playfully in the department, even by male Y. A few other men were very flirtatious. My shoulders were rubbed, hugs on even minor greetings with XX and finally I was supposed to get used to little pecks on the lips too. I felt like I was in a constant state of mental anguish and defensiveness. My body could be attacked anytime. But I did not defend myself! I would say clearly to XX and some others that I wanted to be respected and considered one of the guys and have a job there when I graduated and they affirmed it. Both main abusers encouraged me, but still sexually harassed me. With my moronic blessing! The semester ended and I kept going in daily during summer break. It was my only lifeline to a possible job after I graduated in a year. I was so groomed that it was not a big leap at all when XX pressured me to give him head in his office. I refused with a smile and head shake and he came back with some rationalization about how I owed him and he really needed it just then. He would not take no for an answer. The first time I lowered myself to kneeling before his desk and took him in my mouth my hands were shaking and I teared up and had to sniffle snot back up. I was the one who was embarrassed! It was like an out of body experience and my mouth dried up to where I had to ask him to drink some of his energy drink. Internally there was a huge change immediately. I was gutted of all pride and self-worth. I was like a zombie. Hardly eating. Lots of coffee. Showing up and doing the reports that had become my responsibility and mechanically giving XX his daily BJ in the afternoon in his small stale office with a small window. I started to have migraines during that summer. I drove home for 4th of July and got so inebriated I ended up sleeping with my much older sister’s ex-husband in the back of his truck. That was a terrible wake up call. I knew I couldn’t pretend much longer without a breakdown so I put my two week in at the rental car place where I was working for free. To secure my future I made sure to keep it all friendly and “you know I’ll be back working here next year”. The idea of all the time and humiliation I had put in being lost to nothing was a major fear. I put myself through two last weeks of it. I had quickie sex with XX twice on and over his desk. I gave into extreme pressure and gave male Y a BJ too when he explicitly made it about a letter of recommendation. He knew about me doing it for XX. He did not even have his own office and we had to use the stairwell. During my final year of school I became aware that I was too traumatized to ever go back there anyway. The extent to which I had been used and abused became obvious to me, where before it had not. As if I had been living in a denial haze. It was a painful time. I was a bit reckless. I got a C in the high level economics elective I took. I said yes to several dates to avoid being alone and either slept with them or freaked out in anger at them. Seeing that I needed the car rental faux-internship on my resume I did email both abusers for letters of recommendation and got a good one from Male Y, but a very impersonal, generic one from XX. I was so dejected and angry. Finally, I told my sister, the one who confronted me about her ex-husband. I TOLD HER EVERYTHING AND THAT WAS MY FIRST STEP TO RECOVERY. To letting out the pain, screaming at myself in the mirror, punching the heavy bag at a boxing gym I joined, and to seeing my first psychologist and psychiatrist. The therapy helped more than the Celexa and antipsych. The support group helped even more. I met two friends for life who have my back in times of sorrow. I have to repeat that it is not my fault that I was abused, even though it kind of was. Don’t let it happen to you! They will take as much as they can from you. Plan your boundaries now and be assertive! Report harassment immediately. Doing so you are being a hero and protecting other women and yourself. If you have already been abused, GET OUT of the situation and talk to someone about it ASAP. There is nothing to be gained by letting the abuse continue! Talking to someone makes it real and lets you start the process of hating less and starting on the path to learning to love yourself again. You deserve real love.

The first time I was raped, I did not know it. Blaring music and spilled drinks, you were there Persistent, like a dog. Nagging, Nagging, Nagging. Hands running down my thighs, the phrase “babe it’ll make me feel better.” Your words clanging in my head, pounding like hammers against my ears One phrase slips out of my mouth, “fine just stop asking.” Waking up on the bathroom floor, aching from head to toe Before you take me home, you buy plan b. You had taken the condom off. I cry. My virginity stolen from me, that was my definition of love. The second, oh god the second time. My life plummets. Alcohol burning down my throat, stumbling, falling to the floor, You offer me your bed. Drifting off in a drunken haze, the hands are back But they belong to a friend. Suddenly his hands are choking, digging into my skin, bruising The word “STOP” falls on deaf ears. The tears start spilling down my face when I realize I cannot fight anymore and I go limp. Blood between my legs, oh god it hurt. Oh God, Oh God, why me? Why him? The third time, yes there was a third time. Another friend. Another familiar face. More lights, more pain, too drunk to move, I leave quietly the next morning. I always leave quietly. A thought that will not leave, “I am the common denominator” “I am the problem” Rumors spread like wildfire, each one a knife to the heart, a burning in my stomach. My name in everyone's mouths, I am drowning, my voice gone, stolen. No, ripped from my throat, brutally. My story is not my own. My body is not my own. It is filled with the bile and rot and filth of these men, these men who violated my body like I was not a being with a soul, with emotion and a heart beating like their own, but an object. Women are not made to be abused, to be a scratching post for horny, lonely men who cannot control their hands or their dicks. Survivors have to carry the burden. I carry the burden of my rape. The trauma, the shame, the grief, the horror, the anger, the guilt. But to the men who raped me, I give it to you. It is not my shame, it is yours, it is not my guilt, it is yours, it is not my fault, it is yours. And I am free.

Hi there, To anyone still in an abusive or toxic relationship, or healing from one like I am — I want you to know that you are strong enough to break free and to heal. It’s important to remember that none of this is your fault. You don’t have to go through this alone. Speak up, ask for help, and believe in yourself again. I was in an abusive relationship for 8.5 years, and it’s been 9 years since, the time it took me to realize that this isn’t something you have to face by yourself. I wish I could go back and tell my younger self this! Please don’t keep it a secret. People will listen, and you will find your way out and begin to heal. Don’t let anyone, including yourself, tell you otherwise. You deserve to be safe, happy, and free. ♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️

I was conditioned to think catcalling was a compliment, that if someone held your waist a little too long at work it was just cause "ahh they're just a bit touchy", that it's easier to just "go with it" than to say no and risk their response. It took me years to identify that no matter the degree of your experiences it still is never ok. We often get told sexual violence is one way but it isn't, it comes in many forms and sometimes you can't identify it at first - and that's ok. I am only recently coming to terms with the varying degrees of experiences I've had. I didn't want to say anything because I was made to believe I'd "rock the boat". Well some boats are meant to sink. Let's rebuild the boat so everyone can stay afloat, included and safe.

Leaving my ex was a decision shaped by years of isolation and physical abuse, but the breaking point was when he tried to control my livelihood. He wanted me to quit my job, and when I refused, he didn’t care. Another time, he looked me in the eyes and said, “You’re not leaving this apartment alive,” before laughing. That was the moment I realized—why was I letting this man decide what I did with my life? Why was I letting him determine whether I got to be alive at all? The day I finally left, I called my mom and told her I wanted out. When my ex threatened to throw all my belongings away, I called the police. They gave me five minutes to gather what I could. I grabbed whatever I could carry and walked away. But leaving wasn’t the end—it was just the beginning. He stalked and harassed me relentlessly. Social media messages. Presents left on my car. Showing up at my parents' house. Nonstop calls. I eventually had to change my phone number. Even then, it took me a while to file for a Protection Order because, somehow, I still felt bad for him. Then, after months of no contact, I ran into him at the gym. He made a threatening remark, so I reported it, and he was banned. That set him off. As I left the gym, he tried to run me off the road. I managed to pull into a parking lot where bystanders gathered around me while he screamed. The police arrived and told me I should file for an Emergency Protection Order immediately—something I had put off, thinking I had to wait for regular business hours. I got the order and thought that would be the end of it. But exactly one day after it expired, he showed up again—and this time, he wouldn’t let me leave where I was parked. Panic took over as I desperately tried to get someone’s attention to call the police. Finally, I managed to get to safety, and someone had already made the call. As I started driving home, I realized he was following me again. Instead of going home, I turned back and told the police. They offered to follow me, and as I drove off, I spotted him on the other side of the road. I motioned to the officer, who immediately pulled him over. A few minutes later, the officer called me and said I needed to get another order against him, warning that he was "mentally unwell." He hoped that pulling him over had given me enough time to get home safely. This time, I had to file for a Peace Order, which only lasted six months. He even tried to appeal it—but in the end, it was granted. Looking back, I learned that the most dangerous time for a survivor isn’t during the relationship—it’s when they try to leave. Those months after I walked away were far more terrifying than any moment I spent with him. But in the end, I made it out. And that’s what matters.