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I feel that I have never been able to be who I truly am. I was abused by my uncle from I think around 6 until 18. We lived with them and the reason I don't know the age I was when it started is that I remember nothing in my life prior to it. I know the exact story of the first time it happened and it then happened so frequently that I couldn't count. Many times a day, many days a week, many weeks a year etc. It has ruined who I am and my personality now is one of full compliance. I can't say no to people, i let people abuse me in many ways, not just sexually because I do what I have to to please those around me. I told no one of the abuse until 18, and have only told my husband. I have now found out that another cousin suffered the same and her life is absolutely off the rails. I think it happened to all of us, there are five girls but we simply never speak of it. He is still alive, I don't see him, none of us do as he is a drug addict. I want to seek justice but don't know if I am strong enough to survive that. He made my life a nightmare, he changed who I was, he destroyed me.

Before moving to California, I had lived in Pakistan. This story is from 2008. My mother had convinced me to marry a man who was well-settled despite I wanting to marry someone else that I had liked at university. The man I married had a very kind demeanor and was respectful. I told him the situation but he told me that I would fall in love with him if I gave the relationship time. I agreed on the condition that he would sleep in a separate room and there won't be any intimacy while I choose whether to accept him or divorce him. He gradually tried to charm me. At first, by requesting to kiss my feet, then by massaging my legs and shoulders. One day, as usual, he asked to kiss my feet while I was watching tv. I caught him looking up my nightie from down there. I got annoyed. He apologized but then asked to massage my shoulders. I agreed. While massaging shoulders, he raised my arms and licked my armpits. I got really upset. pushed him away and ran to he toilet. When I came out, he grabbed me, pushed me into the bedroom, forced me onto the bed, tied my wrists together and attached the rope to a chair near the bed. I begged for him to stop and resisted with all my strength, but he penetrated. I started crying. He apologized, asked for forgiveness but there could be no forgiveness there. My aunt (in police) arrested him. I asked for maximum possible punishment for him. He was given 10.5 years of rigorous imprisonment, 200 lashes with the whip, and paid a large monetary fine to me as well. I personally participated in whipping him. I later forgave him and his sentence was commuted to whipping. We eventually divorced but I felt satisfied that justice was done in this case and I finally married my university flame.

when i was 5, my parents divorced. one of them moved out to live with a friend. this friend had an adult daughter, who had one son my age and a son who was older. whenever i would visit, i would play games with the two boys. one game we played most often was 'mums and dads'. i was always forced to be the mum because 'i was the only girl', the older boy was the dad and the younger boy was 'our baby'. one day when i was 6 or 7, the older boy asked if i knew how babies were made. i had no idea, so i said 'no'. he proceeded to tell me what sex was. now, me being 6 or 7, i kind of just nodded and said 'okay'. he then said 'how about we make the game more accurate?' he was older and i looked up to him, so i said 'sure'. he then made his brother hide under the bed, made sure the door was shut and laid down on the bed. he pulled me on top and took off his pants and underwear, before taking off mine. he then proceeded to,,,,,,,,,well you know. we heard someone coming soon after, and he made me hide in the closet. i remember feeling like something bad had happened and i hadn't liked it, but i was too young to understand more than that. we played mums and dads a lot after that day. i haven't seen him for years now, but even when i hear his name, see pictures of his face, i panic. it's like i'm 6 years old again. sometimes i feel permanently broken. forever tainted. sometimes i feel disgusted with myself, like it was somehow my fault. i hold myself accountable for something i definitely didn’t want to happen. i think to myself ‘what if i had done something differently?’ but what could i have done? my skin crawls. i get this feeling in the pit of my stomach. a weight, a heaviness that pushes on my lungs and makes it hard to breathe. i invalidate myself. tell myself that i shouldn’t be so triggered by it. so affected. it was so long ago that i shouldn’t even remember it. after all, we can’t change the past. i hear his name, see his face and i feel like i’m about to cry. i scream, claw at my face, dig my fingernails in, but on the outside i am silent. still. i plaster a smile on my face and act like i’m okay. like i’m not broken. i found out he has a baby daughter and i cried all night. i felt terror and anger. because he's living his life not even thinking about me, when he's all i can think about i'm a survivor, not a victim.

Coercion, Abuse, and Feeling Alone in My Struggle I’ve been coerced into sex by someone who I thought was a mentor and a leader in human rights. He’s a researcher, a women’s rights defender, and runs a civil service organization. He approached me romantically and coerced me into sex, making me feel trapped and confused. We were in a relationship, but the whole time, I felt pressured and controlled. There were some times I was sick, intoxicated, or under his influence, and he used that to manipulate me. I initially resisted even his kiss,but it felt impossible to escape later days because of his repeated attempts and influences. Looking back, I now realize that what he did was wrong, but at the time, I didn’t understand it fully. What hurts the most is the disbelief and blame I’m facing from others, especially on social media. People don’t understand coercive control and rape, and it feels like no one believes me. He kept reaching out to me online, using me as a sex object, and I’m devastated by how he used me for his own purposes. I feel worthless, like I’ve lost my dignity and self-worth. The trauma, nightmares, and pain are overwhelming. I’m seeing a therapist almost every day to try to make sense of it, but it’s hard to cope when society and the connections he has make me feel so alone. I feel like no one understands what I went through. I don’t know if I can handle this trauma anymore. Advise me what I can do, or I am so tired of being hurt. … Please Name

I need to tell someone this, I haven't told a single soul not my parents, friends, partner, no one and I need to get it off my chest. I want to start this off by saying I've never had a good family bond, my father was a stoner and barely there, my mother an angry drunk, 2 older sisters who hated me and a twin brother who treated me like a maid. I've had an eating disorder since I was 8 years old, I used to leave the house at 6am everyday, run around the block far too many times and then work out for 2 hours before returning home and starving myself. This went on for around 4 years. One Saturday morning when I was 11 I decided to change it up and ran to the park to run laps of it, I was running circles of the park for around 10 minutes before I was grabbed. A man dragged me into the bathrooms and forced himself on me, I was so malnourished and weak I couldn't fight back. I sat there and sobbed in pain as he did what he wanted, once he finished I thought I was done but I was unbelievably wrong. The man left the bathroom as I laid on the floor sobbing, he came back but with a friend. I was horrified I knew he brought his friend to have 'his turn' but I was also wrong about that. They ended up picking me up and carrying me into a car, they threw me on the backseat and told me to stay down. I complied, afraid of what they would do to me if I didn't. After god knows how long of driving in pure terror they parked and yanked me out. I didn't know where I was but they quickly dragged me into a house where they would then take turns raping me for a few days. After I was all 'used up' they threw me back in the car and drove back to the park and released me; I am still shocked as to why they would release me rather than killing me cause I could have told someone. My parents didn't even notice that I was missing for a few days, I stumbled in the door, bleeding, sobbing, and begging for help. My dad was out with some friends and mum just drunkenly yelled at me to clean the table. No one cared where I had been or what happened to me. Sometimes I wish those men had killed me, I began self harming at only 9 years old and attempted to overdose at 10. Many years later and I still self harm and my most recent attempt was only 2 months ago. I have caused permanent damage to my liver and kidneys from the medication I over dosed on. I wish they killed me.

I was a shy 17 yr old at my sister's house party on new years eve. I found myself alone on an outside couch with one of her friends who she worked with. he was in his mid-30s and I felt pretty cool hanging out with him cause he was older. we chatted for a bit and then he mentioned he had some coke. I was pretty new to the party scene but was excited to try it out. he led me to the laundry and closed the door then leaned up against it. we had some and went back out. it was fun but a lot for me so I didn't want any more. he kept pestering me, asking if I wanted more, and I didn't want to say no so I said "not right now". I ended up saying yes. we went back to the laundry and he leaned back against the door blocking the exit. I didn't want any so I just had a little, he kept getting me more so I tried to distract him by kissing him. he was trying to undo the button of my jeans but said that the kissing was enough. he tried again and I didn't say no. so he did what he wanted then we left and I felt sick. people started to leave and I wanted to get away too. so I told my sister I was walking back to my friend's house nearby. she wouldn't let me go out alone in the dark so I was set up in the spare room. he stayed on the couch. I couldn't get to sleep from all the drugs so I just lay there. I heard the door creak open and he crept in and then into the bed I was in. I couldn't bring myself to say anything. I'm not sure how long it went on for but it seemed forever finally I spoke up and pretended I heard someone and got scared so he had to leave. I didn't get to sleep. he texted me the next day and said we should meet again. he still believes he did nothing wrong but I didn't tell him that he did.

It's kind of hard to label what happened to me because of the circumstances surrounding it, i've invalidated myself a lot, gaslit myself, thought that my experience wasn't valid because people had it worse. I have talked a lot to friends, fellow survivors and they all say it was pretty much sexual assault/abuse (harassment of course too) but it's still different because it was all online, we skyped, called, and texted every day but it was still online and she lives in another country so i could never report what happened. My name is survivor and I am a survivor of abuse. I met Name A in 2016 but only became close to her in 2017, while i had heard of Name B many times in 2016 and 2017, i only became friends with Name B in 2018. Many people said she was bad news and i was skeptical of her at first but like many people I was sucked into a cycle for many years with no way out. When I first met Name B I was 16 and she was 20, Name A was 19. Prior to meeting them, I was so much different, I was confident and passionate, I had this determination and drive but as soon as I met Name B I slowly became her lap dog. I am slowly becoming the girl I was before, I am kinder now that I am out of that “friendship”, more empathetic and compassionate, I am a better person now. What Name B did was she took advantage of a vulnerable teenager, groomed her and stripped her of her self esteem and confidence until she was no longer her own person, but Name B’s object. I was the one that met Name B first and introduced her to Name A. The three of us were inseparable once upon a time, we would spend pretty much all day every day together and back then, we were perfect. However, over time, things started to go downhill, around this time last year in fact, things started to happen that I thought nothing of at first, I thought everything that happened was because I was a terrible person and an even worse friend but now, I can see that what happened was disgusting and should never have happened. Due to me being a minor and Name B being an adult, there was a huge power imbalance. We had our own friend group, it was small and none of us ventured outside of our little bubble, the only people we interacted with was eachother. Honestly the friend group dynamic we had was toxic now that I am looking back at it, there was drama every single day, each day someone had something or someone to complain about and it was draining. Especially after the November 2020 incident, Name B and Name A constantly talked shit about me behind my back, calling me annoying and boring. My friendship with them got dependent, i was dependent on them for happiness and life seemed to revolve around them, my friendships with them were all about them and their ships. I never felt i could talk about me, i did a few times but not nearly as much as they talked about themselves. They came to me and to eachother for everything, I had to talk Name B off the ledge a few times. I got dependent to the point that if i didn’t talk to them for a few days things would feel weird, i felt bad for it. They spent all day roleplaying their ships and no one could talk to them when they were or else they would get mad. Name B would be controlling, she told me not to cut my hair a certain way and one time Name A and Name B mentioned in a call they didn’t like one of the clothes that i got as a present, i ended up throwing it in the bin. Name B would judge my hair, she said i needed to get it touched up as my roots were showing and she hated that. There were times where Name A and Name B would exclude me in calls and conversations, a lot of the time the calls were all about their ocs and ships. I was afraid of talking to Name B about things at one point, she snapped at people a lot (even her own girlfriend) and while she may have said sorry sometimes, she still snaps and is rude. You can’t call her out on anything or she gets upset I wasn’t allowed to have a different opinion and when she started to move away from the toxicity and form my own opinions she got angry. She goes against everything that I believe in and i am ashamed that i supported and was friends with a person like her and her girlfriend, who has the same views. I turned 18 in September of 2019, Name B didn’t do too much to me that i remember prior to me being 18 but right after i turned 18, she developed feelings for me, despite our significant age gap and despite her knowing me at such a young age. In February 2020, she confessed her feelings to me, I wasn’t doing very well mentally so I just shut down and had what you could call an anxiety attack, I ended up not being able to say either yes or no to whether I reciprocated and Name B got upset, she acted as if I had betrayed her and rejected her. Fast forward to July 2020, I was still 18 at this time and Name B was 22. The two of us were just messing around in the chat box, roasting eachother back and forth. Name B would roast me really hard and often, some could say our friendship was based on her roasting me,, a lot of the time her roasts were personal, like she would call me lame or stuff like that. I would roast back but only to be told my roasts were not as good as hers. I then somehow let it slip that I do sexual activities, yeah not a big deal so many people have done it but Name B started to fixate on it and would ask me all sorts of questions and i ended up telling her i had a s** t** and she freaked out and asked for photos of it, she kept begging and i sent her one on Facebook, only to unsend it a second later so she couldn’t save it but then she started yelling, saying “fuck, bitch send it again or i will call you,” and then we called and i had to show her the s** t**. I remember her asking me to turn it on but i never used it on myself. A few days later i found out that Name A was on a skype call with her as we were calling on Facebook. Since then, Name A and Name B proceeded to tell everyone about my sex life and everyone except for a few people would laugh at me for it. I was humiliated, they weaponised sex to make me feel and look bad. It was brought up so many times during skype calls, even when i told them not to talk about it. This was one of the first instances of grooming and what i first called sexual harassment but after talking to many people about it including survivors, I realised It crossed the line between harassment and assault, numerous survivors can agree and vouch me on that. There was a call at one point between myself, Name A, Name B and Name C, I am not sure how it came about but Name B started to ask me these really graphic sexual questions. I tried to tell her “maybe we shouldn’t talk about this,” because we were in a call with others and I was just generally uncomfortable but she told me that it was “natural,” and “nothing to be ashamed of,” I ended up being coerced into answering these questions and she laughed at me. In August 2020 (two weeks after my dog passed away may i add, i was already in a bad state) Name B suddenly out of nowhere admitted she still had feelings for me and asked me to date her after we flirted with eachother for ten minutes. We agreed to date and we texted with eachother for an hour before there was radio silence from her. Not long after that, Name B suddenly messages me saying she is still in love with Name A, who she was in love with for years before Name A rejected her months prior to Name B admitting her feelings for me. I feel as if I was just the second choice, the rebound, the throw away. Name B was also the first person who had ever shown interest in me romantically so it hurt that this was my first experience in love. I was confused at first when i received these messages, it took a while for me to process what was going on. As mentioned in one of the screenshots, everyone thought Name A was straight, that was the reason Name B was rejected in the first place. I had no idea Name A felt this way, so it was a big shock for me as she never displayed any interest in women prior. I messaged a friend of mine who knew that I was dating Name B and i vented to her. However, Name B hacked my account without my consent, looked through my messages and saw me venting. The hacking would turn out to be something Name B did often and each time she justified it by blaming it on me. In this conversation, there was a lot of guilt tripping too and the way Name B would constantly use a childish nickname for me (in general) seems condescending and almost like talking to a child I was then painted in a bad light and I was not allowed to have feelings about being broken up with for someone else, my feelings were invalidated, i looked like the bad guy and eventually i believed i was the bad guy. Everything seemed to be fine for a while until i got into a skype call and an argument broke out, i had an anxiety attack in the call with Name C, Name B and Name A and they all left me to go into a private skype call. Name B took a photo of the private skype call the three entered into and posted it in a facebook story, the call was called “fuck i hated that call,” and i saw it but i never said anything. Fast forward to November 2020, this is when i started to question my sexuality as i originally identified as bisexual but it didn’t feel right for some reason so i did what anyone would do, i consulted a friend, that friend was Name A. I didn’t tell her explicitly that i was questioning my sexuality but i was hoping by talking to her and asking her about sexual orientation that i would be able to figure things out about myself, i thought she would have understood as she had gone through her own struggles. We were in a call with Name B but she had left the room or something but she was still present. I believe she must have heard us having a private conversation and the entire thing was misinterpreted. Name B and Name A thought i was just jealous of Name A and trying to make Name A feel bad but i wasn’t, i was questioning my sexuality and i thought that talking to Name A would help me. I thought she would understand. Late that night, i got a random message from Name B saying that Name A had gone to bed and that she wanted to talk to me. It was very late at night. Name B started to ask me questions about whether i had feelings for her or not. I was very confused. I said no a few times but Name B said that she wasn’t sure how feelings can go away that quickly, i then replied that perhaps i had pushed them down. She then asked whether i would be in a relationship with her behind Name A’s back. I was uncomfortable but i didn’t know what to do and i believed Name A was asleep. Earlier that day, Name B said that she was sad that Name A won’t have skype sex with her. I panicked and said there was something she couldn’t get, it was not an offer, i was making a statement and i admit i made the situation worse, i wasn’t sure if she was serious or not either. I said things that may have made things worse, things I never should have or would have said so maybe it was partially my fault but She then asked if i was offering her phone sex, i tried to say that it would hurt Name A and it would be wrong but she kept going on about it and Name B said she’d be okay with it. She then said she loved Name A and I told her that she needed to stay with her. I had a hard time sleeping that night, i was shaky, anxious and crying, i even tried to message someone about it. I did not tell Name A because i thought she was asleep. I have a problem with not being able to tell people no. She also asked if I fantasise about her when I read smut, I said no because that’s disturbing. I thought she still had feelings for me and had posted things earlier that day that made it sound as if she still had feelings for someone and i responded the way i did as i thought that she had feelings for me and i was afraid to hurt Name B because last time i rejected her, she was really hurt and i didn’t want to hurt her again like i did the other time The next day, i found out that it was all a test to not only see if i still had feelings for Name B but if i would seduce Name B and get into skype sex with her or send her something. I also found out that Name A was not asleep after all but she was awake, watching the entire conversation. I tried to defend myself but i was made to be the villain, told i had failed again and i felt dirty and disgusting. She did more emotional abuse but I won't get further into that. I am also pretty sure i remember her showing me porn on one of those "watch with friends" websites and i was a minor.

I was sexually assaulted physically and verbally by several of my older sisters boyfriends. She never stood up for me or objected to their comments. Why? I feel so scarred because of this and often cover up parts of my body in public with an intense fear of being verbally assaulted again by men.

i'm so nervous this afternoon, i'm finally going to the police to share my story about a guy at school who assaulted me over the summer (i live in the southern hemisphere, so around january). he's a school captain, and i'm vice-captain so he's already in a position of power not only over me but the entire school, and the teachers practically worship the ground he walks on (last time i reported verbal harassment from him, the teachers blamed me) so i'm hoping something changes. i'm terrified, and anxious, but i'm also proud. knowing that i'm doing something a lot of victims don't get the chance to do. i'm going to share my story, and i pray to god that he faces the consequences because this isn't the first time he's done bad things, and won't be the last. stay strong my lovelies, you can share your story too <3 if you wanna chat at all, you can dm social media handle on instagram (my assault awareness page) - a survivor

My first time was sexual assault by a stranger. I have done a lot of work since then and recovered. It's been years since then and more recently I had a crush on a friend of mine. I ended up back at his house a month ago and I told him I don't want to have sex with him. Throughout the night he continued to try, degrade me and make me feel bad for not having sex with him. I am confused because each time I said stop I don't want to have sex he would keep stopping and say he respected that. But then we would start kissing later and he would try again. After trying a few times I got angry and said why do you keep trying after I've said no so many times. He said "what do you expect I am going to do when you're on top of me like that". I later had sex with him because I felt so guilty and I believed what he was saying. I feel sick and stupid about it. I have avoided seeing him. Recently someone we mutually know passed away and I have had to see him again. I avoided him and then I felt so guilty for avoiding him. I feel bad for him and I don't want him to feel bad. I don't like that I care so much about how he feels but a part of me thinks he just did not realise what he was doing and that it was wrong to keep trying after I'd said no. I don't know how to deal with this as I keep fluctuating between hating him and getting angry at those around me being nice to him and wanting to be nice to him myself.

I never liked yoga. It was hard, it hurt, and I especially hated the woman who forced me to do it. Ah, stepmothers. As if my own father wasn’t shitty enough. As if he hadn’t already tried to kill me when I was 7. As if he hadn’t done enough to traumatise me, he goes ahead and marries her. She was obsessed with natural healing. She came from old money, and was an ‘earth healer’ as a full time job. She believed in meditation, yoga, essential oils. So when I was diagnosed with depression, anxiety and a few other things at age 9, she decided she was going to fix me. Thus began the weekly yoga classes. I went to each of them. I only faked being sick once or twice… or seven times. I hated it. It hurt, my body would pop and hurt and do everything it wasn’t supposed to. So she decided to start yoga classes at home. She decided to train me to be good at yoga. Meaning, she decided to get me in tights and no shirt, despite my eating disorder and gender dysphoria, and she decided to get her hands on as much of my body as she could. No one believed me, of course. No, I was just an attention seeking little ‘girl’, who hated his stepmom and was being brainwashed into thinking he was mentally ill (yes, they actually said this). I gained my father’s attention for it one time, and one time only. I must have been 12 or 13. This had been going on for years. At the time, they had implemented a strict diet and exercise regime, meaning I was severely underweight and couldn’t stand up without feeling faint. I’m currently in the process of being diagnosed with EDS. Just to give you an idea of how particularly bad that is. Anyway, I finally gained my father’s attention, because I kicked her. In the stomach. She was pregnant. “Why did you do that?” He asked. He was being surprisingly calm. I should have noticed. “Because she was trying to touch me, and I didn’t want her to.” I replied. Not long after, they dumped me on my mother’s doorstep and told everyone else in the family that my mother was a psycho bitch who tried to keep me from them. I feel disgusting.

I experienced coercive rape by my ex-boyfriend over the span of some months. After not only sexual but also emotional abuse I was able to leave the relationship two years ago. Since then it has been a confusing journey....it took me a long time to understand what happened and to acknowledge my trauma. Sometimes I still feel very confused. Adding to the confusion, a few days ago, I had sex for the first time after the abuse. I didn't know what to expect. I thought it might be fine and ill have a great time or it is horrible and I´ll finally have the strong emotional reaction I was kind of always hoping for so that I can validate my trauma. Somehow it was neither...but it wasn't really enjoyable. I felt like I was not really present but I also couldn't act to stop it. In the moment I also didn't feel like it was so bad that I needed to stop it. The person I was with was also very respectful and felt safe. Im not sure how to feel about it...I was hoping it might help me on my healing journey but I feel like I am still facing the same confusion as before. It was not nice or enjoyable, I was kind of dissociated and couldn't do anything to stop it....still I have this feeling that it was all not bad enough. At least not as bad as I always expected it to be after experiencing sexual trauma. Maybe someone had similar experiencs...?

When I worked for a grocery store one of the mangers a male who was in his 40s began to talk to me and slowly build a friendship with me. This started when I was 19 and I had just moved out of my families house due to a toxic household and I was very lonely . I feel he may have taken advantage of this but I began to have feelings towards him and he began to slowly take things further and further. Until I eventually told him I was uncomfortable he would then back off a bit but he would slowly start reeling me in again and again I feel like such an idiot for falling for it.

I worked in a hospital kitchen as a food services assistant, I was 23 years old. My brother had died the year prior he was 24 years of age when he passed. I had so much grief inside whilst also trying to work and had just moved out of home. I was a lost women learning my way on my own. He was 28, he worked as the dishwashing man. I was instantly intimidated by him and his personality, his loud voice, and the jokes he would come up with, but also somehow extremely intrigued by him, and how he manages to charm everyone he works with, how he is so muscly, tanned, jet black hair and gives off so much confidence within himself, it was hard not to be charmed by him. Whilst washing the dishes he would ask questions out loud " anyone have wild sex on the weekend?". There was a time when I was standing close by to my supervisor (a woman in her 60's) and he came over and asked her if she would go to the movies with him. She laughed it off and told him to go back to work. I remember having lunch break with my female coworkers (They were such good friends of mine at the time) and they would tell me how he had showed them porn at the lockers. I remember them saying how they were uncomfortable but they moved subjects quickly and forgot about it. Not sure how long after but one of them came to me in the kitchen when I was working and she said that he had asked her what she thinks I'm like in bed, and asked her if she thinks id be the kinky type. When she came and told me he was not far away and I think he heard her telling me and he looked over to me, and I wanted to hide. When he left to go collect dishes with one of the girls he would say that if they aren't back soon then they are most likely having sex. He would always give me compliments, say he liked my hair, my nails, this love bombing I took like a hungry fish to bait. I remember one day just saying bye to him as I clocked out and he would just yell out I love you. When it was just me and him washing dishes, he would pretend to wank infront of me and then splashed the water everywhere. One of the older women in her 60's he would always be massaging her shoulders in the middle of the kitchen. (this confused me the most as he was 28.) He would walk past wet floor signs and say wow you must be horny. Nobody ever heard. He would stand at the door way and deliberately look the girl infront of me up and down, and then I knew I was next to walk past him. I even had one of the chefs saying to me, go have lunch with him and you'll be sucking him off in the next 5 minutes. I didn't have that one big moment of omg that was inappropriate he must be trying to harass me, it was a slow feed of inappropriate things being delivered to me like a line of IV fluids in the form of sexual harassment (indirectly and directly). At the time I didn't even realise what was happening to me, I loved the compliments and attention he gave me, because I looked up to him because he was so confident, charming and loud. But I was also so scared of him, He had degraded me and made me feel so uncomfortable with his comments, he had me and my 3 work friends on Facebook and he would send so much porn through messenger and making jokes about the other girls at work regarding porn. I felt embarrassed and humiliated for them. One of my good friends, she use to get him to drive her home, and she said they were making sexual jokes to each other and when she went to get out of the car he pulled her back in, she said she just laughed it off but when she got home she messaged us and told us because she was scared. Later on she would say nobody go in the freezer with him unless you want to be molested. then she walked over to me and told me that he had made jokes about her nipples when she was in there. I still remember the moment that I was like what the hell just happened, I was pushing the dishes on a trolley, when the trolley stopped working and he walked right up behind me as close as he could, and said come on you can do it. I literally panicked and just tried my best to get the trolley going. Once I walked around the corner I had to stop and get my breath. And my mind had shut off from that moment. From that moment I realised my boundaries did not exist. I was being intimidated, humiliated, embarrassed, degraded slowly overtime that I did not even realise it was happening to me until it was too late. Id been manipulated and persuaded to give in, I flirted with him. And before I knew it I was making out with him in his car. Completely scared out of my mind that I couldn't even think whilst it was happening. I remember wanting so badly to show him that I wasn't scared of him. But I was. I was terrified, of what he thought of me, being so unsure of him and his personality, not knowing if he was a good or bad guy. I was an absolute mess after being with him, I felt sick, I didn't eat for weeks. I didn't tell my work friends what I had done, everyday I was going to work and facing him, staring at me, feeling judged and humiliated for giving in and being with him. I wanted to feel okay again, and somehow I was in this toxic cycle of telling myself if I can get him to be nice to me everything will be okay, I asked him to talk one day at lunch, he agreed. I met him in his car and I said to him I just wanted to say sorry for how things have turned out between us. and he said so your wanting to do this again? I said that I was unsure. And then we ended up making out again. Every time it happened, the days after I would be in this faded daze, I couldn't think, I was mentally ill for a while afterwards. The going to work, feeling humiliated, degraded, and like I meant nothing. There were days id beg him to talk to me and explain why it happened, and he would say, I don't know why it happened it just did. I couldn't think for myself, I was relying on him for everything, my thinking, my worth, my reality, which he told me was that I had major issues, was awkward and obsessed with him. For months after I would vomit before going to work, couldn't eat and I was close to a breakdown, the days I went to work with him I looked at the ground, watched him flirting with other girls in the kitchen, and saw him disregard me like rubbish. Tonight I write this, its 4 years on and I have come so far, I still think of this man everyday, and the one thing that I struggle to get closure with, is trying to explain to people how mental manipulation mixed with sexual harassment is one of the hardest things ever to explain in therapy and counselling, I've had days where I've blamed myself still, and told myself that it was my fault and that I agreed to go along with it, I wanted him so badly, I ended up begging my abuser to be with me. I wonder how I ended up being the one wanting him when he was the one harassing me. I've literally had to relearn how to love myself after doing that to myself. I'm still learning after all these years. It takes so much time and effort. But I really hope that one day I will move on. I've said outload to myself that I forgive him, but somedays its really hard. I never got closure from him. And I still doubt myself whether I was sexually harassed. I remember calling him on the phone and he would say everyone knows I'm joking otherwise I would be done for sexual harassment by now. I want to stop doubting myself, I've always known wrong from right. But this man took this from me. And I've struggled in life ever since. I know I need to forgive him. I know what happened did happen. I know my panic attacks were telling me something was wrong. I know that he is a hurt person for doing this to others. God please heal my heart.

Hi everyone, I am not really sure where and how to start. I am now 65 and have been a survivor (and I hate using that word as I feel weak) of sexual abuse by a neighbour when I was 12 years old up until 15 years old, so I should start at the beginning and move forward. I did not grow up in a poor family, I was not treated badly all the time and I did not want for many things (apart from the general things a kid wants at 12 growing up in 1968). I was the youngest of 5 boys and grew up in Melbourne Victoria Australia. At 8 my family consisted of two brothers at home and two brothers in the navy. We had the opportunity of going to the USA when my father was posted there for work. We stayed there for 3 years and we all loved it, from there we were headed to France but my mother kicked up such a racket with my father we headed home to Australia, at the time I was 11. When we got back my father started on the alcohol and become increasingly distant, angry and abusive. My brother above me was 16 months older and above him 24 months older. We all began to hate my dad (something I am not proud to say even now), he would come home and walk into the back of the house, if mum said nothing then he would mumble and go to bed, however, if mum said (which she usually did) something then it was on. Being 11-12 I was fairly tall and my only thought of my dad were him wailing on me for doing something wrong, he would start at the dinner table and on weekends force me to do stupid tasks like weeding between the bricks on the back patio, when it was not done to his satisfaction then he would usually drag me into the bedroom and hit me with a belt. My brothers did not help the situation by trying to make me laugh, just got him madder. At 12 I was starting to get into music and the neighbour across the road was a band manager and had a band that regularly came around so I started to spend some time with him and my best friend (also into music), I am not completely clear what date it happened but (let call him AM, who was a man) AM was over at my place on a day when I was home from school not feeling well, my mum and dad both new him so no problems, on his way out of our house he put his hands down my pants and fondled me, not an unhappy experience to a 12 year old, and said I should come over later to see him. I did this and that is when the sexual experiences started, first it was to fondle me and then he wanted me to fondly him, it was never nasty, hurtful or unpleasant, but it did screw with my head a little. I came over one day with my best friend and AM was all over both of us, I found out later that he was already playing with my best friend. He gradually started to play with both of us at the same time. This happened for a couple of years and the effect was (looking back now) different for both myself and my friend, I started to expose myself to girls and my friend started a risky life of going out with older men, they would pick him up (even when I was at his house) in flash cars and take him for a drive. I spoke to him one day and he told me he as the best c--k suc--r around, he never came onto me and he as gay for 10 years after that. I could go into more details but I wont, except for the impact on me, from 13-60 I was (when under stress) finding a control base by exposing myself to girls, my many psychologists all came to the conclusion that I was trying to control my surroundings by this action, somewhere along the way I started to enjoy it and it became a habit (a disgusting habit and a harmful one), I never really realised what harm I was doing to these girls until I read the 'impact statements' only then did it hit home really hard. I have been convicted on a number of occasions and recently put on the sex offender register. psychological help is ongoing but the ramifications even before being put on the register was depression, thoughts of suicide and dark dark places. The abuse had another affect also, I became a very good sports person, the reason is, I did not mind pain both on myself or inflicting it on others, I would hit contests hard all the time. I was prone to rage (and I still am), I still suffer from the long term affects even today, I have to work really hard to not get angry at my wife and kids (all grown up now and all know what has happened). What I did not do is tell anyone, that was a mistake, talking is good but extremely hard, my wife said to me "if you new it was wrong (talking about going over to AM) then why go", typical question from someone that does not realise that sexual abuse is not always unpleasant. What compounded the situation is that while AM was abusing me my next door neighbour (a women) was also getting me to do things to her, once again not an unpleasant experience, she was nice and kind to me and I lost my virginity to her at the age of 15, funny I hold no animosity towards her at all and I hate AM with a passion. This next part will interest some; So far I have told 9 police officers of the abuse in the interviews and the many court cases I have gone to and so far, 'guess how many have asked me to expand on it', ill give you 2 guesses but I think you will only need one. Police see me as a nothing more than a sex offender, plain and simple, put him in the box, that encapsulates you period, they don't see the many many things I have done right and I have not lost my identity, I can not longer be me, and maybe rightly so. Not sure if anyone want to comment or even care but this is only a snap shot of my lift.

It ended with me. I remember the day my mother slammed my head into the floor until I bled, I was 9. I remember her nails digging so deep into my arm that I hid the cuts and bruises they left, I was 12. I remember my dad protecting me as soon as he understood, I was 14. I remember it because I live it every day, even though it hasn’t happened in 6 years. A survivor is a survivor for the rest of their life, no one gets to take their strength away from them anymore. They know how much it’s worth.

I struggle with thinking what happened was bad enough. Self invalidation and external invalidation have really not helped. But now I want to talk, even if no one will hear or read this. I was a child, not even 5. My pre-school teacher put everyone down for afternoon naps. She sat at the foot of my bed, and she took off my clothes, she put her finger in me, she put cotton tips in me. Her hands, I spend hours a day trying to was off of me. I told my mother, she told me it was just a dream. I told my (now ex) gf, and she harassed me for audio and photos of me to gratify her. Hypersexuality now was never my choice, it disgusts me how part of me would give anything for another chance at contact, but I hate them. They're horrible. I grew up on the internet, with people asking for and sending nudes. I was just 13. No one needs this much exposure to sex as a child, it wasn't fair. But my body is still mine. Though I can't control how others treat it, I can control my own. I won't hurt myself for what they have done to me, it was nothing I said or did. No way did I provoke anyone into this. And I never will. I won't forgive them, I won't forget them. But this is my life, not theirs, and I will live how I want to, it was never their right to take my childhood.

To the man who exposed himself to me when I was 5 years old and the mother who didn't believe me , the man who stole my first kiss without my consent when I was 14. The man who groomed me when I was 16. The man who told me " I have been nice to you all day I deserve something". To the man who refused to wear a condom, held me down by my neck and finished inside me without my consent and justified it by saying he wanted to have children with me. To the man I worshipped who pulled up my dress at the washing machine, used me and tossed me away like I was his play thing. To the guy who pretend to comfort me and used my sadness to attract me when I was at my weakest. To all the men who touched me, objectified me and all the women who justified it, ignored it, allowed it...... Fuck you.

Not 100% sure if COCSA, still healing and navigating. I am currently 21, turning 22 later this year. I’ve spent years trying to fully grasp this ever since I was 7 and have only spoken about this with a counsellor from my high school and two other people. I’ve constantly pondered whether it was a case of playing doctor gone wrong or COCSA along with these events having a big bearing on me, I’m in a far better headspace mentally but I still ponder this and still feel I haven’t fully healed so I’m just simply going to share my story from here. So me and my older brother(3 years older) had a pretty standard dynamic of him being “cool” and good at everything per se whilst I was essentially second fiddle and felt like I was in his shadow, very up and down relationship due to me being neurodivergent which neither of us really understood at the time. It started when I was around 6 in which he’d(Age 9-10) randomly start masturbating or rubbing his penis in front of me, I didn’t think much of it at the time as obviously I was 6 and didn’t understand what was going on, we did share showers a few times but that was primarily innocent, eventually in 2009(8 years old now, him 11) as we were moving into a new house, as we were preparing everything, and on the bottom bunk of a newly put together bunk bed, he “invited” me to masturbate him(The words masturbate, etc weren’t used, I don’t remember the exact terminology used but it was about making it “grow bigger”), I remember being complacent which I don’t know why I was, perhaps it was because it was someone I genuinely loved and looked up to, I remember even saying that we’d pretend to talk about something else if we heard anyone come towards the room, I don’t know how long it lasted but I ended up stroking him after the aforementioned stuff of him talking about “making it grow”, etc. I remember at the time enjoying it and it didn’t feel weird, I remember him moaning and telling me not to go too fast, etc, I don’t know how long it was but he didn’t ejaculate from it. After that, nothing really ever happened apart from a few occasions from 2010-2011 in which I’d either see him casually pull out his penis and wiggle it around while lying down and on one occasion rubbing it on my legs when I was 8-9 and he was 11-12. The events in 2009 led to a whole spiel of me discovering and becoming addicted to masturbating myself, I remember feeling increasingly socially awkward as time went by, wondering if this was something normal for siblings, etc. I remember in 2012-2013 masturbating over the handjob from 2009 which in hindsight was a means for me to cope with what had happened and try and have some degree of control over that situation, I would have breakdowns over it and feel disgusted with myself every time I thought about it in retrospect. I had also felt conflicted as I was increasingly breaking down due to my depression developing at this time from various other circumstances as well and an existential crisis essentially, well at least for an 11-12 year old. I remember in my head blaming him for being the reason why I “wasn’t cool”, etc. After primary school and by the time of high school in 2014 I’d come to stuff it in the back of my head, at this time I got into porn and masturbating continued to be a habit from then and many years to come, I remember coming out as asexual and believing I really was at the time from 2014-2016 which part of the reason I’d attribute to all that had happened with me and my brother. I’d have further breakdowns about it in 2015 with my depression escalating and me and my brother arguing much more(I did not bring up anything about all that had happened apart from a “throwaway” remark in which I told him that he “traumatised” me around 2014, our arguments were seperate from this). 2014 was around the time I began to hold bitterness towards him and felt that he was the catalyst for me being who I was, and I hated everything about myself, by 2016 our relationship would begin to improve though. From this point it’d be very on and off until 2019 in which I finally opened up to my high school counsellor(Though in not as much detail as I am sharing here, mostly emphasising the handjob), she said that I had been sexually abused and we’d have sessions in which I’d navigate through it albeit at this time it was very difficult for me to talk about, it was the first time a label was put on it per se and the first time I had a firmer grasp on what had happened, eventually I opened up to my brother about it who had also brought up that he had a bad circle of friends through primary school though never went into any further detail than that and was exposed to a lot of things. So right now, I’m at a point now having done my own extensive research on sexual abuse, CSA, etc, etc where I’m doing far better now but still healing and still navigating everything. So I’m just gonna leave it at that, I know this is extremely long but thanks for listening.

This is an old story but not an irrelevant one. I was fifteen or sixteen, swirling in all the chemicals and hormones of my age and intoxicatingly in love. Hanging out in school holidays with my best friend in her small home town (now burnt to the ground)and her group, which included her ex boyfriend, the man, four and a half years senior to me, who I'd fallen for. That was the dating. Fast forward to parental permission to stay with him in his family's farmhouse for a short time. During that time, we attended a party of his family and relations in a near by town. I was underaged but he was consuming alcohol into the night. We came in his car so we left in his car. I'm talking 1969, 70. Not far from his parents home he took a turn off. Parking at an old church or it may have been a hall, hidden by the night and the bush, he raped me. I fought hard against his intrusion but he was far stronger than me. I considered him a good man (strangely enough I still do because I see it as ignorance, alcohol and the behavior of a perhaps spoilt only son of Italian immigrants) That doesn't make it acceptable in any way. I was a virgin. There were more incidents to follow, though that was probably the worst. I was intensely shy and had a fear response of vocally freezing. Somewhere around this time I moved with my parents 100 miles north to the city. Somewhere around this time, he was conscripted for service into the army. Must have been early 70's. In between or after....the rapes continued in an unbuilt new residential area, close to where I now lived with my parents. By then I had given in to it. By then I was engaging in underaged drinking. I had parental consent to date him. I was in love and confused by the events. I had no self esteem, making me vulnerable to undeserved shame. In primary school I didn't usually vocalize school difficulties to my sisters or parents. Into my teens I was even less inclined to speak out. I moved out of home and into a house in an old suburb, with him and a few others-my best friend, the same friend from high school. In May 1975, we married. In 1983, a few years after separation, we divorced. He was my first and deepest love. Perhaps we'd have had a longer life together had he been considerate, restrained and sober. There is of course many details left unwritten here. Over many years I did regain self respect and dignity. I didn't regain trust. I had an innocent trust before that first rape. My father was a considerate, gentle and sober person. Over a long period of time with respectful behavior, some men have gained my trust. Like many, I had material losses. We had moved to the east, leaving many of my precious belongings with his family. Some of monetary value, some sentimental and most of almost three years of my artwork from a graphic design course I did. Rejected by his mother, I didn't return. I was informed items were sold and sent to the tip.