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I don't know in which moment started. It was my father. I was a child. I was the favorite one between all of our brother and sisters. It was always subtle. The contact when I lay down on his bed, the slaps on the butt, or the comments that "you are so pretty that if I were your age and you weren't my daughter I would be with you.", added to the touch when I climbed onto his legs. It took me many years to understand that this, added to the fact that he did not see me as a normal father sees a daughter, hurt me tremendously. I felt like a trophy, like an extension of his body. I discovered that all this was abuse more than a year and a half ago. When I realized it in therapy I cried a lot. I felt very guilty about what happened, and even to this day I question whether I am not inventing everything, since everything is plausible and existed in reality, I just didn't want to see it as abuse. My older brother also abused my sisters and me, however, I have never been able to tell my family about my father. Seeing the pain they have felt with the news about my brother (relieved by one of my sisters), I see that it would only generate inconvenience and pain in my family. And being pragmatic, I couldn't achieve anything by revealing the news to my family other than complications. I know that if my sisters knew, they would want to talk to my father, and my father knowing would be able to stop paying my and my younger sister's alimony. And considering we're in college, it's something I can't afford. But I'm not going to lie, I feel disgusted every time I talk to him, I wish i would never have to talk to him.

I was SA when I was 10 years old approximately, and my cousin 13 approximately (he is 3 years older than me). My depression start at that age approximately too, so know that im thinking about it that was maybe the reason. This week i told my mom about it, im 18, so my trauma happen 8 years later, i feel guilty because she want to talk with my family, not all, but yes some people of my family about what happen, i dont want ruin his life, even if he ruin mine, if he get some consequences i will feel guilty because this happen 8 years ago. My mom dont understand why i worry so much about it, i dont understand eather. I know that maybe he was conscious about that what he do was SA, because he was 13 approximately, not 7, not 8, not 9, not even 10. He meet his girlfriend when she was 17 and he was 19, and sometimes is a asshole, but i cant stop feeling guilty about it, even when i dont understand, because no one give me sexual education at 10, and im autistic, and when i was a kid it was more dificult undertand things. Sorry for my broken english, English is not my first language, i just want know why is not my fault, because its feel like it is.

I was a 7 year old girl with a lot of confidence, maybe that's why or just luck happened but the truth doesn't matter in this story, I grew up with only cousins and vafones brothers in a very close family, everyone knew everything it's quite surprising that they didn't know until I spoke what happened, during a vacation I don't remember the year or the place but I do remember that I was playing a hulk play 2 game, it was very late like 4 or 5 in the morning and my cousin was taking care of me he was older than 10 years old and he told me to sit on his lap, I remember how he took the game controller from me and then everything is confusing I don't remember anything until the following year, I matured quickly everyone said it was because I was an intelligent and agile girl, I was the next time that cousin tried to put a hand on me when I was 8 almost 9 I broke his nose.

Being a girl is not fair I am a 32 year old woman abused more that once when I was younger. It was the first abuse that had the butterfly affect of leading me to the rest. When I was twelve I wanted to earn money. My parents did not believe in allowance for doing chores. I could not work legally until I was fourteen unless it was a newspaper route waking up before dawn. My Uncle--my Dad’s brother--hired me to work at his appliance repair shop. He was the only one we knew who had a business. Soon after I started, part of the job was letting him give me massages. He molested me a little more each time until he was using his mouth on my privates. He would masturbate while he did. I let him do this for weeks while he changed me and distorted me. Then he made me use my mouth on him. I did it ONE time. I vomited after. I reported him to my parents. The were caring and supportive, and angry at him. But not angry enough to do anything but let me stop working there. He apologized to me in the kitchen with my parents there. Me floating adrift in lava while the Gods decided my fate. I barely remember it. He stayed in our lives with almost no change. I went back to normal. On the surface. But I was not the same, and become more afraid of things. The dark, being alone, silence. In the coming years I fooled around with boys in ways I might not have. I may not have been that type of girl but felt compelled. I was fifteen when I had a boyfriend my age that I secretly had sex with almost daily. I loved him. He dumped me. More issues. Age seventeen. High school senior. Dyed blue-streaked hair down to my butt. Emo. Skinny. Flat chest. Was drinking and smoking put by then. But not THAT NIGHT. I Walked out of a Pink concert I had gone to with my cousin and her friends. Something upset me and I left. Night time. Part of the city I don’t know. No plans. Maybe go back to the concert after getting my head together. Walking past a strip mall a group of four guys came out of place, not sure what it was. I had seen that two of them were black. That scared me. I’m sorry. I hurried and turned right. So did they. It was something like an alley behind the strip mall and a big wall on the one side. Back doors of business, dumpsters, a few cars. Not well lit. Maybe I could have just kept walking and been fine but it was dark on the far side and seemed so far away. The guys were talking and laughing and behind me. I grew terrified of being raped or hurt or killed. I think I heard one of them say the words, “nice ass” in their chatter. Panic attack. I think I was trying to save my own life. Preemptive strike? I stopped, turned and said. “You guys can F--- me if want.” I remember the pause while some of them stopped but one kept coming. They laughed, maybe nervous. The one that kept coming put his arms around me and pressed his body to me. I forgot what he said but he pulled me in close, grinding on me. They took me to a dark area off to the side between two buildings. I did oral for the first one and the other black one, but not all the way. A show for them. Laughing. Shooshing each other when they got too loud. I tried but they got rough and I gagged a lot. Take you clothes off. Jacket, tank, jeans, panties. Onto my back. Asphalt. Legs spread. Trying to stay on top of my clothes to not get cut and scraped. All four of them took turns. With the first one it was a show they watched. With the rest they were turned around, talking to each other, trying to block me from view. I think someone walked by but not sure. Alcohol and cigarette breath. Guys probably in their thirties. Friends having fun. Boys being boys. Just pumping into me. Telling me I’m tight. My body a vessel. Legs spread. No resistance. My arms around them. Eye contact I don’t remember. I always looked at my boyfriend in the eyes. I always look in eyes during it, searching for a connection. I saw their eyes but not their faces. They just used me for friction. Quick and get it down. Except for the second to last. He wanted to talk. I told him my name. I told him about the concert. I told him I liked to be on top because he asked. I remember his face. The only one who was white. Crooked nose. Cauliflower ears. Blue eyes. A sense of hurry from the others. He blurs into the last one in my mind. The Arab/Persian? “Thanks a lot.” I know one of them said. They thanked me while I got dressed quickly and kept walking the direction they had been going before. By the time I walked back out they were gone. I went back the direction I had come from. I got back in the concert and spent the whole time finding my cousin. Sore and dripping. Back scratched up. I felt gross. I started crying but stopped when I drew too much attention. I found them. The final song was “Get the Party Started” We left together. The ones who were not driving drank wine but I was not allowed any because I was too young. I told nobody. Told my mom it was cool. Right away I became the girlfriend of a guy who had a locker near mine who had been persistent but I had always rejected. He was tall and no more than “okay”. I did not want to be alone. He fell in love. I did not. Prom and stuff. I broke up with him the last week of school. He was leaving for college anyway. I did not want to go with him. I cheated on him because I needed more sex that he could give. Then came the days of being passed around. I went to community college and dated my chem lab partner, got kind of raped by his brother in the shower and became the brother’s girlfriend. He got me into heavy drinking, party drugs, the club scene and I dropped school. I was an EDM/Metal/Trance princess and had so many “friends” in the scene that knew me as Sapphire. Sapphire was a nymphomaniac. People loved that about me. Some good, some bad. Quickies in dark spots in the clubs. Backstage. Back office. Cars. Secrets. Woke up in different beds. My boyfriend kind of “gave” me to his drug dealer and I lived with him until an older guy talked me into running away with him to Location. He was 39 (40 for a month) when I was 20 and we lived together for more than a year. It was a very sexual relationship but he cared about me. His house was a quick walk to the beach and I loved it. It was healthier. I started CC classes again and got my AA. He helped me through my panic attacks and I hid my depression from him. My parents met him, and accepted him eventually. We talked about marriage. But he was gone all day weekdays, I did not have a job, and I had a second life to feed my big hollow emptiness that had started after my uncle used me. Also, he liked to role play that he was my father. Just one of his kinks. The sickest part is that just like the eye contact thing, saying “F me daddy” became something I just do automatically. I cheated on him many times when he was with guys from the beach crowd he only knew slightly from our weekend beach trips. Girls too. I fell for a surfer and wanted to have his baby and even quit birth control. It all ended badly and I moved back with my parents. I was finally diagnosed with manic depression and talked to my mom about all the sexual encounters and abuse and started going to group. Five years after THAT NIGHT my mom was the first person I told about the four guys after the concert. That one still rips a hole in my sense of life and love and loving myself. I wonder if good guys don’t want to be with me because my breasts are small I take medication and I am functional. Like I said; BEING A GIRL IS NOT FAIR

My name is Survivor and when I was around age 3, my father started raping me. My mother helped hold me down. He was raping her, and she offered me up in her place. This continued until age 23, maybe 24, shortly before my wedding. By the time I was 6, he was raping other members of my family too. He’d come into my room at night and would throw my nightgown up into the headboard and then I’d have to wait my turn in fear and naked shame while others were raped. We had a large waterbed and I still remember the bed rolling up and down, up, and down, up, and down like on a boat. Once done, he wiped me down roughly with a red shop rag he used in cleaning the garage. It allowed him to keep the rag around to smell it and hold it close with no one questioning why it was so dirty with red stains. Most of the time, my dad was friendly and polite. But once he turned into the monster no one did anything to stop him. He never did these things when he was nice. Only when he was the monster. But he used the nice times to make it easier to attack. He would lull you into a false sense of safety and peace which really made you question your intuition and gut instincts that this was a bad man. This made it easier for him to sexually assault other children and adults. As I got older, my parents controlled the narrative of our lives, every aspect was carefully controlled. Like my mom knowing how to force miscarriages. The first abortion forced on me was when I was 15. I don’t know how I managed to make it to adulthood. I continue to remember more and more of the abuse by other family and church members. And other things my dad did within the church where he was pastor and then later deacon. But I still can’t talk about those memories. I think my dad felt like anything he did was inevitable, therefore, never his fault because he couldn’t control himself and when it happened God would forgive him, so it was all right. I know this because I overheard him grooming another family member to do the same things when he was 11 years old. Males in our family were groomed to be abusers too. I was groomed too. To always be the abused. Forced to keep silent, I learned quickly what happens to people who stand up to my dad. They die or get assaulted. As you can imagine, I had terrible anxiety growing up about being sexually assaulted and worked hard to fade into the background. I thought that might help. I thought it mattered what I wore, color of my hair, how much I weighed. It’s taken years and it will probably continue to take years to unlearn the lies I was taught. The worry made me constantly ill with one thing after another-- I got cancer when I was 32 and before that incapacitating vertigo and motion sickness. My parents met while working down in Texas for an independent fundamental Baptist preacher. Lester Roloff—an Independent Fundamental Baptist preacher who opened homes across the country for “troubled” children, teens, and adults. He liked to say he was saving dope fiends, whores, and hippies. I believe many of the children in the homes had already experienced abuse growing up and Lester Roloff homes should have been a safe place to heal. Instead, the kids met caretakers like my parents. My mom was in a charge of the 16 and older home and my dad flew around the country raising money and preaching the party line: men were akin to gods and women were lower than dirt—their only worth was in being a virgin and then baby factories once married. Very masochistic and minimizing of abuse of any kind, my parents ate up the evil rhetoric being preached from the pulpit My parents eventually took their brand of abuse from Lester Roloff’s out into the churches and communities where we lived-from Texas to Washington and eventually into Alaska. He disappeared in a plane over the waters near Anchorage in 2006. The events surrounding his disappearance were always very suspect but intense pressure from my family kept me quiet. Every day for almost three years straight, a family member called and reminded me talking about “our family issues” was causing generational sin to 4 generations. The pressure to keep quiet and do what my family told me to do was so significant I would have rather died than disappoint them. It wasn’t until I set out to heal from all the trauma, that I found out my dad faked his death. I had always been told since he was gone, there was nothing to be done for what I experienced growing up. But let me tell you, knowing he’s still out there perpetrating on other children and men and women really compelled me to come forward. I finally felt free to start talking. Getting past the pressure to stay silent was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Harder, even, than fighting cancer. I have spent many years in intensive CBT, EMDR and Polyvagal therapy learning how to process my wounds in a healthy way. I had pushed for criminal and civil suits against my perpetrators but the Texas statute of limitations don’t allow for justice to be done. So now, I spend my time now speaking on panels, podcasts, and community platforms about the intersections of trauma, faith, and advocacy. One of the biggest honors of my life has been sharing my story and advocating for Trey’s Law on the Texas Senate floor in Spring 2025. Forcing a sexual assault victim to keep quiet is what allowed people like my parents to continue their mistreatment for so many years. I will do what I can to make sure justice isn’t minimized by NDAs and Statute of Limitations. My efforts connect me with survivors, true crime audiences, mental health communities, and faith groups seeking to understand and confront abuse. I invest my time in mentoring survivors, creating resources for healing, and building digital tools to expand access to supportive materials. Because living a life whole and healthy is what I really want for me, all the victims and their families. We make our own opportunities to heal.

hi. i found out when i was 14 that what happened to me wasn’t okay. i have no idea how to deal with the fact that apparently im a victim of cocsa, so that’s why im here because i have no idea what to do. it started when i was 5, and she was 9. the first time, she asked what kind of princess underwear i was wearing, then asked to see. i showed her and she touched me, then asked if i liked it. i didnt know what i was supposed to like. this went on for some time, and eventually she got my sisters in on it too, they were her age. i didn’t know what it even was but i wanted her to keep hanging out with me alongside them so i didn’t complain. and the sister i shared a room with one night asked if we could “practice” so we could be good for her, then asked me to touch her. she called it her dog house, and i had to help the dog. me and my sister haven’t spoken about that night since it happened, and i cant get it out of my mind. but the girl never stopped with me, one day she came to my house and wanted to sleep over. i was so excited that she asked to sleep in my room with just me, and it got to bedtime, and she asked if i could help her, but i said i didn’t want to so she made me hold her phone that had porn on it, i sat there for however long while she did it, making me watch. i never knew it was wrong or anything, i just loved the idea of her thinking of me. the last time, i was 12. my family took her on our vacation, and she wanted to go back to the condo for whatever, she asked me to come back with her. i was downstairs eating pizza rolls, and she asked me to come upstairs. i walk in the room and her bottoms are off. she asked me to come and sit, and asked if i would help her. i said i didn’t want to, and she just asked me to take my top off and watch. i remember i just sat there staring at myself in the mirror. the whole time. for the first time, i was scared. we then left once she was done, and said nothing. when it was my 14th birthday, i talked abt it, and i was told that it wasn’t okay. 7 years of my life. i didn’t know. and i don’t know how to deal with any of this. any tips or help would be great.

In the summer of 1985 I was 18yrs old and had just graduated high school and was headed to college in the fall. I was dating a guy and we were very much in love. Another guy I had dated briefly months before who broke it off with me, (he was 23) was throwing a party for Live Aid at his mom's house where he lived also. My boyfriend was working until 11:30pm so I went over about 9p to hang out with everyone until he arrived. The guy was making margaritas or daiquiris and I had a few. I was sitting in a chair watching TV and everyone else was in another room. The next thing I remember was waking up with the guy having sex with me. At that moment my boyfriend is coming down the hall calling my name. I call back to him and the guy gets up and dressed and ran out to my boyfriend. My boyfriend came into the room and dressed me and carried me out. I couldn't walk. After my boyfriend took me home and put me on my bed he went back to the house to do some damage to the guy but he was met at the door by the guy and his buddies and told my boyfriend that I "was chasing him all over the house naked and begging for him to have sex with me". My boyfriend believed it and it slowly destroyed our relationship and my life forever.

Stuck in the bathroom. It is possible to be loved. When I spent ages telling my Mum and Dad that it would be ok to travel to city for a gig , I thought I was grown up and street wise. In reality I was a naive young man - my parents reluctantly agreed as long as we stayed with my friends uncle - this would mean we wouldn’t have to travel back late . The gig was fantastic - we got back to his flat the others went to bed. I stayed up chatting with name - after about half an hour he started asking me if I was a virgin and showing me pornographic magazines . I tried to get away and go to bed - he then attacked me and raped me . I locked myself in the bathroom and waited but he was still agitated - he wanted me to sleep in his bed - I had no idea that a man could do what he did to another male. Two weeks later I went back to stay again after a football match - this time I tried to persuade my parents that I shouldn’t go - but they didn’t want the ticket to go to waste - he attacked and raped me again - I eventually managed to lock myself in the bathroom . I mentally stayed in that bathroom for the next 40 years - never telling - never asking for support - 3 failed marriages - problems with drink - difficulties being a good parent. The first person I told after 40 years was my ex-wife - her response was “I can’t love you - you have violated me by keeping this a secret” - this was crushing and led to a decline to a very dark place. Now with the support of my children, my new partner , a fantastic psychiatrist and a therapist from support organisation - I feel better and believe I can be loved. It is never too late to start to heal .

What would you know? It's a question that was directed at me by someone who never considered that sexual violence could pertains to men as victims. This is what I know: What would I know? How do I even begin To talk aboit what I know About how I learned Too much, too soon Held in and on For far too long What do I know? I know that you never, ever, No matter how hot the water Or abrasive the cloth Will ever feel clean Even if you wipe until you bleed I know that your body My body, will never be your own My own That some part of it No matter the healing Will always remember Being forced to share itself But sharing is the wrong word Because sharing is given Not taken with force I want to say invasion But that sounds too Clinical Polluted, that's it You, I feel polluted. Its just in one small, dark corner now When it used to pervade Everything Every taste, every joke Every public shower And locker room Every smile, scalding touch And mention of intimacy But healing does that It shrinks the poisonous sludge Of memory Until there's almost none of it left And you, we, can live Not just survive But on certain days Anniversaries, birthdays On odd days when someone else Learns what it means to feel like you Me And we cry in the soft darkness Of our own beds Horribly alone yet never truly alone Because it never left They never leave. To take the finger from my lips I have learned to stop hating To understand their brokenness I am afraid of the dark and more afraid Of the light But only in giving voice to the feelings Can I shape them And in shaping them I give limits To the memories that created them And in doing so I take the shards Of who I was and might have been Putting pieces of me back together Alongside those I imagine into being The potential to be anyone I choose Has become the reality Of who I am What would I know? I know surviving is only an opportunity I know living is something else entirely I know that secrets are pervasive and corrosive I know that I carry fears within me And that gives me comfort because I will always be bigger than they are. And I know, I know, I know In my soul of soul of souls That I don't carry any of it alone anymore.

The dark parts don’t trigger me anymore. I know I’m safe now—in myself, my mind, body, soul, home, relationships, and life. It wasn’t always that way. I can talk about it if I choose to. Not everyone gets to hear my sacred story, and that’s how it should be. I’m no less worthy, and neither are you. Naturally, it took time to recover. The past could be unsettling during the healing process, often in unexpected ways. One day, I opened a social media account, and an acquaintance from my soccer community posted a team picture of his latest league victory. There, kneeling in the front row, was the strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde I once lived through. Seeing him smiling while standing dangerously close to others I knew was unnerving and reminded me how effortless it was for Hyde to convince people he was something he wasn’t. I left that relationship. More accurately, I secured my safety and Hyde’s departure, changed the locks, and blocked any way of contacting me. I thought I had to do it that way, on my own, but that wasn’t true. I painted the walls, but it would always be a trauma environment. Despite my efforts to see past the wreckage, open up, and have conversations, I often felt criticized and painfully alone. If you are unaware of the long list of reasons why it’s difficult for women to speak up, inform yourself. It wasn’t until much later that I experienced solidarity's power in such matters. We scrutinize and scowl at these stories from afar, my former self included, with an air of separateness and superiority until we experience them ourselves. For, of course, this could never be our story. But then it is, and now it is. Other women sharing their sacred stories were the most significant to me in the healing years - confidants who embraced me with the most profound empathy and stood and breathed in front of me with their scars that were once wounds. And my mentor of many years who held hope when I couldn’t and taught me how to give that to myself. Over the years, I have often asked myself if I would ever be free - truly free - from the psychological, emotional, physical, and spiritual damage that had occurred. Would my wounds heal? Would I always have some adaptation in my body from holding my emotions in a protective posture? Or could I get it out and be released? Would my stress response and anxiety always be easily heightened? Would my PTSD symptoms ever go away? Would I ever trust myself again? Trust another again? Would I always be startled by loud noises and glass shattering? Would “normal” ever be normal again after being exposed to such severe abnormalities? Would I ever forgive myself for how small I became during that time? Would the anger, confusion, disorientation, sadness, and grief abate? Would the dark nights ever end? Would I ever be held again, be myself again, or was I changed forever? The thing about liberation is that it can seek justice that doesn’t arrive. I was in a relationship with Dr. Jekyll, who hid the evil Edward Hyde, his intimidation tactics, wildly premeditated orchestration of lies, manipulation, and gaslighting. A part of me wanted clarity until the truth was true, and my mind could unfuck the mindfuck and rest again. Don’t wait for clarity that is never coming. Some of us must live big lessons to break patterns and cycles of this magnitude, even to believe again that it’s possible. But let me be clear—no woman, no person, wants to live these types of lessons. If you understand nothing else from this essay, understand that. If you are one of the lucky, privileged ones to sit on your throne of judgment when hearing these stories, you don’t understand. You don’t understand that what you’re misunderstanding is not the woman or victim in the story, but it is yourself. That’s the harshest, blindest truth. Another truth about this all-too-common story is that the parts of the victim stuck in that situation do not belong to the public to dissect. That’s her burden to bear. And it will be. In actuality, each individual walking through abuse is trying to stand up and say, “This happened. It is real. I am alive. Please breathe with me. Please stand there near enough so I can see what it looks like to stand in a reality I am rebuilding, in a self I am reconstructing, in a world I am reimagining. Because if I hear you breathing, I might breathe too. And if I see you standing, I might pull myself up, too. And, eventually, I’ll be in my body again—I’ll be able to feel again. Not surviving, but piercing through my life again.” For the victims, I’m going to be honest with you: the meandering process of recovery is ultimately up to you. It’s your responsibility. Therapists, books, podcasts, and support groups can help but can’t heal you. You have to heal yourself. You have to accept the victim's role to let it go. You have to feel—to struggle through the feelings. It’s daunting and scary. You’ll want to give up. If you have people in your life who are stuck in their shallowness while you’re trying to go to your depths, let them go and let them be. Pivot and seek the sources and people to show you how to stand and breathe. You have to start thinking for yourself now, caring for yourself now, and loving yourself now. But trust me, you’ll need people, and you’ll need to find them. You don’t have to be strong; you can be gentle with yourself. Often, the intelligent, empathetic, and enlightened part of a person gives Henry Jekyll a second chance to work on himself and make things right. I must acknowledge a narrow and perilous line between the resolvable, troubled soul and the soul that spills over into malice, rigidity, maladaptiveness, and steadfast personality. Most people never encounter evil and retain their naivety, while victims lose this innocent vantage point of the world. It’s not the victim’s job to rehabilitate or reintegrate anyone but herself. Our stories are pervasive, and we come from all walks of life. On March 9th, 2021, The World Health Organization published data collected from 158 countries reporting almost one in three women globally have suffered intimate partner violence or sexual violence. That’s nearly 736 million women around the world. We need more voices of survivors—more voices of the human conditions we let hide in the shadows for fear of discovering it in ourselves. I lost parts of myself during that time with Hyde. The destructive consequences of this style of person are astounding, and the impact on my connection to myself and others was among the most challenging aspects to overcome. The rage that boiled in Hyde resulted in outrageous displays of public humiliation, screaming, and, on one drunken occasion, physical violence. If Hyde had called me a stupid bitch before grabbing my neck, throwing my head against a stone wall, and my body across a room to smash into a bedpost and break my ribs while we were in the United States, I would have been able to call the authorities. And I would have. But because we were in the middle of nowhere in a foreign country, vindication occurred through the fog of shocking circumstances I didn’t deserve. After years, Hyde popped up in a picture on social media. He plays soccer on the same fields I used to play on with joy in the absence of hypervigilance. It’s that disparity in fairness that can grip us in bewilderment. I’m on another path now—one where my trust and love are respected. I remain open and available for peaceful, constructive ways of being, relating, participating, and having a voice. I hope you’ll embrace my sacred story with sensitivity and compassion as I offer it to those in need so we may come together and let her stand up and live.

I was abused by my mother. She was strict with me, hitting me, telling me I was stupid and wishing I'd never been born. I felt like I didn't deserve to live. My mother wasn't just a scary person; she was also kind, especially to my younger brother Name. I met my current husband at University, got married, and had a child. I was overcome with anxiety that I might do the same to my child as my mother, and I cried and complained to my husband many times. My husband recommended that I see a counselor, and I'm currently receiving counseling. I always thought my mother was strict because of my fault, but now I realize that I'm not the only cause. By talking about the things my mother said and did to me that I'd kept hidden, I feel like I've lightened the burden I felt. I'm sharing this here again, hoping that it will bring some comfort. Thank you for reading.

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

I'm a 63-year-old woman who has endured abuse all of my life. The abuse started with my mother who was a narcissistic sociopath. She would beat me with a 2x4 shaped into a paddle so she could get a good grip on it. I would get beaten every single day. She would say the abuse was due to me wetting my underwear. I would have to take off my underwear every night and she would smell them. If they had even the slightest hint of urine that was enough of a reason to get beaten. It was like a catch 24, if I was out playing I wouldn't go home to go to the bathroom because I was afraid of getting beaten, but if I didn't go home to go to the bathroom I would get beaten. I spent my entire childhood in fear. She would steal my money, throw my things away, tell lies about me. She knew I was my father's favorite, so I wasn't allowed to speak to him. I was brainwashed to believe this was how every family lived. When I got married I married my mother. He also abused me. He would lie, cheat, and steal from me. I was diagnosed with Stage IV breast cancer. When I would go to my treatments I would take Fish crackers to help with the nausea. One day I went to the cupboard to get my crackers and they were all gone but one, just enough to make it look like they were still there and the container wouldn't have to be thrown away. I also was diagnosed with brittle bone disease. I was told I needed to drink alot of milk. We had a refrigerator in the garage where I would keep 5 gallons of milk, along with 1 gallon that was in the house refrigerator. One day I went out to the garage to get a gallon of milk and all 5 gallons were gone. He had drank all 5 gallons in just one week. Can you imagine doing that to your wife who has Stage IV breast cancer!!! He threw a hammer at my head as I was walking away from him. He burned our home to the ground and told the detectives I did it. He is also a narcissistic sociopath. While he was doing all this, he got my daughter to go along with him. She, as of today 10/11/25, is a liar, cheater, thief. She is abusive. She's only 25 and already has been married twice, has 2 children from each marriage and she hates them both. She uses her children as pawns to get her way. She has already used two childhood friends to try and get to me. I'm not stupid, I know what she's up to and I'm not falling for it. I've been divorced for 3 years now. I've changed my name, moved away, and started my life over, but she still finds me. I'm terrified of her. I know what she's capable of. I thought once I got divorced I would be free of the abuse, but I'm not. At this time, all I have is my faith that God will take care of me. God got me out of a horrific situation and I have faith the God will continue watching over me. I'm so happy I got out of my marriage, which lasted 35 years. The divorce took 3 years; the judge said it should've only taken 9 months. He wanted everything, so I gave him everything. The law needs to be trained to understand mental illness such as narcissistic sociopath to understand that they are prolific liars. My divorce attorney's husband even said, "he lies so well you almost have to believe him." That's the problem, the legal system believes them so the innocent get punished and the perpetrators get away with it.

i want justin baldoni to know how proud dv people are of him. i can tell how much he cares and this movie he made has impacted him. my father is a very verbal and physical abuser and my mom left after 20 years and im forever grateful and im so glad they made this movie. thank you justin.

I was five years old when it happened. My abuser was also a five year old girl. I remember thinking that my story isn't valid because she's exactly the same as me. Over time, I did research and started to realize and recollect more and more about the memories of my abuse. If you get triggered or have triggers related to sexual assault/abuse, I advise not reading this next part. At first, I forgot the entire event ever happened. I remember being about 11 when I realized what had happened. The memories started gradually coming back. She was my friend. We were normal five year olds, I'd always have playdates at her house. At every playdate, she'd take me to her playroom. She'd lock the door and draw the blinds. Then, she'd make me lie down on this small mattress on the floor. She called it a game. She said that she was the doctor and that I was the patient. Once I'm on the mattress, she'd get on top of me. She'd touch me under my clothes. She'd look under my clothes. She'd take off my clothes. I remember just hoping, wishing, and praying that it would soon be over. If you're wondering, I was wearing a school uniform most of the time whenever this happened. This went on for almost the entire year when I was five. When I remembered and realized what had happened to me, I didn't believe it. I thought I was overreacting. I thought I was making it up. How could someone the same age and gender as me sexually abuse me? I'd only seen cases of young girls getting abused by older men. So how could a young girl be assaulted by another young girl? A few years have passed since I first remembered the events. I've gotten wiser, and discovered that there are many forms of assault. When I first found out what COCSA was, I felt so accepted. It was so validating, knowing that these memories that have destroyed me for years and years... they're real, and they're valid.

I was about 5/6 the first time it happened. I had no idea what was going on I just knew I felt weird.. deep in my stomach.. that gut wrenching feeling I would get before my parents would line us up for swats. It started with him being a little touchy and "accidently" walking in on me while I was showering/ changing then he got more and more handsy until finally he trapped me in the basement one day. He managed to pin me on the ground and lifted up my dress; before I knew it he had ripped my underwear and was touching me. It felt like an eternity had passed as I laid there motionless and crying, but a few minutes later he kissed my cheek, told me he was going to think about this later and that this was our little secret game as he helped me up; he was turned on with the biggest smile on his face. A few days later I was doing the laundry in the basement, bent over to pick up the clothes and drop them in the washer. He took this as a good opportunity to play "our secret game"; before I could do anything, I was pinned against the washer, he ripped my shorts and underwear down and next thing I knew he was fully inside me this time. I screamed out in pain as he jammed into me repeatedly so he covered my mouth.. I was so scared and confused. I felt the blood dripping down my legs and I was in so much pain I felt like I was going to be sick. Finally, after a few minutes it was over, and he let me go. I bent down to pull my shorts and underwear back up when I saw the blood on my legs. So many thoughts ran through my head, and I opened my mouth to say something, but I couldn't bring myself to make a sound. He used one of the towels I was about to wash to clean the blood off of himself then tossed it at me for my legs. He raised his hand to wipe the tears from my cheek and I flinched. "What's wrong? You don't like our little game?" I was so sore for a few days; hardly able to sit or walk. I struggled to get the blood stains out of my clothes. It felt like I was dreaming.. that I was going to wake up from this bull crap nightmare at any moment, but I never did. The soreness I felt after he was done with me went away with time, but I still couldn't wrap my head around the fact this was happening. Is this normal? Do other brother's and sister's do this? This continued for years; he would trap me in any places he could, and it felt like it took longer and longer each time. I decided at the age of 9/10 I had had enough and tried to tell my mother what my brother was doing to me. As bad of a mother as she was I thought she would still protect me when it came down to it, but I was soooo very wrong.. after all he was her favorite. The words she said to me will be forever engraved in my brain, "You can either let this ruin his life or you can move on. This doesn't seem like an issue you should let ruin your brother’s life." From that moment on I felt like it was my fault he was doing this so I kept my mouth shut in fear that no one else would believe me or that people would blame me if they did. He used this to his advantage and would play the game any chance he could even blackmailing me "I won't tell mom if you let me.." or he would take things from me like my homework and withhold them until I "played" and even then he would make me do extra things before he'd give it back. He pinned me down to the dining room table, hand gripping a chunk of my hair tight enough he pulled some out, covered my mouth so I couldn't scream for help and went so hard he bruised my hips.. I couldn't sit/ bend my body for a few days after that. Everywhere in that house was full of reminders that my body wasn't mine. It wasn't just forcing me to have sex either, he would force me to give him blow jobs/ hand jobs and randomly pin me against things and grope me just to prove he could any time he wanted. If my parents weren't home and we were watching something that had a sex scene in it (or if it wasn't on already he would put something on) he would openly touch himself to it in front of me.. it truly was a game for him. I would sit on the shower floor for hours with the water as hot as it would go, scrubbing my skin raw, but I never felt clean enough. No matter what I did or how hard I tried I couldn't wash him off of me.. I became so numb to it because it was happening at least weekly, but sometimes daily that I thought that was all I was good for was my body and what people could do to it. After a while I had opened up to my first girlfriend about it my freshman year of high school and started to feel like maybe I wasn't at fault. I never told anyone the full extent of what he had done and been doing to me because I felt dirty and ashamed for letting it happen to me. Talking about it, even just a little bit gave me some comfort though; no one could truly understand how I felt because they hadn't gone through it themselves, but them just listening and making me feel heard was comforting. Somehow it got out at school and CPS was called again (they had previously been called for physical abuse I endured from my parents; mostly my mother and they didn’t even bother to investigate when she gave me a black eye) along with my mother to the school. I thought it was weird, but made my way down.. when I rounded the corner, I could hear her voice, and I froze in my tracks. There's that feeling again.. Sure enough, when I walked through the front office doors I could see a group of people in the conference room; my principle, my counselor, the school phycologist I had been seeing for "sessions" like a therapist (although I never told her about this because she told my mother EVERYTHING) two CPS workers and my mother. As my gaze met with my mother’s I began to feel like my stomach was going to fall out of my butt at any moment and she just stared at me with those soulless eyes she always looked at me with. Of course, she remembered we were at the school, plastered on a big smile on and greeted me like I was her precious baby who she missed so much. "Do you know why we've called you down here?" I just sat there silently with tears rolling down my cheeks while the adults talked like I wasn't there. When it finally came out "what exactly did you say your brother has been doing to you?" all I could do was look at my mother, crying and saying, "I didn't say anything I promise!" I never said the rumors weren't true or that he never did anything I only ever said "I didn't say anything" and yet no one noticed they just saw a child crying hysterically, listened to my mother and blew it off that I was being dramatic and looking for attention. Somehow my father never found out about any of this and there was no further investigation, no examinations and no reports.. this was the SECOND time CPS failed me. He continued to do this to me until I got kicked out at 18 (or as my mother likes to say that I ran away) because instead of going back when she told me I could I stayed out. The first time I chose to have sex at the age of 16 I not only did it with someone I didn't love, but I had to get high to do it. When I got home, I sat on the floor of the shower, with it as hot as it would go and just sobbed while the water ran over my back. I thought it would be different if I wanted to do it, that I would like it, and it would make me feel better, but I hated it and mentally I couldn’t take it. I was self-harming in more ways than one and made several attempts on my life.. but any time I was with someone, or someone flirted with me I threw my body at them because I thought that's all I was good for and all anyone truly wanted. I was high most of the time, especially when I had sex, and I really didn’t care what happened to me anymore. Then I met my husband when I was 18.. the wonderful man that he is; we’ve been together 15 years, married for going on two and he’s healing something he didn’t break and makes me feel safe. There's a fire that burns within me that is fueled by so much anger.. I will forever be changed by what my brother did to me and for the lack of protection from someone who should have protected me, but chose to protect my abuser instead. I’ve spent years battling my own mind trying to stay here in spite of them; I still struggle with my self- harming in pretty much all the ways I used to along with other attempts on my life and constantly wanting to end it/ feeling like my boys deserve better than me. This is the first time I've ever fully told anyone about what he did.. not even my husband knows the full story because I didn't want to burden him with the weight of my pain. This pain has been weighing on my soul all my life and I just can't take it anymore; I'm drowning in it. I've blamed myself for so long and I feel so alone.. I feel like I'm damaged goods, like I'm broken. So, I've come here as a 30 something year old, with the encouragement and support of my therapist and my amazing husband to tell my story.. grammatical/ spelling errors and all. I wish to break the generational trauma for my son, so he never has to heal from his childhood and to heal from what’s left me broken; My boys deserve the best version of me. Even though it will probably never be seen by anyone but me, this is me taking back my power from him.. weather it ruins his life or not because he deserves to lay in the bed he made. I may never get justice for his actions and I'm not even really sure what that would look like for me, but I'm a survivor none the less. Thankfully I'm learning day by day that what he did to me wasn't my fault it was his (partly my mother’s for letting it continue) and that I deserved so much better. I didn't deserve any of this. I deserved a mother that believed me, loved me and protected me when I needed it. I deserve to heal, be loved and feel happiness. Most of all I deserved to be able to keep my innocence..

TW: physical, emotional, sexual abuse Ever since I started primary school at the age of 4, I’ve been afraid of my dad. I truly believed I was the worst daughter in the world and that I was a huge disappointment to my parents. My Ukrainian immigrant parents were well educated and well respected people, they were quite wealthy and interesting people who had a “perfect” daughter. No one knew what happened behind closed doors, of course, and no one suspected anything as I was taught to hide my feelings and physical signs of abuse (still hate thinking about that word) really well. The physical and emotional abuse started as I started school and was a punishment for something I did or didn’t do, but looking back now, there was no consistency and no “reasoning” behind all of it. The sexual abuse started when I was 8 and stopped when I got my period at 14, when he told me it made me dirty and disgusting. Only at the end of high school I realised that not all fathers were like this and, in fact, this was very severe abuse. At 15 I was sexual assaulted by a coworker of my age at my job in a leisure center. At this point I was attracting the somewhat wanted attention of boys and I was naive. Even now, I am still trying to remind myself that I am not at fault. My 2 years at sixth form were made up of studying very hard and also trying to get help for ptsd symptoms. I met my current boyfriend of 2 years at sixth form too. I have told him about the majority of my childhood and he has been extremely supportive. I am so grateful for him. I am now having CPTSD support and, although I have bad days, I am keen to get better and to start a new chapter of life :)

I’ve worked for almost 20 years as a government public servant in the Stare of State, most recently for the highest level government official, who prides themself and their office as being unafraid of tackling even the biggest of bullies of them all, like other former high level elected officials. However, under that persons leadership and what I thought was protection, I was horrifically bullied, gaslight and abused, on a daily basis. This persisted even though I became physically ill, suffered emotional trauma and continued to report each and every toxic word and event to my superiors, with those individuals fully aware of the consequences that I was suffering. Nothing was done. Instead, the toxic environment and imposter leadership double-downed on the abuse and retaliated. Hard. Before then, I never took a sick day, worked through 2 pregnancies with barely a true maternity leave, and never stopped doing what I thought was justice, for the good of the public. For 20 years. When I realized the lesson I was teaching my children by accepting this abuse in exchange for nothing more than a paycheck, I left. I’ve calculated the loss to be in the millions of dollars. I’ve suffered tremendously - financially, physically, emotionally and worst of all, a moral injury that I fear is indelible. And all of this was under the watchful eye of the person in our State government who is the true Goliath, shrouded in the false narrative of David.

When I was in Kindergarten, I was in a group with 3 boys, we are talking about how the crayons did have a wrapper on it, calling it naked. I don’t remember how it to this point but the next thing I remember is them showing me their private parts and for some reason I did the same. I remember knowing that I was told never to do that and I don’t remember why I did it but I do remember the end result. I was called into the principal’s office to tell them what happened and back then there was no word for Coercion which is what I’m pretty sure it was however I could be extremely wrong. My mom was also a Spanish speaker so I remember she understood most of it but not all of what I was telling her and the principal. The next thing I remember was being taken home but we went to my dad construction site instead. She severely beat me to the point where I was running out of the truck to my dad. I put this memory away up until a few days ago when somehow I started to remember. All I can think about is how I was beat for telling the truth and not really knowing any better I was 5. I do remember my mom telling me it was my fault and till this day I don’t know why I did what I did but I remember it’s my fault and the guilt hasn’t gone away since unlocking this memory. I blame myself obviously. I guess I’m here to not make myself feel better but in hopes that getting this out with help me heal. I’ve never told anyone this before, including my husband. Im 26 and currently pregnant, I’m terrified that what I am will affect my child. I didn’t even know if it was considered sexual abuse but I think it was. I was always seen as the problem child to everyone of my moms friends and family., i guess i can see why. This isn’t even the last sexual abuse I experienced just the first and honestly most traumatic for me.

My Story: Finding Light Amid the Shadows of Trauma: I’m a man in my 60s, a husband to my soulmate of nearly 30 years, and a father to two incredible children who fill my heart with joy. But beneath this love lies a story of pain that has shaped me in ways I’m only now beginning to understand. I’m sharing this to connect with others who might feel the same weight, to let you know you’re not alone, and to find a path toward healing. My childhood was marked by bullying, violence, and sexual abuse, leaving scars that manifest as fibromyalgia, distrust, and a struggle to find peace. A Childhood Stolen: My early years felt safe, filled with neighborhood friends and parents who loved me. But around age 10, everything changed. School became a battleground where I was targeted with cruel words, chased home, and threatened with being thrown into a pond if I didn’t run fast enough. Friends turned away, fearing they’d be next. I felt alone, marked as the “crybaby” who couldn’t fight back. The hypocrisy of peers who tormented me all week but smiled innocently in church was unbearable, and I stopped attending church well before high school, unable to trust the facade. That summer, a stranger’s attack left a deeper wound. While fishing, an older boy tackled me, pinned me in the mud, and used my own sock to burn my throat with friction so raw it took weeks to heal. The laughter I heard as I lay helpless still echoes in my nightmares. I ran home, ashamed, and though my parents tried to help, we never found the attacker. From then on, every face felt like a potential threat. The next summer brought a betrayal that broke something deeper. A boy I barely knew lured me into his home with promises of friendship. He showed me magazines I was too young to understand, and before I knew it, an older girl and boy were there, snapping a photo and laughing as they coerced me into sexual acts. Her cruel words, calling me names and threatening to expose me, burned into my soul. I was terrified those photos would ruin me, though they never surfaced. That day left me questioning who I was, ashamed of my body and my desires, especially after another attack that left me physically altered in a way I still can’t fully face. High School and a Shattered Faith: By the time I entered a Catholic high school in the late 1970s, I was already afraid to be alone with anyone. Whispers from classmates about avoiding certain priests and teachers deepened my fear. Some teachers disciplined us with a cruelty that felt personal, like striking us with a ring that left pain but no mark. I graduated in the early 1980s, carrying a heavy distrust of authority. When the 2018 Pennsylvania grand jury report revealed widespread abuse cover-ups at my former school, it confirmed my worst fears and shattered what was left of my faith. I couldn’t forgive those who hurt me or believe in a heaven where they might be, leaving me spiritually adrift. Love, Loss, and Redemption: My early adult years were a struggle. My first two marriages were filled with betrayal—emotional and physical abuse, accusations about my desires, and infidelity that left me feeling worthless. I buried my pain in drugs and bad choices, convinced I’d never find safety. Then I met my wife, a woman whose love and kindness saved me. She’s my best friend, my partner, and the mother of our two children, who bring light to my darkest days. Yet even with her, I struggle to open up, afraid of rejection or burdening her with the broken parts of me. My fantasies, twisted by that long-ago abuse, carry a shame I can’t shake, making intimacy a battle between love and fear. The Weight of Pain: For over 25 years, I’ve lived with fibromyalgia, a constant ache that flares when stress takes hold. I now believe it’s tied to the trauma I carried in silence, my body keeping score of what my mind tried to bury. Flashbacks hit hard—especially the memory of that sock burning my throat. My body re-lives it, my heart races, and I fight the urge to claw at my skin to make it stop. These moments steal my breath, leaving me trembling and retreating to cry alone, afraid to let my wife see me so fragile. I’ve always hidden my tears, punished as a child for crying, and now I don’t know how to let them out without feeling weak. I live in a state of constant alertness, scanning for threats, unable to fully trust anyone. A simple elevator ride with a friendly couple can send me spiraling, their presence reminding me of that day long ago. I feel disconnected, unable to mourn at funerals, even for my parents. My inner voice, my only companion as a lonely child, now drowns me in rage or grief, pulling me away from the present. A Path Toward Healing: These memories have come rushing back, triggered by a story about my high school that I read about last Christmas. I’m a simmering pot, ready to boil over with anger or shut down in despair. But my family keeps me going. I started therapy a few months ago, hoping to quiet the flashbacks, but it’s opened a floodgate of questions about how deeply this trauma has shaped me. Books like The Body Keeps the Score have shown me how my hypervigilance and fibromyalgia might be linked, giving me hope that healing my mind could ease my body’s pain. Sharing in a support group has been a good deal of comfort, knowing others understand, but I still fear being seen as weak. I want to be free of this pain—not just the physical ache, but the terror, the distrust, the shame. I want to be fully present for my wife and children, to stop hiding in the bathroom to cry. Forgiveness feels impossible when I can’t forgive myself for being that scared little boy. But I’m trying, for my family and for the part of me that still hopes for peace. A Message to Others: If you’re reading this, maybe you’ve felt this kind of pain, too. Maybe you know what it’s like to carry a secret that feels like it defines you. I’m learning it doesn’t have to, even if it feels that way. I’m here to heal, to find a way to trust again, and to hold my family close without fear. I hope my story helps you feel less alone, and I’m grateful for any support or understanding you can share.