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In September I moved to Costa Rica for a few months, and in October happened to meet a really great guy here. We were just starting to date and it was going well, but I left to my home country Finland for Christmas and stayed almost 2 months. During this time I was out with two friends, drank too much and lost memory, and woke up with the other friend next to me naked in my bed.. I had thought of him as a good friend, although we had just met the summer before. He supported me when I had issues with a narcissistic ex, and I actually tried to help him get back with his wife which he did for a while. Even that night that we were out, I was trying to hook my friends up with other women. I had no will or intention to sleep with him.. So when I woke up like that I was shocked, I was worried, I felt guilty for not remembering and possibly hurting the guy in Costa Rica... The more I thought about it the more I realised if something had happened it was not with my consent because I never wanted that with him :( I was so worried and took a morning after pill, even though my 'friend' claims he didn't do anything. He would have 'felt it' he said.... And he was kind of joking about it :( He claimed we had been jealous of each other during the night and kissed many times. Which I just find strange because I wouldn't want that... and I remember nothing. Anyways I took the pill and even got a period around my exact cycle 15 days later... Now I'm back to Costa Rica to be with the guy who is actually so good to me and who I was really starting to like a lot... And few days ago find out that I am pregnant :( And the timing is exactly around that night... atleast the doctor says.. Seeming that something HAD happened after all made me feel so violated :( I was definitely in no condition to give consent.... this 'friend' has already 2 children from 2 different women.. I felt so terrible, I never wanted a child this way, I wanted it with the man I was dating :( And it is too late to have an abortion since it is illegal in Costa Rica, and now that I have already heard the heartbeat and seen the embryo in Ultra sound... I just couldn't :( And my new partner here is now 'thinking things over'.. obviously it's a shock and a lot :( But I am now dealing with a very possible break up, knowing my consent and body were violated by someone I thought of as a friend, facing single parenthood.. :( Has anyone had any similar experiences and could share me some advice on how to deal with the emotions? :(

You Are Not Alone You are not alone. So many of us had so much taken from us by people who put pleasing their basal urges over our sanity. For their moments of bliss and dominance we suffer. We blame ourselves for their sickness. THEIR pathology. There is an army of us. That is what these stories teach us. They show us we are legion. We are strong. Our psychological reactions of fear, mistrust, hatred are not crazy. They are normal. It is also normal, but not easy, to climb out the darkness together. I grew up in a large low income black of flats that was like a village. My mum worked and we went about by ourselves. In the winter we were never expected to be seen if we left. We were in some flat mucking about with some kids or neighbor, and it all worked out fine. I did lose my virginity when I was eleven to a friend of my older brother who was in year ten. But that was no bother because it was not uncommon there, sadly. I am half Brazilian on my absent father’s side and was considered quite exotic and fit. My secondary sexual characteristics developed early. I was reasonably careful and in control. True abuse began years later when we moved out to a proper house with HIM. HE was my mom’s dream man. HE was fit for a middle-aged man. By that time my brother wasn’t with us because he took work in Alaska on a fishing boat. HE was ex-Army and seemed like a good man at first. I was a bit of trouble maker and over-cheeky and my mom gave HIM carte blanche to discipline me like father. We weren’t there the length of a full season when HE started treating me like a tart. The spanking part mom knew about and thought it was funny, even with me being fifteen. HE spanked my bare bum even when she was home. She said I’d always needed a man’s hand to block of my rough edges. It was cringe, humiliating, but nothing compared to what HE did when mum was away. Not to get detailed, HE soon got to a point where I was going to get HIS load whenever there was the chance. Since HE got to set my schedule he made sure there were regular chances. It was my HELL and HE was the Prince of Darkness. He was rough but careful not to leave any marks. Unless time was short I had to shower first. Sometimes after there would be something specific sitting out to wear, like a costume or lingerie, or my netball kit. The grating anticipation of what was going to follow was the real torture. HE would tell me to “Pick a hole”. My holes! My foof was one, my mouth was two, and you’d think I would never select three. But you’d be wrong. I hated HIM. I am very sensitive sexually and if I went with one I looked like I loved it and if I chose two I was doing work to please HIM. Three was the way I could shut down and brace myself without him ever seeing me smile, even if I was facing toward him. When I was strong with hatred I would choose three. I compartmentalized that small but brutal part of my life for my mum. If was a mere thirty to one hundred twenty minutes per a week of 10080 minutes. And I saw no other way then. Mum, for the first time was living a happy life. I could have won a BAFTA for how I seemed so cozy and content for her. It gutted me that my fear of upsetting HIM made it appear that HE had smoothed out my rough edges and made me into a proper lady. I kept my marks up and stayed on the netball team in spite of being the shortest. I kept going. I developed a habit of stabbing mechanical pencil tips into my skin and biting my nailbeds to illicit pain. I had one boyfriend for a short time. I went to the dances. Home was my hell so I did everything HE would allow to be anywhere else. I could not work but he made my mum keep her job so he could have me. My birthdays I would get my way of having a just girls’ night out with mum. There were only two birthdays before I got free of him. College cost 1000 pounds and when HE paid it HE did not know I was not going to be his tart anymore. I had a friend with a home much closer to my school. They had spare bedroom because an older sibling had moved out. Being seventeen, HE couldn’t force me to live with them if I had other safe accommodations. I took employment and paid the meager rent. He got me one more time when I was sleeping back at his house on Christmas eve. Probably drugged mum to keep her sleeping. I made sure he never got a chance again. Through my Portuguese class I met a man who lived in Portugal and invited me to come stay with him as long as I wanted rent free. I finished one year of sixth form and went to Portugal. I had fleeting relations with the man I stayed with but he traveled often we both had our own things. I worked at an American-themed restaurant as a server then. I spoke with my mum on the phone most days. She visited once, with HIM. I missed her and tried not to show much of my sorrow about being forced apart from her. Seeing HIM was horrendous, yet I kept it contained inside like a cancer. It helped solidify my decision. I traveled with a friend to Florida and got a job serving in a posh restaurant. I applied for a work VISA and on my second try I got it. I am thirty-eight now. Only three years ago did I confront my demons because I read online stories about other abuse survivors. It opened up a deep wound so I could start to heal. It was and still is hard work and an ongoing process. I confessed to my mum who had split with HIM after years of her own abuse that she also kept hidden. HE had let her go when she started having health problems, showing his true black heart. She lives with my brother and his family. I regret losing years with mum and my brother and being chased away from my home when I was young but it made me stronger. I have never married but I have a loving partner, two dogs and I speak three languages. I am a physical trainer and work near the beach where I go to meditate and body surf. Our journeys and stories are individual but we are in this together. Worldwide. You are not alone in carrying the pain and the shame and the fear and the flashbacks! Even if you are in the dark, start toward a path that looks like others are using to try to climb out. Use the resources, even if just right there on your computer, and build from there. Just start and keep climbing, especially when it seems too hard.

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

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

As an only child, I had no one to look up to really as a kid. But I always looked up to my Dad. Even though he was never really around due to work (although Mam worked more than he did and still found lots of time to spend with me), I still idolised him. He was my hero. He would always say 'Dads know everything - remember that', so lying to my dad (even little white lies) were pointless. Though when I hit 13 I began to realise he actually DID know everything. He knew what myself and my friends would talk about, he would know exactly where I was and who I was with without even needing to ask me, and I would always wonder why. In reality he had my phone tracked and could read all my messages. Now that I have been through the court system and he has been imprisoned for the abuse he inflicted upon me, I can confirm that he was in fact grooming me from the age of 13. About a month after my 18th Birthday, began the horrific 7.5 year abuse that I suffered. My Dad, masked for the first 2 years as a stranger, blackmailed me into performing sexual acts with strange men in our home - the one place I should've felt safe. When I finally realised it was him, I couldn't tell you how it then turned into just open ended abuse and rape from him. He would advertise us as a couple on hook up sites and in order to avoid physical beatings I would go along with it. I feared for my life so much that endless rapes and sexual assaults were easier - imagine that being the easiest choice - until you're in it, you just don't know how you'll react. I stopped going out, I gave up my hobbies, whilst in college I gave up my part time job - he controlled every single part of my life. And if I even let my "everything is rosey' mask slip even for a second, especially in front of my Mam, well it just doesn't bear thinking about. Fortunately for me, once Mam did find out, he was gone out of my life within 30 mins. Unfortunately, he went on to groom and abuse others after that. He was convicted, and is currently serving his prison sentence - but the fear of him stilll remains.

At the age of twenty-six I was raped by a stranger. It took me many years to name what had happened to me as rape. Although, distressed when it happened, I blocked it from my mind for a number of years before going to a therapist for support. I decided to attend therapy as I was struggling with a deep depression. I didn't attend a Rape Crisis Centre. It took me a number of years before I disclosed to my then therapist that I had been raped. I had buried what took place deep within myself and I had never disclosed to anyone what happened that night. The person who raped me was a friend of some friends of mine. I was away for the weekend and thankfully, I never saw him again. While my healing journey has been long. It has been deeply supportive and has allowed me to heal from many different issues within my childhood and to heal from sexual violence. I no longer carry guilt or shame for what took place that night and would encourage any man or woman who is a survivor or sexual violence to go to a therapist who specialises in sexual violence and allow an experienced professional to support you on your healing journey. I have no regrets and am grateful to a number of wonderful women who have supported me to heal from a deeply traumatic experience. Healing can and does happen. Don't give up on you, as I have never given up on me. I have learned that I like so many survivors of abuse am a very resilient woman. I live life today, from a very grounded place and although, I remember what happened to me in the rape I have emotionally healed from the hurt and the pain of that traumatic experience.

Remember that every life form happens without chosing where to be. The problem is not inside you, but around you. Life is the time you have in order to understand what is around you. Don't rest comfortably in places where you feel unsuitable to your best self. If you have no choice, this is not about you. This is about things you couldn't decide before being born. I wish you better luck and exposure to good things you find suitable to your best self.

I never associated my assaults as sexual assaults. I always just saw it as a thing that happened me that was upsetting until recently. I was groped, forced into having sex and preforming oral sex on him. I remember one time he offered to drive me home. I lived over 40 mins from town so I thought i could save myself €60 in a taxi. Until I realised we were going in the opposite direction to my house. He drove me to secluded area. I knew it wasn't right I said no said I was due my period I tried everything I could to deter him. It didn't work. I can't drive that road without a feeling of dread. I do feel part to blame and I know that's wrong. I hate how it makes me feel. When I hear stories in the news I can't help but think my story isn't as bad as theirs or that maybe mine wasn't rape or a sexual assault. I hate myself for thinking it.

It is with great shame that I confess here. I was a passive enabler of abuse. I had been molested as a girl by an older boy in grade school and should have been less of a coward. I finally turned in my husband and ended his incestuous abuse of his own daughter. I deserve the tears I cry. I was a swing shift nurse and usually slept like a rock with my pill. That night I got out of bed after a few hours and wandered past the kitchen to the other side of the house where my stepdaughter room was. It sounded a little like crying, or laughing.  It was hard to tell what was happening at first though the cracked door on the other side of house. My stepdaughter's room. But soon I made out that my husband was kneeling and leaning forward over the bed with his head between his daughter's spread legs. The noises were panting and squeaking from him performing cunnilingus.  This quickly concluded and he took a position lying in bed and although her body was mostly blocked because she was on the other side of him from the door, It was evident that she was giving her dad fellatio. Her head was rising and falling and he had his hand on her head. She was only nine! I left  and went back to bed, wanting to forget what I had seen. Why not talk to him and stop it right away? I should have. But my husband had lost his wife only a few years before, and my step daughter had lost her mother.  The woman had been paralyzed below the waist and had severe back pain.  She took her own life two months after the injury, days after being discharged home from the hospital. There was a lot between them because of their loss that I could never be a part of. The idea that sexual contact was a means of grieving did not sit well with me but I did not want to make waves.  It seemed voluntary on her part. I loved my husband. It had taken a long time to find him after much hoping and dating and heartache and searching. So maybe I was selfish for wanting to keep my husband. I did not know if it happened very often. I turned a blind eye..   For at least a year and a half I did not get out of bed if I woke up in the middle of sleep time. Then on a Friday night, after I had worked a night shift and stayed up to run errands during the day, then attended my stepdaughter's dance recital where she performed ballet, jazz, and hip hop with her troop, I crashed. But I got up, restless. This time the door to her bedroom was closed and probably locked, lights on from below.  The sounds of my stepdaughter in the throes were loud enough that I went out the back door and around to the window, and stood up on the central air unit to see through the large gap in the curtains.  I had a direct view of my esteemed husband, who is quite good to me, up on his knees on the bed, pumping back and forth. His daughter was bent over in front of him with her bare posterior in the air, down on her elbows.  I could see him moving in and out of her and shaking her whole body with his thrusts.  I felt sudden anger.   I regret that my anger was not about what it should have been about. My anger was jealous anger.  Thoughts of my thirty-four year old body and how it could not compete with the firm adolescent body I saw before me, and that we had watched this beautiful curve-developing girl while holding hands with my husband as she danced in different outfits. I was a little jealous then, not even knowing that he was thinking of her, that way. I kept watching him sex her, unable to consider looking away. He slowed his thrusts and collapsed on the other side of her. I saw her shiny body collapse too. Her breath was so deep and fast. They took a couple minutes to recover and I got more upset when I thought my husband was going to fall asleep with HER. But he got up, talking. He dressed and walked around the bed. She got up, seemingly at his command and they hugged, standing up. He smiled at her and turned toward the door. Only then was the spell broken and I hurried back to the door and went in. He was already showering. I never said anything and let it fade, pretending I did not think about it often. I was more passionate and adventurous with my husband, and colder with my stepdaughter.      A couple years later when I found her crying in her room one day while my husband was out of town, I went in to comfort her. It got around to me mentioning her sexual relationship with her father in an accusatory way. She broke down even farther and told me about how she asked him to stop when she started 8th grade. She had become aware how “crazy” it was and begged him to stop if he loved her. He told her he couldn’t stop because he loved her. Something snapped inside me and I helped her fall asleep and then drove to the police station. I turned myself in and my husband. It was very messy and my life has been since. But I don’t regret it. I only regret waiting five years to end a marriage that I should have ended after five months. I deserve all the tears.

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

I have suffered psychological abuse from my mother since I was little. Because of this, I have a habit of always thinking about what my mother thinks, and I feel like I have lost myself in trying to please her. I work at restaurants , but I am exhausted from trying not to make the atmosphere at work bad or being disliked, and even working is painful. I registered on Dating app because I wanted to escape from my mother, but I am only used and rejected, and I can't see any hope for the future.

It’s like— it’s harder after a lot of time has passed. I feel like I’m betraying myself to move on, like there’s some justice in being stuck on it forever. I feel like I’m letting a part of myself go if I allow myself to be happy again. It’s weird. I feel less allowed to be upset or depressed. Like I don’t have a right. At the same time, the more months that pass make me doubt more and more that what happened was bad. It’s harder as time goes on.

My body remembers. 6 years ago my oldest sister disclosed to me that she was molested by a family member. Ever since then, I felt out of control and disembodied. I would cry almost every day. I would have panic attacks that lasted hours. I became more and more isolated, and more and more depressed. I was no longer the person I had been and I didn't understand why. A friend gently suggested to me that I seek professional counseling. Therapy wasn't new to me and I had some experience with it as a kid and young adult. But I think I misunderstood the purpose of therapy. I thought therapy could finally answer the question that tormented me my whole life: what's wrong with me? If we could figure that out, then my therapist could fix me. I didn't realize that therapy would actually help throw away that question and ask a new one: what happened to me? I felt confused and even embarrassed that while I didn't have a cognitive memory of being abused, my body seemed to be screaming at me that something happened. I think when my sister shared her experience, these signals in my body started to wake up from hibernation. As I began processing all of this in therapy, things started to make sense. I started forming a vocabulary for my experiences, like shame, addiction, trauma, and somatic memory. Last Fall, I started seeing a new therapist who changed the trajectory of my healing. When I told her that I think I was sexually abused as a kid, she actually believed me. Unlike my other therapists, she didn't go on a rant about how "repressed memories" are a myth. She didn't tell me to "not worry about it" because we'll never know what happened to me. My therapist listened to and affirmed my experiences. Because of this gained trust, I've shared things with her that I've never told anyone. Instead of saying "we'll never know so let's just move on", she says "we may never really know but based on my expertise and your experiences, it's very likely something happened to you, so let's keep talking about it." I felt a suffocating weight release from my shoulders when I realized that somebody believes me. My body has started to heal from years of severe anxiety and depression. I've started pelvic therapy--something I thought I'd never do because I was too scared. I'm more connected and authentic with my friends than I ever have been. I've started gaining traction with sobriety from addictive behaviors. I've even started gaining back some childhood memories. One of the most pivotal moments in my healing so far happened just a few weeks ago. My sister and I have only ever talked about her abuse one other time in the last 6 years. I finally told her "I think something happened to me, too." Despite all the fear and shame that held me back from saying those words to her, she believed me. We talked for over an hour about the abusive behaviors and patterns in my family. I've had a really difficult relationship with my family; so to grow close with my sister is a big deal. I am so grateful to have gained a friend and ally. Perhaps I really will never know what happened to me as a kid, but I'm learning to trust my body. I'm slowly releasing the trauma that's been stored there for so long. And I finally feel confident in sharing my story: Hi, I grew up with multiple predators who abused the women in my family. Though I don't have a cognitive memory, it is very likely I experienced childhood sexual abuse. The trauma in my body is a huge indictor of that abuse and I trust my body. I'm doing my best to heal and to end the generational abuse in my family. Thanks for listening.

I'm having trouble categorizing traumatic experiences I've suffered with my younger brother. When I got my first phone, it was a common occurrence that he'd steal it to take pictures of his private areas and leave me to discover the photographs in my gallery. During this time, it was also common for him to peek into the bathroom while I was in there, which is why I'm so zealous over locking doors and turning mirrors away from me nowadays. At one point, he touched me inappropriately. I brought it up to my parents, but they either didn't believe me or simply didn't do anything about it. This behavior has ceased since then, but would these experiences be catalogued as COCSA given how he's younger than me? I want to understand this so I can learn to heal from it.

Praying for forgiveness of the other person and learning to not have a grudge against the perpetrator.

Where to start when it is a life-long journey. A few moments of his pleasure has been a lifetime of recovery and healing for me. It has taken a lot of work, a lot of working through to live a life where I can more freely give and receive love.

When I was 12, my ex situationship on his 13th birthday got his friend to rape me while he got off on it bc he didn’t want to do it with a virgin. he would then, months later continue to slam my head into walls, punch and hit me, and strangle me. said really horrible things. n yeah, i’m now 19 and at uni trying to be successful with good people in my life so healing is possible. it’s difficult and not linear but there’s so much more out there

I am a Survivor. My story is unfortunately like many others and in 2019 was was sexually assaulted by someone I knew, trusted and at one point, loved. I had just moved to a new city to peruse a graduate degree in criminology. He was in town for a concert with friends and I was excited to show him my new life, new apartment, new friends. Later that night the intimacy was different, things quickly escalated and when I expressed that this was not okay and that he needed to stop- well, that is where my story of survival began. But I made it, I drove myself to the ER the next day and I wish I could say I remember the days and weeks after but I don't. A part of me died that night and some days I worry I wont ever get it back. I was so afraid that going to the police would ruin my hopes of a career in criminal justice so I did my best to push on with my life. I decided to focus my education on survivors of violence, managed to get an internship with domestic violence survivors and started my career researching police response to intimate partner violence. 3 years later and I write to you from my new office, in a new city as an advocate for sexual assault survivors. Helping others just like me, being that support I so desperately needed when I thought I was alone. We are not what happened to us, we are not just another statistic, we are not alone in this. I hope that my experience can help me be the best for others because I refuse to let what he did dictate the rest of my life.

I want to be a source of hope to the hopeless