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

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

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

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

I was first abused by my stepfather in my early 20s, he took the opportunity while my Mom, sister and niece were away in theme park and molested me. I was taken aback, and had no idea what to do or how to process it. I was scared to tell my Mom and anybody else for fear I wouldn't be believed. I eventually admitted it to my Mom, and went to stay with friends, as I didn't want to be around him at all, and did not feel safe. I was afraid it would go further and that he would rape me. I was very clear with my Mom, I told her that I would not return to the house if he was there, she let him back, so I moved to stay with another relative and subsequently moved out altogether, I had very little contact and refused to return home while he was still there. My Mom found me a counsellor to help me talk about what had happened. I went to her for a number of years. I had issues with family members and friends believing me when I disclosed what happened to me, they insinuated that as it was only assault, it was not that serious. I found this very difficult to take, and it probably made me more reticent about talking about what had happened. About period of time later, the divorce referendum was successfully enacted and my Mom and stepfather were going to marry. My counsellor told me that if I didn't attend that day, I would never forgive myself. I attended, but felt uncomfortable and upset all day long. A number of years later I returned home as I needed somewhere to be as I changed jobs etc. I wasn't fully comfortable with this decision, however I thought I would be okay as my Mom was there too along with my stepfather and my sisters. My Mom got sick shortly after that, she was sick for period of time, and passed away in year. After that, I was living in the house with my stepfather alone. Over a period of time, he deliberately isolated me from my sisters and other family members. So much so, that I had very little support available to me. And then the molesting/assaults started up again, I really didn't know what to do or how to react. It got gradually worse, and for a period of period of time or longer, I was being assaulted/raped on a weekly and sometimes more regular basis. Towards the end of this period he was even talking about marrying me, which was very creepy and inappropriate. This was an excruciating and very difficult time, as I had zero support, and nobody to reach out to or help. Due to health reasons, my stepfather had to move and live with relations in another part of the country, and this finally ended this period of physical and emotional abuse. However I had suppressed and blocked it for so long, that I found it difficult to face or come to terms with. Now period of time later, I am finally seeking help to give me healing and help me come to terms with all that has happened to me. I am grateful that I am at last able to admit how bad things were, and also that I can try and rebuild my own life after years of sidelining myself to look after others. I hope my story will help others in similar situations reach out and seek help and support in the future, even though I cannot take legal action against my abuser, I still want to be able to heal and try and come to terms with all I endured.

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

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

My name is Survivor and I live in Huntsville, TX. In 2004, at the age of 15 I was introduced to a man who was a pedophile. This was just after my parents divorced and after growing up with a severely abusive father, I was desperate from male leadership in my life. Needless to say, I was an easy victim. This man began grooming me and would eventually begin molesting me. This happened once or twice a month for the rest of my high school. Little did I know, this man was working alongside a college ministry called Chi Alpha and the Assemblies of God for at least 2 decades and had already molested other boys. For which he served a mere 90 days in Alaska jail. Pastors in our ministry tried to convince students, many of whom who were victims, to write letters of lienance on behalf of the abuser. You would think after high school and turning 18 I would have moved on and left him. After all, why would anyone continue to let themselves get abused? Unfortunately, that’s not how grooming or the mind of a victim works. So, I’m sad to say, the abuse continued. When I was abused in 2005, the statute of limitations in Texas at that time were until the age of 23. At the age of 23, I was still being molested by this man. For a significant amount of time the leadership in the Assemblies of God, which was the denomination I had been apart of my whole life, knew that this man was a registered sex offender and did not take needed steps to rid our ministries of him. I was one of the first victims to publicly come forward in 2023. For nearly 20 years I told no one, not even my wife. Myself and 5 friends, some even pastors in the Assemblies of God, started making calls to friends figuring other men had been abused heard dozens of stories of abuse because we were trying to help over 40 victims get help, seek justice, and heal. We all watched in horror as NDAs were used to insulate organizational leadership to cover themselves, using the NDAs as a fog of ignorance and hiding behind it. Because of this, Justice has not been served. Since then the Assemblies of God has tried to dismiss valid civil claims of negligence, has sidelined victims in the investigation process, and has sneakily tried to get victims to sign NDA’s. I’ll also add that I am a high school teacher here in Texas, and every year I hear stories from students who have been sexually harassed or abused in all kinds of scenarios. The happy side of my story is the abuser is currently in jail and awaiting trial. My wife and I have a rule in our house with our kids - no secrets. Last night I talked to my 8 year old daughter (in kid language) how NDA’s are used. And she said “but if you keep it secret doesn’t that bad person keep hurting children?” I had the privilege of working with Elizabeth and everyone involved with Trey’s Law. It helped my healing so much to be able to meet and talk with other survivors. To hear their struggles and to know I wasn’t crazy or alone. Through that legislative process I found my voice and gained confidence in sharing my story. Thank you Elizabeth for helping me tag along!

I somehow got myself on Tinder at 16 years old. I know, not very smart of me but all my friends were on it at the time and I didn't think about it. I met someone who told me he was also underage, he claimed he was 17. He seemed perfect. We went on a date to a pumpkin patch, we got sushi at a restaurant, and after he came to my home to carve pumpkins. Everything was going so well. We were watching a movie and he asked us to move to my room. Honestly, I didn't really want to but I agreed and we went to my room. His demeanor changed immediately, suddenly he was cocky and dominant. We had sex which I had agreed to even if I felt pressured. Suddenly he put his penis in my anus, pulled it out after a few times, and put it back into my vagina. I was shocked, I was confused. Did that just happen? Is that normal? I am so grateful for the human survival instincts because I mostly checked out. But I remember him saying "You could at least act like you're enjoying it". Still, I didn't react. When he was done he got up and went to get a towel, I asked him to turn on the light and he said "Are you sure? You might not want to see the bed it's going to be graphic." I didn't understand and wanted the light on anyway. My white comforter was covered in blood and had feces stains on it. "wow" I felt embarrassed. He said it was normal. We went back into the living room and a few minutes later he left. Next, I threw out my comforter and went to my best friend's house. She had her older friend over. I told them what happened and they were shocked. Both of these girls were sexually experienced, and they told me that is not normal. You don't have anal sex by accident. You don't have anal sex without a discussion first. You don't "slip" into someone's anus which is the excuse I had thought up for him, "maybe he slipped?". They assured me it was not an accident that happens. I told the older girl his name, Name, it turns out she knows him and he is not 17. He told her he was 20. When he came over to her house before he was really pushy to have sex and her dog hated him so she kicked him out. My dog also hated him. Moving forward I reached out to him, he wasn't responding to my messages, then he said he was sorry but he's not looking for anything relationship-wise, he didn't want to see me again. At this point it started to become clearer "I might have been raped". I spent about 2 years going back and forth between did that really happen, was it rape, was it my fault, did I ask for it? A few days after the rape my vagina became swollen. I know, I'm sorry for the detail but it is crucial to the story. I went to the student based health center my school worked with because I did not want my parents to know I had sex. They did a test on me and I had bacterial vaginosis. The nurse said I had "bacteria that looked like a blooming flower inside of me.", this is because he went from my anus to my vagina a few times and I was bloody. Luckily it was an easy fix with some antibiotics. Another thing that confirmed something seriously wrong had happened. I spent 2 years of my life Junior and Senior years of high school in bed and I do not remember my high school time fully. I slept, I rotted, I removed my bed frame from my room in a mental breakdown, I rearranged my bed to different positions in my room, and I changed mattresses. Nothing was helping me. Eventually, I changed rooms. I began to resent my own home. I did not feel like I had a safe space. I started to be rude to my parents, I was mean when they would not let me go out, and I was snappy anytime. I skipped dinner, and avoided family time. In addition, I stopped going to school. I missed so many days of school, that they sent a letter that they might have a police officer come to our house to do a welfare check. My mom would drop me off at school, I would wait for her to drive away, and I would walk back home to go lay in bed. Until she started to wait until I got inside and then I would maybe go to one class and then walk home. My two best friends started to come to my window on school days and they would knock on my window to try and get me to come to class. One of them, my bestest friend in the world, would continuously knock on my window until I let her into my house. I also have barky dogs so they would be going crazy barking and I had to let her in, she also literally would not leave or stop knocking until I let her in. No matter how disgusting, and horribly messy my room was (I am talking can not see the floor, obstacles to the bed, garbage, huge piles of clothes, deep clothes on the floor) she would sit with me on my mattress on the floor. She would lay with me, she would cuddle me, she would make me watch videos with her on her phone. She would skip school for me. She would eventually coax me into leaving the house, going with her to get coffee, get food, go drive around, go to her house, go adventure outside in the woods together. I can't imagine what would have happened without her. She never made me feel like a victim, always let me talk about the gross details, and let me be my gross rotting self at this time, she made me laugh, she made me feel happy when I was so depressed, and didn't even really know why. As in I was still confused, still unsure if I was actually raped. Eventually, my school told me I would have to repeat my senior year. They never asked me what was wrong, they just told me I was failing bad. I had met a new guy at this time who became my boyfriend, he ended up cheating on me so I can't make him too nice in this story but at this time, he was really helpful, and beneficial, he taught me what real safe sex is and what it is supposed to be and feel like. It is communication, consent, mutual good feelings, and love. I want to add that when I did have sex with him for the first time after the rape my hands locked up. A physical result of trauma, I couldn't open up my hands, I was scared and not of him, but my body responded to this intimate act happening again. It was his first time having sex and I like to consider it my real first time too. He did not "slip" into my anus. Becuase that does not happen. After this, it clicked to me that I was anally raped. I had always searched on Google, Instagram, and anywhere I could for information on anal rape, and I could never find it. I wanted to be confirmed and validated. I wanted to find someone who had experienced the same thing I had and I still have not found it (4 years later). I only saw things about male prison rape. I am making a face right now that is not what I was looking for. Moving forward, one of my friends' sisters started dating the man who raped me a few days later. She messaged me and asked about him. I didn't tell her he raped me but I wish I did. Later on, I saw her at a party, a few drinks in, I went up to her and said I have a really personal question I need to ask. She said absolutely. I asked her if Name (the rapist) had tried to do anal with her. She whipped her head around and said "Yeah! He tried to during sex and I stopped him, I freaked out on him I was so upset.". Everything clicked for me in that moment and I am forever grateful for her and her honesty. She was a turning point in my healing. She confirmed what I had been questioning for years. My at the time boyfriend had gone to a high school that was inclusive, they had personalized education, and they really cared about their students. It was called School Name. He told me I should apply, they work with credit recovery and he thought it would be perfect to help me graduate. He was right. I applied to School Name, they asked me why I was failing high school. I told them I was raped at 16 and I stopped going to school. I told them I didn't want to repeat my senior year. I told them no one at my other high school asked about what was going on in my personal life. The woman on the phone said they could get me to graduate on time and that they could support me. My best friend who helped me through this time also transferred to this school. The two of us were in a new high school in our senior year. School Name changed my life. I enjoyed going to school again, I felt supported, and I was treated like I was smart and not like I was a delinquent who couldn't care less about their future. Every teacher in that building wanted me to succeed and I could feel it. I was in credit recovery programs, taking tests to prove I had the knowledge needed to graduate. My best friend and I finished high school early. It was a great feeling even though I graduated with a 2.3 GPA. Now I am sitting here writing this in a community college with my 21st birthday a few weeks away, and I have finally reached the point where I can think about the rape and not hit myself in the head until I stop thinking about it. I think about the rape and my rapist every day of my life since. I have always wanted to share my story and now I am looking for platforms to share it. I want someone else who was anally raped to be able to read my story, I want someone to be able to feel seen and heard like I wanted and needed. But for any rape survivor, I want you to know that eventually, you will be able to live with this new normal. I won't say "it gets better" because I am not sure that it does, frankly I do not think it does get better, it just becomes something you adapt to. I have gone to therapy and I am in therapy again now. I continue to try and put the work in to heal. I still think about it every day but I am finally less reactive. I still shudder and get angry every time I see his name somewhere. I will never be with someone named Name again. I shudder when I see someone who resembles him in any way. I am afraid of men. I don't like to go on dates, I don't like to be too close to a man, I don't want to be in a room alone with a man, I get angry or uncomfortable when a strange man on the street looks at me for too long, if they compliment me, if they try to have a conversation, or if they flirt. I have attachment and abandonment issues. I don't know if this will ever get better but it is a part of my new normal. Who I was before my rape is no longer me. I have accepted the fact that I am a new person and that I have to get to know myself again. I lost a lot of friends during my time of isolation, I have a hard time keeping a job, and I struggle to do well in school even though I really want to succeed. My depression is overwhelming most days. I want Name to be in a jail cell. I want him to be labeled as the rapist he is, I want him to suffer honestly. I want him to never be able to get a job. I hate him and I hate that he gets to live free and possibly enjoy his life. I hate that he probably still finds new victims. I did report him to the police, but nothing came of it. I also reported him to the Department of Human Services for abuse in my state, and nothing came of it. But I did my part, I can only hope that someone else reports him like I did and they see a flag in their system that he has done this before. I still see him on dating apps, he goes by his middle name now, and he is bisexual. I feel he used me as a test subject. When I was younger I would harass him online from fake accounts on Instagram. I told him that he was gay and that he should be a real man and find a guy to hook up with instead of torturing innocent girls. I told him I know everyone he has raped, even though I don't. I told him karma would catch up to him, and that someone will get you eventually. I told him he is a terrible person, but he never admitted what he did or owned up to it. I would like to think I can move on with my life but this is my story. It is a part of me now, it is why I act the way I do, and it is an explanation for most things in my life. I recently moved out on my own and got my own apartment. I thought I just didn't like having people over at my childhood home because it was the home I was raped in. My family moved out of that house and moved states. And now in my new house, my own personal space, I still can not invite anyone over. It is hard for me to have even just girlfriends, my friendly neighbor, or my best friend over. I do not allow guests to come over, and I never invite a date over. It is a huge step for me to have someone in my home and that is his fault. I only made this connection this year. I am afraid of having my space claimed by anyone else again. Wow, it felt good to get all of that out. It is hard to speak about and share my story when I do not have the justice I would like. It is hard to learn about the justice system when it is supposed to protect you and it does not. It is hard to think that so many people are raped so often. I am angry and I want change. I don't really know what kind of change but something. I wish I didn't have to live in so much anger and fear but that is also a part of my new normal. I am antsy, I can't help but look over my shoulder frequently when I am in public, and I can't help but worry about unlikely things. But I am adapting and you will too. Sending love to you.

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

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

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

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

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.

Iam a 33 year old with 3 children(2 boys and one girl) my first born son is from my previous relationship. I was a fresh graduate when i met this man that i currently have two kids with …i finished university expecting to get a job to support me and my then only son but each time i tried to look for jobs my husband discouraged me saying i would be exploited and given peanuts so to whom it was wise for me to sit home and be a wife i gave in and sat home but him satisfying my needs was always a fight i remember i asked for panties and bras for the last 6 years and nothing.everything he provides we must first have a fight and he knows so well i have no where to run to because he isolated me from my family. After moving in with him and my son he started treatung my son with so much anger he would beat,abuse and use vulgar words to him and he still does it he shows him that am not your father and only favors the kids i have with him. Mine i came with is not worthy of anything good. While i was pregnant for his son he was flirting with my sister and by this time i was not getting any financial help so i opted to go to my mothers rental and after sometime my sister disclosed to me the kind of husband i have when i confronted him about it he was too bitter and threatened to take my kids from me. When i was pregnant for my second child with him i got him with 15 girls flirting and sleeping around i was so devasted and almost lost my child due to stress i put my self together and let it go for my sake of my baby but i swore i was done with this man so i started not to pay too much attention on him and concentrated on raising my kids meanwhile i was caught up had no money of my own and had no relative in contact with i perservered and stayed to have a roof over our heads and to solicit food for my kids. I actually lost sexual appetite towards him for all the disgusting things he does behind my back but he would force me into sex and threaten not to provide if i ddt satisfy him a time came when he would rape me saying am his property and that i couldnt live without him since i dont have any money. It was all verbal violence until may this year 2024when i confronted him about cheating with my cousin and messages of him in a lodge with another girl that he grabbed me by the neck and strangled me and beat up that i started spitting blood..at this point i said to myself i should leave and start a new life i actually told him am leaving and he laughed at me saying u cant leave what are u gonna feed ur kids .i was packing whole day thinking to my self i cant fail to get where to stay but reality hit me and for sure i had no where to go so i unpacked my stuff and stayed its now months and months of sexual, financial,emotional and physical abuse but i dont know where to start with 3 children ive actually contemplated suicide so many times thinking it will ease the pain. Am in fear please advise me

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

Healing is saying the secrets that you hid from the rest the world so you could get up, put up, and never give up. Healing is not lying to yourself anymore by saying, "Everything is fine." Healing is giving yourself the time to process the myriad of emotions that came flooding in when you finally left your abuser. Healing is forgiving yourself for the choices you made. Healing is not believing all the derogatory things you were called to control you and make you question your worth. Healing is telling yourself that you are strong enough to survive on your own, "You got this." Healing is taking responsibility for any pain or suffering you caused your child to endure because you were too afraid of what would happen if you tried to leave. Healing is finding gratitude in all that you do have. Healing is finding a way to help others that have experienced trauma bonds. Healing is knowing that you deserves to experience unconditional love... Healing is a journey that can help you appreciate living in the moment.

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

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

I was 18. In college I was part of a ladies team on in college sports team. There were also male teams. There was a inter college tournament that our college was hosting for other male college teams within Ireland. We all had nights out planned and a 'play hard, play hard' attitude. It was great to be part of something - I genuinely loved playing and being part of the club. On one of the nights I was drinking and got to talking with a guy from another college mens team. It was fun and we ended up back at his hotel room, where we had consensual sex. After, I remember feeling groggy and then being suddenly awoken to all these lads barging in. They ripped the bed cover off us and I remember phone flashes going off. It was year so, not exactly amazing phones back them. Slagging of various types ensued but then I remember being held down. At least 2 different men. I remember saying no, please stop. Flashes in and out while I just stared at the corner of the bedside table, thinking how similar it was to the one in my parents room. Weird. I must have slept at some point because I woke up. I got dressed. I remembered nothing. Nothing but the sex with the lad I kissed. Naturally, the next morning is always awkward so I wanted to get out of there. Just as the hotel room door clicked shut I realised I had left my shoes. I knocked back and had to do so loudly as everyone was deep asleep. As I was doing that one of the other team members opened a door across the hall, he stared at me. I said sorry for waking him but I needed my shoes. He just said he was so sorry. I was confused, having no memory of what he was actually talking about, so I said I'm sorry I left my shoes. Eventually someone opened the door and I got my shoes. Leaving the hotel and walking to the nearest bus stop, I felt appropriately hung over but sore. Down there. I'd never been sore before. Guess we must have really gone for it, I thought. Fast forward to lockdown 3 during Covid, I began experiencing severe nightmares that weren't nightmares. The missing memories came back over 2/3 months and I realised that I had been rated multiple times. That my brain had protected me until now. My SA, unknowingly, had a huge impact on my formative years - I came out as bisexual just 2 years ago. I feel I would have had a very different 20's but I met a decent guy, stuck with him like glue and am now married with a child. Due to the memory block, I have no recourse. No sense of justice so I just hope those boys, now grown men, are better than they were.