Community

I still don’t know if my abuse counts. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t. Or maybe that’s what I want to think. When I was 10, I was at my (at the time) best friend’s birthday party. I can’t remember much of the party itself, only that I had a white cardigan on. I remember the air smelled likes churros and popcorn. I can’t remember how I got to my friend’s bedroom. I only remember what happened there. The memory starts with me, standing in front of the bed. On the bed was Name, one of my friend’s older brothers. I remember staring at him for I don’t know how long. I think he was talking, but it was all static to me. I remember there was one those party lights things, the ones that project blue, red, and green lights onto the ceiling. Then I remember he starts jumping higher. And then he jumps at me, tackling me onto the ground. I was frozen in terror. And all I did was cry silently. But to this day, I still don’t know if it counts as rape. I was 10, but he was 13. He was only a kid too. Maybe he was also experiencing abuse, and he took it out on me. I also feel like it’s my fault for not doing anything, and not telling anyone. I could have screamed or something, but I just laid there, frozen and silent. I haven’t healed from this at all, probably because I haven’t really talked with anyone about it. I don’t know what to do.

I wanted to break a rule that my parents had set me: no boyfriend whatsoever. They aren't strict but they have rules: you don't choose your clothes (so no crop tops ever, no skirts without leggings underneath, etc), no candy, no choosing of my future studies myself, always get good grades (8/10 would not be considered enough), no drinking sodas, no socials so no Snap chat, no Tik Tok etc. The list goes on. I understand that they care about me, and that they want the best for me but sometimes I find it too much. But I should enjoy it while it lasts because this might be the closest thing to freedom I will ever get. Here's why. At the age of 15, I met this sweet guy that was really my type. He, as a first impression, seemed to be the type of guy my parents would like: same age only half a year older than me, hardworking, caring, didn't seem to be driven by lust, and really sweet to me. I told myself this might be the same love as my parents have, who used to be high school sweethearts. After a couple months, a few kisses and cuddles, without my parents knowing, came the day that started this mess (or so I think, maybe I was too blind to realise it happened progressively before). I remember ringing the doorbell of his house and when he opened the door I saw he was tired. More than usual. I don't know if I could say he was acting strange (now I know, or his excuse was, that he was drugged by his older brother of 23 at the time). We go up to his room, he asks me if I need something to drink and of course, like always, I ask for water. Only this time I should have thought before drinking from the glass that had a spoon in it. It was stupid of me, because the next thing I knew, I was laying on my back, naked, my wrists cuffed behind me to the bed, him on top of me with this face I will never forget (it still haunts me) and the pain in my lower belly too. There was blood of course, he'd just taken my virginity. I was scarred of him after that, but he threatened me, told me he'd hurt my loved ones if I told anyone. Do note I didn't know how to say no to people back then, and I'd been taught and raised to obey. So I did. I kept my mouth shut. He made me sneak out during the night. At first it was just him to please, then also his friends. My throat grew sore, the more they made me do orals. I got cuts and bruises (never in visible places though, like my face, so that they could keep on using me without other people noticing). I grew more quite at school, but honestly no one would really notice, as I was already pretty quite. Grades started slipping, parents got mad at me for that, called me useless and told me I'd achieve nothing in life. It didn't help. It hurt a lot because I had tried to maintain good grades, and it was all just going downhill. I also noticed that his older brother was busy with a girl too (judging from the noises coming from his room). I would see that girl from time to time, she was older maybe 19, not sure anymore. She was sweet, she even gave me the pill so not to get pregnant and some pregnancy tests. But she was in a way worse state than me: scars and all, and her fingertips weren't just burned like mine, she had bandages on all of them as they bled. I was scared of the older brother. Scared being an understatement. And then after a month, she was gone. I had no idea where, just silence in his big brother's room. That's when his big brother approached me. All I can say is: he wasn't gentle. At all. That's also around the time when I realised that his big brother beat him up, because I came out of that room, limping as he'd pushed my hip too far (now I have a partially dislocating hip that is permanent), and his younger brother yelled at him for 'f*cking his toy'. He was left in a ball on his bedroom floor with a broken rib while his older brother walked off. I felt bad, because even if he had said I was his property/his toy, he had still tried to protect me, so I decide to go get him an ice pack from the freezer and take care of him. He eventually told me more about his older brother, and I got to know he sold drugs and all, and made him (and me) take them. I asked where the hell his parents were in all this, but it was only his mom now (and she seemed to have no control over her sons) as his father had left for another women (or multiple, not sure). I decided maybe I should tell someone about this and ask them what to do, but then came the thought that: who would believe me? We lived in a pretty safe country, or at least one that people thought was safe. I didn't want to bother others and worry people, neither did I want them getting hurt if they tried to help, so I kept my mouth shut. Now the following is even harder to talk about. It has changed me. It will change my future too. By now I was 16. One night, he made me dress up in this overly sexualised bunny outfit and brought me to an apartment id never been. There were multiple guys waiting. They were all around his age I think (I'm bad at guessing people's age, plus I don't think they were bothered telling me the truth), they didn't seem to be friends really they looked like they knew each other just because they did business together, and I new from the moment I had walked into this room that I was noting but a f*cktoy to them. Its weird that feeling, when you enter somewhere and just know who has the power. I definitely had zero power here, they wanted me to feel that way too. I know it. I felt it. After the pain, the kneeling in front of them, and the pictures I begged them not to take, came the first time I'd seen someone hand money to the older brother. I realised with pain in my heart (and literally everywhere else where they'd touched me) that I had just been sold. Like some piece of bread at the market. Sold. My brain physically couldn't process what had happened. Some days I still can't. I didn't sleep for some time after that and eating was something I had to force myself to do and it was a challenge not to throw up. It went on. Money turned into contracts, pictures into videos, and my body falling apart before my eyes, but not enough that it was so obvious that everyone would see. I did my best to cover it, so no one would get hurt. Concealer became my best friend. Except a teacher at school did notice and I ended up telling her everything. Well, almost everything. I told her I'd been rapped just once maybe twice and that I didn't remember very well for most things that had happened. In a way it wasn't a lie but I was too scarred those boys would find out I had told someone and then they'd hurt all the people I care about. It is also true that some things I just couldn't remember, like a gap in my memory when I try to remember what has happened after I'd been brought somewhere by his older brother. It felt strange, like I was missing something but it just wouldn't come back to mind. The teacher called the police and I was interrogated. I had to do it multiple times with recorded sessions and all. No one prepared me for how tiering it would be to repeat what had happened to me over the past year because of those boys. It hurt so so much. They asked question after question as the memories of those nights came haunting me all over again. I wanted to forget, because I realised there is no real solution, and on top of that, I wasn't allowed to start therapy without first trying to remember every single detail that had happened for the police investigation. Those boys, some that new me and I had no idea who they were, hurt me and the threats pilled up. It was too much for me. I couldn't do this. So I lied. I lied and said it never happened. That I hadn't been rapped. I had prepared some fake conversations that were very obviously fake for them to find on my phone, planned them out so that it looked fake. And I told them to stop the investigation. And that was that. My parents were of course mad at me, they took my phone away and all. I can't say I'm addicted to phones but, more than six months without one is just, a lot, for me at least. I'm honestly not sure what to do now. My memory is really bad, still worsening, I'm not doing so good in classes, I feel sick to the bone but its no big thing like cancer or diabetes or something that a doctor can diagnose. I just feel sick, but that means nothing apparently. I just remember the last thing that the big brother told me, that when I'm 19 and out of the house he will take me away as his f*cktoy. That's why I said at the beginning that I should enjoy my life now while it lasts because this might be the closest thing to freedom I will ever get. And to stay positive I just tell myself , as my father would say: it could always be worse, appreciate what you have. I know I can't go back, but it's so painful. Everyday, it never leaves my mind. To be honest, the only reason why I don't kill myself is because it would be horrible for others to loose a daughter, a sister, a friend and so on. I can't do that, I don't want to be selfish. All I want is to find a reason to live, and that it isn't just living for others.

I was six when I first saw pornography, in my own house. There are a lot of forgotten memories from 6-18. By ten I was in chat rooms. By eleven a man was grooming me, and for years I performed on live video for adult men who told me I was mature, special, chosen. I believed them. I thought my popularity was proof I was grown. I was a lonely kid in an empty house being trained, and there is a difference. At fourteen I was with a man in his twenties and called it willing, because nobody had ever taught me that a child can't be. I'm an adult now, a mother, and I spent years searching the internet for any sign that what happened to me was real and witnessed. What I found were investigations, statistics, and other survivors. So I'm leaving this here for the girl who is searching tonight the way I did: you were not willing, you were groomed. You were not mature for your age, you were unprotected. And it was not your fault, not even the parts you went back for. Especially those parts.

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.

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.