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I don't know if what my brother did to me can be classified as sexual abuse. I was staying over at his house. It was late at night, and we were watching a movie. At some point, he asked if he could initiate some cuddling. I actually agreed, since we are really close and both enjoy physical affection. While we were spooning, he snuck his hand under my shirt. He didn't say anything, and I didn't say anything. As the night went on, he alternated between different caresses, kisses on my head or the side of my face, and words of affection. I idly stroked his arm back because I felt awkward just lying there. He eventually asked "is this okay?" in reference to his hand inching up my stomach. I was giving him the benefit of the doubt and still thought the action was platonic, plus it felt nice, plus I am a timid person and have a hard time with confrontation, so my brain thinks saying "no" to people is provoking them, so I said "yes". I didn't really want to say it I, though. I don't think I wanted to say "no", wither. I don't think I wanted to say anything at all. I was tired. We both were. His caresses smoothly progressed to the point he was caressing the underside of my breasts. That's when I started really questioning his intentions. He asked "is this okay?" again. I said "yes" again. When the movie ended, I got scared. I had been using it to distract myself from what was happening, and I was afraid that now that there was no distraction, he would shift his whole attention to me and try to initiate something; so I sat up. He lightly squeezed the underside of my breast as I did so, maybe on purpose, or maybe as a reflex. When he realized I was genuinely pulling away, he took back his hands, said: "I'm sorry. Your brother's a creep", and got up to take a shower. I think that's the moment I started freaking out. It's what confirmed my suspicions that his touches really had sexual intent behind them. I had been trying to gaslight myself into believing they were innocent affection, but those words were forcing me to face the reality of my situation. I remember running my mouth non-stop about random topics when we were having breakfast because I was afraid he was going to bring up what just happened and would want to have a conversation about it. I didn't want to talk about it. I wanted to pretend it never happened. I still try to. But it haunts me. He and his wife (who had been sleeping peacefully in their bedroom through the whole night) left early in the morning for their honeymoon (I was there to house-sit, and had come the night before to hang out with them before they left). Once I was alone, I quietly went to their bed to sleep (with their permission and insistance, since there were no other beds in the apartment). As I tried to fall asleep, I still could feel his hands on me, like a phantom touch. I broke down right there. I felt guilty, and disgusting, for not having stopped it and for having enjoyed it too. I felt like maybe I was the creep, and maybe I was the one turning this interaction into something inappropriate. The following weeks, I tried to suppress my feelings. Some days before Christmas, I was on a plane with my mother, about to start our holiday vacation. I was close to my period and my breasts felt sensitive. That triggered something in me and I suddenly teared up right there, in public. That vague ache reminded me of the feeling of that one squeeze he gave to my breast. My mother noticed me about to cry, but I lied and said that's just because I'm close to my period and feeling gloomy (I had been struggling with depression for a while, which she knew.) During the trip, I would get random flashbacks to that night, sometimes even accompanied with feelings of nausea. I felt like I was making my brain overreact somehow, since I hadn't been raped and I shouldn't be traumatized for touching that can barely even be considered intimate. When we got back home, I did something I'm not sure whether I regret it: I talked to him about it. I sent him a long text (he lives in another city, which actually made me feel safer about confronting him) which I barely remember anything about, except that it mentioned "that night" and how I had been upset by it. I broke down while typing it, and it probably wasn't very coherent. My brother sent me many short replies in quick bursts when he saw it. He apologized profusely. He said "I don't know what's wrong with me", "I'll get psychological help", alongside many things I don't remember. That had me freaking out a bit. What did he need psychological help for? Was he admitting he's got urges he can't control? But I didn't say anything related to that. I was afraid of accusing him, and I made sure to clarify I was also to blame for not setting down any boundaries. We were both replying to each other without thinking. We were panicking, and full of adrenaline. I was scared of losing him. He was the only connection I had in the city we both lived in (very far from our hometown, where our parents and my friends all live). I didn't want to upset him, because he's a very sensitive person and I already felt guilty for how I was reacting to it. We somewhat resolved the issue over text. Except we didn't. At all. I pretended we did, but I was still plagued by doubts and paranoia. More than the touching, what haunted me were his words: "I'm sorry. Your brother's a creep." They shook me to my core. All I had wanted was to be in denial about what happened, but those words wouldn't let me. The story goes on to this day, but I don't want to write too much about the aftermath of "that night", since I'd be writing for too long and I want to focus on whether it was an instance of abuse. At this point, I feel a little more grounded and able to accept that what happened had sexual undertones. I am still full of shame and guilt. I did consent to some of the touching. I'm not certain I wanted to, but it is something I did. That would usually make me think this is a consensual encounter and that I simply regret it now, but there are many factors that also contribute to my belief that this could potentially be an instance of abuse too. First of all, my brother was 38 at the time. I was 20, which yes, is an adult, but still; he is my much older brother. He was already nearly an adult by the time I was born. He's been a figure of authority my whole life, even though he likes to pretend he's not. He's a little clueless when it comes to what's appropriate or not in social contexts, but I do think someone his age should know better than to sneak his hand under his little sister's shirt and go up her body so much his fingers actually brush against her areola. Secondly, I am neurodivergent, though I hadn't told him at the time. However, when I did tell him, he said he already had suspicions. Regardless of that, I've always been quiet and withdrawn, so it upsets that he initiated touching under the guise of innocent affection and then expected me to be able to express my discomfort when it escalated without him specifying it was going to. I don't think his form of seeking consent was productive at all either. He only asked me if two specific touches were okay, and only after starting to do them. He didn't ask for explicit permission for anything but the cuddling at the start. What I want to say is that I was vulnerable. I am young, inexperienced, autistic, and he has always been an emotional support and almost parental figure to me. I don't know how he can be so naive as to think he doesn't have any power over me. Maybe he does know that, but wasn't thinking at the time. I still don't get why he would touch me like that. I find a little solace in thinking that maybe I didn't have any control over it after all. But I don't know. Maybe I did. I am an adult after all. And I do believe he would have stopped if I had told him to. But I definitely never gave any enthusiastic consent. I feel betrayed. I feel lost. I feel angry. I feel sad. I've been avoiding thinking about it for months. Tonight, it all came back to me once more and I broke down again. I truly don't know what to do. I don't want to tell anyone close to me what happened because I am ashamed. I certainly don't want to tell my parents. I kind of want to cut ties with him, but at the same time I don't because I truly believe he is remorseful about it and I don't want to make him sad. I can't help being naive. I don't know if that's comforting, or embarrassing.

I was used by my brother who has grown up a lot but I still carry scars. My brother is four years older than me and when I was going from elementary school to Junior high, that summer, he made me think that girls in junior high need to know how to give oral to boys. First he did oral to me to show me it was not a big deal. I thought it was a huge deal. But I did it and he got me trained and had me keep it a secret, except from by best friend. He had his friend over when I had a sleepover one night and had her do it to his friend. Then they would have us do contests where they wear blindfolds. At least I was not alone then. It changed me even though seventh grade itself had nothing to do with anything like that. It was a lie to get pleasure from me. My brother still had me doing it at home. And sometimes he would do it to me and I did climax. So I had this weird secret sex life and felt really messed up about it. Then in eight grade I had my first real boyfriend. My parents are so strict, even though they both worked and left me alone with my brother. To go to the movies with my boyfriend they made sure it was with a group and took me there and waited outside the theater. Well one time when we went to see Snow White and the Huntsman my same BFF and me went through with our plan to go down on our guys in the last row of the theater and we did it. It was only a month later I started having sex with him which never would have happened if not for what my brother had done. We snuck out from her place during a sleepover and met the boys outside and went to the nearby park and did it in the grass. That was my virginity. The really bad event, where my life got knocked off the tracks, is when we tried it from my house, sneaking out the window and going just out farther into my big back yard that opened into nothing but the side of a big hill and my dad caught us. It was awful. The world ended. I was treated like a huge betrayer and almost all my privileges were revoked and essentially I was grounded without any end date. And still by brother would make me do the oral. I was broken hearted because I was not allowed to have my boyfriend to the point my parents made me go to the school and talk to the principal and vice principal and they made sure I would not have any chance to ever see him alone. And my brother kept creeping in at night sometimes or when we were left alone expecting me to do what he had trained me to be used to. The next really bad part was two months into my new restricted life. My brother started doing his oral on me one afternoon after school and decided to take it farther and got up and started kissing me and had sex with me. I was in the moment and did not do anything to stop him and even participated. No condom. It was an afternoon when my parents were away and so we did not have to keep quiet or worry and he did it so much longer than my few times with my boyfriend, because he was older and knew more from being with other girls that I got sore for my first time and got a urine infection. I did not eat my dinner that night and pretended to be sick and cried myself to sleep. My brother really wanted to do it again, telling me it was the best sex he ever had, but I refused and one thing I could say for him back then was at least he was not a rapist. Even though he pressured me he never tried to force himself inside me. Four months after I had lost my incest virginity the school year ended and he graduated. I went to high school and he moved out to live in college dorms 120 miles from our home town. Public school was over for me, as was planned as soon as my dad caught me on the hill. I went to an all girl’s Catholic high school. My dad had to drive me a half hour every morning and my mom picked me up from my whole first year. Then they got me a car so I could drive myself but the mileage and my times were closely monitored. I did not have an intercourse throughout high school but seven times total I did oral on my brother during summer and winter breaks when we were both at home. That was the end of incest in my life. I went to college in Atlanta but not the same one as my brother. I rebelled against my parents and even though they tried to keep control, as a legal adult I did not let them. Turmoil and sadness lasted months until they finally got it. I separated from them financial and worked and took out student loans. I was very promiscuous in college. I drank, partied and used drugs recreationally and had several guys I was seeing on and off for mostly sex. That was my life and I thought I enjoyed it at the time. I became stronger and more assertive and when my brother first hinted during a Thanksgiving meeting at our relative’s house that we go for a drive I told him I never wanted to touch him again in such a powerful way that he knew I was off limits and even seemed like the scared one in our relationship. I didn’t enroll in classes for two nonconsecutive semester just because my party life was so much more fun. I traveled on and off. Sometimes with friends, sometimes with men, usually older, who invited me to exotic places. The Maldives, Portugal, The Virgin Islands. I let my married boss use me for a weekend in Key West. I had an affair with my Spanish teacher, who only took me as far as Panama City, Florida. So many risky one night stands. My identity was that I was not looking for anything permanent, a child of the universe. While I was used as a plaything so many times and believed I liked the game. I would tell them things about wanting to make their dick happy and stuff that would inflate their ego. I’m sure there are so many text messages out there that they saved about the size of their D fitting in my little P, about being a little girl wanting them to teach me to be woman and other depraved fantasies I thought they wanted to hear. Obviously directly related to what my brother did to me. I am almost positive I avoided being raped more than once by going with the flow when I did not expect to or probably want to. It may be good that some of them I probably don’t remember. Once was at one of the few fraternity parties I ever went to. It was three guys, not my usual style. Once was with my roommate's father who was visiting her at our rented house and found his way to my bed in the early morning. One of the more extreme traumatic events was with a police officer who pulled me over for driving when I had been drinking but was under the legal limit on his breathalyzer. He followed me home, like a mile away, “for my safety” and even followed me inside. I was in an apartment then and I thought my roomate was home and told him so. But when she wasn’t there he said I lied to a police officer and he had to do a more thorough search if I wanted to avoid being arrested. He was not attractive or nice. He had a gun thought he never took it out. You can guess what happened. I finally shed that wild life during my second to last semester when I saw the end of college coming. My G.P.A was 3.3. and my major was philosophy and it dawned on me that the future was not bright in terms of what I would do or how I would pay back my loans. I buckled down and decided to change. I had an offer to strip and ‘make a lot of money’ but thankfully not only did never considered myself like that, but when I went with a friend for her interview and they tried to recruit me they were so sleazy we both ran out of there disgusted. I reevaluated my whole life. I considered ending it, but some survival mechanism did not allow it. I did not want to be the person I had been for a few years. I looked ahead and saw it was not sustainable as I aged and had no real love or stability. I quit serving when I got an offer to work in a legal office. I slept with the manager who hired me as a receptionist but it was a drop in the bucket of things to be shameful of. He was the last one like that. I got all A’s and graduated cum laude. I got promoted in the firm mostly by title but used it to spring away and take a lower paying job in a nonprofit law firm where I had not slept with anyone. There I did sleep with a lawyer but I am married to him still and my life is back together. I love him and he loves me. He does not know the extent of my sluttiness in college or about my brother and I doubt he ever will. That darkness is fading and it is not part of my life now. It is not who I am. As for my brother, he has a family now and we are on good terms. We did talk about it once while I was studying like crazy my senior year, although it was not a big deep talk. I did mention that he used me, he apologized, we hugged, and that was it. Not the cathartic confrontation some might expect. My catharsis is my husband, and my life now that I am grateful for. We adopted two toddler brothers and I am their mom. Maybe we’ll have one of our own. Maybe we’ll adopt again. I was used and introduced to sex too young and early and it strained my relationship with my parents for a long time and I’ll never get that back. It derailed my life. I was set adrift for a while but God or the universe or random luck finally put me in a good place. Everything that happened led me what I have now. I can’t say I never contemplated suicide in darker times. But like in the move Cast Away, if I may quote, “I stayed alive. I kept breathing. And one day my logic was proven all wrong because the tide came in, and gave me a sail. And now, here I am.” Thousands of hours spent studying philosophy and I quote a movie that was not even based on a book. But it’s perfect.

My sexual assaults story is uncommon for most and hard to most people to grasp. Who would believe that children are capable of knowing and doing such gruesome things to person? Most children are not like this and their experiences are different. It first happened when I was 8 years old while, my abuser was 7 years old at the time. I remember the abuse happening gradually as we build our friendship. It first started with us doing typical kid stuff like us playing together and joking around. And one day, he asked me to play this new game with him. I said sure. I thought it would be one of those silly jokes stunts of his. Instead he pulled my pants down and rubbed his private part against my bottom. It was really uncomfortable moment for me since, I grew-up in a strict Christian-based family. I have never witness anyone on television or heard of the things he was doing to me. Afterwards, I remember me being shy to tell anyone and feeling like I would get into trouble. So I remained quiet. How would any parent react if you see children engaging in sexual behavior? Wouldn't you automatically assume it was the oldest child to teach someone this behavior? This went on for almost 2 years. His behavior became more advance and his request got more weirder. One time, he begged me to drink his pee directly from his part. I told him no. And he stomped across the room mad. He kept persisting and demanding that I try it. Eventually, I gave in but, I told him only from a cup. It was the most dehumanizing experiences of my life. It was not long afterwards, that my father caught us. I remember me trying shove the boy off of me. And telling him that my dad was coming and he kept going harder and harder. I guess he thought I was lying to convince him to get off of me. He wouldn't stop until my father walked into the room.

I don't even remember how old I was. It was around the time when my parents got divorced, I might've been around 6-8, and this happened over multiple years, that's why it's such a blur to me. I used to go to my auntie's house in the holidays on Thursdays, sometimes Fridays too. Every time I would go, my cousin, who is 2/3 years older than me, would do things to me. I think the first time we ever did anything sexual was just kissing, with tongue of course. But as time went on, she began to just eat me out every time I went, I definitely didn't enjoy it, I was just frozen. I tried to tell her to stop so many times, but she would never listen. We would go to the guest bedroom on the third floor, away from everyone and she would ask to play families, where she would be the dad and me the mum, or she would beg me to role play as 'celebrities' with her. She always said she would be the male and me the female. One time, we went to my nan's house, and she dressed me up in scarves, role playing a 'wedding' with me. She even made me kiss her in front of my nan. I don't see how this was so normalized for my nan to not question her forcefully snogging me and picking me up. She even tried to assault me in front of my brother when he was a toddler once. It was terrible when my parents divorced, when I was with my dad, we stayed with her and my auntie. Of course they made me and her sleep together, because they thought we were close. That's when my world caved in, those were the worst years of my life that I can't even remember much of today. I lived in fear of her for years. One day, I just forgot. I forgot about her, I lost most of my memories of what she had done to me, and we grew close again. I was naive, desperate for my older cousin's attention. So, when I was 10, it almost happened again, and I've not been the same since. It was my birthday yesterday, and she came round, acting normal as she always does. It makes me feel sick. She's moving out from her stepdad's house with her mum, and asked if I wanted to sleepover. No. Never again. I don't think I'll ever tell anyone in my family. My best friend and my ex know but, I genuinely think it doesn't even matter because it happened ages ago and nobody would believe me anyways. So much of my childhood is a blur now and I can't help but feel terrified of intimacy yet I think about it so much. Thank uou for reading.

I got out of an abusive relationship. It wasn’t till I left there was physical abuse and emotional abuse. Even if the physical was minimal. I’m so glad to be apart of a group of women who are healing. Healing is hard, it’s been countless sleepless nights, extra periods, and nightmares over and over. But the reward of being free is so much better than anything I could’ve imagined. I don’t wish to ever be back in that, and am glad I left every day

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 Abilify. 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.

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

I started dating him during college. I remember him catching my eye the day I met him, his laugh, his curiosity with the world and the way he smiled when we spoke. We got to know each other over hours of tea time, and we started dating at the end of my senior year of college. I was off to med school in a city 4 hours away, and we were determined to make long distance work. He was my first boyfriend, and after COVID had thinned out my experience of college, I was excited to have found my person. I was incredibly happy in the beginning of our relationship, getting to do things for the first time with a boyfriend and experiencing what it was like to be desired and loved romantically. The feelings were intoxicating. In my naivety of a first relationship, especially my first serious relationship at the age of 21, I failed to seriously question behaviors that I saw in my partner. Take it as a result from my limited exposure to healthy relationships in childhood or my fear of admitting to myself that something was wrong. The part that was most foreign to me as someone new to relationships was navigating my own relationship with sex. I enjoyed sex, especially with someone that I loved, and I was convinced of the idea that I needed to always be able to provide sexually for my partner since now, we were exclusive, and I was his girlfriend. I appreciated knowing that I was desired, and my partner enjoyed being intimate with me. This worked for a while, until I started to need to set boundaries and prioritize my need for sleep and being able to function well in the high pressure environment of medical school. This is a story of a night that happened too many times for me to count in my relationship, so often that I knew it was going to happen every time he came to visit. There would be nights when I needed to get to sleep early because I needed to get a good night of sleep before an exam, or be well rested for another day of clinicals at the hospital. It would be about 10:30 pm, I would get ready for bed, knowing that I’d get a decent 7 hours of sleep if I was in bed by 11. He would be working or winding down his work, I would remind him that I needed to get to sleep so I could get enough rest for my next day. His work was very time consuming and he worked late into the night often, so I never pushed him to go to bed when he had something to work on. The one thing I would remind him of however, was that I wanted to be asleep by 11. If you want to have some intimate time, please wrap up soon because I need to sleep. I would brush my teeth, get in bed and he would say that he was wrapping up. I would try my hardest to stay awake until 11, scrolling on Tik Tok, or Instagram, hoping the blue light would do its job. 10:55. He closes his laptop and heads to the bathroom. I try my best to stay awake. 11:05. 11:10. 11:15. 11:20. I hear a toilet flush and the shower turn on. I can’t fight my exhaustion anymore, maybe it’s the frustration, the stress from studying, or just the exhaustion of cooking, cleaning, packing lunches and breakfast and making dinner for two whiles being a medical student. I fall asleep. 11:45. I’m woken up by him sliding into bed and I turn to curl up on his chest. He pulls me in to a cuddle , stokes my back and kisses my head. “Maybe do you want to do some sexy time?” He asks me. This is a question I know all too well in this exact situation that has played our too many times to count in our relationship. I respond the way I always do, convincing myself that this time, I’m going to stand my ground. “Baby it’s really late and I told you I needed to sleep, I don’t want to have sex, I’m really tired” “That’s okay! Then maybe we can do things other than sex?” The dance between us has started, and I know I really need to sleep but that he is going to get quiet and distant for the next day if I keep refusing. I tell myself that I need to prioritize my sleep right now, and he will get over not having sex for a night. It puzzles me that he thinks that giving him a blow job is any less exhausting than having sex and somehow is still okay to ask for when I told him I was really tired and needed to sleep. “Baby please I’m really tired, I don’t have the energy to blow you” “That’s fine, we can do it in the morning then” I hate making commitments that I can’t keep and I hate when anyone does the same to me. My response is a reflection of that, and in hindsight, not the best decision to getting this dance over with. “I have to be up at 6 I’m not getting up any earlier than that and I don’t think you will be waking up that early either” He goes quiet for a moment. “Maybe we can do some kissy?” I understand that his love language is physical touch and at this point, the guilt overwhelms me. The boy that I love has traveled hours to come see me and spend time with me, and here I am trying to sleep instead of making him feel loved. I know the logic is skewed, but I always wanted him to feel loved and know how much I loved him. If I could just kiss him a little bit, subtract some of my sleep, then that’s okay. This boy loved me and I loved him, I can spend a bit of time kissing him and reminding him that I found him attractive and desirable as well. I would lift my chin and kiss him, gently, softly, as passionately as I could for someone half asleep. I would try to meet his level of intensity, the sleep and exhaustion weighing on my eyelids. Eventually the exhaustion would catch up to me and I would stop moving my mouth as much. “Baby! I’m trying to kiss you but you’re not seeming very into it!” He says. “I’m sorry handsome I’m just so tired, I love you” He lets out a sigh and reaches for my hand that is laying on his chest. He takes my hand and places It right where he wants it. He’s hard. The feeling of dread washes over me. I love this boy, I do, and I’m flattered that he desires me. But I am just so sleepy and exhausted right now. He moves my hand against himself. He uses his other hand and reaches for my waistband. He slides his hands inside and touches me. “I think someone wants me” he says. Of course I find him attractive. I’m just so tired right now and I don’t want to do anything but sleep. He kisses me more passionately. Touches me more aggressively. Makes me touch him more aggressively. The exhaustion has won over my determination to not let this happen again. “Please I’m really tired” My plea goes unanswered as he takes off my bottoms and his own. I know at this point, it is easier and faster to get this over with than to keep trying to fight for myself and refuse his advances. Any time I had refused his sexual advances in the past I’d be met with cruelty. I would beg him to say something while I profusely apologized, and he would keep silent. If it was in the morning, I would explain that I was in pain and would ask to figure out our days together. He would refuse to partake, roll his eyes and would go back to sleep. He would get out of bed after 10am, ensuring that I wouldn’t be able to of any of the things that I wanted to do with him that morning. Once he wore me down and I gave him reluctant consent when I was in pain, asking him to be gentle. The pain was severe as soon as he entered me, and I cried out. I profusely apologized but he stayed silent, even as I begged him to say something. I didn’t realize that this was stonewalling and emotional abuse. Come to think of it, I could never have a period in peace when I was with him. If I lied in bed moaning in pain, he would sometimes comfort me a little. But every single time it would end in him making the same joke, even after I had expressed numerous times how much it bothered me. “You know what would make your cramps feel a lot better?” He meant sex. He always meant sex. Even when I explained to him what excruciating pain I was experiencing, he wanted sex. Even after I explained to him that it bothered me that he kept making that same joke, explained how it made me feel like he didn’t understand the amount of pain I was in. He just wanted sex. It never mattered if I was in pain. He laughed when I cried about how upset that joke made me. My naïve heart was convinced that laughter was innocent. Most of those times he wouldn't relent until we had sex, or I pleasured him in some other way. 12:10. He reaches for a condom, and before I know it, we’re having sex. I’m doing anything I possibly can to get this over with as quickly as possible. Move the way he wants me to touch him the way he wants me to. All the while thinking to myself, “please just finish I’m so tired and need to sleep”. 12:30. He’s done. I try to hold back my tears as I head to the bathroom. How did I let this happen again? I talked to him about this again just last week. I told him I need him to respect my bedtime didn’t I? I asked him to please not push it when I say I don’t want to have sex. I asked him to please not reach for my hand and make me touch you. He verbalized understanding, said that he only wanted to have sex if I did. What was I doing wrong that this kept happening even after I talked to him about it? I go back to bed, he’s curled up facing away from me, starting to fall asleep. I know he likes to have sex before bed to help him fall asleep, it helps him work out the “zoomies before bed” as he calls them. I lay next to him and the tears start silently falling down my cheeks. Is this what being an exclusive partner is supposed to be like? Am I rarely going to be able to sleep when I want to because I need to be there for him to have sex with before bed, the way he likes? Are my pleas to be left alone always going to get ignored? If we live together, get married, is this what the rest of my life is going to be like? One thought sinks to the pit of my stomach. Is this assault? 12:45. I finally get the chance to sleep undisturbed. My hope for 7 hours of sleep has dwindled down to 5. I guess I’ll just be groggy and exhausted working at the hospital again. This was my boyfriend, the boy I have been with for years. He says he loves me. I love him. He cares about me, buys me groceries, buys me birthday presents. He goes to dinner and comes to visit me while I’m at school. He helps fix my car and my devices. We brush our teeth together most nights before bed. He’s my best friend. Some of my friends say we look cute together and have funny banter. Could a person like that assault me? I certainly didn’t say yes. I said no at the beginning and said that I did not want to have sex, but I’m not sure I said no or asked him to stop when he grabbed a condom. I was too tired to put up a fight, I just wanted to get it over with. This wasn’t the first time. It happened just about every month he came to visit me. I tried to talk to him about it often, he called it bickering and said that he liked sex before bed and first thing in the morning and it was hard for him to wrap up work earlier so things wouldn’t happen so late. He shut down when I brought up the topic and said that this was his love language and it made him feel loved. I wanted him to feel loved, just not at the expense of my lack of sleep. I initiated sex often to make him feel loved, and at a time that would be conducive to my need for sleep. But no matter how many times we had sex before I was winding down my night, he always wanted sex when he went to bed because it helped him get to sleep easier. We talked about making time for sex, planning. He agreed when we spoke about it, but the action never happened. What was I left with? No matter what we spoke about, the same thing happened. I spoke to someone close to him about my distress because I wanted to understand anything I could to help reframe my feelings, and hopefully understand him better and feel less hurt. “He’s a 23 year old boy who sees his girlfriend once a month, what do you expect? You’re being irrational” “Maybe you shouldn’t sleep in the same bed then” “If you can’t meet his needs then you need to talk to him about it” “So what if he cheats on you, it’s just sex he’s still choosing to be with you right?” Was I the girl that was depriving him of happiness? I wasn’t giving him the kind of sex he wanted at the hour he wanted? I didn’t think he was a malicious person. The kindest explanation that I could come up with was that his brain shut down when he was in the mood, and he had a hard time thinking about much else other than his desire for sex. His frontal lobe forgot to consider that maybe his actions were hurting me, and he saw convincing me as a challenge. After all, I was his girlfriend and we should be intimate together, and there were many times when I enjoyed it. All he could think about in the moment was just working out his zoomies to help him get to sleep. However, there is a reason why were are humans, not bunnies – we have advanced cognitive reasoning and I don’t think idiocy is an excuse. He loved me, right? Why would he want to hurt me? These thoughts are why I stayed as long as I did. He didn’t mean to hurt me, he just was young and dumb and was working on developing his emotional intelligence. I was convinced that it would grow with time and the more we spoke about it, little by little he would understand. But he didn’t. Was I just being impatient? Long story short, things in our relationship feel apart when things surfaced about how angry he was about the times I refused sex when I was tired, and his desires to be with someone who was more sexually exciting than me, someone with bigger breasts and fuller curves like the porn he looked at multiple times a day. The feelings and questions from all the times that I was pressured into sex surfaced. I felt that these feelings and situations when I felt pressured were the reason why I was so guarded with him sexually and didn’t always feel comfortable and I wanted to work through it with him so I could be more sexually exciting for him. I talked to him about these situations. “I think that was a form of assault. I was pressured into sex when I didn’t want to and it made me uncomfortable” “I never meant to be assaulting you, I’m sorry you felt like that. I can see how you took as that though” He wanted to see if moving in together would fix things for us. The thought of spending every night like this terrified me. “We can have two different bedrooms so that doesn’t happen” he offered. Why couldn’t he just respect my boundaries? I wanted to be able to cuddle in bed with my partner at the end of a long day and feel comfort without the worry that I had to provide sexually when I was exhausted. “I’d appreciate being able to talk through this with you because I have felt violated in this relationship and I’m in a pretty bad place” I told him I was done when he yelled at me over the phone. He was going to look into couples counseling. He said he was doing some deep introspection about his feelings. He sent me a letter saying he didn’t want to be with me a few days later because I was bickering and upset with him. “This is just too much, and I don’t have the time to deal with this and work through these things with you. My work is an extension of me, my priority, and I need to focus on that...I don’t want you to come away from this feeling like you were abused for 3 years” The boy who said he loved me unconditionally had found his condition. His points were valid, everyone has a right to their own priorities. However, it struck me that after 3 years together, he still didn’t respect me or care about me enough to take responsibility and help me talk through the trauma that I had undergone in our relationship. It is always hard to confront that we have hurt someone that we love, and I want to think that his avoidant tendencies put him in fight or flight mode when he heard how much pain I was in. He must have thought it was easier to just run away, stop hurting me instead of confronting the hurt that he had caused me. I convinced myself of every excuse I could possibly make for him. At the end of the day, I was left with myself, healing from being violated throughout my relationship, screaming, crying, not knowing how to speak about what had happened to me. But here I am now, trying to learn how. Was this ignorance? A habitual miscommunication every month? Even that just sounded ridiculous, how can I speak to him about the same thing every month just for him to never hear it? Was I making too many excuses for him? Was I too much of a people pleaser, and was he looking to steam roll me to get what he wanted? Assault always felt like too strong of a word to describe this. Was there a smaller tier to describe being touched when I didn’t want to be and being nudged into sex when I did not want it? Is there a word to describe your partner of years habitually having sex with you when you did not say yes, and did not want to? ChatGPT says “the term for that is ‘coercive sex’ or ‘sexual coercion’ if there was pressure, guilt-tripping, or manipulation involved. If there was no consent at all, even if it was within a long-term relationship, it is legally and ethically considered rape or sexual assault, depending on jurisdiction.” I’ve never been able to call this rape, but I’m coming to understand that rape isn’t always violent and can be done by someone who is an intimate partner who was not physically abusive. He never hit me or got violent with me. But this, whatever it was, came with emotional abuse and still sucked. I felt very disrespected and violated. One thing that I am sure of (unfortunately) is that I am not alone in this experience. I appreciate you for reading this story, whether you can relate or not.

I had repressed memories of my COCSA, but bits and pieces began to pop up into adulthood. I was so focused on school that I forgot everything, but once I graduated high school, I remembered some instances and almost took my own life. Now, I’ve graduated university and I feel so lost and continuously invalidated by the people who failed to protect me. My perpetrator was my cousin (M) a few years younger than me (F). It started when I was around 12yrs old until I was 16 and it involved grinding, groping, force-smelling genitals, violence, threats with violence, and possibly more… I just remember waking up to him towering over me and staring at me in my sleep. I don’t know what happened in my sleep. My mind still blocked out the memories to protect myself, but I can’t get the image of him towering over me away. That, and the many dreams I had in adulthood of young boys violating me in my sleep but I was frozen and unable to move. I knew what bad touches were. I was told by my dad to tell him if something were to happen. So I did. I told him as I was taught to, but was told “boys will be boys” “he’s just a kid” “you’re overreacting”. If it were an adult touching me, I would’ve been taken more seriously. I believed for YEARS that I was overreacting to the touching, but deep down I knew that I wasn’t. I held guilt for years “I was older. I should’ve gotten him help. I should’ve spoken up more. I should’ve gotten his sister help (he also touched her in similar ways)”. Then I forgot everything for a few years until after high school graduation. Almost took my own life as mentioned previously and went into university. Graduated and memories came back until I entered grad school. After that, almost everything came back. Many instances where he even grinded on me in front of family members, drew an image of him shooting me because I got mad he was touching me, unhooking my bra during a wedding (I was sitting in front of him) and my dad getting upset at me for crying, and the most recent was when I was 16 (at this time I forgot the extent of his abuse) and he laid on top of me erect in front of his dad and mine. No one said or did anything. I just told myself “Just pretend it’s my bf. It’ll be over soon”. Why did I freeze and not say anything? Looking back, it was probably a trauma response. I processed my trauma in therapy and gained a better understanding of what I went through. I even talked to this cousin and he apologized, then shared that his dad would show him sexual movies and violent films at a young age (around 6), then gave him an iPad with no parental controls and full access to adult sites in which he tried to practice some of the things in the videos with me. His dad even sexualized him, groping his chest and calling them boobs in public. All because he wanted his son to be a “macho alpha male”. I talked to my dad about what I went through and how my uncle had made my cousin that way by basically grooming him. But my dad then invalidated me saying some of the same things I heard as a kid when I tried to voice what was happening “He was just a kid. He didn’t know any better. He’s a good guy now though, right? You have to get over it. The past is the past. I don’t want to hear it - that’s my brother”. I am aware this is his shameful reaction to not helping me back then, but it sent me into depression. After many months of persisting him to know what’s happening, he finally caved and said that many years ago when my abuse first started happening, he told his brother (my cousin’s dad) that his son was touching me. My uncle refused to acknowledge it and walked away. And that was that. My dad said he didn’t push further because “we were just kids” but shouldn’t that be more concerning that we were just kids? That was the ONLY attempt at getting me help?? I’ve dealt with so much and still expected to “just get over it”. I felt alone in this. The first person who believed me had to be a PAID professional. The adults in my family failed me. I was very vocal about it too. My aunt even overheard me saying to his sister “This is payback for -Name- touching us inappropriately!” when I versed him in video games and this aunt said/did nothing. Looking back, this female cousin of mine and I have been heavily sexualized growing up by our dads. I feel so grossed out and see how it had affected my self-expression, my sexuality, my view of males, and how I viewed myself and relationships. I remember gaining weight and dressing more masculine to make myself unattractive to my perpetrator and stop the sexual comments from our dads, but it did not stop. I hated how I looked. Instead, I was still sexualized and also made fun of because of my weight. My family failed both me and my perpetrator because he disclosed to me that he is absolutely terrified of forming a relationship with a girl and is now unsure of his sexual orientation. I still feel uncomfortable around this cousin and some moments that set off alarm bells in my head. Therapy helped a lot. I plan on moving far away with my gf and limiting contact with my family except the one female cousin I’m very close with. Sometimes I wish I had forgotten and stayed blind to everything, especially when I learned growing up that “family is everything”. I had to learn new things to replace what my family had taught me and made me believe in myself. COCSA should be taken as seriously as SA between 2 adults or a child and an adult. And parents should be more aware of things like this - focus on helping the children involved rather than protecting yourself from feeling shame. COCSA is a topic not widely discussed, so I’m glad there’s an organization such as this one. It gives me hope. Thank you for reading.

I am a victim of sex trafficking. I was abused for 7 years of my life. I understood my trafficker to be my boyfriend and then my husband. I lost all memory of what was happening to me for 8 years. By day I was a mental health professional and by night, I was drugged and sold to multiple men when I was supposed to be sleeping. This is my story. I met my ex on date. It wasn’t the first time we had met, we had gone to the same high school, he was a year ahead of me and we had mutual friends. At 15/16 years old, I had a crush on him and told one of my best friends at the time who was a friend to him. She went to his house one day and took a picture of him flipping her off with his middle finger and then gave it to me. He had no idea who the picture was for but knew it was for someone who liked him. At that point, it would have made sense if I had taken that as a red flag; however I was a young teenager who had a history of neglect and trauma, so any type of attention was welcomed. Even if it wasn’t directed specifically at me. A little over 20 years later, we were friends on Facebook and I went for it. I had just gotten out of an unhealthy relationship about 4 months prior and was not looking for another relationship but thought why not go out and see what it would be like to have a few drinks with him and talk. Some months prior to me reaching out over Facebook, he had made a comment on one of my pictures, stating I looked hot or something to that effect. I initially ignored it but over time thought about it again and decided why not. A very close friend of mine (my foster sister) had taken some classes with him in high school and told me that he was a really nice guy and if I wasn’t looking for anything serious I could hurt him. So I walked into the restaurant/bar we were to meet at thinking I needed to be open to see where this could go. It went well, we talked, laughed and seemed to have a great time, at least I did. There was a one off, when I mentioned his comment on my photo he stated he didn’t remember. I thought that odd but I excused it, a habit I had with pretty much everyone all my life. I always saw people as I saw myself and when I tried to understand a behavior I would excuse it. At any rate, we went on several dates. I wasn't sure if he liked me, if he was into dating someone from another race (I am biracial and he is white). It seemed odd, matter of fact I spoke to several people about it not sure what to make of it. He was quiet on the dates, I did most of the talking, he did share at times but not as much. I was also finishing up my Masters in Counseling, working full time and taking care of my two daughters, one in college and the other in high school. I was busy, I was running at the time, just enjoying life, working full time and feeling pretty confident in myself and how my life was going. Looking forward towards my future, knowing that once I got my Masters it would be a game changer in regards to a solid career path and financially, our lives would be better. I had so much going for me. So on our 5th date I just decided to ask him if he liked me. He said he did and I asked why he hadn't kissed me yet. By the end of the date he kissed me and I was actually surprised how much I was liking him and wanted to see where this would go. He had talked about how he always wanted to go to see the concert, and how noone in his circle would ever go with him. I loved shows and theater and had already been, so for a kind of Christmas gift, I bought us tickets to see The concert on date. We also decided that we would be sexually intimate that night. The one thing I remember him saying to me before we had sex was "I'm not who I was in high school", I got it, at least I thought I did. None of us were exactly the same, right? We were both in our early 40s and life changes us, but I always thought the core of who you are does not always change and he had never mentioned to me any horrific life events within his 20s and 30s that would change his core. By date, he asked me to be his girlfriend at one of his friend's home at a New Year's Eve party. I drank a lot that night and smoked some weed, so I was pretty intoxicated, not a regular thing for me, never had been. I could count on one hand how many times I had gotten inebriated. I never liked it, I don't like to be out of control of myself, but I felt safe with him and believed he would take care of me. I of course said yes. I remember while at the party he introduced me to a man, a leader of a Hell's Angels group who was married to one of my ex's best friend's sister. The Hells Angels guy seemed nice enough, but I wouldn't understand what was really going on until 8 years later. He was soliciting me to this guy. Having this man check me out to see if he felt I would be adequate to prostitute out. I believe the sex trafficking began not long after that. When I would stay at "my boyfriend's" house a few nights a week. I have bits of memory from that time. What I do know is that after I fell asleep, my ex would drug me with heroin (I believe - at least some form of opiates) which would leave me incapacitated enough where I could not fight anyone off of me and I wouldn't remember. My subconscious took over and blocked it all out. Though there were times that I knew if that makes sense. But as soon as he would say something or I would say something, it would be forgotten/blocked out within minutes and I had lost time, without even knowing it. By the summer of 2015, he got me to move in with him temporarily, my youngest daughter went to go live with her father for a month and my oldest stayed at my apartment and took care of our cats. I had a fun summer being love bombed. Looking back, I am aware of at least one time where he trafficked me during the day down at city in Massachusetts. We went down there to kayak on the bay and spend the day together; however I now remember what happened after we got done kayaking and going out for lunch. I cannot remember the ride home that day. More lost time. He pushed me to move in with him after that summer. I didn't want to because I hadn't lived with anyone in 13 years and I wasn't sure if I really wanted to live with someone again and my youngest daughter was just about to go into her senior year in high school. I wanted to make sure she had a good year and kept pushing back on him, but he was persistent and told me it would be a win win with us living together, helping each other out and I could pay down my debt. So after being relentlessly pursued, which felt good, I agreed. My daughters were not happy but I promised my youngest daughter I would drive her to school every day and pick her up so she could have her senior year. We moved in, then his son who was a year older than my youngest, moved in after that and we all lived together under one roof. However, the toxicity started, my ex did not get along with my youngest and they would fight a lot. During this time, the whole time, he was drugging us and selling us to men. We didn't remember. My girls still don't remember to this day and I have not nor will I tell them. It needs to be at their time. The guilt consumes to this day. I can't remember how often it was at that time but I do know that it happened enough and even on our vacations or get away trips that I paid for. We (just the two of us) would go away on weekend trips, once a month to different areas in Massachusetts or New Hampshire. I would pay for these trips and plan them out. He did nothing but come along and solicit me to men, drug me at night and allow them to rape me. My daughters and I would always notice men staring at us whenever we went out around home and for me whenever I went out with him. I got to a point where I would just ignore it because it felt uncomfortable but I couldn't understand it. My youngest daughter hated it and I would just tell her to ignore it, not realizing what was really happening. During this time he had been laid off several times and would just sit around the house while I worked, at one point 3 jobs to keep my head above water on my debt and just try to pay as many bills for the house as possible. I began to realize that he never opened his mail, he didn't pay bills on time and never seemed to have money. All of a sudden the way I had lived was now changing because I couldn't keep up and he wasn't helping. I could never save money, never paid anything off, whenever I had money it immediately went out to pay some type of bill. I became angry and wanted to leave but I was stuck because I had no money to leave. Now looking back and being aware of what happened, he had plenty of money, he was selling us at night and making a lot of money. When I moved in I had two cats, Name A and Name B. Name A was 15 at the time I believe, we loved her and she loved us but not him. Name B was about 2 or 3 at the time, my ex had a cat named Name C who was a year younger than Name B. I worked hard to make sure that they got along well and they did. Those two were inseparable. My ex also had a small dog named Name D who was sweet but peed in the house. I worked hard to stop that and get him on a schedule. The first year we lived there, I was able to get my oldest daughter a puppy, Puppy. She always wanted one and was overjoyed to have him. He was a fabulous dog. When Puppy was about a year old, I got my first dog, Name E. She was about 4 months when I rescued her from the shelter. I was so excited. She had some resource guarding issues with food but I worked on that and she became the sweetest girl. Just to back track, after we moved in Name A disappeared for 2 weeks, we had no idea where she was or what happened. She was not an outdoor cat and never ran away before but I chalked it up to being in a whole new environment, so after looking everywhere for 2 weeks, we were giving up and working on accepting she was gone, then one day my ex "found" her outback of the house and we were thrilled. She was weak, frail, skin and bones but we were thrilled. Loved her up and fed her. Then a week later she disappeared again for about 4-5 days. I couldn't understand why she kept leaving. Within a month or two, the girls and I were putting her down because she was urinating all over the house and I couldn't understand it. She never did that. I was told by the vet that she was in kidney failure and I couldn't understand what happened because she was a healthy cat prior to us moving in. She was so unhappy there as well. My ex never liked her because she never liked him. It was a devastating day for my daughters and I. I ended up having to put Name E down two years after I got her because she became aggressive and it got worse and worse. I brought her to a behavioral specialist, put her on medication, trainers, vets and nothing worked. I could never understand why but looking back I now know. Then Name B got sick and I had to put him down a year after Name E, for a kidney tumor. My ex asked if Name C could catch what Name B had and I reminded him it was a tumor and you can't catch cancer. Name C disappeared a month later. I was devestated, 4 animals within a 4 year span. We had Puppy and Name D left. Prior to Name E, Name B and Name C dying, my daughters moved out. My oldest went into the Air Force and my youngest moved to Florida with her father. I was left with my ex and his son in the home. We kept Puppy for my daughter while she went away to training. I ended up getting another puppy about 3 months after Name E died because I was devastated. Her name was Puppy and she was the silliest puppy. She gave me so much joy. I share all this because my animals were part of his sex trafficking, he sold them as well. I believe he had the dogs fight each other and he would drug them and allow men to sexually assault them. I know this because when I watched my foster sister's dog, he allowed someone to sexually assault her. My foster sister immediately brought her dog to the vets and was told that her dog had been sexually assaulted. Both Puppy and Puppy had similar symptoms. However, I never knew what the vet said because by that time, I had isolated myself so much, I barely spoke to my family and friends. He was systematically getting everyone out of my life and it worked. Finally in 2020, I was done. I wanted to leave and was so unhappy. I always thought it was because he hardly worked, if he did he would get fired and I held everything down and wanted different and would tell him all the time. However looking back I know that did impact me but I was being raped at night, I was exhausted, I would wake up in pain not understanding why. I would at times take Puppy and go sleep in another room and I slept wonderfully. I would wake up refreshed and decided that my ex's snoring and the bed were to blame. But it wasn't why. Puppy would wake me up if he heard something outside the bedroom door. My ex's plan could only work if I was sleeping at night. If I consciously knew what he was doing then I would go to the police. So when he did allow men to rape me during the day at any time he would drug my food. There is only one time I remember him sticking me with a needle, on the beach at City in ME on a vacation we went on for three years in a row. I have memory of being raped by 5 different men. I believe three of them paid my ex $500 each. The other two were two men we were on vacation with. I can remember watching them walk towards my ex and I and thinking "no, not them, I thought they respected me" - they gang raped me because they could not afford the amount my ex wanted on their own so they pooled their money. I can think back and remember them on my body but I felt nothing, my body was separate by that point. I still don't remember how we got back to the campground we were staying at. Another time lost. By 2020, I was working for a group practice and reached out to the owner to ask for an advance in pay so I could leave. By this time, my youngest daughter had returned from Florida and moved back in with us, but I wanted us out of there. Again not knowing exactly what was really going on but knowing he wasn't following through and I was tired of having nothing and living a life that wasn't mine. So by October 2020, we moved out. I was so happy; however he sucked me back in by making all these promises of selling the house and moving to another town. I bought it and before I knew it, I was asking if he wanted to get married. He had been asking me for years and I always said no. Part of me asking was to ensure I would get something from the house that I invested thousands of dollars in but another part was being a part of his family. They all played me, he knew I was a helper, that is how I got my self worth, so he would have his son ask me for help, his daughter ask me for help, his brothers, his mother. They were all in on it. They were all making money off of me at this point. Once we got married, the trafficking escalated and his abuse and threats did as well. It was all done while I was drugged and at night at this point. There were 'rape the slave' parties, gang rapes, beastiality. It was a house of horror. I never remembered but it got to a point where I had a lot of pain, fatigue, sickness that I could not explain. I initially thought I had lyme disease but I didn't. I was being drugged, beaten, raped and at times going through withdrawals. I never remembered a thing but at times it seems I did.

I had just turned 15 years old. I was dating a guy that I felt very safe with. We had been dating for 3 months at that point and we moved pretty fast. It was his birthday in October and my parents were gone for a few days. I invited him over. He stayed 2 nights at my place. The first 2 days all we did was eat and lay in bed together. The first night was a lot of fun. On the second night though, we had just had sex (consensually) and we were going to go to sleep. We were both naked, and I woke up to him inside me. I told him to stop and pushed myself away. I fell asleep again, not really thinking about it, and when I woke up the next morning I had blood and semen on my inner thighs. I had realized, after looking back at our time, he had been raping me in my sleep for our whole relationship.

Whispers to War Cries: Finding my Voice after 26 years. I am a survivor of CSA Incestual Abuse. This was a secret I held in my heart, and no one knew except God and I. Forgive me if not everyone believes in God, but this is the only way to express my story. So at the age of 3 I was a go lucky happy toddler, until my older brother stripped me of my innocence. 7 years of my life were a blur and then around age 10 i began to remember the daily abuse and it happened until I was 15 years old and he was 23 years old. I was extremely attached to my brother not truly knowing that this bond came from years of abuse. I remember having flashbacks of having sexual memories of my brother, but then bringing myself back to reality to say hey this is my brother that's nasty. As years passed once I was 18 I would fall into a life of addiction, from alchol to drug addiction and being sexually violated throughout my adult years. My brother doesn't know I am aware that he abused me as a child, and this was all brought back to my recollection because of a spiritual encounter I had with God. God used my stepfather who may I state was not in my life at the time of the abuse, to reveal this to me. My stepfather asked me what happened to me as a child, and I froze and instantly mentioned my brother's name. 26 years of a hidden secret came to light, and while I was relieved my heart was shattered. I loved my brother dearly and to know he was the cause of my hidden trauma was even more heartbreaking. Intrafamilial abuse was on both sides of my maternal families so the apple didn't fall too far from the tree when it came to my brother. I remember instances of me calling 911 as a child, but I got scared and hung up they ended up coming and I firmly believe I was trying to tell on my brother but once my mom asked if I called the cops I got scared. I even remember slapping him in his face when I was about 12 years old, and the way he reacted was as if he was expecting it to come. I am here to say that YOU ARE NOT ALONE WE CAN OVERCOME!!!

When I (f 24) was around 7 years old, my older step cousin (m) who was around 9/10 would often initiate kissing with me as a 'game' at the time I found nothing wrong with it. id often ask when we were going to play the game again, merely to feel included. it used to go further, sometimes with him undressing me, touching my chest, making remarks such as 'I can't wait for these to get bigger" as well as touching my lower areas. I always used to refuse to do more when he would ask, and I can't remember what age it stopped, probably around 9/10. when I turned 11 I became violent toward him, usually when he was around my younger female cousins, causing me to lash out. I ignored this up until my mid teens, only then thinking of what happened, and confronting him, where he stated "that never happened". after that I moved on, and ignored it, up until last year. I went to stay at my aunts house, I had a good enough relationship with him where we would go out for occasional drinks together with our other cousins. this one night I went to stay at my aunts where he lives, and he tried to kiss me and grope me. when I asked what he was doing, he responded "don't you remember we used to do this as kids?" at that point I left. I had a very bad breakdown at this point, and couldn't stop crying. this has now bothered me ever since. it is hard as I have to see him on familial occasions.

Hello, everyone! I will immediately say that I am from Russia and do not know English well, so I am writing a post via Google translate. I must say right away - I do not support the policy of my country. Since my relatives do not sit on reddit (it is not popular with the older generation in Russia), I would like to share my story here, but keep my anonymity just in case. I want the Internet to know about my story, maybe some people have a similar situation as me and they will realize that they are not alone. Know, guys, I support you, you are the suns💕 I have never written such serious posts before and maybe there will be a lot of water here (for which I apologize). So, let's move on to the story itself. Let's go back 8 years ago, when I was still ten years old and was about to turn 11. My grandparents took me to the village to my godmother's mother (in Russia there is such a tradition - to baptize a child and give two people the position of godmother and godfather, who will be responsible for him before God. They may not be spouses, completely different people, of different ages), there were also in the village - the niece of the godmother, a girl a year younger than me, her teenage daughters and her husband. The godmother was there less often than her daughters in the village, which of course went into the hands of her husband. Because, as you know, teenagers like to walk in different places, explore the surroundings, which her teenage daughters often did, and therefore it was easier to commit a crime. And my godmother's husband presented it through a game. He showed "secret" techniques when he served in the army and was taught how to fight the enemy - to take off his pants, which he did the whole month that we were there. At first, as I said, it was a game, but in which something went wrong - he took off our pants and licked that place, and it still makes me sick like a child. Then it got worse - he just caught us and took off our pants and it all came down to those oral, terrible caresses (sorry for being so frank, I write on emotions so I don't know how to describe it exactly), we tried to fight him, but he beat us (damn 40-year-old kachek), while he was doing "this" with one, the other of us tried to save the victim, but nothing worked, and the roles changed. He also liked to show us his strength and arrange fights against his musly hand. Then he locked us in a room once, tied us up and did terrible things, it was so vague that I hardly remember anything. We both couldn't believe what had happened for a long time, it seemed to us that it was just a stupid dream. That this is not real, a kind, calm uncle who has two loving daughters, a good wife, a decent family who helped his relative in difficult times and sheltered her by raising (an adopted daughter). By the way, there is another character here - my friend's grandmother, my godmother's mother, where we lived, she owned that house. She did not notice what was going on behind her, always busy in the garden (a typical grandmother from Russia). As I said, the pedophile made a perfect plan for his crime, calculating everything in a straight line, he is a smart bastard because he also realized that we are both modest girls and will be afraid to tell adults about what happened. And he also had one trump card up his sleeve, but more on that later. Then it started what I hate myself for and why I was afraid at first to tell my family and what happened because he could reveal me - my girlfriend and I started asking him to touch us there, we were pleased (what the hell?), in a matter of time we stopped resisting him and what-something went wrong in our psyche. I'm just sick to the point of vomiting. It was once, but this time I'm sooo ashamed, it feels like I betrayed Name - the very girl in me who resisted him. For one more time, I'm also ashamed - we wanted to bring him discomfort and take revenge on him by pulling off his underpants, looking at his naked prick and laughing at him so that he would be ashamed. Do you remember what I said about the trump card? It turns out that we gave it to him ourselves. He told his daughter that we were "climbing" into his underpants and that she should talk to us. His daughter scolded us, and I remember we looked at her with fear in our eyes and could not answer anything, I wanted to admit that he had done this to us, but shame overcame me, and I was afraid that I would be accused of lying, I was afraid of Haight. I'm writing this now, and I'm terribly ashamed of all this, I feel like I hate myself for this. If there are psychologists here, then I would be interested to hear for what reasons we could do this because I can't understand my actions, I don't even remember my intentions. It felt like a game, but we knew something was wrong. It seemed to us that this was not real and that he was a good person. Then the school year begins, I had thoughts about death, a strange feeling of pain in my chest, I liked how I was getting old, dying and finding peace, and also my body was decomposing and soaked in grass. I wanted to take this secret to the grave with me and I didn't want my parents to be disappointed in that person. But I couldn't stand it, the pain in my chest squeezed me even more, and I couldn't carry such a terrible secret with me and told my mother about everything. She didn't actually believe me, but she told my grandmother and she believed me because in her opinion a child can't come up with and lie about such a thing, seriously I had no motives to do so, at that time I was an honest child. Grandma promised me to talk to him and threaten that if he did this to me again, she would complain to his wife or the police, I don't remember exactly. But as the years passed, the promise was never fulfilled. 2016, I am 13 years old, she invited him to visit with her wife. Before that, she warned me that if he came at me, I should threaten him with my finger and say that I would tell my grandmother everything. For a while, everyone went to the balcony to smoke and chat, but he does not smoke and took the opportunity to contact me, he wanted to give me a foot massage (I have flat feet and he began to come up with a hundred reasons why he should massage me), I said no, but he began to insist, they say -"You don't want your legs to be as swollen as those of old women, do you?" I told him that I didn't and didn't give him my consent, but he didn't care, I remember how it hurt during the massage, and how he lifted my dress so that my panties were visible. When everyone left, he quickly fixed everything and returned as if nothing had happened. For a long time I was afraid to tell my grandmother that I was afraid to tell him a warning, my body seemed to be paralyzed, I was embarrassed, offended. Then I found the strength to admit it to her, to which I received condemnation and reproach, like - why didn't I threaten him? I was afraid of the answer, she waved it away. He didn't get anything for it, like last time. This is not the only time they invited him to visit with his wife. The second time he stayed with his wife for the night, don't worry, there was no harassment, but there was a tin. He was supposed to sleep on my bed, however, when I wanted to sleep, I forgot about it (it happens to me, especially when I'm super sleepy), I wanted to sleep on my bed and told my grandmother about it, but instead of reminding me that my bed is occupied for this Night, guess what she said to me? "So you said that he molested you, and today you want to sleep on a bed with an adult uncle?". In such a vulgar way. I started having my first panic attacks when I was lying on my grandmother's bed and looking out the window. I feel like I'm running out of air, but I stay calm. I'm not scared much, but another part of me is glad that now this is the end of my suffering and I'm going to die. But no, it was just a panic attack, but I'm glad I'm alive. So, in the summer of 2018, I am 15 years old and I communicate with my friend in messenger, where she reveals the details of her life. That freak is still coming to her, but everything has become more serious. He was trying to insert his prichendal into some hole. Why was she silent? I was afraid. She has an overprotective mother, she would forbid her to go to the village and see her father especially, which she did not want, she rarely saw her father, my godmother - her aunt and other relatives. Perhaps there were other reasons. But I don't blame her. But it hurts me that she went through these sacrifices and no one saw her suffering. I was not allowed into the village all these years after the incident, at least so, thanks for that. I showed the correspondence to my family, proving definitively that I was not lying. They believed me, and I smile contentedly, to which my mother angrily asks me - "What are you smiling at? Is it nice when another family collapses? What a bad person you are." What did the family do? Nothing again. My father, with whom my mother is divorced and he lives separately, recommended that I buy cameras (why the hell didn't I even have money?), put them on, invite a pedophile to visit when no one is around and film his harassment of me. It's the most fucked-up idea I've ever heard. Moreover, I would not like to go that way for a long time. So, it's still 2018, summer. I got a boyfriend, I turned 16, and here we are sitting like this and decided to film his visits to my friend by going to the village to my godmother. I wanted to put an end to all this and avenge myself. We came up with a plan - we pretend to go somewhere, he stays alone with my girlfriend, we take cameras and film it. The pedophile could do this even when his wife was around, but she didn't see it, so we more or less understood how to catch him. The plan is not perfect, sometimes stupid, now it seems to me to be a cringe. We called my godmother and decided to arrange that I would go to the village, but take my boyfriend with me. She became dissatisfied with something, and my family found out about it. Mom got into my messengers, found out about our plan, as well as about our vulgar correspondence (well, how vulgar? We had vulgar jokes, then condom stickers were popular, and we stupidly sent them to each other a thousand times). What did my would-be relatives come up with? Stock up on kringe pills. Grandma called my godmother and lied that I went there to have sex and sleep with my uncle in the hay (that's what she called my boyfriend). By the way, my ex-boyfriend and I decided to wait until 18 to have sex. And there was never any mention of a hookup in the correspondence. Thank you, you stupid bitch, for shaming me and fooling me into a juvenile prostitute. I remember my mother screaming, "How dare you want to destroy someone else's family? You're a terrible person!" We were punished, Mom said that I was breaking up with my ex because we wanted to destroy someone else's family. And that we would not see each other again, we had to see each other in secret from her and our families. What were you seriously punished for? Me for wanting to expose a pedophile and put him in jail. We have another, but also stupid plan. I went to college, in Russian colleges students do not live in a dormitory, so I lived with my parents. My ex and I decided that it would be better if we ran away, and our friends would rent us an apartment, and so we would hide until we were 18. The first few days we spent the night in the entrance. It was cold and so cringe-worthy that I'm ashamed to remember it. Then we did come back, because the mother of one of the ex's friends had dissuaded us from doing such nonsense, after that we returned, and we were allowed to meet. Anyway, I slipped off the subject. Then I wanted to write an anonymous statement against him, saying they should believe me without proof, but I would have shown the correspondence with my friend, but I chickened out. I decided to tell the adopted daughter of the pedophile's family about what happened, and she believed me, especially with my friend's correspondence. But she also didn't do anything, I asked her to protect my friend, and she promised to do it, but according to my friend, that freak got to her before she came of age, until she grew up and became more feminine. For many years, adults knew that a crime was happening, but no one did anything. And they scared me with bullying, and I had a feeling of guilt that I was bad, since I could destroy someone else's family. Now that freak doesn't bother my friend, but now she insults him harshly and takes off on him, and I think that bastard deserves it. By the way, we took good revenge on him as a child - we peed in a jar at night so that the urine would evaporate, poured it into a glass during the day, told him that it was lemonade, he started drinking...And you should have seen his face. He then whined about how he would go to work with the smell of urine in his mouth. Serves you right, moron. By the way, when my grandparents see him and his wife, that freak is still looking at me, which annoys me, and what happens when I don't expect it. Enrages. I'm 21 now, but I look 15, which is probably why. So, this is not the only case of harassment against me and not only. Let's start with my grandfather. Mom told me when I was little that he groped her when she was a teenager, but Grandma didn't do anything. I told my grandmother about it, to which she replied that my mother was lying. And oh, in vain, I believed my grandmother, because she was lying. Let's go back to 2016, when I was 14, my grandparents got drunk and were drunk. Grandma started asking Grandpa about his motives for molesting my mother. She asked, "Were you looking for diamonds or something?" Grandfather did not answer. I remember crying a lot then and praying to God that it would be better if my grandfather molested me and not my mother. I felt sorry for my mother. At the age of 13, he pressed on my underpants when I was passing by, groping for my gasket, and I started laughing, thinking that this was a game. But then I realized after a second that it was terrible. At the age of 15, he groped my breasts when he was drunk, I told my mother, to which she answered me aggressively - he was drunk. I didn't tell my grandmother. What's the point? At the age of 20, I fell and had a ligament rupture, in the morning I went on crutches to cook breakfast for myself. And he took advantage of this and ran his hand over my ass. It was a shame. Recently, he got drunk and tried to pull off my nightgown, but I didn't let him do it, he groped my chest. Then again when I was sober. I couldn't stand it, I told my grandmother, he doesn't touch me anymore. But Mom thinks it's temporary because she's been bullied by him all her life. I was groped by my former friends, with whom I no longer communicate. And oh damn, how I hate the feeling when my body freezes and I can't move. I justified them, saying they did a lot for me, like my grandfather once did, but thanks to psychology, I don't do it anymore, fuck them. 2021, I turned 20, I went to live with my boyfriend from abusive relatives. Everything was fine, but his father started acting strangely towards me, started seeing me as his daughter, but it went too far. He started with the "harmless" thing - climbing under my T-shirt in front of a guy and adjusting my bra. I decided to talk to him about it and tell him that I feel bad about it, that I don't blame his father, but something strange is happening. My boyfriend (thank God, the ex) started shouting at me -"My father is not like that", despite my calm voice and the offer to discuss everything with him calmly. Then my ex was taken to a mental hospital to check his psychological health before the army, his mother left for the village, and then it started. His father started demanding that I not wear a bra under my T-shirt because my nipples are deformed. And how will I feed his grandchildren then? Or else he would have taken off this bra himself, I had to take it off myself. In addition to the apartment, the older sister and her future husband also lived. And I found an excuse like I don't want his daughter's husband to see my nipples shining through synthetics. And he allowed me to wear a bra on such occasions. He also liked to braid my hair, call me Nyusya, like his daughter. Then it got even worse - he started giving me massages, and if I refused, he did it forcibly, and he also loved when I lay half-naked on my stomach, and when I refused, he justified himself - "you're like my daughter, don't be afraid of me." Once he pulled down my pants to see my naked ass, despite my protests. He was mad when I was sleeping naked under I didn't want him to see me. Even before my ex left for the mental hospital, he came into our room to take something when we were sleeping, and I was sleeping naked, and then he confessed that he had seen my penis. And he apologized for it. Since then, I've been sleeping under a blanket, but also because of his sister's haight that I sleep naked in my ex's room. And personal boundaries? Maybe I don't want to be seen naked? Why did I put up with it? I wanted to keep my toxic relationship with my ex, which I thought was perfect because he saved me from my abusive family, when in fact he did it to control me. I didn't want to go back to my family. Even during the move, I silently packed my things secretly, afraid that I would be discovered and ran away from home without saying anything. They called me for the first few days and asked angrily, "When will you be back?". I knew that no one from that family would believe me. And finally, after the words and screams of my ex, I began to think that I was crazy and exaggerating everything, and that such an attitude was normal, in short, for a moment I went crazy, until my friends returned my consciousness. Although, in fact, this is the very first reason. Then my ex's sister started being jealous of her father, that he started giving me a lot of money, that he called me by her nickname, she told my ex a lot of bad things about me, and so he dumped me. I also remember his angry words- "He never treated us the way he treated you." If you only knew how I had to, dude. I went back to my grandmother, told her everything, she did nothing, reproached me - "Why didn't you come back? Why did you put up with all this? Did you like it?". Back at the age of 21, I was diagnosed with depression and schizoaffective disorder, I don't have the strength to work, especially after the shit that happens in my life. I am constantly bullied for being lazy, bad, and not doing anything around the house. My grandfather said recently: "You're not human if you don't work. You're an animal. And animals can be beaten. What did she say? I'm going to knock your jaw out. I will kick you out of the house because you are not registered." In November, when my beloved cat died, he told me the next day: "Here you are not working and you will die soon, I will pay 1,500 rubles for the disposal of your corpse, as well as your cat." I just hate this scum, all the scum that messed up my psyche. If you've read this to the end, then thank you very much, from the bottom of my heart. And please, without negativity. I wish it was a simple dream. I want to write a book about my life in the future because living with such stories is killing me.

I don't know, I don't know who to go to. I don't know if l'm being overdramatic because l've been taken advantage of before. And I really hope nobody I know finds this because they'll know it's me. I don't know if I'm just convincing myself he's a bad person because I finally have something good. I haven't been able to eat good without nausea and it's been 2 days since | drunk and hang overs don't usually last that long. I haven't eaten today at all and what happened has been keeping me up at night. God, I feel like a little kid again writing this about my ex. Me and my boyfriend decided to drink and smoke weed together. I'm a fast drinker sometimes and unfortunately l am a very low weight. He brought something that had only a 14% alcohol level or whatever. I must've drunk around half of the bottle and I can't remember him drinking that much, because he was talking a lot but he was holding the bottle for most of the time. I got really drunk while we were outside and I couldn't walk anymore AT ALL. I fell into a tree and he had to walk me to his house because I had to use the bathroom. We get in there and I use the bathroom and trip in his shower. After he helps me to his room because he said we should go up I think. And later on, I start to record so I could know what happened. In the video I'm repeatedly asking him if he was sober or as drunk as me. And I told him I wasn't in control at all. I was confused on where I was and I kept asking him where I was. I spilled water on me and a couple minutes later I asked why I was wet because I totally had forgotten that happened. I also could not see at all and I'm staring right into the phone camera asking if I was recording him or me. I don't remember a lot from this point, just what I have from like the 40 minutes of recording. We played my favorite artist. I was singing really bad lol and I was asking him if I could smoke his pen and he gave it to me a couple of times and never said no (imo he should have, I couldn't walk by myself and could only crawl) I started to become really touchy, like laying my head in his lap, caressing his arms, putting my hand on his upper thigh, and once I accidentally moved my hand against his crouch or something. Hard to explain. He was caressing my neck or wrapping his hand around it. He was also putting his fingers sort of in my mouth or on my mouth. One time when a finger did go in my mouth, I moved my head back. Another time, I did move his hand from my neck onto my mouth because it felt warm. Either he was laying right next to me or my head was in his lap most of the time. I'm sorry this is so confusing I'm doing it all out of order. And just talking about what he did. In one clip, which made me uncomfortable maybe the most, as I was laying close to him and our faces were facing eachother, I asked him "did we kiss?" (I asked him if we kissed earlier, in none of the videos it shows us kissing at all) and he must have thought I asked him to kiss me. He didn't say anything and just leaned in to kiss me, then I started repeating "no, no,no". And I started squirming. He grabs my arm and maybe pulls me a little closer but I can't tell, it looks like he's grabbing something behind me a bit but he's saying "sorry, I'm sorry" and then I asked if he was playing my favorite music artist. In other clips, it looks like he's trying to kiss me. Like when I'm under him and he's grabbing my chin and he's getting closer but then I realize then I start to move away. I was really drunk, but I remember being so scared he was going to do something bad to me that I recorded to know what happened, I told him don't let me do anything bad, that I trusted him, and that I was scared and not in control. He was drunk as well but he didn't really seem very drunk. He said he wasn't as drunk as me while I kept asking and asking. I remember that in 2 hours I started crying and asking for my dad and I was really scared and I was gonna ask him for a pregnancy test. I know we didn't do anything super sexual like that, because I would've felt pain. There are some gaps in the recording of time, and I do not know what happened between those minutes. I don't think I would have kissed him but I cant remember at all. He told me we kissed 3 times and that they were about 4 seconds. I don't think he had any bad intentions and I feel bad for posting this, I don't think he's a bad guy. I still love him and I don't think I'll break up with him. I don't know if I see a boner or not in the videos, idk what one rily looks like lol. I do know that he has a enc kink from what he's talked to me about over text while I was on drugs. (Such as sleeping and me falling

I was a freshman at a frat party. I had one drink, which I made myself, but still became incoherent suddenly after about an hour. I don't remember exactly what happened, but I woke up the next morning without my underwear and covered in bruises. I shrugged it off as a crazy, messy night of college drinking and my friends did too, but secretly I was terrified.

My Name is Author. I dated a very beautiful Lady when I graduated S.U.N.Y. E.S.F.. I was proud of the fact that I had also graduated from Syracuse University. The Lady that I dated was Name. As I got to know Her and it became serious; I learned that She had been raped before the age of 5 by an adult. I tried hard not to pull My Ford Ranger over to the side of the road and sob. When I met at Central Square with a "Christian to ask for advice on how to pray for Her protection - and for this to be ensured that never again would it be repeated; He gave me a disgusting reply. He said "You've been involved with an angel of satan". I hope that one very good day; "christians" have a different outlook on rape victims. That those who sexually exploit young ladies are put in prison. She was African American. I am "Caucasian". When I met Her in Price Chopper - She was carrying a frozen turkey for a Thanksgiving Meal. She reminded me of Robin Givens. I learned that She and Her family has a great history with the Black Panthers. I was so proud to know Her and Her loved ones. Thank God that We are in a great country that fought for racial equlaity and that President Joseph Biden has won; that the legacy of President Barack Obama survives. God Bless the Nation Of Islam for having a strong mandate that no Lady ever be defiled. We are in the Land of One Person, One Vote. I dated a Kikuyu Princess in Nairobi, Kenya and I will never forget making love to Her Our trip from Israel to Kenya. We dated throughout the great city of Nairobi; and by the time that We were ready to plan Our next date - I was almost out of spending money. All that I had to give Her from the Open Market was an indigo pair of Ear Rings. Had I been a Trillioneer, I would have built Her a castle in The United States and let Her live as the Queen that She is. God Bless Judy, The Lady Saint Judith. Please support civil rights, strong anti-rape Laws and severely strong Law enforcement for the protection of Females - and prevention of Sexual Exploitation. All of this account is True; and the Facts can be checked and proven True. I look forward to a day when the truth is not twisted into lies by gossip. When the death of precious people in Africa by great famine - is taken seriously. When the environment and wildlife are protected. Thank You to The Syracuse University and College of Environmental Science and Forestry for having emergency measures in place for Female students in danger. Author Class Of Year Environmental and Forest Biology. Helper of The Direct Deployment Team. Syracuse Police Department God Bless The New York State Troopers. God Bless Nelson Mandela God Bless the United Nations Thank You to Dr. Newman for Worlds Of Food And Famine God Bless B.B. KIng "There's Always One More Time" When I have been very down; I remember what Wesley Snipes said: "Always Bet On Black". Even though I hate and avoid gambling.

I've never done something like this before. Sharing my story anonymously on the internet isn't something I would have considered before. But I have few friends, and no one I feel comfortable talking about these things with, either because I don't know them quite well enough, or because I can't stand the thought of telling them about my own failings that lead to these situations. Themes: Sexual Assault When I was very young, my older brother was babysitting my sister and I. He has bipolar disorder, and we didn't realize at the time that he was going through a difficult phase of sexual frustration and questioning. That night, he sexually abused my sister and I. Though he never touched us directly, he had us do a number of inappropriate acts, and even attempted to have us touch each other, though backed off when neither of us was willing to do so. We were kids, so (for me especially), a lot of that stuff seemed off or weird, but we didn't know that it was wrong. I reported the incident. I don't remember doing so, but my parents tell me I was the one who explained what happened. What followed were several of the hardest years of our lives, me and my family. The state tried my brother as an adult, despite still being underage, and twiddled their thumbs in terms of actually dealing with anything. He was seperates from all of us, passed between jails, and generally mistreated. The news got back to us and only made the whole situation worse. Maybe it instilled a sense of guilt in me, maybe not. But it triggered a massive distrust of the state and non-familial authority in general, making therapy impossible when combined with my own mental disorders. It took several years, but now my brother is finally free from his singular mistake, and is closer to his family and his God as a result. But that's not the end of my story. All of the above is background information. I don't know if it's at all relevant, but at this point I'm just sharing everything I can recall to get it off my chest. The following stories occur within the digital space of Virtual Reality. I admit to never having considered that one could experience SA and trauma in VR, since there are an abundance of tools with which to control interactions with others, such as blocking, world-hopping, or logging out. However, I now know it's much more complicated than that, especially when you have someone who's response to fear and/or trauma is to freeze and shut down, like me. I met a young woman in VR who herself had a history of sexual trauma. I'm an extremely empathetic person, so I found myself drawn to this girl in a misguided notion that I could help or support her in some way. I didn't realize I was being manipulated until it was too late. It started out simple. We would hang out, with her or her friends, and talk about this or that. Explore worlds. Typical vr things. She seemed to start growing attached to me to some degree, having an attraction to my voice. At the time, I just thought it meant she was starting to trust me. I was half right. One evening, I was online and looking for someone with whom to hang out. I saw her online with another of our friends, in a friends only instance of a public world, on "green", meaning I could join at any time. So I did. When I loaded in, I found myself stumbling upon an Erotic roleplay session (virtual sex) and expressed my surprise. There were some laughs, and eventually I was convinced to join in, as awkward as the situation was. This girl was very taken by my performance for some reason, and asked if we could meet up again. I stupidly agreed, just wanting to make her happy. What followed were a series of uncomfortable meetups where she would take me to some themed world or other, each catering to her own fetishes, and pressure me into a "dom" role that I was neither comfortable, nor felt very good at filling. Some days I would come online, and she would beg and press me to go back to erping with her. A couple occasions, I managed to convince her to leave me be. But most of the time, I caved. I was living in the basement of my parents' house at the time. The basement has no door, and my dad was just up the stairs. One night, during what would become the last of these sessions, he overheard my activities and stormed downstairs to confront me. He yelled at me, then went back upstairs. I curled up in a ball for a little while, my partner attempting to continue unaware. I eventually managed to tell her that I couldn't do this anymore. I then took an extended break from vr. When I returned, I tried to meet up with her again, hoping we could at least be normal friends. But she ignored me, acting like I didn't exist, as if all I had been was an object for her pleasure. I blocked her and moved on. I never intentionally engaged in ERP after that. However, after discovering I'd developed phantom sense (the ability to perceive touch on one's virtual avatar) I ended up in a few more uncomfortable and compromising positions. One of note occurred while I was lounging by a mirror, and one of the more perverse of the group decided to try and crawl up my skirt, which didn't obey gravity like it would irl, instead acting like it was starched. This was extremely uncomfortable, and lead to me ending the night early. The next notable example happened with a group of guys I'd been hanging out with a couple times. I followed them between worlds, just hanging out, laughing, and trying avatars like normal. We ended up going to a world called "Location", a world organized like a hotel with private, lockable rooms. I didn't know then that it was a space infamous for ERP. Regardless, I had become comfortable around these guys, and had even shared a few dirty jokes with them. When the lobby got crowded, we moved upstairs to a private room to look at the sky ox through the windows with the mirror on and chat. I don't remember how it happened exactly. The next thing I remember is laying on my back on the bed, my legs open, as one of the guys took advantage of my phantom sense to simulate oral sex with me. I never gave consent. I froze and went silent. I was parylized. Even as he kept saying to tell him if it was too much; to stop him if I was uncomfortable; I couldn't move or speak. I could only silently hope for him to stop. I don't remember how that night ended. I've been extremely jumpy in VR ever since. I often take long breaks between sessions, and feel as though half the time when I go back the night ends poorly either due to my own anxiety or some other factor. Any suggestive jokes that involve touches or poses of any kind can send me into a catatonic state, though I've been steadily getting better at at least moving my character away from the source. I'm often on edge anymore, and have been having a much harder time getting myself to speak to strangers and make friends. It's crushing, since I have no friends irl who love in my town, and none of my rl friends play that particular game. Only two have vr at all, and prefer single player experiences. I find myself lonely, and perhaps paradoxically, hyper-sexual when alone, even fantasizing about situations similar to those I've already described. I'm confused, and I feel lost and broken. Some days I can forget, but other days it hits me like a truck. One little reminder, and I'm nauseous and withdrawn for most of the day.

i moved to wheeling this blonde haired handsome cop took an interest in me he was going to leave his girlfriend for me last year. His girlfriend stalked me when he came to see me she was not far behind he went back and forth between me and her. He chose her over me after telling her he loved me he was hardly ever around he would spy on me i left then he blamed me he would throw parties celebratating our engagement i asked him if was going to see someone else please do not rub it in but that is exactly what he did not to mention all the insults i got he never defended me. He then accuses me of cheating saying I hurt a good guy he sent a third party to tell me he was married to someone else then told me he was not married he was supposed to have been engaged but shes now single there was this woman who went on facebook saying he was a bad boy.