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Last year I was gang raped. I have an ear ringing called tinnitus that has not stopped since. I have nightmares. I flew with my mom to a wedding overseas. I was excited. She would be busy with her friends and cousin and I would get to spend time with my awesome second cousin who is two years older than me. After the rehearsal dinner we went out. It was fun because I was not legally able to drink there even though the age was lower than in my province, but they did not check ID’s. I did not drink much because it was not my thing and I had a boyfriend but I was able to go to some bars then a club attached to a hotel. So much fun up to when we met two soldiers in uniform who were cute and separated us from her friends because of our looks. My cousin is stunning beautiful. They had a private room at the club and several soldiers were there and two prostitutes also. Those prostitutes definitely hated us being there. I wanted to get out anyway and the cute ones that invited us acted like they understood and took us out of there. We stupidly let them take us to their hotel room where they totally dropped the cute romantic act and made us strip our clothes to music. They showed us a gun they had in a drawer. I was terrified. They made us lay on our stomachs bent over the bed side by side and had sex with us that way. They switched like we were interchangeable before finishing in us with no protection. We held hands. I was crying while my cousin was trying to be strong and cheer me up. We weren’t allowed to leave and our clothes were hidden. Before took our phones we had to text that we were staying at my cousin’s friend’s house. Then they called two other soldiers, one of them a huge tall dark guy with body builder muscles. He was the worst to me. They made us dance and then we had to use our mouths on the cute ones that had lured us there while the other two had sex with us. I vomited and my cousin cleaned it up but then it started again. They had cocaine and made us sniff it off their parts and sniffed it off us. Another one came and I think it was just those five during the night but they kept raping us and making us do things even when we would pass out. I would like to have been more unconscious but cocaine makes you so awake. I want to remember less and think about it all less. We showered many times. The big dark one peed on me and in my mouth the shower. He did it more than once like I was his toilet. The other men even had to tell him to chill out when he was making me scream liking his fingers and pushing them in my arse, but not when he made me crawl around like a dog using my hair as a leash. I remember one of them calling their friends to tell them to turn all their t.v.’s way up to hide the noise in our room. They watched sports news on the t.v. They had me and my cousin kiss each other and stuff. I could not act like it was a fun party like my cousin did sometimes and encouraged me to do. She tried to take some of their attention away from me over and over. I love her for it but they did not leave me alone. My chest is something they were obsessed with. They did not care that I was obviously distressed and freaking out or that in my country I was three years below the age of consent. There I was the minimum. We woke up in the morning on one the beds together with only the two soldiers sleeping on the floor. The black one was gone! They had sex with us again and another man who was much older and who they called SIR came in and had sex with both us but mostly me. They cheered him on and my head was pounding and I was crying and it seemed to last forever. Finally we got our clothes back but they took us for brunch wearing their normal clothes. They showed me pictures on their phones that made it look like I was having fun and warned us how bad it would be if we said anything different than we had a nice party. A nice party in hell! Before that I’d had sex with only my 1 boyfriend ever. One night of hell and now my number was seven!! We had to start getting ready for the wedding right away and I was exhausted. My cousin hid me and I took a nap in my dress, hair and makeup until the last minute. I cried in the ceremony but not for the wedding. I was so sore in my vagina, muscles, and brain that I got so drunk at the reception I barely remember any of it. Just part of being on the plane home. I told my mom the truth when I got back and she got all crazy, so did my dad, and they tried to call over there and the hotel and such but there was nothing the police would do. I saw my dad cry for the first time as I told the whole story. My boyfriend could not handle it and dumped me. I go to group and do therapy. I take a pill everyday and now benzo’s for break through anxiety. I try to hide my large chest under baggy clothes where before I used it for attention. STUPID! My cousin does not seem to have the trauma I do or the nightmares. In her country they are done with secondary school up to two years before us and are more treated like adults sooner. I said mean things to her once because of it. She forgave me but we talk much less since I asked if she has gang bangs all the time. I felt terrible because she even let them have anal sex with her to lure them away from me. I could tell it hurt her so much but at the time was just thinking about my own survival. My childhood is OVER but I do not feel like an adult. Her advice is -Don’t let it get you so down-. Like I have a choice in this!! She went to a therapist ONCE because her mom made the appointment and does not plan to go back. Her life did not really change!! She works reception at a tech company and models on the side and still goes to parties and clubs and dates. How??? It is unbelievable how attitudes toward something like this can be so different in different countries. I am a victim now and I usually feel like it. Definitely damaged. Everybody at my school knows why. I am THAT girl. My new more mature boyfriend is understanding but I feel like a sad little burden to him. I am hypersexual sometimes now and can’t help it. It is a coping mechanism that happens to some victims of sexual assault. I did not ask for it. I worry my boyfriend can’t trust me because of it. I had an older guy friend who’s been my neighbor for years take advantage of me after I told him the story of what happened at his house. We had sex and then he felt guilty for being turned on by my rape story. He admitted it and asked me to forgive him. The sex helped me calm the ear ringing for just short time periods so I did it with him more than once a day for a bit until my dad started to suspect something and talked to him. Since then I don’t trust myself. I want to marry my boyfriend in large part just to protect myself and show him I love him and am loyal even though I am not sure I can be. I worry I cannot love like a normal person. I worry I push him away being too needy and wanting to marry him so soon. I need him more than he needs me. Is that the way it will always be in relationships for rape victims??? I work hard at school not to ruin my future. It is so hard to focus. My ears ring constantly. Thank you for listening.

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.

In my original shared story, IT STARTED WITH MY BROTHER, I talked about my abuse from a bird’s eye view. It was my abuse life as I was able to share it at the time. I have been working up to sharing 3 instances of rapes that I only avoided by allowing the men to take what they wanted instead of fighting. The most traumatic of the three incidents I mentioned involved a police officer. This is that account. I was pulled over on my way home from a study group as junior at the university on a week night. We had shared two drinks toward the end. I DO NOT condone driving and drinking but I was not drunk, as the breathalyzer later confirmed. I was pulled over and already had the nerves associated with that, amplified by the fact that I was under the legal drinking age for another three weeks. That is when I first met the cop I will just call SIK. He gave me a creepy vibe when I first saw him and that never stopped. Still, I flirted with him to an extent desperate to not get it huge trouble. He had me get out of the car, take of my hoodie, under which I only had a basic sports bra. It was only sixty degrees or so that night. I was cold and shivering from fear and the temperature. I saw him look at my body with no filter. Another cop car pulled up with two officers while I was doing the field sobriety tests. He had already searched me in an uncomfortable way. One of the officers who arrived was female and also searched me after he had said I had some problems with the sobriety tests. Walking backwards on an imaginary line heel to toe was the only thing I had trouble with. It is hard! The female cop brought out the breath test I had asked for. I blew 0.035. That is less than half the legal limit. At that point SIK said he was just going to follow me home, rather than arrest me, and the other car left. The whole stop took maybe an hour. Cars drove by on the side street I had pulled onto. Headlights and tail lights in the dark. After the other car left SIK talked to me more harshly and threatening than ever. He said a girl like me is probably used to getting away with everything. He asserted that he could still take me to jail anytime he decides as as he takes me home and makes sure I am safe everything I do is still a test. He could bust me for possession of alcohol and I would lose my license. I was scared. I told him my roommate was home. She was a student too and was supposed to be there. After following me inside my apartment I called out for my roommate. Then I checked her room. She was not there! SIK then accused me of lying to a police officer and locked the deadbolt from the inside. He made me stand with my hands on my own dining room wall with my legs spread. I wanted to call her so he could talk to her and confirm she was usually there, but he stopped me and made me just text her to see when she would be home. He gave instruction not to ask or say anything more and checked before I sent it. She was at her sisters and would not be back until late. At that point he took off his utility belt and put it on my kitchen counter. He told me after all he had done for me was no longer free, since I lied to him. His gun was right there next to us. He made sure I saw it and he even twisted it so it was pointed toward me. I was scared and pleading with him. I really was willing to do anything. I am not sure but I think I told him that. He radioed from his shoulder thing that he was taking a “lunch” break. What I definitely remember was when he said he was going to do a proper strip search this time, down to full nudity and asked if I agreed to that. At that point I no longer had a doubt what was happening. I made the mental adjustment but what he did was more than I had prepared for. He gave me vulgar compliments about my body as he blatantly molested me. He kneaded my breasts like dough. He fingered me as asked if you could use a special appendage he had that went farther in. I knew what he meant. I was repulsed but I agreed. After the initial eager sex with me still having my hands on the wall leaning forward he slowed down. I had been hoping it was almost over but he decided to prolong it. He commanded me to my bedroom. He took off all his clothes besides his socks. He complemented his own anatomy and made me agree. His member was well above average in size but I doubt, if he had not had a wedding band on, that he would ever get to use it. He was half bald, had a prominent eyebrow like a neanderthal, and a pale beer belly with lots of moles all over his body. He had a mustache and goatee that did not completely hide his poor complexion that looked like he had scars from severe acne. Almost all men all taller than me but he was short and only towered over me by a few inches. Never had I lied bigger than when I told him what he wanted to hear about being sexy and wanting him. The only truth was about his large penis. SIK spoke a lot, mostly degrading me and confirming that I agree with him. Cliche stuff, like me being a whore, slut, dirty, and liking what he made me do to him, but also asked about my sex life and abuse history. He wanted me to say that my dad and coaches abused me, but I would not lie about that. Instead I told him some of the truth about my brother abusing me. That was probably the worst part. Saying out loud to SIK what I never used to admit to anyone, for his great pleasure, harmed me. That was worse that the physical stuff. Worse than making me kiss him during parts of it. He was also cruel. He tried to gag me and push all the way down my throat while he made him do oral. He pushed my ankles behind my head while he pounded me with his abusing thrusts. I could see the cruel lust in his eyes. I could see his wicked smile. He slapped my face many times, just not very hard. He did spank me hard. He realized he had me captive and vulnerable to his whim and he was finally living his darkest fantasies. I was doing anything he wanted and encouraging it because I wanted it to stop. So many times he stopped himself right before he was going to climax! He did not want it to end. SIK tried to have anal sex with me and I was accommodating him but he was just too big to fit. I was crying during most of this out of pain but trying to act like an eager partner to make it end. I later thought that might have prolonged it. SIK was probably the time that would prefer I suffer more, like I was being raped instead of hiding my pain. It was not much longer than twenty minutes but it was so bad and I relived it so many times in my mind before I got smashed drunk and high the next night after work. So the memory lived much more prominently in my head than a simple 25 minute encounter. I do reach climax easily, but I never had one orgasm from him because of his preference for causing sexual pain. When he suddenly released inside me he got quiet and barely said another word as he dressed, gun belt and all, and left quietly. I have no idea what that meant. It scared me. I was afraid while driving for a while, and avoided sleeping at home as much as I could, which sometimes meant sleeping with men and even male friends just to not go home. It was the main reason I did not renew my lease and moved it to a smaller apartment by myself. This was the same roommate whose father had already slept with me without my initial blessing. I did tell my roommate a short version of it and she reacted like it was cool story. I did kind of tell it that way, as a way of dealing with it. The easy path of least resistance. To not admit it may have been the worse sexual thing to happen to me. The true worst things that happened to me in my college years were broken hearts from losing men I loved. But those are stories for a different forum. I don’t put my heart out there to be trampled anymore. This incident was one of the wake up calls that stood out as an omen for me to change my whole lifestyle and try to salvage myself. It was also one of the things that took me the longest to mention to my therapist even though I thought about it during sessions.

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

In my story, IT STARTED WITH MY BROTHER, I briefly mentioned 3 instances of avoiding being raped by letting men just have me when it seemed like they were going to do me whether or not I consented. I do think I avoided emotional and physical trauma at the time, but the anger, self resentment, and feelings of being wronged and about it did snowball after. I never shared or released those stories. Please read my original story for context. In this instance the sex was already happening when I awoke, and my reflex was to take the non-confrontational path. The easy way, not the right way. I had gotten home from work as a server at my bar and grill restaurant and my female roommate had her father staying with us for the weekend. I had already met him since they drove straight from the airport to the sports bar I worked at. That’s were he told me, “Just call me, ‘Dad’”. They sat in my section, ate, and left. No issues. Then, back at our 2 bedroom apartment there was a small party for his benefit with a couple of our friends. I had a couple hard ciders and chatted about college and my roommate and heard stores of when she was a kid from. I flirted and humored “Dad”’s sexual innuendos directed at me, and ignored his eyes all up and down me. I was used to it. I played the good hostess and waited until it was all dying down probably around 2 or 3 am, before I showered and went to bed. It had been a long day with both class and work. I was stirred out of my sleep a few hours later with "Dad" already inside of me, thrusting in and out between my legs! By the light streaming in through my dark blinds I could tell it was day. But WTF was happening?! My panties were off but my T-shirt was on. Underneath it the dark figure who I quickly was able to identify as "Dad" was caressing my breasts with one hand while holding me down with the other. Still dazed and confused, I guess I put my arms around him and responded like a willing partner. He soon finished and then it got awkward.  He told me "That really hit the spot". He started to make conversation! The longer I had to think, the more I realized what happened. That he had just helped himself as I lay sleeping. I was 19 and dating a hot university baseball player at the time and would not have gone for this fifty or so year old guy on purpose. He was sure drinking that night but I had only had a few ciders. So there I was, realizing I had been kind of raped but held hostage by a sense of politeness! Not to mention as I was 5'3'' 110 pounds, so there was the physical intimidation from a much taller man with a dad bod.  I always pee right after sex but felt captive by "Dad"'s ramblings as he propped himself up on one elbow hovering over me while he ran his fingers over me and stroked my hair sporadically.  I shared his cold can of beer with him that he must have opened right before he came in to rape me because I remember drinking deeply the cold liquid soothing my dry throat. I suffered through some dad jokes and stories I did not care about, as well as answering some personal questions about myself and my sexuality. I was looking for momentary pause to get up and away from “Dad” when he said, "I'm ready to go again, baby." NO! He moved on top of me! Instead of fighting him off me or even saying "no", I spread my legs to accommodate him! WTF! The second time did not have the desperate eagerness of the first, unfortunately. As he even said, he wanted to teach me a lesson this time. I guess about how good he was is bed. A definite case of ‘whiskey dick’. So I let this man I had never wanted or considered sex with jostle me into several positions. He was large man and so much stronger than me it was a joke. After the missionary he picked me up to prove some point and did me against the wall right next to my window. I remember seeing through cracks in the blinds and knowing it was early because the parking lot was full and nothing was moving. Then SLAM onto the bed. We did 69 with me lying on him where I sucked him with all my might wanting to END IT while he was licking me. I failed! He had me being on top riding him at one point. I was on my hands and knees with him ramming behind me when I collapsed under his weight to flat on my face. He enjoyed never letting up on the thrusts as I was completely pinned down by him. I let him give me two or more orgasms in hopes he would just finish. I was so loud I was embarrassed my roommate would come rushing in my room any second. She was passed out drunk. He finally left as soon as he finished. I am sure his ego was massively inflated and the terrible man still thinks of me today! I lie there in my bed catching my breath and getting more anxious. I got up, pulled on some sweats, and B-lined straight out the door to my gym. I wanted to get away so bad. I drank water like I had just walked out of a desert. I showered for so long at the empty Saturday morning gym without any products but hand soap. Then I started to work out like crazy, on three hours sleep and exhaustion. I was trying to sweat him out of my system, to scream and thrash through my exercise. I showered again then went out and fell asleep in my car in the back of the lot. The rest of the weekend I only went to my apartment for minutes at a time to pick up things I needed. I sure as Hell did not sleep there! When he was gone I answered my roommates questions that I had been blowing off with lies and short answers. I told her the truth. She shrugged and looked at me skeptically, like it was just one of those things. I was promiscuous in college and she knew it. We sort of made a joke out of it and moved on. The easy way, not the right way. I still have big time guilt at how I was back then. At the time my things was not that "I wish I had fought him." What I wished was that I had been too drunk to remember!!! So that was that. Something I kept inside, festering. Other things added to it and it got swept under the rug of my damaged psyche. Not one of the worst skeletons in my closet but what I was willing to share for now. I am working up to the others. My first story I shared helped a lot. I hope it helped somebody else too. I thank all of you and I empathize. I will read your stories and support you in my thoughts and prayers.

At the age of 8-9? I can’t really remember clearly but I had a cousin who was really close with me she and I would be inseparable almost she and I were practically besties ! Until when we were in the closet one day she showed me things I didn’t want to see and I don’t even remember vaguely but I was touched and didn’t consent but also didn’t stop it she showed me things and I can’t tell if its cosca, i dont want to be wrong because we did things together that was absolutely gross and so wrong to do i feel so dirty so icky and weird about how i am supposed to just forget it or am i not?

I’m sharing here because I hope I can reach out to other women who may have gone through marital rape or may still be going through it and I want you to know you are not alone. For years I felt as if I was asleep as I couldn’t face up to what was happening to me, why I was losing weight and why I so depressed. I minimised everything, even to him. I would try and make him feel better afterwards. Most of the time it was as simple as me saying no to sex and him doing it anyway while I was completely disconnected, and it was so often, I would lie there and wait til he was done most of the time, but each thing built up to him pushing the boundaries further, sometimes when we were out in public, always after I went out with my friends, it was part of the deal. I always told myself he’d be in better form if I just went along with it. He was always so stressed and so angry. And I loved him and sometimes I enjoyed sex with him. It made things very confusing in my head. And I was eating barely anything, which he encouraged, he was constantly buying me exercise equipment and sexy outfits. I kept getting sick, I was tired and low all the time. My family and friends were saying I wasn’t myself. There were 3 incidents that I play over and over in my head that I couldn’t minimise (although I tried). And they led to me telling him our marriage was over. That was a year ago. I thought it might help me to write one of them down and maybe someone will identify with me and it might help them. It was at his best friends wedding and as usual, he wanted us to do something exciting sexually. So we went to the men’s toilets. We were kissing and we started to have sex. I was quite drunk. All of a sudden he turned me around and bent me over the toilet, my hands on the window sill. I started to say no. It came out in what sounded like a little girls voice. I don’t know why I remember that so well. I don’t know why I didn’t shout. He raped me anally in the men’s cubicle and I was crying looking at a dirty window sill and I could hear strange men outside commenting. Afterwards I kept asking why did you do that, I didn’t want that, it hurt me, you were too rough, I said no. But he he didn’t want to talk about it. He left me sitting with one of his male friends that I didn’t know to go outside with his best friend and have cigars. He saw I was in pain and bleeding for days after. I stayed with him for years after that. Other things happened after that too. I ended up feeling like his stress ball, a rag doll, good for nothing else. I was with him since I was 18 years old and we have children together. He was all I knew. He was my husband and I loved him. No one knew what was happening. Everyone thought we were a couple in love. It wasn’t until I told him I couldn’t share a bed with him anymore and I was starting ti have panic attacks that we went to a marriage counsellor and it all came out. I woke up. It was her face. Her reaction. I felt so stupid and embarrassed. And he tried to explain it away to her shouting at her that he was a man. I was sitting there thinking how did I let this happen to me? I always saw myself as quite a strong, intelligent, bubbly person. I’m in my 40s, I should know better. I was looking at the counsellors face and it somehow didn’t feel as if it was happening. I realised I was shaking and she was worried about me and he was shouting at her. I felt so embarrassed and helpless. And stupid in front of another grown woman. I was thinking what if this was someone I loved telling me this happened to them? But still in my head I kept thinking its not really rape because he was my husband, and I loved him and so many times I wanted to have sex with him so how could it be rape. But why did he want to hurt me? I kept thinking this couldn’t be happening to me. Anyway thanks for reading. I hope it helps someone. I feel it helped me to write it down.

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

There are pieces of different stories that fit my situation. I’m a successful executive and I am so embarrassed that I ignored all the red flags and got myself into this mess. I feel so unworthy, a combination of childhood emotional neglect, sexual assault as a teenager, and a 25 year marriage full of emotional neglect and infidelity. I even feel unworthy of putting myself in the same category as the survivors on this page, like my story isn’t as valid. He is a sexual assault survivor himself; he was molested by an older female cousin when he was little. That was part of the attraction at first. I thought we understood each other’s pain and would help each other heal what still remained. At first the attention felt like caring, like someone finally gave a damn. The requests to text where I was at all times, wanting to track my location and share his, wanting to talk or FaceTime all night on the phone, even sleeping with the call still going, next to me, when we weren’t together. Now I know it was about control and a deep lack of trust. I have learned over time to never look around at a restaurant or I will be accused of staring at another man. I have unfriended most of my male friends on social media and I am afraid to post anything in case one of the remaining ones comments. He demands that I show him any communication from any man on social media. He wants to know my work meeting schedule and gets upset if I don’t text him back right away. One time, he was out of town and my phone wasn’t plugged in correctly so the battery died during the overnight FaceTime call. I panicked when I woke up and realized what had happened, and he was furious with me. He wanted to know if I had cheated between 4 am and 8 am when the phone was dead. And I haven’t asked him to leave yet. I don’t know why. We have almost broken up several times, and every time I believe him that it will be different. It won’t be different. I am exhausted and I don’t recognize myself anymore. I am too ashamed to tell my friends or family the extent of it, although they know things are off.

It gets better. It might never go away, but it gets better. His memory, grip on me gets looser and looser every passing day. It gets better. Little by little, it gets better. When it happened, I couldn’t imagine the life after. That I will always be tormented by him. But. It got better. It’s still there, but. There is less of it now

It was a cold snowy winter night just before the COVID shutdown spread across the country. I was attending the second-year graduate school class reception with a group of friends from the second-year graduate class. My "date" as my invitation to attend that class's event was really someone everyone knew was in a committed long-distance relationship and just using the extra ticket as a fun excuse to invite me as friend. It was a fun time to explore a historic mansion while having food and wine. An hour later, as it was about to conclude, one of the second-year's partners turns to me and tells me she would really like to meet me at a bar, and a group of people from that class are planning to go there. I turn to my "date" and we both agree to go. We drove to the vintage bar, one I never had been to before. I walk in through the snow and ice in my black high heels in a cocktail dress covered by my winter jacket, trying my best not to trip. A cocktail and a few conversations among classmates of my "date" later, I find myself in the corner chatting with the person who invited me to the bar from the reception. Something seemed off from the start of the conversation -- and it only got worse. The 30-something-appearing cis woman was a faculty member, yet seemed to serial date younger, new students at the same professional school -- a fact a classmate mentioned in passing with an eye-roll earlier. The one-to-one conversation with me appeared to go in circles, with her repeating the same stories over and over again without realizing that she was doing so. Awkward conversation, but it would just be a temporarily annoyance, my thought was. Yet it took an even more bizarre turn. She kept getting closer to closer to me as she was talking. At one point, she touched my shoulder, ostensibly to make a comment about how she liked my dress. She was mentioning her professional expertise and connections in the field I was, and still am, most interested in entering. She then started asking me awkward questions about how I was visibly trans, and then mentioned as a complete non-sequitur how she was the dominant "masculine" partner in her relationship. And then, to my horror, I noticed her abruptly lifting the bottom of my dress up and reaching underneath my dress to attempt to grope either my inner thigh...or worse. This wasn't just a slight motion; her hand was fully underneath my dress and moving fast upwards, from what I could clearly see from the brief glimpse I took. I immediately stepped backwards with a wide-eyed look on my face, in total disbelief of what just happened...and what did not happen that was mere seconds away from fully happening. She turned away in a hurry and walked back to her partner at the bar -- who was oblivious to what just happened -- grabbed him by the arm, and made an excuse to request to leave. This was not the first time I had experience attempted or completed sexual assault. Just like when I experienced rape the year of my college graduation, during a different cold winter night years earlier, I remember feeling puzzled, confused, and very much *not* wanting to put a label on what just happened to me. The events of each night leading up to the sexual assault always seem so random and not predictable as they are happening, but in retrospect, it is so easy to attempt to scrutinize every detail as a possible warning sign of what was to come. Yet I do not even want to think about the likely reality that the attempted sexual assault I experienced that night seemed to happen due to being visibly trans. When people think of post-traumatic stress disorder from an evolutionary perspective, it is typically thought of as an adaptive way to avoid situations of future danger. But when you're scared of social events and comments about personal identity, just think of how unpredictable the healing journey is.

As a domestic abuse survivor, I can tell you that our scars are not always visible. I think the emotional, verbal, and sexual abuse is sometimes worse….. because it takes longer to heal from. My ex had me so turned around, backwards, and upside down. I didn’t know whether he was coming or going and often found myself desperately wanting him to stay, like it was all my fault and I had done something wrong….., the sad part is…. I am my healthiest and happiest self every single time he left. Then just when I thought I would be, could be ok…… he’d be back agreeing to counseling or being a better dad or whatever it took . This time I hope to have the strength to not let him back in .

Remembering childhood sexual abuse has been instrumental in my journey of wholeness. Little me has been patiently waiting for me to call her home. It's taken a long time and a lot of healing to get where I am today. I can now say I actually love myself, and I even enjoy my own company!

It was 21 years ago and I have never told anyone. I lived with my first roommate, who I knew had some questionable friends. Nevertheless, I trusted her and our new, cute, little home. Until one night she had friends over. I didn't drink and wasn't into hard drugs. We had food, everyone else was drinking and having a good time. I don't remember anything after that, until I woke up in the middle of the night with a man, one of her 'friends', on top of me. He was inside of me as I laid on the middle of the floor. I could not move, I could not speak. It wasn't a flight, fight or freeze, I had been drugged and could not move a single part of my body. I couldn't even move my arms to push him away. And when my roommates MOTHER walked into our new home, into the dark room, in the middle of the night, she saw what was happening. All I could do was open my eyes wide with fear, but she turned around and walked out without a word and left him to finish what he started. He laughed when she walked away. By the time I had any control of my body, he was gone, I was alone and naked on the living room floor of my first place, where every person stepped over me as they filed out in the morning. It was the morning joke...what and who did she do. No one asked if I was ok that morning. No one ever did. It has been 21 years and I still don't know the name of the man who raped me that night, but I will always remember his face.

when i was in 6th grade my best friend friend (he was in 9th grade) had forced me into a very sexual relationship and 🍇ed me numeruos times. Now its 2 years later and i still get hallucinations of him. Its also hard to stop being sexual after this and its hard to get my mind to stop imagining it

I love my self no matter what!

Six years have passed, since fleeing the abuse. No one prepares you for the struggles your mind goes through consciously and subconsciously. Almost everyone you meet along your healing journey does not understand, nor know how to navigate your emotions and actions. Expected to just move forward and put all psychological abuse in the past. Folks who knew you before the abuse, expect you to snap back to reality. For many like myself, snapping back to reality was a sense of being stuck in auto pilot. On the outside, working to please those around me. Not knowing who I was, hobbies or interests. I began my journey an empty shell. My emotions and actions scrambled. Struggled with mind numbing substance, became evident to me, that was not a solution. A couple years after, still struggling with waking night sweats and the same nightmare playing over and over. I set out on a mission to help myself help others. I discovered I was not alone through the different platforms. I began writing out all the difficult memories, using just a notebook, and any writing utensil available. Some years have since passed. Beginning my personal journey, has liberated me and I discovered how beautiful I truly am and how complex the healing journey truly can be. I do not have the nightmares anymore and I am the strongest I have ever been in my adult life. I have been empowered through self awareness. While documenting my experiences, I have learned how to write more than just my name. I am still learning how to speak to people. And everyday since, I set out to help others overcome their nightmares as well. It took some time to realize the grass on this side is breath taking and in a positive way.

So I was uh..you know what. It's not a big deal since my memory of it is all vague and blurry, but oftentimes when my friends and I have physical contact (like hugging,poking or patting eachother head,ect.), I feel a bit apprehensive and hesitant. I'd refuse everytime yet he still wanna beat me to it; it's not like he'd done anything wrong, I just afraid someday that his actions might be different or become more pervasive, I do really sucks at keeping boundaries, right?

I was 19, I think. I can't remember much of it: my memory has been shattered after, not just of the event, but of all my life before, during, and after. I was gaslit out of my mind. He told me I wanted it, he told me I was begging for it. He made my body react to him – and despite the fact that all the time there was this voice in my head, telling me to get away, telling me this wasn't right, I listened to him over myself. How could I not? He was my whole world. I was isolated, completely emotionally dependent on him. He undressed me carefully, he told me "Oh, so that's what you wanted all along" after my body reacted to his touch. He asked me if certain things had been done to me before. I said no. I remember, even through the haze clouding my mind, he was ecstatic at the thought. He was tender. I was convinced that we were in love, that we were meant for each other, that our very souls would always be driven to one another, like two halves of a whole. I didn't know at the time that actively distracting myself and dissociating throughout the whole process was not usual, was not okay. I didn't know feeling like a doll in someone else's arms was not okay. He was a guy in a female body, and I'm only attracted to female bodies, so it all became okay in my mind at the time. But it wasn't. It was my first – and only – sexual experience. I couldn't let anyone else touch me after that, I still can't because it feels like I'm trapped again, like I'm dehumanized again. The morning after, he asked me if I was okay, he said he was worried. I reassured him that it was. What else could I do? It wasn't, though. I felt even at the time that it wasn't, but I dismissed the thought because – How could it be rape when I felt like I couldn't say no? But it was. I realized what happened years after it did. Six years, to be precise. And all the while I thought I had no right to feel like there was something wrong. I don't remember it, but I'm told by a person I trust that I cried for two months after that night, every day there were constant tears in my eyes. We both thought it was okay because we believed it. But it wasn't. Even saying that out loud, of writing down, feels liberating in its own way. I still want to claw my skin off sometimes, when it feels particularly bad. I still hate my body. I suffer from PTSD which had gone untreated for seven years because I had been battling the thought I don't deserve to heal. It was hard, but in the end, I won. What happened to me was wrong, and so hurtful, but I'm a survivor. I can heal. I will heal.