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This is not really a story, but I wrote a letter to my rapist which I will never send. I don’t want to keep it in, not be alone with it. I want somebody to hear me even though it’s not him that will listen. I don’t know how I can miss and hate you so much, while still having so much love for you. You did the worst possible thing a best friend could do. You used the trust I had in you to benefit yourself and ignored my feelings along the way. I have so much love for you and I can’t show it, because you don’t deserve my love. You said you cared about me, then why didn’t you stop when I said no? How did you think I was just playing when I pushed you away, kept saying no and “I can’t”. I don’t understand how you played that role so well, everyone fell for it. Your actions never matched your words. When I told you I was raped and I don’t want to sleep with you, you said that’s okay, you’ll wait. The next thing I know, you come into the bathroom and ask me if I want to fuck. You said you never wanted to make me feel uncomfortable, yet when i clearly was, you didn’t give a fuck. You literally said “I know you can’t, but I’ll keep trying until you say yes.” Wtf man. I trusted you. I believed you when you told me you knew what I was feeling. It must be the truth, right? You were so sure about my feelings, that I started to believe they were real. When I realized that maybe I didn’t have those feelings and told you, you asked me how I could do something like that. Break your heart, lie to your face, that I’m a psychopath for playing with your feelings like that. And once again you talked me into what you wanted. I didn’t want to loose you, so I thought if this is what it takes to keep you in my life, I’ll try. But you kept pushing. You raped me. I know you don’t see it that way. I did play along. I made you believe I enjoyed it but all I could think about during it was, please just cum. In my core I knew I didn’t want this but it made you happy, so I played along. You ignored all the signs I gave you that I feel uncomfortable. I never kissed you first, I never initiated anything, I always said I can’t and no. You purposefully ignored it. You’re not that dumb. You can’t say you’re a good person. You think you are, but you’re most definitely not. I don’t know how a person can be so blind to who they really are. Maybe you’re not? Maybe you knew exactly what you were doing. I like to think that the real you was the person I trusted with my life, the person I ran to when I needed comfort, you were my safe place. But I know that’s not you. You’re the person that manipulated me into a “relationship” with you. You’re the person that raped me, followed me and made me have panic attacks. Even when I was trying to hide from you, you found a way to get to me and make me feel horrible. You deserve an explanation for why I stopped talking to you? That’s what you repeated endlessly. I tried to give you one, you started laughing. At that point I saw the real you. The manipulative you. The you that doesn’t want to hear anything except what you believe to be true. You don’t really want an explanation, you want to get an opportunity to manipulate me again. You’re the victim in your own story. I broke your heart. I hurt your feelings. But you know what, you took something from me that I’ll never get back. You made me feel horrible. Like I was wrong for not wanting to sleep with you. You made me doubt myself. Everytime you raped me you took a piece of my heart and I don’t know if I’ll ever get that back. I told you everything, sometimes I felt like you knew me better than I know myself. You made me feel excited about my future. You gave me so much hope about being able to choose my own path. I loved you. I loved the way you made me feel. Safe. Seen. Full of potential. Happy. Now I look at you and my chest starts to tighten, my heart beats faster, I want to run, get away from where ever you are. You made me feel fear when I saw you. Fear. And you knew that, you knew I didn’t want to see you and still you came over whenever there was a chance. Every time I saw you, I could feel all the love I still had for you. It hurt so much, that I can love a person this much and fear them at the same time. My mind can’t comprehend what you did. It was so out of character. The more I thought about it, the more it wasn’t though. You gave me hints to the person you really are and I just ignored them, thought they weren’t that important. Thank you for teaching me to never overlook and fall for that again. I was always told I am really grown up for my age. I never wanted to be, I just had to. Growing up I was the only person I could depend on. I learned to deal with stuff myself. But this, this didn’t make me stronger, this didn’t make me wiser. This shattered my world. I have to learn to trust people again. That has always been a big issue for me, but I got it under control. Now, I isolate myself. I have so much anxiety that I just can’t handle it. You gave me that anxiety. I hope I’ll be okay someday, I know I need to work hard for it. I know you’ll be okay in a week. You’re gonna tell people I’m a crazy bitch who broke your heart and you did nothing wrong. That’s what happened with M. You know he didn’t even ask me what happened or if I was okay. He just told me that it’s my job to go and check on you, because I broke your heart. I knew he was your best friend but I thought I was his friend as well. You probably felt good about the fact that he hurt me so much with that Facebook message. And how he hurt me, I can’t even put into words the betrayal I felt. I know that has nothing to do with you, but I just needed to let you know. I wish I could talk to you, I wish I could hug you, I wish you were the person I thought you were. I know that’s not possible and that’s okay. I will grief and I will miss you. I don’t know if that will ever stop, I hope it does. I just want you back, it’s like you died. You did die. The version of you I had in my head, my safe place, my best friend is dead. And I don’t know how to grief a person that is still alive. You’re still here and I know I could just call you or send you a message but that’s not the person I want to talk to. I want to go back in time and I want you to just accept my no. Why didn’t you accept my no??? I hate that I still love you this much. I love you so much. I can deal with the rape, I’m strong enough to not let that affect my worth. What I can’t deal with is that you were the one that raped me. You. Why did it have to be you?

I was raped by my ex and I feel like I will never be the same. I had just turned 18 when we met and he turned 21 the next month. We dated for 10 months and had contact for a month and a half after the breakup. He started off fine then after about 5 months he made me feel dependent on him. He started separating me from friends and after that he tried to pull me away from my family. He would tell me he didn't "like how much I talked to my mom about him" and I "make him seem like the bad guy". I was only ever talking to her about whenever he did something that deeply upset me and I didn't know how to handle the situation. He would do the same to this older woman he was online friends with for 3 years. She was in her mid 30s. We lived in one state and after a job fell through on our 6 months mark, he moved 12 hours away back to his home state to live with his grandpa again. I visited on month 7 and then in month 8 I graduated high school and had summer break before going to college. So, he came for my graduation and then in June (month 9) I went to be in his home state with him until the first week of August to go to school. This is when things went from bad to worse. These next 3 months of my life were the worst in ways I can't even describe. When we went back to his state he started to groom me to be okay with abuse. He stopped taking no as an answer and it turned into "it'll be quick" or "only a couple strokes". So I started giving in. When we first started dating we decided that CNC was okay but we needed to talk about it the night before. that disappeared. He would wake me up in the middle of the night and I would say no or sometimes act like I was sleeping extra heavy. When I said no it was the same lines until I gave in. If I played asleep he would proceed to try to violate me but I would "sleep roll over" away from him or on a couple occasions I just shoved him off me and laid facing away. This was almost every night. It was the same routine. I had nobody in that state to talk about it and my family and friends were back in my state. I would call them when I could but he would always talk over the top of me until they stopped wanting to call. I'd call whenever he was at work but they also had their own lives so it was never long. I never text anyone the issues because I was afraid he would see them and leave me. (I was so anxiously attached to him that I would have severe panic attacks at the thought of him leaving me). This was all in month 9. At the time I didn't realize it was rape or sexual assault. I thought since we were in a relationship it was normal. I didn't have the best figures to look to with relationships and so I just went with it. It was either the end of June or beginning of July that he, what I considered, raped me. I had got off work and came home just absolutely tired. I couldn't move I was so tired. He woke me up in the middle of the night. I said no. He kept touching me. I said I didn't want to do anything. He rolled me on my stomach and he took off my underwear and it wasn't until he put himself inside of me that I realized what was happening. I rolled over away from him to get him off. He huffed and flopped down next to me and ignored me that night. The next day I told him he tried to rape me, and he told me I was over reacting and called me names. I shut up. Date we broke up because my mom told him to be a man and stop making me cry (on a phone call). I seen the look in his eyes change then. He went from being someone who told me he loved me to looking at me pure emotionless. He broke up with me and bought me a flight home for Date and Time. He worked from 7p-7a that day so we decided I would take the only vehicle to the airport and then he would get a ride to it after work. On Date after he broke up with me..he pointed a loaded gun at me. I was packing everything and him and his older woman friend were belittling me for 5 hours. I had no where else to go so I kept my mouth shut and did what I could. I was laying on the bed and he was joking with me while I was on my phone. He then got super serious, walked over to the shotgun that was by his night stand and pointed the gun at me. He put his finger on the trigger and acted like he was going to shoot me. I thought he was joking at the time and dismissed him. The look of pure hatred in his eyes is something I will never forget. It's something I dream about still, a year and a half later, and a look I'd never wish on my worst enemy. The person I loved had the look of wanting to kill me in his eyes, but I didn't register just how much danger I was in until days later. After that he tried to make me sleep on a roach infested floor and acted like I was a dog before finally letting me sleep in his bed for the night. During that night I couldn't sleep. Every other night we slept right up against each other and because of all the crap that had happened that day I couldn't sleep, just cry. I kept going and calling my mom having panic attacks all night. Every time i'd get back in bed, if I even so much as pressed my back against his he would shove me so hard I hit the wall. But I still kept trying just to have something. The next morning we woke up and he wanted to have sex with me. I told him I just wanted to cuddle because I needed comfort....He told me if I had sex with him he would. I cried, the entire time. I felt so dirty. I felt miserable. Ashamed. Disgusted. He told me halfway through "at least act like you're enjoying it". I showed 4 times that day. Just to feel clean again. I didn't feel clean for the next month after that. I called my mom sobbing again. She tried to comfort me and told me how strong I was and that I only had less than 24 hours left....7 came. He took the car. He told me to figure it out. I had no money and I couldn't get an uber to take me. I missed my flight. The next morning he did the same thing with sex again. This time I turned my head to the wall and as soon as he was done I showered. 5 times I washed myself. Over. And over again. The next morning he had shoved me so hard into the wall for accidently brushing against him in my sleep that I thought my nose was going to bleed. I called my mom and begged her to come get me. I couldn't do it anymore. My mother and grandmother dropped everything and drove the full 12 hours on 2 hours of sleep to come get me. I told my ex I'd be leaving that day and he begged me to stay and started acting like the person I'd thought I was dating. He took me out to eat (I hadn't since the 9th) and he begged me to run away with him. He did the stuff with sex again but in the middle of it started telling me he loved me and begged me to stay. I told him no. He continued to beg me up until 7 when he had to go to work. When he left for work I did what I could to stay sane. I don't even know how many times I cried. It was horrible. I cried until I physically couldn't anymore. I washed my body until I felt like I scrubbed the first layer of skin off. I did that 3 times. Around 1am that night my family got there. I couldn't even hug them..I didn't want any touch. When I got home my ex would swap from going from love bombing to cussing me out, until finally... He blocked me. After he did that it was like something snapped in me. Like that control he had over me broke. Two days after he blocked me I went to the police station in my state and tried to file charges against him for what he did to me. They were very helpful and helped me get in contact with the department in his state to pursue what I could. I had text messages of him saying he would have killed me that night we broke up. I had told my story in full detail 4 times to 3 different people. Then on day 4 of him blocking me, he unblocked me and begged for me back. I recorded a phone call between he and I talking about him raping me, threatening me, pointing a gun at me, and then I told him to leave me the fuck alone. I sent it to the detectives. For a month he and his friends were stalking me and sending me horrible messages, which I sent to detectives. I blocked everyone and waited. 11 months after the rape and me escaping, and 10 months after finally the report later I had no response. No call backs, no returning my voicemails or emails. No nothing. So I called the chief in his state to get answers. Finally I heard back. My evidence was circumstantial, we were dating so it was harder to prove, that I didn't do a kit so they had no physical evidence, and the best one was him telling me I never called the cops. I tried to explain that I was 12 hours from everything I knew, with a man who pointed a gun at me and made me do all sorts of things and I was worried about surviving at that moment. It didn't matter. This was in the middle of July of this year. Since then I've been trying to find legal sources that could help me press charges and so far...nothing has worked for me. It's been a year a half and I still have reoccurring nightmares. I still have PTSD episodes from certain actions and phrases. I have a wonderful boyfriend of 10 months and a beautiful dog that we adopted together. But with having so much now there is still so many feelings I have. And I have nobody to talk to about these feelings. My boyfriend tries to be there for me but he doesn't understand my feelings on the level that I need someone to understand. I feel so alone..I feel like I will never be the same, or even remotely the same, since before my ex. I'm now 20 and somedays I don't know if I'll make it to 21. But I have a fire lit in me and I want justice. I want my ex to not be able to hurt another woman the way he hurt me or get no punishment. I think that fire and my boyfriend and dog are what keeps me going and is what will keep me going until I can say that I'm finally living for myself and not for someone else.

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

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

Stuck in the bathroom. It is possible to be loved. When I spent ages telling my Mum and Dad that it would be ok to travel to city for a gig , I thought I was grown up and street wise. In reality I was a naive young man - my parents reluctantly agreed as long as we stayed with my friends uncle - this would mean we wouldn’t have to travel back late . The gig was fantastic - we got back to his flat the others went to bed. I stayed up chatting with name - after about half an hour he started asking me if I was a virgin and showing me pornographic magazines . I tried to get away and go to bed - he then attacked me and raped me . I locked myself in the bathroom and waited but he was still agitated - he wanted me to sleep in his bed - I had no idea that a man could do what he did to another male. Two weeks later I went back to stay again after a football match - this time I tried to persuade my parents that I shouldn’t go - but they didn’t want the ticket to go to waste - he attacked and raped me again - I eventually managed to lock myself in the bathroom . I mentally stayed in that bathroom for the next 40 years - never telling - never asking for support - 3 failed marriages - problems with drink - difficulties being a good parent. The first person I told after 40 years was my ex-wife - her response was “I can’t love you - you have violated me by keeping this a secret” - this was crushing and led to a decline to a very dark place. Now with the support of my children, my new partner , a fantastic psychiatrist and a therapist from support organisation - I feel better and believe I can be loved. It is never too late to start to heal .