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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?

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.

It started as sexual harassment. And I let it happen. Do not let it happen to you! I was a college intern working on my supply-chain management major. In business school you know you don’t just get a degree and POOF! A job is magically waiting for you. Unless you already have connections. I was a single woman on financial aid and had squat for family connections. I needed to make some connections while still in school that I could use to climb the ladder. It is a very competitive world. A time when we don’t care so much where we work as long as it has prospects of advancement and making money. I was interning at the corporate offices for a rental car company. I got my first choice for a class in which we had to intern at a real company. My group of four was in their logistics offices and we had no clear job at the time but my school had sent students for a while so we had a contact person and some loose idea of a project that my group of four had to put together and execute for our grade. Well that was kind of of dud and I went along with the bad idea of planning more efficient distribution routes for their cars entering the fleet. It was naive because the company had real pros who designed the system. But, because of my feminine wiles, I got invited to come in and help in my free time by a top manager. Just me. I jumped at the opportunity and on my available days I showed up early in the morning and tried to be like part of the team. It was a very masculine environment. I tried to hang in spite of the pretenses for my special treatment. “You’re not one of those feminist types who go crying to HR if a man gives you a compliment or a pat on the backside, are you?” The man who first invited me had asked. We’ll call him XX. I assured him I was not, anticipating his expected answer. “Work hard, play hard,” was something I said in my denial of values he was obviously opposed to. So the couple times XX introduced me as his mistress I went along with the joke. Another stupid mistake. As an example of my environment, after a male Y in the department first showed me how to use part of a program that calculates stock outages, he had me sit and try it and gave me a massage I did not ask for early in the morning. Well XX came up and made a joke about Y getting his hands of his girl. They had some bro moment where the male Y asked him if he was serious, saying something about XX’s wife, to which XX backed down and said something like “It’s just a joke. I’d love to in my fantasies, but she’s company property, brother.” Company property??! I was sitting right there! I tensed up but tried to pretend I was so absorbed in the computer training as XX left and male Y went back to massaging me, but this time more boldly. He got down my lower back and upper buttock then went down the arms to my thighs, stopping me from doing any work as he blatantly brushed his forearms and hands against my chest. I felt so weak and almost paralyzed by the time I forced myself to stand up to go use the restroom, stopping it. I could have just done that at the beginning but did not. Later hat same day, XX had me go to lunch with him and have a beer at a bar and grill with a pool table. I was 20 but they did not ask for my ID because I was with XX. I hardly ever played pool and while we waited for our food he “showed” me how to play. He made fun of the cliché on movies and television where a man has a woman bend over the pool table to shoot just so he can push his crotch against her backside in a suggestive manger and lean over her with his arms on each side of her to show her how to slide the stick. But while he joked about it he actually did those things to me! That was a good day for my two main molesters and an awful day for me. XX hugged me as we stood up giggling and apparently his hands now had a license to molest my body whenever he wanted. I got numb to it in some ways, but emotionally more on edge. My butt was grabbed or spanked playfully in the department, even by male Y. A few other men were very flirtatious. My shoulders were rubbed, hugs on even minor greetings with XX and finally I was supposed to get used to little pecks on the lips too. I felt like I was in a constant state of mental anguish and defensiveness. My body could be attacked anytime. But I did not defend myself! I would say clearly to XX and some others that I wanted to be respected and considered one of the guys and have a job there when I graduated and they affirmed it. Both main abusers encouraged me, but still sexually harassed me. With my moronic blessing! The semester ended and I kept going in daily during summer break. It was my only lifeline to a possible job after I graduated in a year. I was so groomed that it was not a big leap at all when XX pressured me to give him head in his office. I refused with a smile and head shake and he came back with some rationalization about how I owed him and he really needed it just then. He would not take no for an answer. The first time I lowered myself to kneeling before his desk and took him in my mouth my hands were shaking and I teared up and had to sniffle snot back up. I was the one who was embarrassed! It was like an out of body experience and my mouth dried up to where I had to ask him to drink some of his energy drink. Internally there was a huge change immediately. I was gutted of all pride and self-worth. I was like a zombie. Hardly eating. Lots of coffee. Showing up and doing the reports that had become my responsibility and mechanically giving XX his daily BJ in the afternoon in his small stale office with a small window. I started to have migraines during that summer. I drove home for 4th of July and got so inebriated I ended up sleeping with my much older sister’s ex-husband in the back of his truck. That was a terrible wake up call. I knew I couldn’t pretend much longer without a breakdown so I put my two week in at the rental car place where I was working for free. To secure my future I made sure to keep it all friendly and “you know I’ll be back working here next year”. The idea of all the time and humiliation I had put in being lost to nothing was a major fear. I put myself through two last weeks of it. I had quickie sex with XX twice on and over his desk. I gave into extreme pressure and gave male Y a BJ too when he explicitly made it about a letter of recommendation. He knew about me doing it for XX. He did not even have his own office and we had to use the stairwell. During my final year of school I became aware that I was too traumatized to ever go back there anyway. The extent to which I had been used and abused became obvious to me, where before it had not. As if I had been living in a denial haze. It was a painful time. I was a bit reckless. I got a C in the high level economics elective I took. I said yes to several dates to avoid being alone and either slept with them or freaked out in anger at them. Seeing that I needed the car rental faux-internship on my resume I did email both abusers for letters of recommendation and got a good one from Male Y, but a very impersonal, generic one from XX. I was so dejected and angry. Finally, I told my sister, the one who confronted me about her ex-husband. I TOLD HER EVERYTHING AND THAT WAS MY FIRST STEP TO RECOVERY. To letting out the pain, screaming at myself in the mirror, punching the heavy bag at a boxing gym I joined, and to seeing my first psychologist and psychiatrist. The therapy helped more than the Celexa and antipsych. The support group helped even more. I met two friends for life who have my back in times of sorrow. I have to repeat that it is not my fault that I was abused, even though it kind of was. Don’t let it happen to you! They will take as much as they can from you. Plan your boundaries now and be assertive! Report harassment immediately. Doing so you are being a hero and protecting other women and yourself. If you have already been abused, GET OUT of the situation and talk to someone about it ASAP. There is nothing to be gained by letting the abuse continue! Talking to someone makes it real and lets you start the process of hating less and starting on the path to learning to love yourself again. You deserve real love.

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'm a man who got raped by his wife multiple times. no one ever believed me and just told me that she ios my wife so its ok. Now I want tpo help men who face violence by their partners

I have lived through many battles, some visible and some invisible. Chronic pain has been a constant companion, and alongside it came experiences of assault, grief, bullying, and being overlooked or targeted in the workplace. Each of these left scars that ran deeper than I could admit at the time. For years, I tried to hold it all in — the pressure, the pain, the silence through alcohol and substances. But it built until I couldn’t contain it anymore, and I crashed hard. My mental health episode was frightening, for me and for those around me. What has made it harder is the culture I grew up in. In South Asian communities, mental health is often brushed aside, stigmatized, or seen as weakness. Instead of compassion, I felt shame. Instead of understanding, I carried guilt. I believed I had let down the people I loved most. But I am learning that what happened was not my fault. Trauma is not a choice. Crashes are not punishments. They are the body and mind crying out for care. I am still here. I am learning to see my sensitivity and survival not as flaws, but as proof of resilience. Sharing my story is part of releasing the shame and reclaiming my voice. My hope is that others who have lived through pain and silence — especially in communities where mental health is hidden — can know they are not alone. Our stories matter. Our survival matters.

At age seven, I told my mother I was being sexually abused by my paternal grandfather. In the middle of a contentious divorce, my mom believed me, but I was forced to tell the story over and over again to police officers, counselors, and attorneys. My dad, an up-and-coming attorney, who worked in the same county where my grandfather resided assisted him with his defense in court. I testified in court for an hour and a half and had to be in the same room with my grandfather. The verdict: not guilty. Life after the trial was a tangle of coping mechanisms. My relationship with my dad fractured, and I lost contact with every member of my paternal family, not knowing that only 1.5 to 3 percent of all child sexual abuse cases end in a guilty verdict. All I knew was that my dad did not protect me. After high school, I moved across the country to attend college in the state my college was in, where I found myself first through drinking and smoking, and then an eating disorder. I developed relationships with both men and women, often in overlapping time frames, rarely fully honest with my partners. As my unhealthy coping mechanisms sent me into a spiral, I began recovery multiple times—until, finally, I started to regain control of my life and the autonomy that was taken from me so long ago. Today, I'm a business owner, at work on a memoir about my experience testifying with a real estate side hustle. I am more than my abuse.

8M (me) 11F (cousin) 12M (cousin) were at a family function just playing house (it just dawned on me that 11-12 year olds don't play house and that the only reason we played house was for this) until it was night time in which we all got in the bed I lied at the bottom of their feet as their child as they had sex in front of me not even .5 foot away from me I just hid in fear 10M 13F 14M my older cousin led us into the woods and told my female cousin to strip she complied and then they started going at it with each other I just stood silently observing this horrible sight; seeing my female cousin in such a way felt so wrong to me my cousin then asked me to join him and I did, I was clueless just stood their as it happened; biggest regret of my life this one mistake started a snowball effect that still haunts me 12M 15F 16M yet another family function my cousins were drinking this time and came up to me hammered and asking me to come upstairs we end up smoking weed and my older cousin starts to tease my female cousin; by this time this ordeal had happened at pretty much every meeting of us I had even started pleasuring myself watching them (I never got involved because I wanted to keep myself) this time however my older cousin has fallen into a drunk slumber and my female cousin was already "ignited" she came up to me and said "lucky for you ive been ignited and all I need is for someone to come diminish me" (I remember those words 1:1) my female cousin then took my purity from me, I didn't even try to fight her or try to ask her to stop I was telling myself I didn't want to yet I pleaded for her to help me I still don't have it wrapped in my head if I was a victim or if I was just as predatory as them, I know that my older cousin started manipulating my female cousin and I didn't stop him because I enjoyed it, yet again I was 10 years old I couldn't grasp the gravity and severity of what we were doing I even viewed it as just complimentary and normal and that we were just helping each other, but the other part of me hates me for it.

I am 22 years old. I have always liked sex, and not necessarily the physical feeling, but the empowerment around it. I know that sex does not always have to be political, but growing up Mexican/American and Roman Catholic, it always felt charged. I lost my virginity in a dark space. I was thirteen, and a boy from my class who had been harassing me, made me go into our school's auditorium, went backstage, pushed my head down, and made me...well yeah. I felt like I was going through the motions. Like, if I wanted to prove how unaffected I could be by this forcefulness I would win my abuser(s). He asked again and again if he could put it in, and I finally said yes. Knowing what I know now, I know this was not true consent. I remember after it was done, I said "Well, that sucked." And he said, "What are you talking about? That was awesome." I felt so numb after, and I mistook that numbness for power. I felt nothing, felt no different. I convinced myself virginity/sex meant nothing. Catholicism had lied to me. They said that when we have sex, we (women) lose something essential about ourselves. We become attached to the man, and we will never return to that former state. I remember feeling like I debunked the church. It was a scam to make religious girls hate themselves and depend on men. I don't think I was necessarily wrong, more like misguided. I was on the right track, but I made sex unimportant, I made my body unimportant. I had to, I think, because recognizing the weight of sex would have made my situation unbearable. Now, at 22, I know better. I wish I could hug and hold my younger self. She'd probably think I was corny and overemotional, but I don't care. To my younger self, I am so sorry. I think you're very smart, but remember that hurting yourself to prove things to others is never worth it. You don't have to make an example of yourself to be empowered. You were coerced, you were abused and harassed, and you're not less powerful, less yourself, for recognizing that. I love you very much. I got raped in August. I had just come back home from my college town. I was heartbroken to have finished my time there. To have said goodbye to the best friends I've ever had. My bestie who went to college and high school with me had already been in our city for a month and asked me to go out. I didn't feel like it, but she convinced me. We're only so young and whatever. I had left on a pretty low vibration since on the last day of my time there this guy I had been friends with and hooking up with regularly for almost two years, told me he had been having sex with other girls unprotected regularly, and every time we checked in about using condoms he had been lying. Leave it to abusers to unburden themselves when they know they'll face minimum consequences. I could not wrap my head around the utter disrespect and betrayal of my body. Why didn't men care? Why couldn't they see us as more than just a fucking hole? Couldn't he have just been honest? Was using a condom with me so horrible that he had to lie about it for months? I was mad as hell. I was disappointed, and still am. I felt stupid. Why take someone's word? How could I live in a world where I had no control over how people I love/love hurt me so badly? Whatever, the point is, that the next day when I went out with my friend we had a little too much to drink. She had asked if we could meet up with this guy she had been seeing and his friend. I said sure, I was drunk and didn't want to be a killjoy. When we got to his place, he told us he invited a friend. His friend got there and poured us shitty box wine. I was a blackout and for some reason, we thought it'd be a good idea to let his friend drive me back home at 3 AM while I was trashed. The friend stopped the car, and convinced me to have sex, when I wanted to stop, he didn't let me and did not stop. I remember crying and asking him to stop, but he didn't stop. I don't remember a lot of the actual rape. I remember after. I cried hard, and I think I accused him of raping me, and I think he probably denied it. I just remember that he was so angry and I was so upset. I told him he had better give me plan b money, and that he better take me home, or back to his friend's house so I could tell my best friend. I remember him saying that I "disrespected" him. That plays in my head a lot when I don't want it to. "You disrespected me," he said. "I can kick you out of this car," he said. I remember holding onto the door. I remember thinking I would die. I only have flashes of after. I think I was sobbing on my friend, and I remember her face. She didn't know what to do, and how could she? She told me after, when I started to doubt my memory, that I had said he raped me. See, I didn't know, like the first time I had been abused, that afterward, you try to trick yourself into the easier option which is that you're just slutty. You're remembering wrong, or you exaggerated. But unfortunately no. You got raped. You know it, your body knows it. The rapist knows it too. Deep in his rotten core, he knows that he did something evil. But he'll probably just think, "bitches, man" or "She deserved that shit anyway" or "That's what women were made for". And I'm here, with my fear of death, my fear of sex/intimacy, my broken-ass self/sense of self, still wondering why the fuck people can't just respect me and my body? I used to never look over my shoulder. I was one of those girls who never felt the need to call someone or pretend to call someone when they were walking home. Shit, after that happened to me, pepper spray didn't feel like enough. I wanted to buy a gun. My liberal ass, anti-capital punishment, pro-gun control, wanted to buy one just so nobody could ever hurt me again. Sometimes I think of my body actually broken, on the side of the freeway somewhere. I think of my sister's dress that I had borrowed without asking, and how it had stains on it. And how she would have been so mad if I had died in it. I had to go to a quinceanera the day after, and I don't think I've ever been in more distress than the day after. Do you ever want to rip your vagina out of your body? Like it's some sort of focal point of pain. I wanted to be smooth like a doll or something. No entryways. My body still freezes up now. I learned that's PTSD. This is healthy. I never told my family because I knew they would blame me, so only a few friends knew. It's embarrassing almost, and I know it isn't, but it's hard not to think "If I would've just...If I hadn't," and so on. I didn't report anything even though I knew I could have, but there would be cops and I live with my family. I've seen what an investigation can do. I've read enough and existed around women enough to know it's almost if not exactly like a re-violation. I was so tired. That sucked too. My younger self thought that if someone ever did that to me, they would pay for it. I was sure I would be up and walking into a police station immediately after, asking for a rape kit with grace somehow? I would shock everyone with my dignity and my composure. That didn't happen, but it's okay. I'm okay. I'm better. I am still tired, but things have gotten better. I'm here, right? I love living so much, and I remind myself that when my body freezes up. I think of my younger sister too and how I want to shield her so bad. I fight the urge to tell her to stay inside, where it's safe. I know living, really being alive, is dangerous. I want her to be safe, but I want her to live well and fully, so I make sure she has pepper spray, that we share our locations, that she can text me/call me, and that there will never be judgment for whatever situation she finds herself in. Thank you for this platform, and I'm so sorry to the people who have had to use it. I love you all. I hope you are all doing ok and living well.

I feel anger toward my father. To me, my father is a monster. He's bound by patriarchy. He's been a very problematic person since I was a child. He was verbally and physically abusive toward my mother. He had a big attitude at home. He put on a good face. My father moved around a lot due to his job, but I ended up skipping school. I was sexually assaulted in high school and went to a mental health clinic, which led to him calling me weird. I loved creating, but he said that was weird too. My older sister was also a victim of my father, but she was always smiling, no matter what my father did to her. He was emotionally attached to her. He was like a lover or a mother to me. I was rebellious, so he ignored me. My father used me and sexually harassed me (he did the same to me), and even when I told others, I was only victimized. He sometimes spoke as if he were some kind of great person. He was abusive toward my mother. Weird women give birth to weird children. Women become weird when they get their period. I myself wondered why I created art, and at times considered getting tested for Asperger's syndrome. I quit, but... My older sister was exploited by another man, married him, and committed suicide on their wedding anniversary. As my father gets older, I feel nothing but anger toward him, and in Japan, there's a culture that makes it seem like we have to take care of our fathers. My father deserved it, and I want him to take his sins to the afterlife, but unfortunately, he has surprisingly not changed his behavioral principles. Perpetrators never change. My mother's cognitive function is declining slightly. I may be the one who survives in the end, even though I'm the only one who's completely devastated. I'm wondering whether I should be present at his end or go to his funeral, but at this stage, I don't have any plans to be present or go to the funeral. I also have some memory loss about where my father's hometown is. On exhausted nights, I sometimes wish I could die. My doctor recommended that I publish my creative work. I'm considering my interests (Western music, etc.), the fact that I've earned a certain number of credits from a correspondence university, and the fact that I took the Eiken exam a long time ago. Taking these factors into account, I'm pondering how I want to live the rest of my life. Part of me is social anxiety, so I'm a recluse. Is my life worth living? There is still no answer.

From 2011 to 2015 I was sexually physically and mentally abused by a man I was romantically involved with that was almost 20 years my senior. I was 17 and attracted to someone i felt at the time was so captivating and wise, and showed interest and attraction with me as well. I knew from the beginning that it was wrong but that’s also what made it exciting. We met in a safe community with people I had known my entire life and he really seemed to understand me and all my complexities. He saw me, which was very important to me at a time where I didn’t really see myself The first time we had oral sex was on a public park bench in a park at night. I was 17, he took me out to sushi and bought me alcohol, said he wanted to go for a walk in the woods after. It was empty and dark, I didn’t feel afraid at first. We stopped at a table to smoke some weed and next thing happened he was having me touch him, and had his dick out in front of his face. He didn’t have a house to go to so here we were. I had never sucked a dick before but I didn’t want him to know that so I did my best. And then it escalated. Fingers and hands were everywhere and he was pulling down his pants on top of me in this public park. I had to stop it. I couldn’t lose my virginity this way and didn’t know how it escalated so quickly. It did cross my mind that he could do whatever he wanted to me right now and there was no one around to hear or help. And that I needed him to find my way out the park and get home. I guess this is one of my earliest memories that shaped how I feel about sex - it’s something that can and should happen anywhere, and it’s something that you - the girl - are withholding from the man. Because that’s what we were, a girl and a man. The first time he hit me was in my college dorm room I guess that’s part of why I never think about college and hate going there All my 4 roommates were out of town and I invited him down for the weekend He brought his 10 year old son We were in a rocky place already, trust issues, control issues The night before I befriended a handsome actor I met at my job at the theater We exchanged numbers I sent a late night text and then deleted the evidence I woke up to bags being packed, chaos in my tiny apartment, sun shining through the windows of what promised to be a beautiful day I was confused but didn’t want to start arguing in front of his son who just said “wait we’re leaving?” Then I saw my phone on the table between, open to the text message response from the man I gave my number to Saying something so obviously flirty that I had nothing to say back I started crying, apologizing, begging him not to go He sent his son to the shower I kept getting in his way He slapped me hard I kept getting in his way The bathroom door was open and they were communicating Then he was on top of me In my living room Hands around my neck Knees on my chest The same place I watched movies with my roommates Studied late in the night sitting up on propped pillows on the floor Feet away I could hear the street People I knew walking to class Laughing Getting on the bus Playing music Did they know what was going on just on the other side of the door How could I reach them I couldn’t breathe He was saying horrible things Staring at me in my eyes with a whole lot of hate and hurt Pushing harder into my chest with his knees His hards clutching0 my throat Telling his son in the calmest voice possible “stay in the shower, I’ll be right there” Then there was a release My mind was spinning, my heart broken, my guilt overwhelming

My name is Name. I grew up with a mother, two sisters, and a stepfather that stepped up to be my Dad when my biological father passed at 7 years old. My step father became someone I looked up to in a time where I didn’t know how to navigate grief. He was my Dad and I was proud to call him that. When I was 10 years old, the one I called my Dad molested me in our backyard. I was told that if I were to tell anyone we would be homeless and I would break the family apart if I were to say a word. That was the day I grew silent. I didn’t quite know the extremity of the situation until I was 11 years old. I discovered what he had done to me through a movie that I was watching unsupervised. I remember the exact moment I figured it out. Holding back my tears, I rushed to the shower and began to wash my body. I thought that if I washed hard enough somehow I could be wiped clean from impurity. I took the blame for what happened and dared not to say anything because if I did, all I could picture was my mom and sisters on the streets since he was the only one bringing in the money to live on. From 11-13 years old it was only mere comments and mandatory kissing of the lips, but that was my normal. I didn’t know it wasn’t normal in other households until a friend of mine noticed. I began to grow suspicion of how much I might be in danger from something happening again as I grew older. When I was 14, he found a video of me and my friends on my phone one night. He used it against me and said that what we did on our video would send me to jail for a long time, and if I didn’t do what he says, he would email it to the police. He began to groom me and the kisses began to turn into 10 kisses in a row. He would come in my bedroom, my bathroom, the dressing rooms, my bed, and when he was driving he would hold my hand or put his hand on my thigh. When I would try to stand up for myself, he would threaten to take the doors off my bathroom and bedroom. The moment I knew I was in deeper danger, was the night that he suggested intercourse and sexual activity in order to have a car or go to college. I ran inside to tell my mom, but she didn’t believe me. I knew that something had to change, but I felt stuck. I didn’t know what to do. When I was 15 years old, I went to a church camp with the youth group of my Grandma’s church. One day the group I was in had a prayers circle. It was an opportunity for campers to say what is on my heart. When it was my turn, I told them everything. On the last day of camp, the head of the camp who flew out to meet me, told me that I am safe and they called Children’s Protection Services. My heart sank, but I knew somehow everything was going to be okay. The rest of my summer consisted of meetings and preparation for trial. The trial came several months later, but I was not believed. My whole life, I tried to protect my sisters from the same thing, but when I wasn’t believed, I began to feel as if I was failing to protect them. Not only that but my first sister who was 10 years old at the time wanted nothing to do with me, and although I was angry of being pushed out by my mother and sister, I had my grandparents and had my baby sister, who was 5 at the time, to adore me and see me as I was with full belief. 7 years later at 22 years old, the one I once called Dad got sentenced to life in prison. How? The same thing happened to my younger sister just 5 years a part from me. There was enough proof, and it was the day where the jury, the judge and half a filled room believed me., but this time, both my sisters shut me out. Within a 12 years period of my life I felt alone, unseen, and unheard. Since I came out with my story when I was 15, I felt even more alone, unseen, and unheard. The rest of the family didn’t know anything about what happened to me because my family lives in secret. Secrets, Suffering, Silence. The 3 S’s my life consisted of. Finally at 22 I could breathe. 12 years of weight was lifted off my shoulders and even though my baby sister’s attitude change towards me, she was safe, and that was all that mattered to me. When I was 23 years old, my younger sister, who was also molested as I was, the one I tried to protect since I was 11, died from fentanyl. It was then when I vowed to never be silent again. At 25 years old, I left everything I knew to somehow embark a journey where I travel the world to speak message of liberation, change, and awareness. My hope is that the little girls and boys like us, the survivors, can hear the story of a girl as they are somewhere around the world terrified to leave their bedroom, with the hope they march out that bedroom and say “No, I will not stand up for this any longer. I refuse to remain silent.” My love goes to every once hurt child, teenager, or adult. You are not alone. Thank you for reading. More about my story is found on my Link

I am trying to leave this DV relationship, but it's complicated. He lives with me; he uses my phone and car because he doesn't have neither. I don't want to get the police involved nor do I want to kick him out, 1. he will just be outside my apartment unit and 2. defamation of my character - for some reason everyone believes him and don't see any wrong by him but he sure can make someone look terrible. He is leeching on me. I feel like I'm being suffocated by a hurt boy who have been wounded and traumatized all his life and he is using me as an energy bank to cure his wounds and to cater to his needs. I currently have a cold and he hasn't taken care of me or even asked how I am doing. From the many times I haven't felt well, he would argue with me. I feel so alone and feel like I can't make any plans until he can get a phone and car. Friends say call the police, but I really don't want to, I don't want him to destroy my reputation. My therapist said that if my reputation is the only reason I am putting up with him then I shouldn't worry about my reputation. I understand where my friends and therapist are coming from, but I really don't want that to happen to me, I have seen what he did to his baby mother and it just been a shit show. Am I wrong to want a calm and safest way out?

Back on April 6th 2019 (yesterday was 2 years) i was dog/house sitting for a family member of mine when on of their family friend came over. He kept having me try a bunch of different alcoholic drinks until eventually I was drunk. Without going into too much detail he took advantage of me. The next morning I woke up feeling so numb and stuck. I eventually told my mom later that night when I was picked up and they kept trying to contact the guy. My mom hadn’t heard back until the next day when she told me he took his life. The wave of guilt and sadness that hit me in that moment felt so unbearable. For the next few weeks after I remember not leaving my bed unless it was to use the bathroom. Then (thankfully) my mom was able to get me put in therapy. Where I was put with the most amazing therapist. After a few months of one on one I was put into group therapy as well. Where i got to meet the most incredible and strong women. Therapy had taught me so much and helped me so much. It taught me (and this goes for everyone who has gone through something like this) that it was not my fault. It taught me that healing isn’t linear. That you’re gonna have bad days months and maybe even years after but that’s okay because that’s still healing. Therapy taught me that I’m strong, but its okay to not always be because we are human. To anyone who reads this I want you to know you are not alone and you’re doing amazing. I’m proud of you. You got this :)

I was assaulted by a man, who was an acquaintance, in my apartment. We had hooked up once before, and it had been quick but fine. Things started consensually, but at one point it began to hurt me and I asked him if we could stop. At that point, he pushed down on my upper back, high enough that my mouth was half pushed into the pillow. I froze, and couldn't move at all. I just waited for him to finish whatever it was he wanted to do. The aftermath was extremely confusing. I first thought that it was just a bad experience. But as the months went on, I realised it was playing on my mind too much to be dismissed as that. Six months after the assault, I sought some medical tests. It was a year after, amid a particular run of sexual assault stories in the media, that I contacted rape crisis centre to get help. I also reported to the Gardai several years after my assault, and while they handled it well they also warned that if I was to pursue an investigation that the process could be very exposing and I chose not to take it further. My assault took place only six months after I had come out as queer, and so it felt like much of what I had worked hard to accept about myself and to go through as part of coming out was impacted -- the freedom to be who I was and to enjoy my sexuality was taken away for a long time. My assault was not the first time nor the last time I experienced non-consensual behaviour, although was by far the most serious and impactful occurrence.

I am female and I was sexually assaulted by a female friend when we were 9 years old. I want to share this because I cannot seem to find another story on female on female COCSA and it makes me feel like what happened to me wasn't "bad enough" because it was a girl and it was another child my age. I know that thought isn't true but it has taken me a while to realise what happened was assault and was "bad enough" and I think it would have helped if I had heard stories similar to mine, so I am hoping this could help someone who has been in the same situation as me. It happened when I was around 8 or 9 years old. I don't remember everything from start to finish or how many times it happened but then other parts of it (like surroundings and smells) are so vivid. I will just share what I remember. I don't know what led up to this point but the the first memory I have is just me laying on my back on my bed and she was on top of me pinning me down and I was scared and trying to wriggle away and get her off me. I remember the smirk on her face, it's like she found it funny and she was enjoying watching me squirm. I remember trying to hard to get her off me but at the same time not wanting to hurt her because she was my friend. So I wasn't hitting or being aggressive I was just trying to wriggle out from under her while she was sat on top of me on my stomach/chest. This friend was a nice friend who was not aggressive or nasty so I think this is what made it all even more confusing. I don't even think she knows she did something wrong? I have no idea. I feel so embarrassed to say the following but I am going to do it because its anonymous and it could maybe help someone feel better about what happened to them. I remember her pulling down her trousers while still straddling/hovering over me. As soon she she did this I was TERRYFIED. I was so scared. Next thing I remember is her bum coming towards me and sitting on my face. I feel so embarrassed saying this, it sounds so stupid but it was so scary and I didn't want it. The next thing I remember is her above me again and facing me (trousers were still down) with her vagina out for me to see and near my face. I remember her touching her vagina with her fingers and then trying to touch my mouth with her fingers/put her fingers in my mouth. I was so so so scared and doing everything I could to move my head away and make sure her fingers didn't touch me. I remember the smell of her vagina and I have imagine of it close to my face but I can't remember if it touched my face. I was so scared. I remember feeling so confused and also terrified my mum was going to walk in. I knew what was happening wasn't right. I don't remember much else except from those two flash backs and then I remember pretending to go to sleep after in a different bed. I don't know why I didn't hit her to get her off me or scream for my mum to hear, I don't know why i felt scared that my mum was going to come in, as is I was the one doing something wrong? I liked this friend, she was nice and not a bully so i think it made it more confusing because I didn't want to be mean or hurt her or anyone to think badly of her. Another memory I have after that is having a sleepover round her house and I just remember feeling uncomfortable and I remember she was wearing a night-dress with no underwear and we had to share a bed and I felt so uncomfortable and I didn't want to be close to her in bed. I have icky feeling about that night but I can't remember if anything happened. I am now 24 years old and finally now only realising that what happened to me was COCSA and realising how much it has effected me. I have suffered with depression for years and been on medication for the last 8 years. I've always wondered why my depression wouldn't go away. I have no reason to be sad, I have a good family, lots of friends, a job, a great boyfriend... yet I can't seem to shake the depression off. I have repressed the memories of what happened that day for 11 years and I have no idea why it has all come up to the front of my mind now but I now just can't seem to ignore it. It's all I've though about for 2 weeks and I can't believe its taken me this long to realise what happened and to realise that that situation has cause so many issue in my life. I was such a happy child and I was so innocent. She exposed me to things I didn't know about and shouldn't have known about. I was too young. It left me confused and ashamed. I then have memories of me masturbating and watching porn and even one time I showed another friend porn. I feel awful that I showed someone else my age porn when we were so young. None of us should have been exposed to that. I even feel sorry for the girl who assaulted me because I can't help but think she must have been getting abused herself because why else would she know the things she was doing? I don't hold any anger towards her because I don't think she meant to cause this harm to me. For years I have felt great shame. I have questioned my own sexuality for years because of it. I have questioned if I enjoyed it? I have had so many confusing feelings about it. I have tried to hard to forget about it and have managed to go years at a time without the memory resurfacing. I have felt so much hatred and shame towards myself. I haven't been able to pin-point why I felt that way until now that these memories have come back. I told my boyfriend but he didn't deal with it well. He cried, which made me feel worse about what happened. I feel the urge to speak to someone about it because I can't stop thinking about what happened. It makes me feel anxious like I'm going to have a panic attack. It feels like its so close to coming out of my mouth and I just NEED to tell someone. I want to tell my mum or sister but I am so scared they are going to judge me. I'm scared they will think I'm weird. Or that it's not a big deal. I don't think I actually could let the words come out of my mouth to tell my family. When I reflect my teenage/adult years, a lot more things make sense. My depression, self-loathing, shame, low self-esteem.. all makes more sense. I have been a people pleaser my whole life and have been awful at setting boundaries for myself. I have continuously let friends, boyfriends and people in power cross my boundaries. I feel like I haven't respected myself very much in some ways and I regret not sticking up for myself when I have been in uncomfortable situations. 1st example: When I was 17, my driving instructor (who was in his 40's or 50's, married and had a daughter my age) made a few inappropriate comments. One of those being about me giving him a blow job and another time about me kissing me. Which I awkwardly laughed and didn't say anything to which he seemed offended and then said "I'll take that as a no then". I still didn't say anything and just felt awkward and changed subject. I continued to have lessons with him. I should have told him he's a disgusting pervert and never got back in his car again. But I felt bad and didn't want to upset him. My brother also has the same driving instructor and really liked him and I didn't want to cause any issue or for people to think badly of the instructor. 2nd example: When I was 12 or 13, I sat next to a boy in English class. He put his had on my thigh. I told him no and pulled his hand away. He kept trying to do it again and I kept saying no and pulling his hand away. I was not sexually active yet, nor did I want to be and I didn't even fancy this boy. I thought he was disgusting. He didn't stop and ending up touching me through my knickers. I remember being scared and uncomfortable. I didn't want him to do it but I didn't want to get him in trouble or draw attention to it. I was scared the teacher would see and we would maybe both be in trouble. I can't remember how it ended but I think eventually he took no for an answer. Once again, I now regret not shouting "what are you doing? get off me!" I don't understand why i was so scared about making other people upset or making other look bad? I was choosing that over my own comfort/boundaries. 3rd example: From ages 18-21, I was in an emotionally abusive relationship (which also got physical on a few occasions). I let that boyfriend strip me of any self- confidence I had left. He constantly belittled me, made me question my own experiences, gas-lit me, scared me, pushed me to the ground/off the bed when he was angry, smash things around me when he was angry, tell me I'm dumb, disgusting, embarrassing, pathetic. I was so manipulated by him, I was just the shell of my former self by the end of that relationship. When I look back at the relationship, I realise how much it affected me and also how wrong some things were (including sexual things). After a couple of years in the relationship, I didn't often want to be sexual with him because he was horrible to me and made me feel like sh*t and I started to resent him eventually. I would never kiss him or go near him sexually. He would sometimes be nice to me and It was great and I felt loved and then we would have sex and INSTANTLY after he would stop making any effort or being affectionate to me at all. As soon as he got what he wanted he would just switch back to how he normally was. Towards the end of the relationship shit, when we would have sex, I was just doing it because he wanted to do it not because I wanted to. I would just lay there and hope he would hurry up and finish. I could tell he didn't care about me or my pleasure either. He would just f*ck me like a object until he was finished. It was all for him, not me. To add to that, most of these encounters were after he had convinced/persuaded me to have sex after I said I wasn't in the mood for sex. On several occasions he asked me to perform oral on him and I told him I didn't want to. He wouldn't stop asking until I gave in. He would beg for it until I caved and did it. He even offered to take me for dinner or give me money if I did it (which I obviously declined). It just shows how little respect he had for me, my own boyfriend of 3 years was trying to bribe me into sexual favours when he knows I didn't want to do it. I remember multiple times after he kept going on and on trying to persuade me to give him oral, I would finally say "okay fine but just so you know, I don't want to do it so it won't be very good/it probably won't be very enjoyable" and he still wanted me to do it. I'm literally saying I DO NOT WANT TO DO THIS and he still didn't care, he just wanted what he wanted. I feel as though I am getting better at boundaries and I think I am ready to go to therapy about what happened when I was 9 and my last relationship. I can't help by think what happened when I was 9 is the reason for why I am how I am. I never understood why I was so depressed. None of my family or friends could understand why because in there eyes "I had it all" and had a great life. I also think what happened when I was 9 is the reason why I ended up in an abusive relationship and ended up being such a people pleaser and not being good at setting boundaries and just letting people disrespect me. I really hope one day I can live a happy life. I hope sharing this helps someone else who experience COCSA and/or female on female sexual assault, realise it is just as wrong and just as valid.

Understanding the Complexity of Sexual Abuse It is difficult for people, even victims, to comprehend how complicated sexual abuse can be, including trauma responses. I was gang raped when I was younger. I was so traumatised that I repressed memories of it. A few months later slight memories returned to me about it and snippets of memory thereafter, but it wasn’t until years later that most of the memories became vivid through scary flashbacks. I developed late onset PTSD. I went to counselling but, at that time, there seemed to be limited knowledge on how to deal with this condition, so it was a struggle. I always wanted to report it but I felt I had to clearly remember everything little detail to do so. A few years after I started counselling my urge to report the rape became so strong that I felt I had to do it. There wasn’t sufficient evidence for the DPP to prosecute. I felt really upset about that but there wasn’t much I could do about it. I had a mixed experience dealing with the Gardaí, one was nice but the other made victim blaming remarks. The DPP came across as cold and indifferent. A couple of years after I made the complaint some high profile cases were covered in the news. The female colleagues I lunched with kept making victim blaming comments. They even said ‘every woman, who reported sexual assault that didn’t lead to a conviction, lied’. This was disturbing because it is so untrue. This triggered my PTSD again. I felt so alone, like there was no one in my life who understood what I was going through. I used to feel so angry and let down by the lack of justice and understanding, but now I know that I don’t need this type of validation. However I definitely still welcome improvements in the justice system and society, in the way victims are treated. Healing to me is self-validation and connecting with people who care. Finally I have people to connect with, who won’t judge. I’m so pleased to be a part of this wonderful network of people in this space of We-Speak.

Why did you have to be so good at manipulating me. You flirted with me in class, you complimented my outfits when I thought no one cared. You told me you wanted to treat me right, and I'm the fool for beliving you? You told me we should go to the bar, so we did. I felt alive, I felt happy and you just wanted me to keep drinking so I did. You took me back to your place and honestly I don't even remember anything. I woke up and, I've got to give you credit, you were smart to say we had sex right away. It blindsighted me, I liked you so much I didn't want to assume the worst. But of course my little paradise I had with you fell apart. A month later you ended things, said I wasn't right and you wanted to be alone. I felt so destroyed but that wasn't even the worst of it. The puzzle pieces were starting to come together. I'm not coherent when I'm blacked out, if anything I'm demonic. I scream, I vomit, I sieze, I am in no way able to have sex but that didn't matter to you right? Because I wasn't someone you actaully liked, I was just a trophy. I found out only weeks after you left me that you and your football friends had made a bet, a stupid bet to see if you could sleep with me because honestly you weren't that cute. So I hope you're happy, I hope you're proud of yourself for what you did. I hope you never forgot your conquest because you have cursed me to never forget you. -Name

I was first raped when I was 14 years old, by a classmate. I didn’t know it was rape for almost 10 years. I was raped again when I was 20 years old, by a friend in my dorm on campus. I’m now 28 years old and work as an educator, counselor and advocate for interpersonal violence prevention. I have been searching for a place to share my story without having to share my identity (thank you endlessly EROC/It’s On Us for this space). I have so much to share but even more so I hope whoever is reading this knows they’re not alone.

It was a cold night in 2019 I was at a party while on FaceTime arguing with my on again off again boyfriend of 3 years I was at the party with a mutual friend of ours in the bathroom throwing up from too much liquor as he yelled at me through the phone accusing me of having sex with men at the party in the bathroom even tho I was in there just throwing up. I told my friend I wanted to leave I was not feeling well she said ok, little did I know she was setting me up we left the party I’m in the backseat of her car In & out of it. I hear her on the phone with him he yelling at her through the phone telling her he ran out of gas on the expressway & to come get him ( a lie) I tell her please don’t pick him up we were in the middle of our off phase which usually led to a fight. She ignored me as she drove towards him & I fell asleep. I was abruptly awakened to a slap across my face & to my horror he was in the back seat next to me, I felt a sense of dread over take me I came to & looked around we were parked in front of my apartment my friend sat in the front seat silently as he criticized my outfit & told me I was dressed like A slut asking for it ( I had on a black mini skirt & a big pullover hoodie with tights) he hit me again but this time I swung back defending myself I knocked his glasses off his face & he looked at me filled with rage. I looked down at my hands as 3 of my false fingernails started bleeding I guess i punched him so hard i cracked my nails. He told me “ you gon be sorry u did that” he grabbed me by my hair & yanked me out of the car I tried to hold on to the door because I had a sinking feeling something bad was about to happen , something worse than the usual abuse he subjected me too. I called out to my friend to help me she did nothing as he dragged me out of the car & up the back stairs of my apartment complex I screamed as he pulled on my pony tail like a yo-yo dragging me one flight at a time no one came to save me. He grabbed my lanyard with my house keys from around my neck & used them to open the back door he shoved me inside I fell on the kitchen floor he grabbed me by my hoodie & pulled me into my bedroom our bedroom that we once shared he pulled my hoodie over my head & threw me on the bed, by this point I was pretty sobered up ( I wish I wasn’t so I wouldn’t have to remember this part) he stood over me “ that little a** skirt this what u choose to wear outside? You In the bathroom with other men with that little skirt on?” I diddnt know what to say we fought plenty of times & I saw his rage but never like this he reached down, ripped my tights off & pulled my skirt off all in one motion in that moment he turned into a living breathing MONSTER his pupils dilated & dark he climbed on top of me it wasn’t gentle it wasn’t nice it’s like the whole world stopped I couldn’t hear I couldn’t speak I was nothing I sank into nothingness every stroke sent me deeper into a black void of nothingness the room was pitch black dark the only light coming in from the moon through the window I looked at this monster taking over the shell of the man I once loved I watched him kill my soul slowly. I finally found my voice through the agonizing pain “ please don’t please stop” I pushed on his chest & instantly felt the sharp pain of my broken false nails shoot through my hands. A single tear fell from my left eye he paused he asked me “ why u keep telling me stop like I’m ra**** you?” I replied “ you are get off me.” I felt his body stiffen as he announced “ I have young daughters I don’t play that” he pulled out. I quickly put my self in a fetal position & cried as I Layed on my side shaking. I should have never turned my back on him it angered him he blurted out “ but you think it’s ok for you to go out in such tiny clothes anything could have happened to you.” I Layed there thinking to myself wats worse than this? He seemed to contemplate sparing me for a few minutes but ultimately the monster won again he grabbed me out of my fetal position like a rag doll & put me into a doggy style position I reached back my hand in an attempt to stop him from entering me ignoring the throbbing in my hand “ please I’m sorry for wearing the skirt please don’t” I guess the monster doesn’t have ears he grabbed my hand & pinned both down from my wrist he killed wat little soul I had left I felt myself starting to bleed I drifted away to the moon I left my body sweet relief I was ok I was far away. Bittersweet defeat. When I Came back to my body he slumped over sleep beside me I Layed there awake until the sun fully came up. His phone rang & he woke up & kissed me on the forehead like nothing happened he sat on his phone & FaceTimed his friend as they joked casually about how drunk I was the night before & how he “ diddnt get any” he looked me in my eyes to see if I had any objections I quickly looked down At the blood stained sheets on the bed, a stark reminder it wasn’t all a horrible nightmare & that I was still sitting with my monster. I got up To go take a shower & rinse the embarrassment off my body.. I stand there numb he burst into the bathroom with my phone in hand it’s ringing I look at the screen it’s a call from my ex he instructs me out of the shower & hits me I fall on the bathroom floor naked he stands over me, “ please not again “ I think to myself my spirit is so broken I don’t speak he tells me to unlock my phone I don’t respond I’m frozen trying to brace myself for the monster to come back I look up i recognize the black g** he always carries around he holds it to my head for a split second I wish he would just do it I already feel Like a worthless empty shell laying there naked at his mercy once again. I give him the password he instructs me to tell my ex I never want to speak to him again & that I’m happy I do it. I get up get dressed & dropped him off at his friends house that’s the last time I see him. I move to the house I’m at now & cut communication. Fast forward to 2023 we reconnect I get the courage to confront him about what he did to me we’ve only talked on the phone am I wrong because I still think I love him? He apologized he was my boyfriend my protector I tried to forgive him & move on it was so long ago I feel like if I would not have turned my back on him or wore that skirt he would have not been triggered I know it’s not my fault. Secretly tho some times when I talk to him that night pops up in my head & I lose my breathe I feel sick to my stomach & I can’t breathe about it I get stuck back in my old room until I come back & focus on my breathing I’m getting better I believe tho. I never thought I would be able to tell my story I’ve always felt so embarrassed & ashamed something like this can happen I thought it only happens on law & order. Sorry it was so long but thanks for listening. 💔