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Just words. You have trouble talking about these things. You realize you have trouble talking about a lot of things. You remember being excited about your first job at Company Name. One of your friends works there and you know a lot of people work there as a summer job. It’s the 1990’s and it’s been grandfathered in that they can pay you less than minimum wage because it’s like a part time training experience for students getting their first work experience. Like a newspaper route. Those are for boys. You got so excited after being nervous you asked for an application along with your friend. You don’t remember meeting him then. So many people want to get chosen for that crap job because for some reason it’s become a sought after thing among the cool kids. You do remember the phone call that you can come for an interview. Walking home you wonder if being cute and having larger breasts than most almost freshman girls had something to do with it. You met Name and remember him for sure this time. The way you look has been a curse far more than a blessing. One reason people would not feel that bad for you. 'God sure blessed you, honey." You have so many bad memories, blocked memories, repressed memories because of Name. You are having second thoughts as tears build up. You need a drink. You quit drinking years ago and today you have three months and eight days sober. Your record is nine months and two days. You are strong. Most of the time. You are hollow. All the time. Name wasn’t the last but he was the first. You change his name although you don’t want to. He is the symbol of your hatred of all that is wrong with men. You were tricked. Name got what he wanted from you. Too many times. Too many times before you stopped going back. Just stopped. You could have just stopped after the first time he held you close and caressed you before your mom picked you up that night. The first time. You still don’t understand or forgive yourself for that. You had let a boy at a party and a boy at an 8th grade dance put their hand up your shirt. You had liked it so much those times. It had been exciting and happy. Name did not make you happy. You went back. You want to talk about something else now. Not the other men who thought your body was their plaything. Not the time you went to Ireland with your Aunts and mom. You miss mom. That was a good trip. You got back to that a lot. You sat down to talk about things you don’t talk about. On a family trip to Adventureland you asked your cousin if was considered losing your virginity of a boy did it to your boobs. You pretended it was a cute boy, not Name. It was hard to breathe with him sitting on your torso thrusting. You sometimes break things and scream. Never when your son is around. You have two jobs and don’t really like the one that pays the most. Your college degree does not count much. How much life is wasted on despair and doubt and taking the wrong path? You feel relief when he finally finished. You hate when he finishes because you know he is stealing his ultimate pleasure from you when he has a wife. He acts like it was just another day at work to keep you on his leash. You are pathetic. His remnants are inside you every time you go home after closing with him. Just another miserable day in the life. You say nothing. You tell no one. You are worthless except as a vessel for him. Your parents say nice things to you, about you. They always have. They have to. They don’t know what you really are. A black shame is the times you felt pleasure in your body while he was doing it do you. At least while you remained quiet and motionless there was some dignity. Defiance. Insult to him. When your body and voice reacted like you liked it it was a betrayal. Like you liked that tub of disgusting man on top of you and inside of you, fucking you on that tile floor, kissing you like a lover. You befriended a group of guys by mid high school. Over a year after Name was more than thorn in your soul. A deep callous. The group figured out what you were. They played football. They were important and had strong will. They shared you and passed you around. They told you they loved you. That you were the coolest girl. They took what they wanted when they wanted. Why? Name 2 was you lab partner for biology. He was the first. He was the only one your age. You went in his car for lunch and met some others. They wanted you. You volunteered. It is all you are good for. Draining them of their juice so they can be happy and feel like men. So you can feel empty and dirty. Even after they graduated they got together for group fun, or had you sneak out at night to go for a ride. You headed far west after you graduated. A fresh start. An exodus. An escape. You went to one reunion. The ten year reunion. Name 2 came with his wife. He introduced you as his ex-girlfriend. You let hm take you to the disabled restroom and have his quickie. You went to the bars afterward and ditched your real friend and let Name 3 take you back to his hotel room to live his fantasies just because he claimed that he always loved you. They say attractive people have sex more frequently with more partners than normal people. The darkness behind that statement is that for females it is no always because they want it that way but because of the relentless pressure from men and how they will do anything if they get the opportunity. You are not a nice innocent girl. Would you have been if it had not been for Name like you want to think? Would you have let your much older cousin you barely know take you back into the woods with him behind their house to the shack where he smokes pot after a wedding. Then wait there for him to call his friends after he found out you were a bad girl and wait for them too. Swatting flies in your underwear while you waited for them. You did not drink because your mom did not allow it even though kids younger than you were. But your cousin and his local friends did. Four of them counting your cousin old enough to be your uncle. Still, you acted like you liked everything they did. They took it so far like you were the world's greatest toy. Porn star, they called you like it was the best thing you could be. The anal was excruciating. It was easier to just wash off all your makeup than to try to fix it after all the sweat and sticky. Smiles and complements followed by the deep hollow feeling of total isolation in the station wagon on the way back home from Kansas city. Hating Name and feeling like you betrayed your aunt because one of them was her fiancé. You got an infection and it was embarrassing when the doctor told you. At least it was a female doctor. The idea of a male gynecologist is unnerving. The one time you were examined by one was terrifying. You were in college. He was way too thorough and talkative like he was working up to asking you out on a date and you decided never again. The only one you ever had that did not wear gloves for the breast exam. The most sensual digital vaginal exam you ever had to check the cervix and ovaries for pain. Was his thumb supposed to be brushing your clitoris? You even wonder if he was recording it on his phone that you saw him adjust twice as it was peaking out of the breast pocket of his lab coat. His stupid November mustache he asked you if you liked. So some days you don’t eat. You exercise to maintain the body they want. It gives you value to them. You are nothing. People always say nice things. Hollow things. What if you had never met Name? What if you never got fucked on the floor for $3.45 an hour. On your back, on your hands and knees, sometimes even on top of him. Your first orgasm on that floor that smelled like stale milk and bleach. Having to tell your mom pick you up 45 minutes after the place closes for your cleaning duties. You used tampons just to keep from his semen leaking out on the way home. You pretended to be a virgin when you were far from it. He told you not to worry because he had a vasectomy. That part must have been true. You don't got on dates even though they always try to set you up. Not a chance. Your son is a good excuse. And a real reason. Real love. The Earth spins in space. Why can’t it just freeze and die like me? Your boss doesn’t go all the way with you because he won’t cheat on his wife. You give him oral because he doesn’t think that counts. Preserves his purity. He says he wants to so badly, like he can take whatever he wants from you but he is strong and valiant. You are nothing. He is handsome. You let him kiss you and fondle you. You long for his touch. He is not a great man but you long for him. The closest thing to a good man you have known. A father figure. Your son needs a father figure. He is everything. He deserves better. He loves you. He tells you are a good mom and that is worth enduring the world for as long as it takes. You put on a good face but he knows you are hollow, deep down. A wounded duck pretending to be a swan. Always pretending. Was there no pretending before Name? Maybe not. The days begin and your mind pretends and it is hard and the days end. Bad dreams on both ends. Will he be a good man? The funny thing is you want him to be a prince because he is your prince but even if he is like most men you want his total happiness. You want beautiful girls, good times, and strong friends for him. You exist to fake it and to have let those men enjoy you but mostly to give your son the best life possible beyond you. You are not worthless. It is not your fault. You are stronger than you know. Hollow words. They have to say it. They always have. No creativity. No insight. No truth. Just words.

I was with my ex and I had just started some new tablets that made me sleepy. I tell my ex that I’m going to sleep and he continues to play his video game. I wake in a daze around an hour later and he is raping me and enjoying it. I react by making noises out of fear and wait for him to finish up the act , I just froze in fear. Once it was over I was mad he never got consent but he told me that he thought I wanted it. It’s been nearly a year and I’m still not over it

For me, my story entailed a male friend getting into my bed when i told him not to and forcing me to ‘cuddle’ with him, while he grabbed at me. He had been telling me all night how he missed his girlfriend, particularly her body & “that” part of their relationship. I felt horrible, i was uncomfortable and scared that he might do more. He didnt. But still even years later i feel uneasy when i think about it & how creepy he really was. He ignored me when i said no. He took away my autonomy that night. So dont feel like your story isnt worthy just because it “could have been worse”. Every experience is valid ❤️

I never associated my assaults as sexual assaults. I always just saw it as a thing that happened me that was upsetting until recently. I was groped, forced into having sex and preforming oral sex on him. I remember one time he offered to drive me home. I lived over 40 mins from town so I thought i could save myself €60 in a taxi. Until I realised we were going in the opposite direction to my house. He drove me to secluded area. I knew it wasn't right I said no said I was due my period I tried everything I could to deter him. It didn't work. I can't drive that road without a feeling of dread. I do feel part to blame and I know that's wrong. I hate how it makes me feel. When I hear stories in the news I can't help but think my story isn't as bad as theirs or that maybe mine wasn't rape or a sexual assault. I hate myself for thinking it.

I’m a 27 year old female now but when I was about the age of 6-7 my sister would kiss me on the lips. I vividly remember laying down on my bathroom floor (which she told me to do) and would just tell me to relax. She is 4 years older than me. I also remember one time I really wanted to kiss her and she said yes. I think it was a game to me at that point. She had left for a moment and I got naked. I remember she came back and said to put my clothes on because our dad was going to take us out to eat. Those are the only moments I remember but my mind might be pushing down other similar moments I had with her. I’m struggling now to have a relationship with her. She has never talked about it, but I feel like she remembers. It’s so hard to speak to her without getting annoyed or frustrated. She is annoying to me and never communicates well, she tends to always ask a question when asked a question. She’s never wrong and is hard headed. At this point I feel like I need to speak to her about this and distance myself to heal. I don’t even know what I want but I just don’t want to feel this way.

Hey! I'm 18, and all this happened a year and a half ago, I was 16. It's a really weird and messed up story, I never heard a similar one. I was going home late afternoon and got literally attacked by a group of I think 3 or 4 people older than me, all male. I dont know which language they were speaking. I really really tried to kick them and scream and resist but there was nothing I could do. I dont know how long it lasted, I was scared what they would do when they're done, if they would kill me or let me run away. They let me go when they were done, I picked up my things and literally ran home without stopping. I am so grateful there was nobody home and that nobody saw me going home. It was this feeling of emotionless and numbness when you cant feel anything that saved me. I showered, last time next 9 months, got dressed and prayed no one gets home soon. I didn't go out much next few days, acted normal enough that my parents wouldn't notice and tried to not think about it. I only told people online: a close friend and anonymously to hundreds who would read my reddit post. After a few months of constant crying in my room, I tried to kill myself, every time I decided I'd rather not die yet and threw up the pills, then be mad and try again... I cut myself, hit myself, would cry and scream in a corner of my room and hit myself with something when nobody is home. Hid all pretty well, parents would tell me I've changed and tried to get to me, mom would cry and ask me what's wrong but I would, barely holding it in, tell her shes making it all up and go to my room rolling my eyes. I still cut myself, sometimes hit myself and pull my hair, subconsciously pick the skin around my fingernails so it bleeds, my hands look absolutely horrible. My thighs are covered in 30cm long scars from knee to hip and it's sometimes a pain to walk and even sleep. Idk how I survived the summer, people at the beach would look at my leg but nobody ever said anything. I've still never told anyone in real life, I am extremely ashamed of all of it, cant walk down the street with my head up, cant imagine telling parents or talking to a therapist. I really just dont want to be sad anymore. This text is poorly written and doesnt really transfer all emotions well, I didnt really see the keyboard because of crying. But thank you for reading this. Knowing someone knows I'm going through this helps. And that there are other people. Thank you really.

There is something to be said about coercive convincing. Sometimes people can make an outwardly uncomfortable situation very appealing or just generally ok. It’s easier to fall trap to that when you know the person, think you know the person, have heard good things about the person from others you know, or you allow your curiosity to take over your instincts. You must learn to trust your gut. Don’t silence it. Be ok with their discomfort. You, your health, mentally and physically, are more important.

I really want to tell anybody my story to be better than me my story start when I love my casein he really pretty and hot I love him for 5 years and it was the best 5 years I never tell him that I love him but he always makes me feel that he have the same feeling by doing moves but he really selfish and he proud at himself a lot I don't know why and he sometimes is really rude and star tells me that am ugly fat and you not pretty you like men but I wasn't ugly but when you love anybody you understand them and try to not make problems with them and one day he was really jealous of my guy best friend and start to tell me his not good don't talk with him and I try to know why he tells me that I want him to tell me that he is jealous so after one day he said that am used girl and I be really sad but now I try to forget him and love my self cause he let me hate my self so I need to tell you don't let anybody make you feel sad and uncomfortable with your self just be your self and people opinion it is just an opinion not true . I hope you get advantages from my story.

Not really sure where to start this. I guess by saying that I am in no way trying to absolve myself of blame or guilt. I have just never said it aloud before. When I was maybe 10-11, my step sister and I use to engage in activities that we really shouldn't have. I guess I always just thought we were trying to experiment. We always had clothes on and I know it could have been worse. I can't help but feel such guilt for it. I am older. I should've know better. I think it was maybe a way for me to process my own sexual abuse. But how do I live with that? That I contributed to COCSA.

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.

“Imagine an ending”, said the counsellor. “See it as you want it, as you need it to be. Write your story and those in it as it should be in a just world”, she suggests. I think “no!”, it needs it to be real; a conversation with live faces across real tables, with a hug, a strong handshake, and a glance that lets me know it really happened in amongst the unreality of it all. Those conversations, as yet unsaid, will anchor me in truth, bathe me in facts and create a storyboard with pins and thread for me follow home. Those people, as yet unseen, will interpret it with me, a Watson and Holmes quest - in the room together as the facts reveal themselves. The institutions, as yet faceless, will now permit me to be a fly on the wall of those interviews where untruths were told. I need all this, I think, so that finally the lost threads are found, and I can write my story, now coloured with the gaps I have craved to fill; revealing me to myself. The words shared will help me to find my own. ……………………………………... Us women are left outside a system hoping that something or someone will ground us in the facts held at arms lengths- the facts about us, our assault, or experience. Many women who report sexual assault to the authorities face multiple hurdles. Some remain open to responding to this system that offers no guarantees for all we give to it. Others shut down before the act has concluded, resigning themselves to a painful silence in the hope it will be less so than the alternative public ordeal. The burden of proof lays solidly with us as we concurrently grapple with processing our own trauma. If we are able to share a palatable version of our story with other women, we soon realise how much worse it could have been. But we knew that already. Grading our experience with a perfunctory “at least”. It lives in us: this learned and inherited shame. We carry that burden before we are assaulted, and it is further cemented by the knowing glance or stern word spoken before we leave the house in those clothes. Later that night we are escorted to a beige room and asked to remove them all, still sticky with fearful sweat and told that without us in them, these articles might determine his guilt. There is always some authority acting as sartorial dictator, taking away our carefully chosen outfit with worried words or procedural hands. As such, we continue to hold the weight of their assigned moral value, and determine little of their impact, for that is decided by the viewer, whomever they may be in the room that day. ……………………………………... I am caked in heavy layers of dread, pending success or failure. Why did I start this thankless task? I enter another world, an office of sorts, where you catch a glimpse of the story not told to you, because by knowing you may contaminate the truth. Despite my bodily contamination, I am not permitted to know the full facts, as they say. The most personal and invasive event, prolonged by paperwork. This manufactured situation demands intimacy and yet requires, by law, complete professionalism. Their job, an often-thankless endeavour to find and prove the truth to a wig not made for this century. I try to picture my good egg behind the mask that doesn't fit his face. I saw more of him than ever before on our day in court. It was our day. I needed to see his eyes as he spoke; for the real-life connection to mirror the intensity of our past dealings. He is the only one who knows who I am in this. Until this happens, I float here, suspended in the delay, waiting to be anchored to the tangible earth beneath. To feel the bench and smell the varnish. To be present and audible. To be where life is being lived. We leave court and enter a room with my sister-in-assault. Kept apart for many months to protect us from further injustice. Unsure of the protocol and fearful of our matched pain, we join hands. We hug on my request – despite our fear of emotion and viral spread. How odd to have a thing such as this in common. To be joined together by an act of harm by a man with less years than us, so far away from home. We all came to this city with hopes - for opportunities – for a life beyond the limitations, however different, of our respective hometowns. Joined by this recurring act, we three meet again in a room filled with wood and plexiglass, unable to see beyond the thing itself. This dirty touch has smeared us all with a single colour, marking us out as dirt. Her wide face and open eyes meet mine in tears, a flood after a personal drought. Guilt shades my face pink – I wish she would cry. We share past fears and eventual overcoming and know from this moment on we are allowed to let go. The words have been spoken, by us, the good eggs, and the wigs. The ordeal is over, and permission is granted to lock our fear away with him in the middle of our land, far away from the hopes of this Eastern city. This is the end and the beginning.

When I was six( possibly younger) there was this neighbor that often came to our house together with his parents. The adults always stayed in the living room and my siblings, he and I went to another room where we would play this game witch involved running so I would get tired and lay on the bed, he would lay right next to me at and ask things like " Are you tired? I can give you a massage" I would always refuse and be super uncomfortable but he persisted. I also remember laying on his arm and him laying on my shoulder and to this day I can't stand it when someone tries to lay on my shoulder. We would also play this other game involved me and him being together in one bed and him standing on top of me to "protect" me. I hate myself for doing this and allowing it to happen to me continually. I also can't remember saying no exactly so I wonder if it means I enjoyed this games? He was also really good at origami but he didn't like doing it so if I wanted origami I had to kiss him. I can't believe I let him use me like that I feel so ashamed. I know my story isn't as bad as others but it still change me as a person. I hope that one day the world will be free from any type of sexual abuse ❤️

Hi all. My story with abuse begins 2 years ago. My assaulters are my ex boyfriend and his cousin. When I first met my ex boyfriend I was a teenager and had never been in a relationship or done anything beyond just kissing someone. Very inexperienced. Conversations regarding relationships and intimacy were unheard of in my family, so I didn’t know anything about what was normal or not. A few months after I met my (now ex) boyfriend, he asked me to have a threesome with him and his “close friend.” This was maybe a week after the first time we had sex together. He told me that the friend was my age and was interested in me. I told him that made me very uncomfortable and I am not interested. He seemed to move on so I didn’t think any more about it. At this point he seemed like a very kind, understanding guy. Fast forward another month and it’s New Years Eve. Boyfriend came to my house (I lived on my own) and asked if he could bring some friends. No problem, sounds fun! He shows up with one friend (that I’ve never met) and says the rest cancelled last minute. I continued thinking it was innocent and the night would go well. We were all drinking and snacking and watching movies together, which was fun for me! It wasn’t long before I realized that they kept passing me shots and I was almost black out drunk. Completely incoherent which was not my intention. I don’t remember much between now and waking up, other than the worst part of the night. I vividly remember laying on my bed, pretty much unable to move or talk I was so out of it, and my boyfriend coming in and having sex with me. Then his friend walked in and did the same. I couldn’t move or speak or even fully comprehend what happened, but I know I never said okay to this. I would have never said yes to this no matter how much alcohol is involved. I woke up the next morning and had no clue what to do other than just continue on. I didn’t remember enough or have the guts to say anything. They left that morning like nothing happened. My (now ex) boyfriend turned out to be a narcissistic sociopath. I was I was exaggerating or joking. He made me believe I agreed to that and had fun. Not true. Almost a year later that friend reached out to me and clued me in on the situation (I think he felt guilty). He told me that my ex told him that I was his friends with benefits and was excited about this “threesome” idea. We were dating, or so I thought. I also found out that my ex set up the situation so this friend could lose his virginity. And the next fun bit of info, this “friend” is my ex’s COUSIN. I lapsed in sanity apparently and refused to believe this and continued dating “the love of my life.” The sexual, mental, emotional, and financial abuse continued with my ex for 2 whole years before I reached my breaking point. The trauma I’m having to work through now is something I wouldn’t wish on the worst soul on the planet. Please learn from my mistakes and DO NOT ignore red flags. They present themselves for very important reasons. Listen to them.

I met my ex at a time in my life when I was incredibly vulnerable. I was processing a lot emotionally and I had uprooted my life and moved home. I wasn't making much money, living with my parents and really trying to figure out my next steps but faltering. Reeling from a significant romantic rejection, I was dating in a desperate way. I just wanted to find my person, have companionship, enjoy all the benefits of having a partner. And so when I met my ex, I projected all my desires for stability on to our relationship extremely quickly. We were talking about getting engaged (in a year) after only knowing each other one month. We moved in together after six months of dating. In a normal healthy relationship this wouldn't necessarily be an issue. But I had ignored a lot of red flags up to that point. He baselessly accused me of cheating on him, once when I was sexually assaulted in a bar he asked me what I did to make the person touch me, he made derogatory comments about what I wore, he ingratiated himself with my family. I had told him on our first date that I didn't want children, something that I do out of respect for people's desires and time. Months into our relationship he brought up (while drunk and angrily) that he wanted children but was giving that up to be with me. Shortly after we moved in together I had a slew of weddings for family and friends, all of which he attended. At the first I was the maid of honor. He got overly drunk at the rehearsal dinner and picked a fight with me after. He stormed out of a room full of people because I had walked away from him (to avoid standing near the door and blocking traffic) and it set him off. He yelled at me for thirty minutes about how inconsiderate I am and all the other reasons we weren't compatible. The next weekend was my sister's wedding. I couldn't go with him to pick up a suit before the rehearsal dinner and this set him off again. He drank too much and berated me later. This time for not having been as physically affectionate in the week between the weddings. I told him it was because I was scared of him, which he then yelled at me about further. I cuddled with him to fall asleep so he would calm down, it felt like diffusing a bomb. The final wedding was the worst. Same formula. Something small set him off, he drank too much and then broke up with me and tried to leave the wedding but couldn't get an Uber. When I tried to hold him accountable the next day he said we were both drunk so it wasn't anyone's fault. For the months that followed I dealt with endless scrutiny. I went into an office for work and he worked remotely. He would smell my clothes when I came home, ask why I was wearing lipgloss, or backhandedly tell me I looked nice. He was heavy handed about money. Times when I would ask him not to pay for something or say that I had it covered he would intervene behind my back. He spent hundreds of dollars on a birthday gift for my dad that my whole family had wanted to purchase even after I asked him not to. Money was a source of control and self-worth for him and even when I could contribute it wasn't enough or if I said I planned to buy something (our meals for my parents anniversary dinner) he would find a way to try and undermine me and pay for it himself. I was both somehow financially insufficient and then in the rare times I could pay for something for us, too financially independent for his liking. We got a dog only a few months into living together. He had put his dog down the previous year and was itching for another one. She is a sweetheart and I enjoyed raising her for the few months I did. The first time we trimmed her nails we accidentally cut one too short and she started bleeding so she was understandably hesitant of nail trimmings going forward. One night we decided to get her nails trimmed. I held her and my ex was trimming her nails and cut one too short. She started wriggling as he attempted to trim the rest but couldn't because she was so impatient. He became irate and threw the nail trimmer across the room. He stood up and while I was still holding her on the ground, wound up and hit her. I was completely frozen. I used to think that I should've moved in his way so that he hit me instead. I thought it would make him realize how bad his temper was but I know now I probably would've just sped up his timeline. A couple of weeks before we broke up we were having another bout of a recurring fight which centered around him finding it laborious and monotonous to be physically intimate with me. As I tried to express to him that it was hurtful for him to tell that it would start "getting old" to be intimate with me, he just became more angry. He had also drank a decent amount that night. He packed a bag and said he needed to stay at his parents' for the night. His exact words were "When I'm angry I do things I regret and I don't want to do something I'll regret". It took me a while to accept that from the throwing of things, the time I came home to a whole in the wall, the slamming of doors so hard that pictures came off the wall, and hitting the dog that when he said this he meant hitting me. Even for the first little bit after we broke up I maintained that he never would have hurt me and I was just a victim of emotional abuse. With more time and therapy I now know that I got out with very little time left to spare. My emotional and psychological safety were long gone and my physical safety was hanging by a thread. I'm now over a year out from our break-up. The first therapy session I had after our breakup I said to my therapist that I didn't want to put myself in a situation like that ever again. My therapist responded "you didn't put yourself in that situation, he did all of that to you and you survived it". I think because I wasn't showing up well at that point in my life it makes me feel like if I was stronger--emotionally, financially, personally--I wouldn't have been susceptible to this. I hold a lot of guilt and shame for being in such a vulnerable place in life that all of that happened to me. If I hadn't moved home, if I'd been making more money, if I hadn't moved in with him at six months, if I had left the million different times he showed a red flag maybe I wouldn't have the mental scars and trauma. And though that thought process is hard to shake I know at the end of the day, I didn't deserve any of the abuse I dealt with. What makes me the most angry about all of it is the innocence I lost. I never would have considered in my mid-late twenties I'd consider myself innocent. But the unburdened and carefree way I was able to think about dating before this is something I miss. There's a level of optimism I'll never get back. I used to think the worst thing that could happen to me while dating was someone being apathetic or incompatible, not intentionally violent. With a lot of therapy and time I am starting to regain my light and open heart. But the vivid memories will always be there, though hopefully they will fade. Although I'm indelibly changed, I won't let this rob me of my ability to see the good in people. I'm still deserving and capable of finding love, I have hope for that.

After 20 years or more, I believed for so long that if i kept to myself my experience and trauma that with time I'll forget but i was wrong and the only thing i have accomplished keeping this a secret is hurt myself even more. I felt for so long that i was alone that maybe it was best for me to take this pain to the grave and never give it the attention that it deserves but again im only hurting myself if I keep it to myself.

When I was 6-7 years old, I was pinned to my ottoman by my older brother (8-9 years) and my friend (6-7 years) and repeatedly kissed on the mouth by another friend (8-9). I told them to stop and put up a struggle but ultimately gave up and let it happen. Is this COCSA or an act of children not knowing boundaries?

I should have known what he was interested in when he kept asking me if I was really 18. It was around a time I had lost many friends and felt alone. He asked me on a date that ended in a park. I told him "no" many, many times. We had kissed but that was all I wanted. He proceeded to rape me and laughed at me when I panicked. I ended up freezing and after a cop pulled up because it was night and the park was closed. He laughed and asked me if I would tell everyone that he raped me. I didn't tell anyone for a long time because I was ashamed. I froze instead of fighting and I saw him again after that night. I learned later I was just trying to take control, I thought I must have been wrong about what happened. After the second time I saw him I found out he had a bet with a coworker about who could sleep with me or one of my coworkers first. I guess he won. It took me a long time to accept what happened wasn't my fault and that seeing him again was a means of coping or trying to comprehend the trauma. I wish I had sought help. It's been 12 years and I feel I've dissociated from the experience, but sometimes it comes back to me. I wish for every survivor out there to know it is not your fault no matter what reaction you had. You are worthy, you are valuable, and you matter. Don't let anyone take away your voice.

Last year, a very close friend realized they were in an abusive relationship -- something I had known for a long time. While it was mostly verbal and psychological abuse, it did get physical at the end. That was the catalyst my friend needed -- especially because they were holding their young child at the time (the abuser is not the child's biological parent). Having been in and around this space for a long time, I can tell you firsthand, it is very difficult to stand by and watch someone get hurt time after time. It is also difficult to let them make their own decisions once they get out of the relationship -- decisions which may be counter to what YOU want them to do. But this last piece is really important. It is critical to allow someone who has spent in this case several years without agency, to take it back and make their own decisions.