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

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.

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

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.

At the end of my freshman year of college, I was at a house party. Towards the end of the night, after I had already been drinking, I said I wanted to go smoke and a guy who had been interested in me asked if he could come with me. We were friends at the time so I agreed. We went to the area in the back, which was an enclosed greenhouse-type porch and no one was back there. After we finished smoking, he leaned in and kissed me. I was shocked but went along with it at first. He proceeded to kiss me more intensely and started to touch me. Feeling uncomfortable, I stopped and told him I wanted to go inside. I sat at a table inside and he was next to me. I started feeling the high from smoking as I was having a conversation with my friends who were right across from me. Suddenly I felt his hand move up my thigh and he proceeded to rub me over my shorts. I was in frozen in shock thinking, "what the fuck is happening right now? This is really weird and i'm not enjoying this. Am I too high to do something right now? There are so many people around me. and no one knows what is happening. What is going on?" After a what felt like forever I felt him try to go in my shorts and that's when I snapped out of it and just looked at him. I didn't know what to say, and I don't really remember what happened at this point. I was just. in shock. He said something to me, I probably said something back, and then he just walked away. The day after I cried and had breakdowns in the bathrooms of the student center. I was confused and conflicted with myself trying to process what had happened. I felt like it was my fault because I googled things like "what constitutes as sexual assault/harassment?" because I wasn't sure if what i had gone through had "counted." I thought that since it was only touching it wasn't a big deal. I thought that because I was under the influence it was my fault. That I shouldn't have been that fucked up. That I shouldn't have been leading him on and making him think that I was into him. That I should protect him because he was friends with so many of my friends. But at the end of it all, HE WAS IN THE WRONG. I WAS PUT IN A SITUATION WHERE I WAS UNCOMFORTABLE AND HE HAD VIOLATED ME IN A ROOM FULL OF PEOPLE. I'm here to say that no matter the action, no matter how small, if you were violated your feelings are VALID. If you did not give consent and you felt uncomfortable, it IS ASSAULT. It is still your story. YOUR trauma that you have to live with. Do not brush it off or belittle it because you don't feel like it's worthy of being labeled. You are worthy. You deserve to be heard.

My mother had a lot of mental health issues and still does. I haven't had any contact with her for two years. Beginning when I was 3 or 4 up until I was 10 or 12, she would regularly say she had to "check your bottom." She would have me strip, lay down on a towel with my knee up and legs spread, and she would touch me. I can still feel her fingers on me and inside of my vagina, scraping with her fingernails: I can feel this on a visceral level as I type this. She would always take my temperature rectally. And then clean me with cotton balls and cotton swabs. I don't know why she stopped and I don't know why she did what she did. For years I struggled with this and with memories of her touching me. I have spent most of my adult life dealing with anxiety, trust issues, sexual dysfunction, and shame. I finally told my therapist a few years ago and it was like a weight was lifted. I still feel alone and unable to talk about this with people. It doesn't seem like anyone talks about or has much research on maternal sexual abuse especially towards female children. It has affected my sex life, my body image, and my ability to trust other people. I am starting up with a new therapist soon and I know this is something I want to, that I need to talk about but it is stirring up so much anxiety. For other daughters out there, you are not alone. Mothers do this and likely with a higher frequency than we'll ever know.

Sexual assault is a spectrum. I think as young women we laugh off so much - bring catcalled from 12 or 13, being groped in clubs, mocked for pushing a guy off who won’t keep his hands of you. I’m so glad there is this space to share our stories <3

At the time, my sister and I were bathing with a man my mother had described as "the man who would become my father." My sister was probably only about three years old, so I don't think she remembers it, but the man made my sister wash his genitals. I suddenly remembered it recently, and I'm tormented by the thought that it might have been sexual abuse, and blaming myself for not protecting my sister. I want to disappear.

I was 6 when it happened. When I told, nobody believed me. After all who who believe a 7 year old could molest a 6 year old? That's exactly what happened. He would start with a massage or singing to me. When I didn't like it he threatened me with a pocket knife and that he'd kill me if I ever told. I did. I told a babysitter, who told my parent, who told my teacher, who told the principal. The principal met with both of us together, then separate. In retaliation, he cut me on the arm with the knife. The principal didn't believe me. There was no punishment. We were to stay on separate playground equipment or be anywhere near each other. He bullied me for the next 5 years until he left the school. That's when the memories came back. It had quite an impact on me since I was 11 at the time, I looked much older. I easily attracted male attention which lead to sexual harassment and further traumatization. I was in a long term psych facility at the age of 12 because of a suicide attempt. There was a male staff member who seemed to enjoy destroying the teen girls there. When he got to me the first time, he wanted to know every detail of my abuse. When I got upset, he laughed at me and made fun of me. Later, he made comments on the way I looked and my eating habits. Telling me skinniness was unattractive on me. If we wanted out of that place, we had to admit everything he said was right. I did wahat I could to get out of that abusive place, I got out in 2 months. Many years later, I was 18, I met a man 11 years older than me. I liked him alot and he had shown some interest in me. He later convinced me to leave the country with him. My home situation has always been bad and still is. I went with him. We ended up getting married, at his insistence, after only three months of knowing each other, becoming homeless, and eventually returning to the US. We lived with his family, I started to get over his brainwashing, saw how abusive he really was. He had been taking advantage of me sexually, I started refusing him. He then started raping me. At first it was only a few times, then when we lived on our own, it became more frequent, along with other forms of daily abuse. He did it to show "dominance" because he refused to work, spent my money on drugs and alcohol, and slept/watched TV/got high all day while I was at work. He became more violent and paranoid over time. There wasn't a day that went by that I didn't cry multiple times a day from the constant abuse. I tried leaving him, he would threaten to kill himself, psychologically torture me or physically threaten me until I changed my mind, or promise me things would be better. The turning point came after I possibly became pregnant, he was going to force me to have an abortion. I miscarried due to the abuse. I couldn't go to the doctor, if my parents found out, they told me they would completely disown me if I got pregnant. A month later, he raped me in my sleep and a few days later tried to strangle me. I did move out but later came back at his and his parent's insistence. I saw no other way out, I didn't want to be divorced at such a young age (be damaged goods) and I couldn't handle living with my abusive parents again so I tried to take my own life. After getting out of the psych hospital, (who had been no help whatsoever in helping me get away from him or my family), I did get the paperwork together to divorce him, of course, he convinced me to tear them up. A month later, I did file the papers and tell him it was over. We finally separated after he held me hostage in my car, for the umpteenth time and tried to take me to another city. The divorce came through a few months later. We had been married a little over a year, I was 20.

I am safe. I am healing. I wish I did not have to be so strong, so resilient. But I am glad it molded me into who I am today. When I was 16, I began working as a lifeguard. My first real job, my first place I felt like a had my own independence. I woke up one morning and went to work and my life changed forever. Name took that from me. An older lifeguard in his 40s sexually assaulted me every day after that when we worked together. He told me it was okay, that I was cool. He told me if I did not listen, he would do it to my other friends and coworkers. I hated myself. I hated him. I hated everyone that saw me crying out for help and did nothing. An adolescent with an attitude problem was what I became. Almost 15 years later I am finally healing. I'm in therapy and working on loving the person I see in the mirror and getting to know her. I want the anxiety to go away. I want the ED to go away. I want the negative self-talk to go away. I want to be proud of the woman I have become. I don't want Name and what he did to me haunt me anymore. I want to pave a path for others to know that there is a light at the end of the dark tunnel. To not let anyone, take away your wings. A bumble bee gets up every day and chooses to fly even though it's not physically supposed to be able too. Someday I want to be that bumble be. Or maybe I already am, and I just haven't noticed yet.

A friend and I dated within the same friend group, and I used to hang out with the guys a lot--I considered them as my brothers. One night when we were altogether, I felt too drunk to take myself home and felt safe with my friends ex to get a cab and drop me off. He came in uninvited and kissed me, then all I remember are flashes of us being naked, him being inside of me, going down on me, etc., but I felt like I couldn't move. I woke up to shower, my bed was broken, and he was gone. I called him the next day to confront him about it, and that I don't even remember what happened. He said he thought "i enjoyed it" (I was unconscious half of the time), and only stopped because the bed broke. Although he apologized he had the audacity to tell me not to share this with anyone, and to this day only very few close friends know about this incident. It truly broke my trust even with platonic guy friendships.

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 :)

Hello, my name is Name, and my entire childhood I was sex trafficked. In the beginning of my childhood, my home life was seemingly perfect. My mother was very motivated in holistic healing and teaching me and my younger brother mindfulness, she was sweet and caring, though she was in the middle of starting her own business and was constantly busy, not noticing when me and my brother needed help, she was also an alcoholic. We were often left unsupervised and were physically punished. My father seemed very lighthearted and innocent most of the time, though I didn't know at the time deep down he was the opposite. My grandparents were also very involved in my upbringing. We would stay with them or they would stay with us every 2-3 months, and then me and my brother would stay with them for a couple weeks to a month and a half. The first time I remember being raped, I was only 4 years old. My grandfather was staying at my house, I don't remember where my parents, brother or Nana was. This memory is very fragmented for me. I remember crying very hard, and I remember bleeding everywhere. I can remember how painful it was. I was so scared. There's a gap in my memory, the time from when it was over, and then the next day. Next thing I knew the memory had repressed itself inside of my mind, there was a sudden split in my consciousness. One part felt the pain, the other was oblivious. My grandparents left afterwards. A couple months later I was registered into a preschool, owned by a puerto rican woman and her family. Because of how young I was, I do not know how to full narrate this part of my life. My memories are scattered. I do know that at this daycare there was a woman, she was the owner's daughter's boyfriend's mother who often helped out there. And a man, the owner's husband. Let's call the woman Name 2 and the man Name 3. One day early on in attending the day care, I was taken into a room with both of them alone, and again I was raped. I remember the fear and the confusion, then I remember the numbness that again took over my body and mind. I remember the split of my consciousness happening again. After this I have scattered memories of it happening again and again. Sometimes I remember other children being involved, but I'm not sure if those memories are accurate. They often took photos and videos of me. Half of the time, my life felt like a horror show, and the other half I was completely oblivious to it. Though, the oblivious part always knew something was wrong. She would often take things out on dolls, destroying the space between their legs with whatever she could find. She would often rehearse exactly what had happened to her onto the dolls, not knowing where these horrible ideas had come from, and what they meant. She also often took these things out on other children, trying to initiate sex with anyone she knew. The rape continued, until Name 3 murdered his wife, the owner of the daycare. He had been physically abusing her for a long time. Her death was sudden and was probably caused by a head injury, but nobody said anything about it. Name 3 was not persecuted. So, my parents registered me to another daycare. I was safe from being violated for a year. Until Elementary school started. My grandfather started molesting me again. My kindergarten year went by fast, and in the fall of my 1st grade year my parents divorced. They had been fighting every day on and off for a long time, my Mother decided to just leave. I don't remember how long I went without seeing her. She was now struggling on and off with homelessness. My father took all the money he could get his hands on. This is when the abuse from my father started. He beat me and my brother until our backs were covered with black and purple bruises. He'd pull me out of bed by my hair before school every morning. He was constantly irritated. He hired babysitters to watch me and my brother after school while he was still at work, some of them were from the daycare where I was raped. Soon after my mom started coming over twice a week to see me and my brother. One night, I believe my Dad had gotten drunk, he told me to get ready for bed. I did and went into my room. He followed. My memory gets spotty here, my father raped me. He was angry, he wanted revenge on my mother for leaving him. I couldn't do anything against him. Afterwards, he buckled his pants back up. And he left me. I had an accident and my mother came in to help me, not aware of anything that had happened. After that I had many more accidents. Nobody suspected anything. I had nightmares of monsters eating me alive, ripping apart my insides, wolves tearing me to pieces, bears chasing me, being forced to touch my family members inappropriately. Still I was mostly oblivious. The abuse went on, there were times when things would be good for a couple weeks and then it would go back. I started going to my moms apartment on weekends. Later that year, my grandfather started raping me again. My Nana was working, and he was a trucker. He was off most of the time we were together. To keep me quiet about it, he often attempted to murder me. He would hold me by my head and tell me he was gonna snap my neck, he'd choke me until all I saw was darkness and I couldn't speak, and when he'd bathe me, he'd hold the back of my neck and push me under the water until I stopped struggling. He'd slap me across the face so hard my ears would ring so loud, when I fell over onto the carpet he'd kick the shit out of me, and sometimes he'd whip my back with an extension cord. He told me no matter what if I told anybody I would be dead. And that I would go to hell. My family was baptist. Soon after men would come over and pay to rape me as well, sometimes in the privacy of my grandparents bedroom and sometimes together right in the middle of the living room. Some were from the church, some were family friends, and others were truckers my Grandfather knew. I remember my grandfather leading me to the bedroom with one of the truckers. He paid my grandfather, looked at me from outside and then he closed the door behind him. The lights were off and the dim light of the sun was shining through the sheer curtains. He forced my mouth open and I choked on him, i ran to the trash can and threw up. As i was leaned over, he raped me. I couldn't stop throwing up, when that was over he moved me and forced himself into my mouth again. His legs were pinning my arms down onto the carpet. I couldnt move or struggle. I could look over and see myself in the closet mirror. After he was done, there was throw up on my face and neck and semen stuck in my hair. He left the room and my grandfather told me to wash myself in the bathroom sink. I was crying and sniffling and trying to brush the fluid out of my hair. I tried to scrub my tongue with my hands. Everything stunk. When I wasnt with my grandparents, I was at home. Name 2 started babysitting me, and one day she told me and my brother we had to go with her to a doctors appointment for her feet. We went with her, as me and my brother sat in the room with her the doctor kept injecting things into her toes. They laughed and smiled at me and my brother as it was happening, we were very uncomfortable and confused. After that she told my brother to go sit in the lobby. We were alone in the doctors office and she brought out a video camera. The doctor laid me down onto the table and raped me while she recorded. I struggled as much as I could but again I was powerless. Afterwards I was numb and repressed again, I remember she told me to go pee afterwards and I did. I was disoriented and confused, not remembering how I got there. A couple weeks later I had told my mother that I got raped by a doctor. I had acted out what he did but I didn't have the words to say rape or assault. My mom told my dad and they sat me down and told me that what happened to me was wrong, and that I needed to tell them about it. At that point I had forgotten even mentioning it, i had completely forgotten that it happened, so I had nothing to say. Life moved on, they asked Name 2 about it, and she lied, saying that I left the room with my brother afterward. I continued being assaulted and trafficked by my grandfather for the following years. Constantly forgetting. When I was 11 it ended. I assume he was no longer interested because I had started puberty. I spent the next years living with my mother. She was neglectful and constantly drunk or high. I was constantly starving and underweight, when I saw my father on the weekends we fought but I didn't remember anything that had happened. Every part of me became depressed and confused. I dropped out of school in 8th grade. My mom told me that I had told her about the doctor that year, My entire life changed. At that point I didn't even remember being raped once. I went into a state of bipolar mania and psychosis. This went on for 7 months, then I went to my grandparents again. They were moving far away and there was a family reunion before they left. I remember being alone with my grandfather on the couch, he caressed my thigh with his hand. I was oblivious to everything that happened. I kept looking at things on my phone and ignored him. He said something odd, which I can no longer remember. I looked at him with confusion, and he sighed and left me alone after a prolonged silence. It didn't sit right with me. That month, after I went back home, memories started coming to me. I didn't know that starting then, I would spend all of my highschool years in a cycle of recovering memories, getting used to them, and then recovering more. I lost every friend I had. Except for my boyfriend I met online when I was 13. He was the only one who cared about anything that happened to me. I told him almost everything. He was a survivor of constant sexual abuse throughout his childhood as well. We understood each other. Now, I have just turned 18. I start college in the fall. I've gone no contact with my father. I've told my mother about everything, she told me my dad had sexually assaulted her and other women as well. And that they found money in my grandfathers mattress, also that he was probably selling drugs as well. Though she has not given me an apology for her neglect, and shows that she doesn't feel sorry for me at all. I'm dedicating every day to nurturing myself, since my parents can't. My journey isn't over, there's so much I don't understand still, but I know now that I will be okay. Most days I feel this awful shame. Like Im not meant to be alive. Like my body is all I was ever good for, like nobody cares about me at all or will ever understand. While most people couldn't understand the pain of what I've gone through, that's not what's important. I'm here for myself and I'm soon getting engaged with my boyfriend that I mentioned earlier. Things get better every day. I will not allow myself to feel this shame anymore. I'll share my story until I physically can't anymore. As soon as I submit this story I will not let it control me any longer. Thank you if you read this far.

I was in location and I had been seeing another guy in the friend group casually. The guy who ended up assaulting me was in that same friend group. We were at a party and this guy said a few of us should go to his for an afters, encouraging the guy I was seeing to go home instead and I didn’t think anything of it in the moment. When we were at his house and it was just me and him alone, he said he wanted to kiss me and I initially said no as it’d be a bit weird as I was seeing one of his friends. He then told me that the guy I had been casually seeing had a girlfriend, everyone knew and didn’t tell me. I felt terrible. So while I’m crying he starts kissing me and things escalate. He starts choking me hard, hurting me physically, restraining me, twisting my nipples really hard, and covering my mouth. I just froze up. After he was done I went upstairs to my friend and asked to leave at like 5 in the morning. The next day I called the guy I was seeing at the time asking him about the girlfriend and apologising about getting with one of his friends. He told me not to apologise and none of it was my fault and also the guy who assaulted me had lied about this whole girlfriend scenario. I didn’t want to think I was assaulted or coerced, I kept blaming myself. I couldn’t get out of bed to the point that I pissed myself. My family didn’t know what was wrong with me. I was so very fortunate to have friends who were with me to help me come to terms with what happened. My friends who had to tell me that wasn’t okay, that was assault. There was one “friend” who was very much a well it takes two, and it was bad out of me to “get with” him when I was seeing his friend. Then informing me the guy who assaulted me tried to kill himself. And I felt so evil but I wish it had worked. The friend group cut him off once they heard what happened, it was also found out he had assaulted someone else in the group too. I eventually texted the guy who assaulted me telling him what he did was wrong and I didn’t consent to violence, he said sorry that he tends to take his problems out in the bedroom and that I wasn’t the first girl to tell him this. I felt so sick and so guilty for not realising sooner, for not saying anything to him sooner. This was a few years ago, I recently saw the guy who assaulted me on a night out, he looked like he saw a ghost but I froze again and just asked my friends to leave, it’s not fair. It’s just not fair. I feel so much anger and it’s not fair. He is not the only man who has assaulted me but he fills me with the most anger and I don’t know why. I hate feeling this anger, I hate feeling frozen, I hate wishing bad upon a person the way I wish bad upon him. I am not one who runs from confrontation usually but I had to run from him, I had to leave and cry on the phone and gulp water. Then walk past him again in the smoking area wishing I could shout that man is a rapist, but instead I walk past not looking back in case he sees me again, I swallow my anger. I worry that I don’t fit the bill of a “perfect” victim but I know now none of it was my fault, it was all his. I feel hopeless sometimes, but I guess getting to talk about it like this helps, it really helps.

I’m not sure how old I was when I was sa’d, my memories from my childhood are mostly blurry but there are few moments that I just remember clearly. I was little, I think about first or second grade maybe, 7/8, I know at that time I didn’t have a phone or ipad or anything like that, my parents would sometimes let me watch tv. I had a cousin who I would often sleep over at, we were kind of best friends and she had an older brother (i think he is 2/3 years older dunno weren’t in contact for long). I know I thought he was super cool, he already could read hard books and had phone and played games, idk what excatly led to my sa and idk how it happened but i just remember this one memory of my aunt asking me if I want to sleep with my cousin or my cousins brother, and I remember her brother just kept saying that I should sleep with hum that it’s gonna be fun, and I said yes, and I climbed into his bed and we were supposed to sleep next to each other but instead he pulled my clothes off and just touched me under the blanket, i did not understand what was happening, i was just glad he letted me play games at his phone and look through his books that had pretty pictures in them. I don’t know how many times this could have happened, i definitely think a few it’s just that i can’t say a straight number because my memories are mixed up. I know that one time he forced me to lay in bed with him while watching some cartoons on the tv and he forced ne to take off my pants and then he would do it to and he would touch it and ask id it felt nice, and then he would just tell me to lay on top of him so we would touch and stuff, i want even uncomfy back then i generally didn’t know what was happening (i never got any sex education or puberty education book, my parents also did not explain stuff) so at that age i seriously did not know a thing. its weird because, i realized what happened only years later when i was jn pool in swimsuit (i was around ten) and one of my other cousins jokingly touched my private parts, i remember feeling disgusted and weirded out because at that time I had at least bit of awarness of it being wrong, I know I cried that day a lot. I remember at 13 when i read online that girls who turn 15 go to gynaecologist and they can find out if youre still a virgin or smth and i remember being scared of them finding out about what happened when i was younger. i somehow wish this never happened, it was such a little thing, it wasnt violent as others, i wasnt hurt or anything, but i still suffer, i used to be afraid of men, then hating them, constant problems with my gender, sometimes i feel like my body isnt really mine anymore, its just an object, a plastic mannequin. I used to hate people touching me including mz mom and others, for long long time the only physical affection a person would get from me would be a hand-shake. i was disgusted by thought of kissing or hugging. I used to vomit when someone remained me of my sexual trauma. like a dog when u tell him “sit” i would vomit just like that. And now, i just, can’t even date anyone, i dont think i ever will be able. well that was enough of a ramble… i just wanted to type it here but it ended up longer then expected.

I can't remember all of it. I didn't remember it at all until a few years later, when it all came flooding back. I was back in my bedroom at my parents' house, I had woken up early and I saw the dim light of morning through my window blinds. Suddenly, it was like I was right back there. The only part that is still clear (and always has been) is how after, he asked me "Why did you try to push me off?" He never mentioned how I asked him to stop. I told him "Because I wanted you to stop." and he shrugged while walking to the shower. I didn't move from the bed. When it happened, I didn't understand consent. I was 16 and thought it couldn't be a crime because I initially consented, he was my boyfriend, he loved me, and more importantly, I loved him. It wasn't violent, so it was easy to tell myself that it was just a miscommunication. Again, he said he loved me, and I couldn't fathom how someone who loved another would willfully harm them. I dated him on and off for another year. I fell a part whenever we broke up. I needed him to love me so I could continue ignoring what I desperately wanted to deny. Whenever we'd had sex after (many of our "dates" were just him driving me to a dark street, having sex, and him bringing me home), I'd cry almost hysterically. I didn't understand why that happened, and he never asked if I was alright. He'd side-eye me from the driver's seat and I'd pretend to not notice his judgement. After I'd remembered it (2~ years after the fact), my mother watched a news story of a woman who had been assaulted and waited years to disclose. "She's obviously lying. Why bring it up now?" I felt stricken and bold, so I asked how she'd react if I was that woman. She said "You'd never wait that long to tell someone." I am now 20, and my mother still doesn't know. I don't think she ever will. I was deeply hurt when I heard this, but I've realized with time that this situation is extremely complex. So complex, that even those who've experienced it (& as a result, understand it more than most) still struggle to comprehend it. My mother's ignorant and cruel words are from her lack of experience with this topic, and that is a blessing. My memory is still hazy and will likely be forever, but regardless of how poorly detailed my memory is, I know I was raped & that what happened to me was wrong. I can see the consequences of it now. My rapist doesn't know he's a rapist and it's been far too long for me to be able to stand up for myself. No court will aid me, I cannot loose my anger on him (I couldn't contact him if I wanted to & I don't.), and I cannot tell those around me without blowing up my life. I have shockwaves on consequence, and he does not. Even still, I refuse to allow that pathetic man's actions harm me further. Progress is not linear and I am doing fine. I am struggling, but I am coping, I am surviving and soon, I may be thriving. My body is mine, and I say this with a renewed fierceness.

I am a survivor of what I believe to be therapist abuse, emotional manipulation, and grooming behaviors from LCSW, which I experienced while undergoing K Assisted Psychotherapy. I came to the center in my city, full of hope that I would get to access this kind of therapy as a lifelong, low-income person who has experienced immense trauma starting at the age of two. I had heard of the benefits and life-changing experiences that others had experienced with this type of therapy and was hoping for the same. Without access to the sliding scale cost model that the center was offering LGBT+ and BIPOC, I would have never been able to afford a therapy like this. I was hopeful to be able to access this therapy and would check in regularly about my place on the waitlist. FOR THE READER'S INFORMATION: COMMON REACTIONS TO SEXUAL MISCONDUCT BY A THERAPIST If a therapist has engaged in any sexual behavior or contact with you, you may experience some or all of the following feelings or reactions: Intimidated or threatened. Guilt and responsibility—even though it is the therapist’s responsibility to keep sexual behavior out of therapy. Mixed feelings about the therapist—e.g., protectiveness, anger, love, betrayal. Isolation and emptiness. Distrust of others’ feelings or intentions or your feelings. Fearful that no one will believe you. Feeling victimized or violated. Experiencing traumatic symptoms, e.g., anxiety, nightmares, obsessive thoughts, depression, or suicidal or homicidal thoughts. Before Intake, Admin told me I would have a psychological evaluation with a psychiatrist. INTAKE I arrived for my psychological intake, where LCSW accessed me. I was surprised to learn he was not a psychiatrist. I had seen LCSW in the main lobby as he hurried towards the elevator as I was reading the board to find the suite Location was in. I joined LCSW in the elevator, and he asked what floor I was going to. I said,” 4, the same as you, were probably going to the same place”. I made that assumption on how LCSW looked, as I assumed the guy with long died hair probably had something to do with psychedelics. We both ended up at the the center, where he instructed me on how to use the call button and told me to expect the admin to grab me from the waiting room soon. This appointment seemed pretty standard, so he asked me some basic questions and reviewed some basics of KAP therapy. I remember discussing my yoga practice and studies in herbalism, and he asked me what inspired that path. I told him my honest answer was a bit embarrassing as I was 15 and was first introduced to yoga in a small town in State when reading about it in Seventeen magazine and had read an interview with a yogi. I also said that I thought the yogi was attractive, which probably caught my attention. LCSW responded to this by saying. “Likely.” I found his response to be a bit demeaning. He didn’t understand the complexity of being raised in isolation in a place that lacked a diversity of culture and could only connect to the outside world through old magazines that my friends would hand down to me at school. At the end of this appointment. He told me that I would get a list of therapists and that I would get to pick from that list. I later received an email from LCSW: “Great news, I will be your therapist.” This felt uncomfortable to me for a few reasons: the inconsistency in the information I was told about choosing my therapist made me nervous, and I usually avoid working with male/male-bodied therapists due to significant traumas I have experienced from being raped, objectified, and brutally attacked by men. I chose to trust the process and hoped that this might be an opportunity to experience healing and safety with a male-bodied person who would hopefully be safe with me. LCSW told me we had to reschedule the first preparation appointment due to an emergency. As I tried to walk away unbothered by the random emergency, he stopped me and apologized multiple times, and I thought it strange that he would spend so much time apologizing to me if there was an emergency. PREP 1 My preparation appointments with LCSW were bizarre. My first couple of appointments discussed the possibility of therapeutic touch, what therapeutic touch is, and informed consent. I found it odd how much time was spent on these subjects; this was discussed at length during all three preparation appointments. I had done a lot of somatic healing bodywork with a physical therapist, and these conversations were not new to me. Still, I was uncomfortable with the amount of time and number of times this was brought up during preparation. PREP 2 LCSW discussed therapeutic touch again at great length. He claimed to be trained in somatics. LCSW said to me, “ I am your therapist for only a short amount of time, so we can do ANYTHING you want.” LCSW said to me, “ I know I am your therapist, but I want you to have as much power as you want.” LCSW asked me how I felt about therapeutic touch. I let LCSW know I was uncomfortable with touch in any capacity and would prefer to be given physical distance as much as possible. I told LCSW that I, historically, would avoid touch in any capacity throughout my life and gave examples of how I place pillows between myself and my friends when I sit on couches next to them. LCSW asked me if I was comfortable with him suggesting to me that I could touch myself. I felt uncomfortable with how he worded this but didn’t react. For example, he said some patients have tremors uncontrollably and can be instructed to place their hands on their arms. I told him I did not want him to make these suggestions. LCSW asked me what the thought of being touched felt in my body. He asked if this felt squirmy, and I said yes. During my preparation appointments, LCSW acted like he was some kind of drug dealer and made it seem like he would be involved in how many mg of K would be prescribed to me from the pharmacy. He asked me during each session how many milligrams I would want. He said I got to choose up to 600mg per session. I asked if I was prescribed 600mg each session and if I would have to take all of it during the session if I decided not to. He said I could do this. I asked for the max prescription, and he told me I could be prescribed 250mg. This was another example of him offering me a choice (like choosing my therapist) and then taking that choice away. He then asked me again how much I wanted to be prescribed in the following session. I remember this session was in person. I told him I wanted to be prescribed the high end of what is normal, and he said he would go with that. I was made aware that the dosage is prescribed by the prescribing doctor, Prescribing Doctor, and there is a standard dosage that most patients are prescribed with a max dosage of 400mg. LCSW disclosed his gender identity to me and asked me if I had a preference in how he would present himself during our sessions because sometimes he wears dresses and glitter. I asked if he was asking about my comfort with my gender expression. He assured me that was not what he was asking about and, instead, wanted to know if I would be more comfortable with one of his gender expressions over another, and I let him know that I didn’t think it mattered. I found this conversation beyond strange and uncomfortable. I’ve been in therapy since I was 18, and I have never had a therapist behave in the ways I convey with LCSW and found him to be strange, unpredictable, over-sharing, and unsafe. Before my final in-person preparation appointment, LCSW informed me that he had moved his office to a different location in the center because it was larger. PREP 3 LCSW quickly allowed me access from the waiting room on this day. Almost immediately after I pressed the button on the wall, I could hear his footsteps coming down the hallway, and this made me uncomfortable as most therapists or doctors that I have worked with allow for 1-5 minutes to pass before greeting me in the waiting room. I felt LCSW was unusually excited or rushed about my arrival. LCSW had warned me in the previous preparation appointment that he had moved offices because the new office was larger. I was highly uncomfortable with the move when I saw his office. I froze in the doorway. He moved his office to the center's most private and secluded area. The new office seemed smaller. A reclined chair in his old office was available for the KAP therapy, which felt safe. The chair was not in his new office, and my options for where to lay down during my KAP therapy were a couch that I was much too tall for or a mattress on the ground. I felt unsafe laying on a mattress with LCSW in the room, but I thought I had no choice. I had experienced so much seductive and inappropriate behavior with him that discovering I would not have a reclined chair and would be isolated in the building was devastating news to me. The fact that his new office did not have room for the antigravity chair in his old office was an example of how this move was not due to the office being larger than he claimed. I had brought gifts for LCSW for the Winter Solstice. I had gifted him a piece of mushroom art made with layers of paper and a mushroom hairpin that my coworker made. These items were kept on a shelf in his office for all of my following sessions. I wasn’t aware that therapists are not supposed to accept gifts from their clients. LCSW was overly excited about the gifts. During our in-person preparation session, LCSW would ask me questions unrelated to my therapy. Do you like guacamole? Do you enjoy Role-Play Board Games? When I asked why he asked me these questions, he answered, “I’m trying to understand your resources.” After initially reporting him to my doctor, I discovered his dating profile while listing his display name, “Guacamole,” and his interests, “Role-play Board Games.” Now, I wonder if he was spending my sessions with me trying to gauge our compatibility for dating. LCSW would be extremely flirtatious with me. He would have his long hair up in a bun, pull it out slowly, groom it with his fingers, and display it in front of his shoulders, all while batting his eyes at me. Both times he did this, I went into shutdown. I would avoid eye contact, look at the floor, hunch, and move my body in the opposite direction, showing my physical discomfort. I would be talking about something both times he did this, and each time, I lost my words and stopped talking as a part of the shutdown state of my nervous system. This flirting with his hair happened on PREP 3 and KAP 1. One session was a preparation appointment, and the second time was before I was administered K for my KAP session. I asked LCSW if people clench their jaw while on K as I often have a lot of jaw tension and use a nightguard at night. He shared with me that his other clients who are “guarded” usually feel more relaxed on K and that often the jaw relaxes, but he let me know I could bring my guard if I wanted. I remember not liking that LCSW had indirectly called me guarded, but he was not wrong about that assessment. I had learned to be guarded to protect myself from people, especially harmful people like LCSW, who were unpredictable and unregulated. As I think back to this interaction, I wish I had been able to remain guarded around LCSW, which was not possible for me while on a psychedelic. LCSW asked me during an in-person preparation appointment if I had been hypnotized and if it worked. LCSW would use Neurological Language Processing on me to try and seduce me and make me think about sex during two of my sessions, PREP 3 & KAP 1. When he gave directions for taking the K medication, he would speak at a regular pace until he got to the part of the directions that directed me that I could spit or swallow the K. Specifically, the words “spit and swallow” were slowed down to an unusually slow pace, and he would stare into my eyes with intensity when he said those words slowly. He would slow that part of the directions down to a slow pace, all while making intense eye contact that made me highly uncomfortable. He did this during my last preparation appointment and also during my first appointment with the K. During these experiences, with the sexual and seductive nature of the emphasis of these words, while giving me directions, I would go into shutdown. I would look away and disengage with LCSW during these interactions. I was feeling highly unsafe, overwhelmed, confused, and afraid. KAP 1 During my first KAP appointment, LCSW welcomed me from the waiting room, pressed the switch on the wall, and looked around the room as usual. He would typically follow me down the hallway to his office, which made me uncomfortable as I have been stalked coming home at night off the bus countless times. In any capacity, I will avoid having any persons behind me as I feel safer when I can see people and when I have enough physical distance to run or defend myself if I can see signs of aggression in a person. I was surprised that LCSW would walk closely behind a person with PTSD, and I felt he had minimal experience working with people with PTSD and didn’t understand trauma-informed care. Most trauma-informed professionals I work with would check in with me regularly about what I was comfortable with. Before working with LCSW, I’d never had a doctor or staff walk so closely behind me. For example, I have had Doctors ask me if I am more comfortable sitting in a chair that faces the door instead of having the door behind me, and LCSW never checked in with me about any of these things. I was violently attacked for asking a 300lb man to try and be quiet so that I could sleep. I struggled to ask for what I needed to feel safe and comfortable from men after this experience, and I did not feel safe asking LCSW not to walk behind me or continue invading my personal space. While being let into the center, I stood behind him with as much physical distance as possible and waited for him to finish so I could follow him down the hall. He instructed me to walk down the hallway to his office and followed me closely. I entered LCSW’s dark office with the blinds closed. I felt uncomfortable immediately but was trying to manage my fear and stress the best I could as I was so dedicated to healing with K Assisted Psychotherapy and was looking to this therapy as my last hope after having tried everything with a slow, painful progress that had many setbacks as I struggled to avoid people like LCSW in my life who prioritize their desires over my well-being. We were in the center alone during all my appointments except the intake. There were no other therapists or admin. My KAP appointments were scheduled at the end of the day in the winter, so it was often already dark outside. I have since learned that being so isolated and having appointments late in the day are red flags. I was moving and brought in a book from my personal library to give to LCSW. On Book Name. LCSW responded to this by saying, “That’s really sweet.” This book lived on his bookshelf in following appointments. LCSW let me know I could set up my altar items at the end of his table and that he was going to the restroom and would be right back. I would like to mention that LCSW often seemed very different after visiting the bathroom. I suspected he was struggling with drug abuse and addiction, as when he went more than a few hours without a restroom break, he would look awful with sunken eyes with dark circles under them. He would get sweaty and look generally ill, and the only time I have seen anything like this was when I was around a family member who was experiencing opioid addiction. I was recovering from my KAP session when he looked ill to me, so it might have something to do with the medication or lighting. When LCSW returned from the bathroom, he walked right behind me while I was on my knees setting up my altar. I began physically shaking when he walked behind me because I feared him. I was visibly shaking, and LCSW started blowing air forcibly out of his nose multiple times, loudly. He was standing right behind me as I was visibly shaking and without tissue or covering his face. He blew out of his nostrils very forcefully multiple times until I froze. Then, I slowly turned my head in his direction and asked him, “Do you have allergies?” He said, “No, I have_____.” I can’t remember the condition he stated he had, but I remember it included something nasal-related to his nose. After asking this question to him, he immediately stopped with the weird, aggressive nose forceful exhalation. I never saw him do any weird breathing at any other time. I believe he did this to distract me from my body shaking and to gain sympathy from me as a form of emotional manipulation. My body was showing me how unsafe I felt, and I believe that LCSW wanted to distract me or was threatened by this. He then asked me to share the items for my altar with him. LCSW, told me he had to read my blood pressure. I was wearing a thick sweater and tried to pull the sleeve up high enough to be able to wrap the band around my arm. I could not pull the arm up high enough and asked LCSW if he could just put the band over my sweater. He said no and asked if that was okay. I sighed with disappointment and removed my sweater. Underneath my sweater, I wore a crop top/tank top shirt with no bra because I was instructed to dress comfortably. I was not comfortable with being so exposed around LCSW after experiencing so much harmful sexual behavior from him. Still, I was so desperate to receive this K Assisted Psychotherapy treatment that I was trying my best to cope with the harm I was experiencing. LCSW helped to wrap the band for the blood pressure reader around my arm. He did this very slowly. When he went to press the velcro together on the band, he used the tips of his two fingers, pointer & middle finger, and slowly pushed the velcro together with his two fingertips like this. This was taking forever and was very inappropriate and sexually charged. At this point, I got angry with LCSW. I audibly sighed with anger and frustration, and LCSW recognized this. He stopped petting my arm and took a step back. He told me to uncross my legs. He stood on the other side of the room and stared at the wall as the automatic blood pressure reader read my blood pressure. The machine went off with three beeps, and LCSW was still staring at the wall, completely disassociated. LCSW administered the K to me and did the creepy “spit or swallow” thing after this. He then helped me get onto the mattress and tucked me in, touching my body while tucking me in around my arms and legs. I remember having a difficult time relaxing or feeling comfortable during this appointment. I did not want to wear my eyemask or the noise-canceling headphones because I didn’t feel safe with LCSW and wanted to be aware of my surroundings as much as possible. I remember looking down at my body multiple times to make sure he wasn’t touching me. After about an hour into the session, I let LCSW know I had to use the restroom. LCSW helped me and told me we would have to walk slowly to the bathroom as I lacked balance. Someone from one of the other offices was walking behind us. I got into the bathroom and used one of the stalls. I sat there after finishing, not wanting to come out because I was so afraid of being around LCSW. The person who walked behind us to the bathrooms was also in the restroom in one of the other stalls. As she went to leave, she probably noticed that I was sitting in a stall and not doing anything. She asked me if I was okay, and I said yes. As we walked back, I exited the bathroom and noticed that LCSW was holding my hand, which I found very confusing. LCSW helped me back onto the mattress, tucked me into my blankets again, and touched my body on my arms and legs again. LCSW violated my informed consent by holding my hand and touching me while tucking me into my blanket while I was on K. I had clearly stated to LCSW that I did not want him to touch me in any way. I had a little loss of coordination but generally was fine walking on my own, and I did not need LCSW to hold my hand to “help” me. I was in an open and loving state of mind while on the medication, and this experience is when things got confusing for me. I knew I felt Uncomfortable with the unusual attention he was giving me and with the seductive and flirtatious behaviors he exhibited before taking K with him. This was the first time those feelings confused me, and a part of me liked how it felt to have this attention while under a psychedelic. These feelings caused me internal distress. After returning to the room, I tried to relax into my experience. I experienced a body sensation that reminded me of my body sensation when I had an out-of-body experience where you tense up right before leaving your body. I heard LCSW say, “There you go.” This freaked me out and took me out of my experience. I remember fidgeting my body after this. His comment felt like it was sexual to me. LCSW checked his laptop during my first KAP appointment and often texted someone through iMessage. As soon as the music ended, LCSW said my name “Name.” This jolted me out of my relaxed state. He told me he needed to use the restroom, and I asked him to bring me some water. When he returned, I had moved to the couch, and he responded to this move by saying, Woah. We chatted about my experience, as I didn’t feel like talking while on the medication. He then checked in with me and told me it was 515pm. Fifteen minutes later than when our appointment was supposed to end. I had arranged transportation and was shocked by how late our appointment had gone. I scrambled to get my things together to get to my ride in time. LCSW told me that I should plan to have my transportation picked up 15 minutes after our sessions, but this should have been communicated to me beforehand. I have since learned that therapists extending your appointment time past when it is supposed to end is a red flag. INTEGRATION 1 This was my first integration appointment. LCSW asked me how I was doing, and I said, “Fine.” He asked me to use a different adjective, and I told him I was feeling a lot. During this appointment, I went through my backpack, looked for my journal, and pulled out my headphones in their case in front of LCSW. He responded to seeing these headphones with an angry sigh. I shared some of the things I journaled about, and he seemed impressed by what I had written. I shared with LCSW about an oracle deck I had used the night after the first KAP session. I shared a card I pulled the night after my first KAP appointment while asking, “How can LCSW help me.” I read the description of the card I had pulled: “angel’s trumpet.” He got down on his knees and moved towards me with a coffee table in between us. He told me the reading resonated with him. I asked him how so, and he talked about his cornerstone of death work as the card description discussed how this card was related to hospice workers, which LCSW shared with me he had done before his current job. I resonated more with aspects of the reading that mentioned a seductive nature as I felt he had been sexually inappropriate with me, but I did not share that with him. He asked to see the cards' box and got loud and excited about my deck. “THERE’S A MAGIKAL BOTANICAL ORACLE DECK!” I often found LCSW’s energy to be unpredictable. He would, at times, use his therapist's voice and then have these excited or angry outbursts. He asked me if he could take a photo of the deck, and I said that was fine. After this first integration appointment, I felt a lot of shame and anxiety around having the headphones that I perceived LCSW had gotten angry about. He might be mad at me for seeking sliding scale services while having expensive headphones. I got these noise-canceling headphones as a self-care item for myself when I thought I would be undergoing KAP therapy while living with my ex, who would slam doors and move around the house angrily. I got these headphones to help me eliminate that noise and feel a sense of safety for integration. I felt so much anxiety and shame around my perception of LCSW being angry with me that I impulsively made a $500 donation to the center that I requested my employer match. My company later agreed to match my donation. I could not afford this donation, but I wanted to feel like LCSW was not angry with me for using the sliding scale services. the center later refunded my donation after reporting the harm. I requested this reimbursement, which I was grateful for as this was not a donation I was in any financial situation to make, and it was made on credit. I had made sure this donation was made privately and chose not to share my name as a donor with the center as I didn’t want LCSW to mention this to me because I didn’t want to talk about this uncomfortable situation with him. LCSW's phone was going off with a bell sound at the end of the session, and he apologized multiple times for this and said it shouldn’t be going off while he was messing with his phone. INTEGRATION 2 The second K appointment was canceled because LCSW had gotten sick. He had canceled an earlier preparation appointment because he had COVID, and I remember thinking he gets sick a lot. He wanted to keep our integration appointment and schedule it virtually, so we met via Google Meet. In his email coordinating this with me, he stated he would still “love” to have a virtual appointment. I didn’t like his use of the word love. He started the virtual appointment by overly complimenting my hair and telling me it looked good multiple times, making me uncomfortable. I remember I gave a cold and short “thanks.” He told me I had transformer hair and asked if I had recently changed my hair. I told him no, I was just wearing my hair up. I thought to myself that he was weird to make such a big deal about my hair and that I had worn my hair up around him before. In the background of his call was his bed in his bedroom, which I thought was strange and inappropriate. REACHING OUT FOR HELP On the evening a few days following integration 2, I asked my friend and mentor, a Naturopath Doctor, for advice. We scheduled an on-call, and I shared my concerns about this therapist. I wasn’t sure if I should approach LCSW with my fears about his behavior. She was extremely upset about the information I was sharing about my experience. She shared her knowledge about ethics as a provider and told me that this behavior was highly inappropriate and that she was worried about me. I remember her yelling out, “Don’t mess with my girl, fucker.” She asked me if I thought he was a predator. We came up with a plan that I would write out my concerns about LCSW’s behavior and share them with him during my next appointment. I did write this all out in my journal that evening. With Doctor's wisdom, I began to see that while experiencing this inappropriate behavior from LCSW before and during the altered state I was in using K, I had developed an addiction to the dysfunctional emotional state I would enter into when I experienced this abuse. I had been starving myself after my first KAP appointment, feeling high off the inappropriate attention, and having confusing feelings after experiencing the boundary crossing while on a psychedelic. I felt like the experience with LCSW was confusing my feelings surrounding love and solidifying my prior experiences that love is abuse. I was abusing myself, thinking I was loving myself. I wanted to look good, and since the abuse I experienced during my last preparation appointment at the end of Month, I had dropped four pant sizes. I was rapidly losing weight, which was noticed by my other care providers, who mentioned the change in weight to me. Since writing this in my journal and approaching my second KAP appointment, I have become very nervous about approaching LCSW with my concerns. I did not want to have this confrontation with him. I decided the night before that I was not going to read this to him unless there was another boundary crossing or sexually inappropriate interaction. KAP 2 Toward the beginning of my second KAP appointment, I asked LCSW about a stuffed animal bat he had on his bookshelf. He went into a very long-winded description of this bat. While looking at the bat in my opposite direction, he said that the wings were the PRIDE flag and the ears were the polyamorous flag. After sharing the polyamorous flag ears, he looked his right shoulder in my direction. I was staring at the wall across from me. I was worried about his intentions behind basically telling me that he is polyamorous. KAP 2 and integration 3. During these appointments, LCSW was more professional. He left his hair in a bun. He didn’t emphasize “spit or swallow.” He was normal when reading my blood pressure. I was so grateful that he had finally changed his behavior and respected these boundaries. I felt like he finally recognized how these behaviors affected me. I just had to manage my conflicting feelings around a part of me that felt like I had become addicted to this inappropriate attention. I was compassionate towards myself about that as I knew it made sense why I felt this way, that my experience was confusing, and that the psychedelic experience opened me up to feeling loving and caring to the therapist who I was feeling so unsafe with prior. I knew I could get help with this from my regular therapist and planned to discuss this during our next session. LCSW asked if I wanted the eye shade and headphones this time. I said I wanted to try them because hearing the lady in the room who shared a wall with LCSW, who worked with a different organization, and hearing him talk during my session last time was distracting. He said, “Yeah, I’m sorry about that.” LCSW was still sick during this appointment and was wearing a mask. I was annoyed that he was coughing during my experience, and I found that distracting even with the headphones. At the end of this session, I gave LCSW a gift of a mullein tincture that I had ethically wildcrafted from the wilderness, extracted, and offered him a chance to try it. He asked me how to take it, and I shared the standard dosage of three dropper fulls three times a day and let him know to discontinue use if he had any side effects and when he no longer has symptoms of illness. Again, at the end of our appointment, we ended 15 minutes late. INTEGRATION 3 During our last session, I asked LCSW if he had tried the mullein tincture. He told me that he had taken it home, was using the standard tincture dosage, and was enjoying it. LCSW asked how it felt to have him respect my boundaries. He asked me this because he chose to be professional during one of our sessions. I told him I wasn’t sure if that was possible, but I was grateful for how he showed up yesterday. I had processed some of the imagery or hallucinations I experienced in KAP 2, including my cat, who had passed OE. I shared with LCSW how I chose OE because she was the only kitten in the litter who seemed to want me to hold her. He responded to this story by saying, “You picked each other.” I found his wording and response odd and worried that he was hoping that I would pick him in response to him picking himself as my therapist and picking me for a patient to be inappropriate with. I shared with LCSW that I was surprised that I did not feel a dissociative effect with K. I shared that I could feel my body more than I ever had before, and I was curious about this because I had spent most of my life dissociated from my body due to trauma. I gave examples of how other drugs would work oppositely for me than the general public. He responded to this by calling me an anomaly. I found this odd as I always thought that these effects were due to me being neurodivergent. For many people with ADHD, coffee can make them sleepy. I was uncomfortable with LCSW making comments like I was unique or one of a kind, and I didn’t think that was a healthy mindset I was seeking for myself. LCSW asked me to share something coming up that I wasn’t sure I felt safe talking about with LCSW. I told LCSW I was uncomfortable talking about this with him because he is a male-bodied person and because we had a weird dynamic. He nodded and said yes, I am a male-bodied person. I worded this like that because LCSW shared with me that he identifies as non-binary, so I did not want to refer to him as a man out of respect. I told LCSW about how I would wake up to my ex-boyfriend on top of me many times and how, eventually, I developed an injury from this repeated trauma that made it so I was unable to have sex without experiencing a lot of pain. LCSW had an angry outburst at this news and told me that I was raped and that it wasn’t consensual, and Name was loud and angry. This made me highly uncomfortable, and I shut down. LCSW asked me for the name of the man who did this to me. I gave him the name, and then I started to defend the person who did this to me because I don’t think LCSW took the time to understand the layers of this trauma, how much I loved the person who did this to me, and what factors were involved (alcohol) that made this person do things they wouldn’t normally do. LCSW started to calm down after this, as his anger triggered me. LCSW said he believed good people do bad things. LCSW asked me what gym I go to during this meeting. After reporting LCSW, I saw one of the therapists that worked for him at my gym, during a queer event, and I felt highly anxious that he was having people watch me. I have been going to this gym for seven years and have never seen this therapist before. At the end of the appointment, I offered LCSW a cottonwood bud oil extract that I had ethically wildcrafted from the wilderness and processed and extracted. I let him know, and it was labeled for external use only. I told him it was nice on this skin but that it should be tested on a small piece of skin first. He was grateful for this gift from me. He did not inform me that accepting patient gifts was inappropriate and did not uphold professional boundaries. I was not aware of these boundaries and ethics around gift-giving until after initially reporting sexual misconduct. I have text evidence about my ride from KAP 2. These texts were oddly missing from my text history, so my friend sent me screenshots of the messages she had on her phone. REACHING OUT FOR HELP & SUPPORT My friend who I first told about that harm I was experiencing followed up with the morning after KAP 2. After my integration appointment, I spoke with a friend at the sauna at my gym who went to school to become an LCSW and shared my experience with her. She told me that he had violated the code of ethics and that I was highly vulnerable. She then shared with me that her psilocybin guide had slept with her during their work together and that she had stopped her treatment with him. She asked me if I thought this was the first time he had done something like this. I had a panic attack in the locker room of my gym after talking to my friend. A week after KAP 2, I then shared my experience with my regular therapist, who also asked if I thought I was the first person he behaved this way with. She also informed that he had clear ethical codes. I had a panic attack during this session. The questions about LCSW being a predator remained in my mind. I knew his behavior as a therapist was inappropriate, and I wondered if the sometimes subtle nature of the experience and strange experience with his directions of “spit and swallow” could be accidental, especially when he repeated these behaviors even after I went into a shutdown state during my first experience with this behavior. I spent most of the night researching this kind of abuse. I am good at hyper-fixating and spending many hours researching a subject, quickly learning everything I can about it. I found many articles about grooming behaviors from therapists and emotional manipulation/therapy abuse that I felt uncomfortable with and how much I relate to them. These articles discuss the alleviation of symptoms of depression for victims due to the addictive nature of this inappropriate attention. I was pissed. I wanted to heal my brain, and I could not allow that to be based on a temporary response to the inappropriate attention I was receiving. I then read about how therapists sometimes adjust their behavior, becoming more professional after the patient shows some attachment or addiction to this behavior. The theory is that the patient will then approach the therapist and make the situation feel like a victim desires to have inappropriate interactions. I could not allow a situation like this when I had been so dedicated to healing for so many years of my life. I was highly agitated after learning more about this kind of abuse. I knew at this point that I was being deeply harmed and abused to an extent I couldn’t be fully aware of without the support of the people I spoke to about it and the knowledge of how this abuse affects victims. I planned to give myself time to process this new information before taking action. A week and one day after KAP 2, I had panic attacks in the waiting room of my doctor's office because I was struggling with the experience I had with LCSW and the knowledge I gained about the abuse I was experiencing. The doctor asked me about my experience with KAP, as I had listed K on my medications. It took me about an hour to tell her about my experience, but eventually, I was able to get it out of me between the tears and panic attacks. I did not want to report this to the doctor. I knew she would have to report him. I knew I would have to stop my therapy, and I did not want to give up this opportunity for KAP therapy. At the time, I also did not want to get LCSW in trouble, and a part of me felt incredibly guilty for telling this doctor about my experience. She was so amazing through this process. She spent about 2 hours with me, supporting me by sharing my experience. I had chosen this doctor for her indication of being trauma-informed; she had been patient, helpful, and understanding. She told me that I didn’t do anything wrong as I expressed my shame about how my feelings were confused once I had used a psychedelic with LCSW. She helped me come up with a safety plan. I knew I was in a very fragile state and thought it would be wise to have someone hold onto my K. She reached out to my doctors with my permission. She was able to get ahold of Prescribing Doctor, the prescribing doctor. On the day of my initial report to my doctor, I spoke to Prescribing Doctor on the phone, who works with Name. Prescribing Doctor is the prescribing doctor and is a part of the leadership team at the center. I was uncomfortable during this phone call with Prescribing Doctor; her tone was delighted and cheery. She told me she was in the middle of the forest in Locationwith joy and excitement. Her cheerful tone seemed highly inappropriate, given the circumstances, as I had just spent the day having panic attacks due to being groomed by her coworker. Later. I met with Prescribing Doctor in person. I asked Prescribing Doctor what was next after I reported the sexual misconduct. I shared with Prescribing Doctor how LCSW would disrespect my boundaries and continue to do so after I shut down in his office. Prescribing Doctor responded to this by saying, “he missed it.” I shrugged my shoulders in response. She reacted to my shrugging my shoulders by getting wide-eyed. Her reaction made me feel crazy and like she did not believe me. Prescribing Doctor then offered me a facilitated dialog with LCSW LCSW and offered that LCSW could bring the items I left in his office to my home, but I did not want that. I confirmed I did not feel comfortable having LCSW come to my house. It was an incredibly inappropriate thing even to suggest. Prescribing Doctor's notes do not include that the offering and idea of a facilitated dialog was her idea as a response to me asking what is next after reporting the sexual misconduct. She ignores my requests for this detail to be added to my record. The notes make it seem like it was my idea, which is not the case. I had no idea what a facilitated dialog even was before her offering it to me. Prescribing Doctor agreed to hold onto my medication and I could have it back whenever I felt ready. She later refused this unless I signed an NDA/release of all claims and when I shared my story more widely I was retaliated against and she claims she did this because I shared my experience of SI. I later was made aware that I wouldn't be able to take my life with K and that it is safe for this reason, and I would likely just take a long nap. I also had not had any thoughts about using K to hurt myself. I was later offered the facilitated dialog again with the Location team as part of a social justice framework. Cofounder and Psychiatrist informed me they could not provide it due to their insurance. That news was devastating, and I drove to a bridge to jump off it the next day but wasn’t brave enough to do so. I felt like the center had no idea how to handle my experience and report and was in a position to respond to it with care, and having something else offered to me by them and then taken away was traumatic. I think I held on to hope that I would get some kind of justice in the way that they had offered it to me, and having it taken away after experiencing something that broke me on a mental, physical, and spiritual level was not something I was in any position to handle. I was told multiple times over the course of reporting sexual misconduct by LCSW that the center and Prescribing Doctor had reported the sexual misconduct I experienced. It was only after some probing that I was made aware that any details regarding my experience had to come from me directly to the board and I felt that them not disclosing this to me without probing was a manipulation tactic to make me believe that the reporting was taken care of. I felt like the center was unwilling to uphold their signing of this document because they did not believe me. They allowed LCSW to continue to work in a leadership position. I have reported LCSW to the LCSW report and am sending this document to the LCSW Social Work Board in State. I have received support from SHINE and joined their peer support group for survivors of psychedelic harm. I am still seeking a regular therapist and am no longer working with my prior regular therapist due to her eating lunch during the last two therapy appointments. I have become hypervigilant for any signs of unprofessionalism from my care team after this sexual misconduct I experienced from LCSW. This experience with LCSW and the leadership team at the center of my city, has devastated my well-being. I came close to jumping off a bridge the day after getting the news about no longer being offered the Facilitated dialog. I have lost my trust in all people and my care team. I stepped away from therapy as I no longer feel safe in these dynamics. I fired all of my doctors and therapists. I started smoking cigarettes to try and help cope with the stress. Most days, I hope to die and don’t wish to continue living. I have angry outbursts where I would act on urges and exhibit behaviors that are abnormal for me. I lost all will to live, and most days, I don’t have the energy to care for myself. I would be amazed if I didn’t end up taking my own life in the next two years. The few people who care for me don’t know how to help me and comment on how hopeless I seem. Some of the people closest to me have stopped answering my calls or texts because they don’t know how to help me, and I have been in crisis for many days since Jan. 26th. I am trying many new psychiatric medications that are not helping me. The center and LCSW entirely abandoned me. I was not allowed to speak to LCSW. I had to wait many weeks between emails from the center. I was denied being matched with another therapist to help me understand the changes I was experiencing after two KAP sessions and experienced such sinister abuse and trauma from LCSW. My regular therapist, tried calling Prescribing Doctor so she could get information on how to support me better, but she has yet to get a callback. I asked the center for LCSW resignation.

This whole thing started on Date, when he added me on Snapchat. I saw that we had mutual friends, so I added him back. We talked that night for a couple of hours and he made some unwelcome comments that I can't remember the details of. I did make it clear to him that I did not want anything serious or "noncommittal" at the time. We talked for a couple more days and then I noticed he unadded me on all social media. Fast forward to a couple of weeks later, on Date 2, right before I left for State, he added me back on everything, so we started talking again. I had noticed even looking back on our conversations, that he was very cautious about the conversations we had online, but in person, things escalated and he had no problem saying exactly what he thought and wanted. I came to State a week early, so I offered to help him move in when he got here. On Date 3, I helped him move his things in. He had his uncle and a friend there helping as well. After helping him move in, his uncle said that he wanted to treat me to dinner, so they both took me out to dinner. The friend did not join us. While talking, [he] made a comment asking if I had seen the movie The Nun. I said that I had not, because I am not a huge fan of scary movies. His uncle proceeded to say, "Well, with scary movies, you just have to find a guy to cuddle up with. [he] is a good cuddler!" To which [he] laughed at that comment and I nervously laughed because I was uncomfortable. While we were out at dinner, [he] hugged me a couple of times and I didn't feel the most comfortable with that, but it was just a hug, so I didn't take that much notice of it. The next night I reached out to him just to check on how he was getting all moved in. He explained that it was going well and asked if we could hang out, to which I agreed. So, he came over to my apartment and we just sat and talked for a little bit. I do remember one unsettling comment he made though. It was this: - "It’s a good thing that I’m not your mentor because we’re talking." I've now come to understand that mentors and mentees are not supposed to have relationships, hence the intention of his comment. After that night, I didn't hang out with him in person until Wednesday, Date 4, but there was moderate communication between us at that point. I reached out to him that Wednesday because I just wanted to hang out, even though there were some red flags, I didn't think that any of them were too alarming, so I reached out. So on the Date 4, I got into his car and he drove me to the frozen yogurt place. After getting in the car, he reached out his hand for me to hold. Reluctantly, I held his hand because I froze and didn't know what to do at the moment. I wasn't aware that he thought it was a date until he framed it that way later. After frozen yogurt, we headed back to our apartment complex and he parked the car. We sat there for a minute and I looked at him and he started to kiss me. Things started to escalate quickly as he began making out with me and started to touch my boobs. I was startled by this, but I let this keep going because I didn't know what else to do. At one point, a car pulled up next to us and he said "The person that just pulled up next to us just got a show." I think that we were in the car for around 15 minutes, and then after that, we parted ways. That night he messaged me saying he had fun and wanted to hang out the next day, to which I said yes. At this point, I wasn't in the best mental state and I was very vulnerable, so it felt like someone genuinely just wanted to hang out with me and that made me feel good and appreciated. So, the next day, Thursday, Date 5, I walked over to his apartment. He opened the door and greeted me with a hug and a kiss. We walked over to the couch and sat down. He waited until I sat down, so he could sit as close as he possibly could. He put on a movie and then, he initiated a makeout session. At first, it was just making out, but it quickly escalated. I don't remember the course of how everything happened, but I do remember what happened. We would be making out and he would guide my hand to touch and leave on his penis. While that would be happening, he would be making comments like "I'm almost there, keep going" over and over. Meaning that he was getting aroused and close to cumming. Another comment he made was "Do you want to see it?" (meaning his penis) and when I said no, he would keep persisting and say "Well, I'm in the mood for it." Something else that happened was that he would bring his hand on my thigh and then slowly make his way to touching my vagina. He would start to finger my vagina and I just sat there paralyzed. Whenever I would stop touching his penis, he would quickly start to move my hand back on it and say "You should do it more." I didn't want to but I was scared of what would happen if I were to stop. He also made his way up to my boobs and was touching them and squeezing them (over the shirt) and then, he proceeded to look down my shirt. After he did that, he stuck his hands up my sweatshirt and shirt and continued to touch my boobs, but under the shirt. Sometime in the conversation, he asked questions like, "Do you want to try oral?" and "Do you want to try durfing?" Both of which I replied no to, but then he asked me when I would be comfortable doing that kind of stuff, and I replied I don't know. He replied with "This weekend? Next month?" and I ultimately just had to say, we'll see. Along with these comments, he asked me how far I would be willing to go and I replied with "I don't know" because obviously, I felt stuck in the situation. His reply to this was "I obviously don’t want to go as far as sex, because I don’t want to break covenants." This is important to note because he is an endowed member of the church that I am a part of. Through these conversations in between, we would still be making out and touching inappropriately, but then, he also wanted me to get on his lap both facing him and with my back to him. When I was on his lap facing the tv, he would proceed to thrust his hips forward as if he was trying to put his penis in my butt. (This all happened while clothed, he was just trying to go as far as he could while clothed.) He also wanted me to "move my butt around in circles" when I was on his lap facing the tv. When I was on his lap facing him, he tried to do things the other way around. He would get his penis as close to my vagina while clothed as he could. This whole time I just felt numb and trapped, I didn't know what to do. He even asked me the question, "Does doing this feel wrong to you? Because this doesn’t feel wrong to me." To which I said "Yes, this does feel wrong.", but he kept going. There was also a point where I was lying on top of him and we were cuddling and then he asked me to talk dirty to him, but I didn't because I used the excuse with him that I wasn't good at it, to which he said he would demonstrate it for me. What he said as a "demonstration" was, "I can’t wait to have sex with you." When he said that, I felt even more numb and stuck. So through all of it, he was asking all of these questions and touching me inappropriately and I was praying that he wouldn't go further. The movie finished and then we went our separate ways and didn't have contact until Sunday, Date 6. The conversation just started with a simple conversation of how we were and then he asked if I wanted to "hang out" sometime this week. To which I replied with, "Actually, I need to talk to you about that." and when I sent that, he unadded me and unfollowed me on all social media. I then noticed about 20 minutes later that he added me back on Snapchat and I confronted him about what he had done and said, "If you're going to unadd me because I don't feel comfortable giving you want you want, just unadd me." and then I proceeded to block him on everything so he could not contact me. It's only been a month and a half since this happened, and I am on my healing journey, but it is hard to constantly see his truck every single day. My university is working towards a punishment for him, but I can't help but think that he will not get a big punishment, even with all this evidence stacked against him. I just want you to know that if you were sexually assaulted or raped, that it is absolutely NOT your fault that it happened to you. You are not alone and you never will be. Seeking professional help has helped me to navigate this situation and I would recommend it to you if that is what you feel like you need to do. You are amazing and you are enough. You are not whatever situation happened. You are so strong, and you've got this. I believe in you and I love you.