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Welcome to Our Wave.

This is a space where survivors of trauma and abuse share their stories alongside supportive allies. These stories remind us that hope exists even in dark times. You are never alone in your experience. Healing is possible for everyone.

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#1766

#1766
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  • “Healing means forgiving myself for all the things I may have gotten wrong in the moment.”

    Story
    From a survivor
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    Evil lives here……

    Iam a 33 year old with 3 children(2 boys and one girl) my first born son is from my previous relationship. I was a fresh graduate when i met this man that i currently have two kids with …i finished university expecting to get a job to support me and my then only son but each time i tried to look for jobs my husband discouraged me saying i would be exploited and given peanuts so to whom it was wise for me to sit home and be a wife i gave in and sat home but him satisfying my needs was always a fight i remember i asked for panties and bras for the last 6 years and nothing.everything he provides we must first have a fight and he knows so well i have no where to run to because he isolated me from my family. After moving in with him and my son he started treatung my son with so much anger he would beat,abuse and use vulgar words to him and he still does it he shows him that am not your father and only favors the kids i have with him. Mine i came with is not worthy of anything good. While i was pregnant for his son he was flirting with my sister and by this time i was not getting any financial help so i opted to go to my mothers rental and after sometime my sister disclosed to me the kind of husband i have when i confronted him about it he was too bitter and threatened to take my kids from me. When i was pregnant for my second child with him i got him with 15 girls flirting and sleeping around i was so devasted and almost lost my child due to stress i put my self together and let it go for my sake of my baby but i swore i was done with this man so i started not to pay too much attention on him and concentrated on raising my kids meanwhile i was caught up had no money of my own and had no relative in contact with i perservered and stayed to have a roof over our heads and to solicit food for my kids. I actually lost sexual appetite towards him for all the disgusting things he does behind my back but he would force me into sex and threaten not to provide if i ddt satisfy him a time came when he would rape me saying am his property and that i couldnt live without him since i dont have any money. It was all verbal violence until may this year 2024when i confronted him about cheating with my cousin and messages of him in a lodge with another girl that he grabbed me by the neck and strangled me and beat up that i started spitting blood..at this point i said to myself i should leave and start a new life i actually told him am leaving and he laughed at me saying u cant leave what are u gonna feed ur kids .i was packing whole day thinking to my self i cant fail to get where to stay but reality hit me and for sure i had no where to go so i unpacked my stuff and stayed its now months and months of sexual, financial,emotional and physical abuse but i dont know where to start with 3 children ive actually contemplated suicide so many times thinking it will ease the pain. Am in fear please advise me

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  • Story
    From a survivor
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    The Kitchen Job From Hell

    I worked in a hospital kitchen as a food services assistant, I was 23 years old. My brother had died the year prior he was 24 years of age when he passed. I had so much grief inside whilst also trying to work and had just moved out of home. I was a lost women learning my way on my own. He was 28, he worked as the dishwashing man. I was instantly intimidated by him and his personality, his loud voice, and the jokes he would come up with, but also somehow extremely intrigued by him, and how he manages to charm everyone he works with, how he is so muscly, tanned, jet black hair and gives off so much confidence within himself, it was hard not to be charmed by him. Whilst washing the dishes he would ask questions out loud " anyone have wild sex on the weekend?". There was a time when I was standing close by to my supervisor (a woman in her 60's) and he came over and asked her if she would go to the movies with him. She laughed it off and told him to go back to work. I remember having lunch break with my female coworkers (They were such good friends of mine at the time) and they would tell me how he had showed them porn at the lockers. I remember them saying how they were uncomfortable but they moved subjects quickly and forgot about it. Not sure how long after but one of them came to me in the kitchen when I was working and she said that he had asked her what she thinks I'm like in bed, and asked her if she thinks id be the kinky type. When she came and told me he was not far away and I think he heard her telling me and he looked over to me, and I wanted to hide. When he left to go collect dishes with one of the girls he would say that if they aren't back soon then they are most likely having sex. He would always give me compliments, say he liked my hair, my nails, this love bombing I took like a hungry fish to bait. I remember one day just saying bye to him as I clocked out and he would just yell out I love you. When it was just me and him washing dishes, he would pretend to wank infront of me and then splashed the water everywhere. One of the older women in her 60's he would always be massaging her shoulders in the middle of the kitchen. (this confused me the most as he was 28.) He would walk past wet floor signs and say wow you must be horny. Nobody ever heard. He would stand at the door way and deliberately look the girl infront of me up and down, and then I knew I was next to walk past him. I even had one of the chefs saying to me, go have lunch with him and you'll be sucking him off in the next 5 minutes. I didn't have that one big moment of omg that was inappropriate he must be trying to harass me, it was a slow feed of inappropriate things being delivered to me like a line of IV fluids in the form of sexual harassment (indirectly and directly). At the time I didn't even realise what was happening to me, I loved the compliments and attention he gave me, because I looked up to him because he was so confident, charming and loud. But I was also so scared of him, He had degraded me and made me feel so uncomfortable with his comments, he had me and my 3 work friends on Facebook and he would send so much porn through messenger and making jokes about the other girls at work regarding porn. I felt embarrassed and humiliated for them. One of my good friends, she use to get him to drive her home, and she said they were making sexual jokes to each other and when she went to get out of the car he pulled her back in, she said she just laughed it off but when she got home she messaged us and told us because she was scared. Later on she would say nobody go in the freezer with him unless you want to be molested. then she walked over to me and told me that he had made jokes about her nipples when she was in there. I still remember the moment that I was like what the hell just happened, I was pushing the dishes on a trolley, when the trolley stopped working and he walked right up behind me as close as he could, and said come on you can do it. I literally panicked and just tried my best to get the trolley going. Once I walked around the corner I had to stop and get my breath. And my mind had shut off from that moment. From that moment I realised my boundaries did not exist. I was being intimidated, humiliated, embarrassed, degraded slowly overtime that I did not even realise it was happening to me until it was too late. Id been manipulated and persuaded to give in, I flirted with him. And before I knew it I was making out with him in his car. Completely scared out of my mind that I couldn't even think whilst it was happening. I remember wanting so badly to show him that I wasn't scared of him. But I was. I was terrified, of what he thought of me, being so unsure of him and his personality, not knowing if he was a good or bad guy. I was an absolute mess after being with him, I felt sick, I didn't eat for weeks. I didn't tell my work friends what I had done, everyday I was going to work and facing him, staring at me, feeling judged and humiliated for giving in and being with him. I wanted to feel okay again, and somehow I was in this toxic cycle of telling myself if I can get him to be nice to me everything will be okay, I asked him to talk one day at lunch, he agreed. I met him in his car and I said to him I just wanted to say sorry for how things have turned out between us. and he said so your wanting to do this again? I said that I was unsure. And then we ended up making out again. Every time it happened, the days after I would be in this faded daze, I couldn't think, I was mentally ill for a while afterwards. The going to work, feeling humiliated, degraded, and like I meant nothing. There were days id beg him to talk to me and explain why it happened, and he would say, I don't know why it happened it just did. I couldn't think for myself, I was relying on him for everything, my thinking, my worth, my reality, which he told me was that I had major issues, was awkward and obsessed with him. For months after I would vomit before going to work, couldn't eat and I was close to a breakdown, the days I went to work with him I looked at the ground, watched him flirting with other girls in the kitchen, and saw him disregard me like rubbish. Tonight I write this, its 4 years on and I have come so far, I still think of this man everyday, and the one thing that I struggle to get closure with, is trying to explain to people how mental manipulation mixed with sexual harassment is one of the hardest things ever to explain in therapy and counselling, I've had days where I've blamed myself still, and told myself that it was my fault and that I agreed to go along with it, I wanted him so badly, I ended up begging my abuser to be with me. I wonder how I ended up being the one wanting him when he was the one harassing me. I've literally had to relearn how to love myself after doing that to myself. I'm still learning after all these years. It takes so much time and effort. But I really hope that one day I will move on. I've said outload to myself that I forgive him, but somedays its really hard. I never got closure from him. And I still doubt myself whether I was sexually harassed. I remember calling him on the phone and he would say everyone knows I'm joking otherwise I would be done for sexual harassment by now. I want to stop doubting myself, I've always known wrong from right. But this man took this from me. And I've struggled in life ever since. I know I need to forgive him. I know what happened did happen. I know my panic attacks were telling me something was wrong. I know that he is a hurt person for doing this to others. God please heal my heart.

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  • “I have learned to abound in the joy of the small things...and God, the kindness of people. Strangers, teachers, friends. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like it, but there is good in the world, and this gives me hope too.”

    Story
    From a survivor
    🇺🇸

    Corporate America Predator

    I was in my early 20's, moved to Long Island from an upstate town for college and graduated with honors. I was excited to land a job in NYC with a large financial/insurance company. My boss was a young fairly handsome married man with good manners and was so nice at first. I was warned by a few woman to watch out for him because he was a player. Well naive me fell for his attention. At first the things g's he did seemed innocent, like walking with me to Penn Station. That turned into stopping off for drinks which then turned into kissing and touching . I look back at how stupid I was as he reeled me in and wonder why I did this. I can only say that I had left home because I did not have a good relationship with my dad and I was attention starved and he pounced on that. One thing led to another and I met him at a hotel. I felt awful after and wanted to end it but he threatened my job that I really needed. People started suspecting things at work and before I knew it, this smart student had a reputation. This went on for months and he was very controlling. He also would do things to make me jealous and to undermine my confidence. I hated myself. I believe his higher ups talked him into transferring me to a different dept in a different building so he could advance in his career. He did advance, quickly. I, on the other hand, moved and so did my reputation and my low self esteem. I had a couple of other encounters in the new area and finally changed companies altogether, which was the best thing I ever did. At the new company I remade myself and became and was seen as the true professional I am. I went back to school for my masters, have a beautiful family and a great career. BUT... I still have bouts of shame and at times my self esteem p!unges. None of my family or friends know any of this. I still harbor resentment against this man who retired at a very high level and runs a consulting company now. I wonder how many other women and careers he affected.

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  • You are surviving and that is enough.

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    From a survivor
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    #10

    Around five years ago, I was raped repeatedly by a man I was seeing. It was the kind of rape that some people don’t consider rape - other than the act itself, there was no additional physical violence. There were no threats. There was just the constant knowledge that he would not listen when I said no, that he would not care or stop when I told him it hurt or that I didn’t feel safe. He always kept going. Every time I went over to his house, I knew that it was about to happen again. I kept going over, at least for a little while. Eventually, I tried to end things with him. I stopped answering his calls and texts and a bit later we met for coffee somewhere. I told him I didn’t feel safe with him. I didn’t use the word ‘rape’. I didn’t think of that as what it was, really at all. What was happening to me didn’t fit what I thought rape was supposed to be like. I thought of it as him “pressuring me into sex” or “not listening when I said no.” Not as bad. He told me he was sorry, and that he couldn’t help it. I said okay. He didn’t stop. A few weeks later, I ended it for good. This is not the last time I was raped, but it will always be the episode that affects me the most. Because the other time, I knew what it was. I realized that I was being raped as I was being raped and that somehow made it easier for me to process. But this episode will never stop affecting me. It has sent me to a psychiatric hospital. I have been treated for depression, anxiety, and PTSD. My sex life will never again be effortless. I will never be able to have full-length mirrors in my bedroom. I will never be able to enjoy the things that he didn’t ask if he could do to me. I can live with these things, because I am strong and my support system never fails me. The part I don’t know that I will be able to get over is that I knew I wasn’t consenting, but I didn’t know it was rape. I hope you do know.

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  • We believe in you. You are strong.

    Story
    From a survivor
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    an affirmation of worthiness

    an affirmation of worthiness
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  • Story
    From a survivor
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    Love isn't suppose to hurt if it does it's not love 💕

    This is my story at 72 sitting here all alone because I allowed my self to be abuised physically and verbally for over a 25 period of a 36 marriage. I lost both my daughter's respect and grandchildren because of his action but blamed for my actions I didn't know what was going on. I found out in 2006 my husband was a drug addict and where he was working gave him the best place to obtain it at state housing project. He was a thief from stealing at work, a liar, a user, drugs addict, gave me herpe.s , kept money from me and the house he could have his stash . Cause me to have a breakdown , I didn't know I part of his plan. He was the good stepfather and neighbor everybody like made up stories and made you feel he was a great guy who loved his wife and family. I was busy raising my family and working. Then I was hit with major medical problems, a brain annersyums which I had surgically fixed but recovered alone and with 36 stiches in my head I was knocked into my kitchen cabinets. I had my rotor cuff torn, I was hit by ball lightning in my basement, my foot broken all well raising a 3 yrs and 8 week grand children with months of each other. I was over whleemed. He left for many weeks and days at a time but I had all I could do was to be standing medically and raising my grand babies. I stayed alone did 10 years of therapy, and also went to a clinic for abuise. Nothing made a difference how I was living the abuise continued. Courts cops, etc. Until just recently I saw they only abuise you when no one is around. My god how true. They run away instead of solving a problem as they are guilty for what they are being accused of. The money, missing the drugs, the liars , stealing , the dead animals, physical and verbal abuse abuses. I was raped , sexually abuised strangled,beaten blooded, and broken . Didn't matter if I got pushed or knocked into something even after 13 hours of a back operation. I could had been parlayed. . I once tried to end my life many years ago just sitting outside in the morning in the sunshine on my deck looking up at the sun and feeling the warmth I couldn't stand the lonelines, the abuise of my marriage and man I loved and the loss of my most precious daughters. I just got up off my deck took my bathrobe rope tried to die. The rope broke . That's strange . My life didn't improve it got worst. I was a beautiful strong independent woman, mother,grandmother. who now wants to die and will all alone. I saw something the other day I had packed from my daughter she wrote look up to the sky, I had a federal law passed for child support They were so proud and made this picture book for me. The news paper said one woman fight became a nation law. 992 I fought for them to get this law passed. They were important and needed to be recognized. Now I sit here crying everyday in pain with no one to talk to embarrass no one comes home and no one cares for me. Every holiday I spend alone and birthday. My only question is why my children who are 50 and 45 don't care about a mother who gave everything to them against all the odds years ago. They know what I'm talking about. I kept a house they grew up in with no skills got a good job had insurance . Not much else but we made it by hard work. What is left of my life is 3 journals-protecting my grandkids while watching them dates and places and their questions about the abuise. I recently found out thru a aaa self analysis he stated he hated my grandson who I raised as a baby. Now I know why he tortured him with unkindness. My daughter has no idea how much I protected that baby. He stopped talking to me over 5 years ago who knows why. I did my job then very well. Why question is why doesn't my daughters understand what happened. I've tried to make contact with them don't want any anything to do with me for over 13 yrs. All because I loved the wrong man who abuse me and I allowed him to. I ruined their lives they believe I think it's the other way around. . I lost my best friends . I thought they were. You can't replace a mother . What happens to me now ? LOVE IS NEVER SUPPOSE TO HURT.

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    From a survivor
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    Name, My Rapist

    In early summer 2022, I was raped by Name - someone I had known and was friends with for a decade. He was part of my group of girl friends, and was so proud to be the "guy who made it in the group chat" and always portrayed himself to be "one of the girls" as best he could. In reality, he was a loser when we took him in as a friend in high school - he so badly wanted to be friends with the "cool kids," but they rejected him so he settled for our friendship (that was too good for him). Over the years, he referred to us a "dumb bitches" and constantly made fun of everyone, proving his insecurity and emotional instability. About 4 years ago, we ended up in a situation where we lived in the same home. This wasn't necessarily my choice, but we lived with several other people and the homeowner begrudgingly let him stay for a while out of perceived obligation. During that time, he forced a sexual encounter on me which, looking back, I now realize was assault that I just didn't recognize as such until recently. I was almost blackout drunk and didn't want to have sex, but he forced himself on me and I went along with it because I didn't know what else to do. I tried to enter a sexual/romantic relationship with him in the weeks following, which didn't work because my body subconsciously rejected him and there was something I didn't trust, but the actual reason was hard for me to pinpoint. I didn't understand until recently, but that was all a trauma response. I was so hard on myself for a long time, because I felt guilty for "hurting" him by rejecting him, and I thought that I handled the situation poorly. It just turned out I didn't know how to deal with that situation; I moved states after a few months, and then we fell out of touch, but I was under the impression we were still friends, although we weren't in constant contact. He started dating a young woman early pandemic, but she broke up with him after about a year and a half of dating. Soon after the breakup, he had a get together with many of our friends for his 25th birthday, in May 2022. Because I hadn't seen him in a long time, I ended up going back to his apartment to hang out with him for longer, as well as another friend who was spending the night, and his mother, who he lives with. On this night, our friend and his mother fell asleep, and he began sexually assaulting me. He shoved his hand so hard in my pants, twice, that I needed to use muscle to pull his arm off of me. When I stood up to leave the room and get away from him, he followed me and raped me. I am a freeze/fawn type of trauma responder, but I did try using my voice to get him to stop. I even tried reminding him that there were other people just 10 feet away, and that they would hear - he said, "so what?" and "I don't care." The next morning, I realized that my genitals where bleeding and in pain, and remained that way for several days. The most damning part of all of this? He sexualized my physical trauma - it actually *turned him on,* and he had no problem with telling me so. It took me many months to stop being in denial about what happened - that someone I was friends with for years, someone who I trusted to keep me safe, violated my personhood in such a deeply degrading way. I strongly believe his mother heard me asking him to stop, as she talked to me after this night happened. She said "he told her everything," that "she woke up to pee during the night and heard us 'banging in the bathroom,'" and she point blank asked me if her own child had raped me. What kind of a mother asks that unless she was a reason to do so, and was either told something or heard something? I didn't connect the dots of that night until recently, but I can say I certainly unconsciously reacted in a trauma response sort of way. I desperately wanted to enter a relationship with him after that night, something I had never truthfully wanted, in a attempt to gain back the control he had taken from me. Because if I could try to form a relationship with him, and we ended up together, it would justify him raping me, right? Of course not, but that's how my brain tried to protect me. I started unraveling without even realizing it. I became hypersexual, putting myself in risky situations by inviting random people over to my home for sex, going over to random people's homes for sex, having unprotected sex. I started changing my appearance. My bulimia flared up. I started smoking again. I lightly confronted him over text last month after I came to terms with what he did to me, and told him that we needed to talk because he seriously violated my boundaries. He responded to say we could "definitely" talk, but I never responded. I need time before I can speak to him. When I do, I want to speak to him in person, not on a phone call, like he wanted. I want to look him right in his dead-eyed face to tell him I know exactly what he did, and I know exactly who he is - he raped me, and he is a rapist. It won't give me justice, it won't make him sorry for what he's done, and I'm at peace with that. I can only hope it will instill a fear in him by making him recognize that I DO have a power he can never take from me as long as I'm alive - my voice. I can tell my story, share it with anyone who I choose to, and there's nothing he can do to stop that. He'd have to kill me first. I haven't told anyone other than my sister/brother in law, one friend, and my therapist about what happened that night, but when I get stronger through therapy and become less scared, I will meet him face-to-face to call him out for what he is. Predator. Abuser. Rapist. I will share my story with more people. Nameis a rapist. I highly doubt he will ever see this post, but in the in the <1% chance you are reading this, Name Initials., I want you to remember that while you sit there and call yourself a "feminist king," YOU are the person articles are referring to when they talk about perpetrators of violence against women. YOU are the person who made your decisions that night, not alcohol. (Too drunk to realize what you were doing, but not too drunk to have sex with my body? Nice try. Funny how I get super drunk with my other friends, and somehow none of them have managed to rape me.) YOU are the one who is responsible for your actions. There was no miscommunication. There was no room for misunderstanding. I was clear with what I was saying, you disregarded and ignored me, and that is on YOU. If you have a conscience, I hope this haunts you for the rest of your time on this earth.

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    I couldn't see me through myself now I'm lost in the forest and the trees

    I'm not going to spell check this story I'm talk texting it just so you know. My first memory as a child I was four moving into a new apartment with my mother and my first stepfather. My mother was a 17 year old heroin addict prostitute when she was pregnant with me by some Hells Angels Bikers who obviously never claimed me. She was a terrible I mean she wasn't a bad mother but she wasn't a mother she was just really fun to party with I guess there's always some sort of roof over my head my first stepfather I would watch him beat her unrecognizable to even myself on a regular basis he was an alcoholic and they were both heroin addicts I didn't know this at the time. He was verbally abusive and torturous to me as well as very physically violent from as early as I can remember. One of the times that she escaped him but she always went back of course we stayed with a friend of hers who had a son that was my age we were both five. The boy's grandparents owned a bar and a liquor store where we would stay in there apartment that was attached to them both while our mothers worked at the bar. I would wake up in the middle of the night in front of the TV on the floor with the boys Grandpa's hand in my pants and fingers inside. One night our mothers had gone out partying and back then we didn't have babysitters I'm sure we weren't any older than 6 years old we were sleeping in his mother's waterbed and he offered to do something to me that I would absolutely love and I said yes and he gave me oral the boy that was my age where no older than six at the most and I remember I loved it and he told me he would do it anytime I wanted all I had to do was ask. Parents teach their children Bad Touch no no spots you have to tell but when you're that age and you don't know any different and it feels good the last thing you want to do is tell anyone I remember being extremely mad when he wouldn't do it one time when I asked. My memories of being a child are spotty there's not a lot of them. I never met my real father I didn't know anything about him or my mom being what she was or what she was involved in when she got pregnant I had no clue. She always told me the reason I didn't have a dad was because this guy got her and another girl pregnant at the same time and chose to be with the other girl and we couldn't ruin their family by trying to track him down and he'd be mad cuz he wouldn't want to pay child support. My mother went through a slew of men all being drug dealers I never understood that or got that at the time. My grandparents hated me because I was basically the other woman's grandchild to my grandma my grandma was my step grandma that's a different story all together but she hated me and my mother was a loser drug addict so they both couldn't stand us. Lot of years went by running from physical abuse and share beatings from all of them some things I remember knowing sexually a very young age now looking back I'm 55 now I don't know how I could have known those things other than being involved in them but I think my brain blocked a lot of it out. And the third grade the little boy next door and I used to pose like the Playboy pictures my step dad had in his books naked and have oral. I had an aunt Carla that was when you're older than me when I was eight seven or eight and we experimented sexually together. I was always very sexually aware and spent a better part of my very very young childhood masturbating all of the time everywhere. The times that my mother was in contact with my grandparents we would go to their house for Christmas or Thanksgiving and I had three cousins to brothers and one sister all from the same family and my mom's half brother my uncle. We would all sleep on the floor in the living room together us kids probably up until age of 13 or 14 and I would always wake up at to my cousin Name playing with my privates. He was quite a bit older than me I know the last time we were there together I could not have been more than 13 and he had just come home from the military. My female cousin which I never understood as being wrong we would what she called tickle each other all over every time we spent the night at Grandma's. Now that's weird. When I was 13 I was introduced to my foster parents that I was unaware of apparently I was given to them at 6 months old when my mother went to prison and stayed with them until I was four I don't have one single memory of them or anything about them the entire time I was there I believed that they were my parents they had two sons that were my brothers they were fantastic people they were stereotypical nuclear 2.5 family when I met them at 13. So at that time I was only told that I was there for 6 months I didn't know it was for 4 years I also did not know that she never came to visit me so when Social Services came and took me back from them and gave me to her I did not know her she was a total stranger to me as well as the man she picked me up and took me home with I don't remember any of that until we walked through the door of the bedroom that she told me was mine. Then I proceeded to live in a life of abuse and alcoholism and heroin and cocaine and just party party my mom did never stop being younger partying she just drug me along with her. Basically I went from a perfect life with my foster parents into sexual assault and abuse Etc. I'm also guessing with no explanation for any of it back then as this was in the'70s early '70s. I have no recollection of being parented being taught about life or life lessons or anything like that growing up. I always hated my mother and I never understood why until I learned about being fostered for so long that made sense that I had no connection to her ever. I always only wanted the attention of men I wanted to grow up and be a stripper some men would like me pay attention to me never had any relationship friendship or parental child anything with any of my adults in my life that wasn't sexual. When I told my mother and my grandmother about my cousin assaulting me like that they didn't believe me. On my 21st birthday which is Christmas Eve so we were all together they got me drunk my cousins and that cousin proceeded to tell me that he had been in love with me his whole life and if he didn't know that it would give our grandmother a heart attack he would ask me to marry him he did not believe that it was wrong whatsoever. Skip way way ahead I'm hanging out with Mike female cousin at 21 years old who is insisting that if I ever decide that I want to be with females let her be the first one. Skip forward a little bit more and my second male cousin has invited me to live with him in City because he's doing very well for himself and he wants to give me an opportunity to build my life up go to school whatever which ends because I will not have sexual relations with him at some point and he did not understand how the fact that we share the same blood in our bodies made it wrong none of them did. I'm 55 years old right now and it did not occur to me until just today for some reason who did all that to them because somebody did. So the rest of my story isn't really so important other than I spent my entire years growing up a very pretty little girl young lady and no one ever wanted anything to do with me if it wasn't about sex and I just wanted people to want to be my friend and to like me and I want to hang out with me for anything other than sex notice I had a brain or I was fun or I had a sense of humor that's always been my plight I just want to be noticed and loved. Marrying a narcissist covert narcissist for 20 years did not do that for me. My mother got me addicted to cocaine when I was 15 I quit at 19 and started doing meth which I continued to do until I was 30 something I think and then I got clean and had my second child my first one died when she was born not because of drugs because of genetics I have my son and he fixed me that he fixed me all of me as far as I was concerned four years later we had a daughter oh yeah I forgot I got set up for this guy on a one night stand intentional one night stand for both of us and wake up pregnant and ended up with him a complete covert narcissist for 16 years I raised his child from a previous and then our son that was 4 here's younger then we had a her daughter we had a daughter 4 years later he was not a father he didn't do anything to help in the household with the family you girls know what I mean I don't have to explain that. Put all every one of my whole life was to grow up and have babies and be a wife and be a mom and be the family that I wasn't a part of growing up and I had that and I was so grateful I was so eternally gratefully happy that I thought that my marriage was making me happy it took me a lot of years to realize it wasn't my marriage at all he was a piece of s*** who neglected me it was my children that made me happy I accepted it I had my children and that's all I ever wanted was to grow up and have a family and not be my mother and give my children something that I didn't have which was family and he stuck around so I outweighed the situation and was willing to sacrifice whatever I had to to have that family. Finally after 16 years of it I couldn't take it anymore and for some reason one day I made the mistake of standing up for myself and demanding to not be treated horribly anymore because when all I wanted was to be noticed and loved in life that's exactly what he didn't do he neglected and rejected me day in and day out for decades so I just asked him to stop being mean to me I would beg him for my for his friendship I would beg him to just talk to me anything I knew we weren't in love but we had committed to this family and apparently we're both both going to stick it out I didn't see why we couldn't be a little bit happy birthday could you just please stop being mean and if you can't stop being mean then leave I didn't even ask him to be nice to me just not being mean which he refused and moved out into the park down the street now I'll just jump real forward my kids are 21 and 17 and he has turned them against me and they hate me we followed him across the United States to try to keep things together after he disappeared two days after finding out that our son was cutting himself we've been fighting off and on and we talked and he sat down with our son and promise he wasn't going to go across the country to visit his brother he was going to stick around and we were going to make things work and we were going to help fix him she might send it started cutting because his life was absolutely perfect day in and day out for the first 10 years of his life we never argued we never fought we didn't have problems he never called me names he didn't treat me badly he just didn't treat me like anything I protected him coddled my children and kept them from the evils of the world as much as I could and that was wrong because then when things went bad they had no idea how to handle it and I failed them and I got so wrapped up and trying to put back together or what I knew that they needed and I had messed up and put my own needs first for once which I had never done everything was always for them and I tried so hard to take it back that I lost my mind and I did not behave with any decorum or couth and instead of holding their hands and ushering them through the most difficult part of their life I lost my mind because I didn't know how to go through the most difficult time in mine and I pay for that daily and so do they unfortunately I didn't see any of it while it was happening I really didn't if you were my friend or even my enemy and you were going through the same exact things I went through with this whole situation and my kids and my husband I would have stood right by you and showed you hey you can't do that you know what they need is you got to do this and you got to be like that and I didn't have anyone there for me to help me like that and I didn't see myself I couldn't see me through myself do you know what I mean like the forest in the trees and I didn't see a lot of it until it was so so too late anyway he disappeared without a word went from California to Tennessee and for three straight months did not answer the phone and I continued to lose my mind and spiral deeper and deeper into a abyss of loss of control which was the only thing that I wanted in my life stability control for myself you know never had it growing up so now I'm spiraling deeper and time is going by and my children are getting ignored because I'm too busy going crazy calling texting. I finally make contact with him we talk and talk and talk and over the course of time agreed to reconcile and I will give up everything in California and put my kids in the car and drive to Tennessee to reconcile our family and so I did I gave up everything but the clothes that fit in the car and long story short on that we came to Tennessee just before I left California and just after I gave up everything of ours I learned that he had a girlfriend here and so I just drowned in that crazy uncontrollable crazy b**** face I lost my mind I lost sight and track of everything else but we still had to come out here so skipping over a bunch of Juicy stuff to get here here we came I sent my son first because he had to get signed up and start high school it was his first year of high school and we were waiting for text me to come to be able to afford to get her unbeknownst to me when my son got here at 14 years old instead of his father trying to help him just like his mother wasn't and he'd been cutting hardly my son stayed in a motel with his father and some girl and at that time and laughed my son didn't even know that those things existed my son did not know people did those things to each other he had no clue so he sucked deeper into that Cesspool of no one cares about me I don't matter so for the 3 months he was in Tennessee before his sister and I he never spoke to me once what was he going to say he wouldn't answer the phone to me you would not talk to me and that's when I lost him that was my baby and he has never really spoken to me since other than to tell me I should off myself. So we came to Tennessee and he was horribly horribly worse to me and I just could never understand why he was begging me to come here and then she has treating me like absolute garbage dirt at the same time it never made any sense to me and it drove me crazier and I could not figure out what was wrong with me what is wrong with me what am I doing it all became about me me and I lost my children's love more more more and more and the connection with them got further and further so now the only thing that's ever mattered to me I am completely out of touch with at this point in it and I don't even realize it I don't even realize it. So we got together we broke up we got together we broke up we got together we broke up when I learned that he was now advertising on Craigslist to sleep with men and I'm not lying about this not one but this is embellished if anything this isn't even the half of it I have no reason to b******* I wait a minute so even before that once we were here he left me for this chick and run off to City 2 with her while me and the kids were here in Tennessee and after 6 months of it not working I bought him a bus ticket to come back here because we're both parents right we're both parents and at this point I've been with this human being for 18 years and I don't know anything different anyway my daughter and I had been living in motels because I lost my home when he left for City 2 my son had already moved out from the age of 17 because he said he couldn't put up with her b******* anymore and I didn't blame him so he comes back he doesn't get a job I don't have enough money to afford the motels anymore we send my daughter to my mother-in-law's because she's about to start high school in a few days and we have to buy a tent and go to sleep in the woods until he procures a job and helps me save money to get into a place now . So now I'm living in a two-man tent in the middle of the Woods 2400 Mi away from home where I don't have anybody except for this person that hates me that I hate he saves the money and leaves me in the tent where I have been homeless now over 2 years my children hate me they won't speak to me it's all my fault that I'm a loser homeless person and Drug them across the country so all of that being said. My cousin Name it was the one who diddled my middle grew up to be some sort of Representative in Utah I don't know what his title is he married a woman that had three daughters and all I could think this whole time was I know he did it to them too and how much it disgusts me that this city in Utah has an elected official who is a child predator and a child molester how disgusting it is that people don't see people for what they are or who they are and the first time that I saw him on Facebook about 5 years into my marriage which I was married in 2004 and I contacted him and one of the first things I said was something to the effect of what he had done and his only response was oh now that's where we're going to start are you kidding me. I made an attempt one time and called the the newspaper there and ask them if they'd be interested in a story about their elected official but then when they got back to me i chickened out and never talked to them right now I want to contact his wife and let her know what she's been with this whole time because it makes me sick that he's just like nothing ever happened and there was nothing wrong with it. The good news is I'm not traumatized sexually or you know it didn't make me a w**** or a s*** it didn't make me not want sex it didn't make me gay it didn't make me not gay it didn't make me anything it didn't as disgusting and disturbing as it is to me my favorite way to have sex is the same way that he used to touch me which is bizarre but I'm pretty normal sexually it doesn't plague me it didn't change me as a person it didn't affect my life entirely and completely like some people it doesn't Define me it's never defined me as far as I'm concerned it's something that happens to everyone and when I raised my children it wasn't is it going to happen to them but when is it going to happen and who is it going to be so I guess I saw this site because I was looking up things to try to slyly jab him in the side like a thorn and involve myself in a couple of Facebook conversations he was having with other political members where they were arguing back and forth about Elon Musk doing that Hitler sign and how stupid they were I wanted to tell them because they're so focused on something that doesn't even matter in life that they don't even realize that they're talking to a sex offender child predator child molester but I wanted to do it in them most professional way so I started researching and asking questions on the internet and this is where I ended up somehow. I told the story hundreds of times it doesn't bother me it doesn't make me sad it doesn't make me anything except for disgusted I don't want or anything I dont want people to feel sorry for me or anything like that I just wanted to share my story because the first three that I read each of those stories were a piece of my total story if you added them all up when I was younger .I used to want to write a book because people say oh yeah my mom was an alcoholic or oh yeah my family was into drugs or oh my family was abusive or my family was neglectful I lived a piece of all of those things throughout my growing up all of them some people only experience one or two of those Lifestyles and I dabbled in a little bit of it all and I thought I could write a book where each chapter was dedicated to one section like that and then no matter who picked up the book and read it they would see that they weren't the only ones that there was someone out there that shared what they were going through or went through and they're not crazy and they're not bad and they're not alone so that's why I just puked out all the story which from what I can recall is about 300 times longer than any of the other ones I read sorry for that I hope I at least kept you entertained I could have made the story way more intense and detailed but I've already taken up too much of your time. I'm just curious should I tell her should I ruin her existence and tell her what she's been living with this whole time so she could at least ask her three daughters who are probably grown women at this point what he did to them should I tell his constituents you think that's going too far I mean it was decades ago. But considering the position that he's in in his community I am firmly against a child predator and molester rapist having the ability to be in control of deciding anything for anyone else and in their community I don't even think he's in office anymore I just think that people should know the type of person that they let have control then at the same time then the same thing happened with our president I mean basically basically nobody cared they still elected him so maybe I just want to matter to someone just matter enough for someone to tell you how you know it f*** that guy . The only other thing I got for you is aside from losing my family unit and the only thing that mattered to me my children the reason that I woke up every morning I don't have any other family members everyone's dead except for my molester cousins two of them the Name and the girl and I never had any brothers or sisters or anyone else so I'm all alone out here and it sucks 3,000 miles away from home haven't had a friend in the world for about 5 years now it's crazy I'm glad you could meet me I'm sorry I wasted so much of everyone's time really all I ask is don't you dare even suggest to yourself inside your own head that any of this is b******* it's just my life that's all and it's just some of it.

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  • “Healing to me means that all these things that happened don’t have to define me.”

    Story
    From a survivor
    🇨🇦

    #1292

    When I was 9 years old, I had a best friend. I would go to her house often, and I never questioned or tried to stop her when she taught me sexual things. Looking back on it now, I know she was being sexually abused. She told me to keep it secret, and consistently teased me into thinking her grandmother was going to walk in on us. It’s all learnt behaviour from a predator. Her grandmother never checked up on us, I didn’t see it back then but she was neglected and severely lonely. She would tell me to take my clothes off, we would sleep naked together. She told me it was exploring, and I truly wish I could remember all of it because there are so many gaps in my memory where I think it couldn’t have been that bad or maybe it was worse than I remember. I remember her in between my legs but I don’t remember what happened, I get really really disgusted at myself for having encouraged this. I never told her to stop, and now I have a hard time accepting that it wasn’t my fault for stopping her. Either way, I remember constantly having UTIs that never got checked, and I can’t blame anyone for the situation. She was taken advantage of as a child only a year older than me, and it’s not her fault. I can’t help but blame myself, and it plagues my mind on the daily. This went on for 2 years, and I remember the UTI being so frequent and so bad I had pissed on her bed while naked. this was while I was 10, and it was completely humiliating. My past is something I find so so shameful and I struggle to come to terms with the fact that this will never leave me. I can’t help but wish the best for her, the anger is directed at me more than anything. I am healing from this, and I hope one day I can help others who went through complicated SA experiences that aren’t as openly discussed.

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  • Message of Healing
    From a survivor
    🇺🇸

    Healing means loving my whole self.

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  • “These moments in time, my brokenness, has been transformed into a mission. My voice used to help others. My experiences making an impact. I now choose to see power, strength, and even beauty in my story.”

    Story
    From a survivor
    🇺🇸

    Letters to name

    It was dark, I can’t feel my legs, I guess my whole body’s been frozen, it was so cold and everyone’s walking in front of me. Running my eyes, the length of spotless street and seeing everybody freshly, some were couples, having a dizzying array of textures and moments, some were kids having cloud nine on their faces, holding gifts they thought was from Santa, Others? Just like me, sitting tight on a cold night, wasn’t waiting for anyone but I settled things, I won’t be coming home. Being alone never surprises me and so as death. Being named name, was a big joke of my entire life, there’s no one coming here for me but that was what I’ve thought, all of sudden, emerging from the mist— “Hey, hi can I sit with you?”, out of the shadows an old bearded man came, and asks me. I startled, how can I ever respond to him? I can’t even talk to people, I’ve been introverted my whole life and no wonder I don’t have any friends so I just nodded at him, just like that. Slowly, feeling almost furtive about it, he turned his head facing on me. “Oh sorry by the way I’m Lee, it’s okay if you don’t talk, I’m just here to sit off my very bad day, looking for someone to share my thoughts.” he said, while his smile turned brittle. I pondered quietly to myself as he started to tell me his story which I never expected to hear from him. I feel so bad and yet I'm feeling so well; he ran his finger through his hair and I could not keep my eyes away from his teary eyes. I never thought that I would speak but then, “Anxiety is like having a car come out of nowhere and nearly swipe you as you cross the road.” Those words came out of my mouth. He chuckled, “They said, I made my own bed, now I should lie on it. I don’t even know why they’ve said that, I never wanted to be loved nor hated by anyone.” I looked deep into him as if to search his whole system. “God is a good parent and wants his children to grow. He sometimes uses suffering to discipline us for our benefit, accordingly to book of Hebrew. So breathe, let go and remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure” First it was doubt groping for truth, then amazement, and finally agonized incredulity passed across his face. He laughed softly, “We just met by chance, you’re not a friend of mine but you are critical of my weaknesses and ready to counsel.” For a minute it made me jump for joy. “I just wondered we never happen to be like this, trying to keep atmosphere lighter.” For one brief moment I was terrified. “Things like this, I hope you were as talkative as you are five minutes ago” Why he sounded like someone knew me. It was breath taking when he suddenly says “Val, you’re a sympathetic one who has the patience to lend your ears to my woes, you were in my gloom of despondency.” My eyes widened at him, rumbling something deep on my throat. I was gasping for air as he kept up a steady pace, never turning around, he fades away like dust in misty night. “Please don’t go!” I was yelling and tells my brain it's time to wake up. Now that he’s gone I can see it was anger and bitterness; but at the same time, there was something almost sad about it. I faced the mirror and saw myself, I was about to cry the blues, but then beside his bed it was our picture together, then feelings grew as I recalled all of our memories together, the times he was in the ugliness of torture, helpless, when everyone smashes against him as rocks, the torments of life were always there but I wished my presence as his sister was present too. These deepest depths, the darkest nights, there was magic in the air, I recovered and discovered something that nourishes my soul and brings joy, care enough about myself because behind that picture, it was his handwriting says “Joshua 1:9 Have not I commanded you? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be you dismayed: for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.” God used my brother as instrument as He calms my raging sea and the storm in me.

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  • We all have the ability to be allies and support the survivors in our lives.

    Story
    From a survivor
    🇮🇪

    11:11

    11:11 I was sexually assaulted—violated—by a man I once admired, someone I trusted and looked up to. I was only number years old at the time, just starting out in the industry—doingjob, stepping into an industry I thought would lead to creativity, confidence, and success. But nothing prepared me for how dark and twisted things would become. This man was surrounded by women who defended him, supported him, and stood by him even when the truth started to surface. I now know they were blind—or chose to be blind—to his abuse. During one job, he groped me from behind and sexually touched me. I froze. My mind went blank. I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. My body shut down, overwhelmed by confusion and fear. I couldn’t process what was happening. Afterward, he drove me home. On the way, he told me to do things to myself—sexual things—while he watched. I was in shock. I said nothing. I ignored his disgusting request. And that’s when he turned it around and said if his wife ever found out what had happened, it would kill her. She was ill at the time, and he said it would be my fault. He made me believe it was all on me. The shame, the fear, the guilt—it consumed me. I truly believed I was to blame. For three months, I told no one. I buried it so deep inside me that it started to rot in silence. I denied it to myself. I kept functioning on the outside, but inside, I was collapsing. Everywhere I turned, I thought I saw him. His car. His name. His presence seemed to follow me like a shadow I couldn’t shake. The fear of being watched, stalked, hunted—it crept into every moment of my day. Eventually, it broke me. I had a complete mental breakdown and finally went to the guards, hoping for justice, for protection, for someone to believe me. Instead, they laughed at my five-page statement. There was no physical evidence. It was just my word against his. That’s all it took for the authorities to dismiss me. Meanwhile, he manipulated the narrative, got other staff to read pre-written scripts, painting me as someone who was in love with him—someone who wanted it. They said I "asked for it.” He told people I was unstable. That I was obsessed. That I was dangerous and that he feared for his life. As if I was the threat. As if I was the predator. He never even had the courage to face me. He let others do his dirty work, turning everyone I thought I could rely on against me. In desperation, I turned to the people I trusted the most—my colleagues. I thought they would believe me. I confided in them, hoping for support. But to my devastation, they continued working with him. To this very day, they still do. It shattered me. I gave up fighting, because no one believed me. I was utterly alone. It has taken me seven years to reach a point where I could open up again about what happened. Number years of carrying this pain from when it all began back in month. And yet, the trauma still haunts me every single day. I see his name pop up on social media, people praising him, celebrating him, completely unaware of the truth. I ask myself constantly: If they knew what he did, would they believe me? Would they finally see who he really is? But then comes the fear: What if they don’t? What if I open myself up again only to be broken again? Do I risk being retraumatized, or do I stay quiet and let him keep living a lie?

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  • Welcome to Our Wave.

    This is a space where survivors of trauma and abuse share their stories alongside supportive allies. These stories remind us that hope exists even in dark times. You are never alone in your experience. Healing is possible for everyone.

    What feels like the right place to start today?
    Story
    From a survivor
    🇺🇬

    Evil lives here……

    Iam a 33 year old with 3 children(2 boys and one girl) my first born son is from my previous relationship. I was a fresh graduate when i met this man that i currently have two kids with …i finished university expecting to get a job to support me and my then only son but each time i tried to look for jobs my husband discouraged me saying i would be exploited and given peanuts so to whom it was wise for me to sit home and be a wife i gave in and sat home but him satisfying my needs was always a fight i remember i asked for panties and bras for the last 6 years and nothing.everything he provides we must first have a fight and he knows so well i have no where to run to because he isolated me from my family. After moving in with him and my son he started treatung my son with so much anger he would beat,abuse and use vulgar words to him and he still does it he shows him that am not your father and only favors the kids i have with him. Mine i came with is not worthy of anything good. While i was pregnant for his son he was flirting with my sister and by this time i was not getting any financial help so i opted to go to my mothers rental and after sometime my sister disclosed to me the kind of husband i have when i confronted him about it he was too bitter and threatened to take my kids from me. When i was pregnant for my second child with him i got him with 15 girls flirting and sleeping around i was so devasted and almost lost my child due to stress i put my self together and let it go for my sake of my baby but i swore i was done with this man so i started not to pay too much attention on him and concentrated on raising my kids meanwhile i was caught up had no money of my own and had no relative in contact with i perservered and stayed to have a roof over our heads and to solicit food for my kids. I actually lost sexual appetite towards him for all the disgusting things he does behind my back but he would force me into sex and threaten not to provide if i ddt satisfy him a time came when he would rape me saying am his property and that i couldnt live without him since i dont have any money. It was all verbal violence until may this year 2024when i confronted him about cheating with my cousin and messages of him in a lodge with another girl that he grabbed me by the neck and strangled me and beat up that i started spitting blood..at this point i said to myself i should leave and start a new life i actually told him am leaving and he laughed at me saying u cant leave what are u gonna feed ur kids .i was packing whole day thinking to my self i cant fail to get where to stay but reality hit me and for sure i had no where to go so i unpacked my stuff and stayed its now months and months of sexual, financial,emotional and physical abuse but i dont know where to start with 3 children ive actually contemplated suicide so many times thinking it will ease the pain. Am in fear please advise me

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  • Story
    From a survivor
    🇺🇸

    Corporate America Predator

    I was in my early 20's, moved to Long Island from an upstate town for college and graduated with honors. I was excited to land a job in NYC with a large financial/insurance company. My boss was a young fairly handsome married man with good manners and was so nice at first. I was warned by a few woman to watch out for him because he was a player. Well naive me fell for his attention. At first the things g's he did seemed innocent, like walking with me to Penn Station. That turned into stopping off for drinks which then turned into kissing and touching . I look back at how stupid I was as he reeled me in and wonder why I did this. I can only say that I had left home because I did not have a good relationship with my dad and I was attention starved and he pounced on that. One thing led to another and I met him at a hotel. I felt awful after and wanted to end it but he threatened my job that I really needed. People started suspecting things at work and before I knew it, this smart student had a reputation. This went on for months and he was very controlling. He also would do things to make me jealous and to undermine my confidence. I hated myself. I believe his higher ups talked him into transferring me to a different dept in a different building so he could advance in his career. He did advance, quickly. I, on the other hand, moved and so did my reputation and my low self esteem. I had a couple of other encounters in the new area and finally changed companies altogether, which was the best thing I ever did. At the new company I remade myself and became and was seen as the true professional I am. I went back to school for my masters, have a beautiful family and a great career. BUT... I still have bouts of shame and at times my self esteem p!unges. None of my family or friends know any of this. I still harbor resentment against this man who retired at a very high level and runs a consulting company now. I wonder how many other women and careers he affected.

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  • Story
    From a survivor
    🇺🇸

    Name, My Rapist

    In early summer 2022, I was raped by Name - someone I had known and was friends with for a decade. He was part of my group of girl friends, and was so proud to be the "guy who made it in the group chat" and always portrayed himself to be "one of the girls" as best he could. In reality, he was a loser when we took him in as a friend in high school - he so badly wanted to be friends with the "cool kids," but they rejected him so he settled for our friendship (that was too good for him). Over the years, he referred to us a "dumb bitches" and constantly made fun of everyone, proving his insecurity and emotional instability. About 4 years ago, we ended up in a situation where we lived in the same home. This wasn't necessarily my choice, but we lived with several other people and the homeowner begrudgingly let him stay for a while out of perceived obligation. During that time, he forced a sexual encounter on me which, looking back, I now realize was assault that I just didn't recognize as such until recently. I was almost blackout drunk and didn't want to have sex, but he forced himself on me and I went along with it because I didn't know what else to do. I tried to enter a sexual/romantic relationship with him in the weeks following, which didn't work because my body subconsciously rejected him and there was something I didn't trust, but the actual reason was hard for me to pinpoint. I didn't understand until recently, but that was all a trauma response. I was so hard on myself for a long time, because I felt guilty for "hurting" him by rejecting him, and I thought that I handled the situation poorly. It just turned out I didn't know how to deal with that situation; I moved states after a few months, and then we fell out of touch, but I was under the impression we were still friends, although we weren't in constant contact. He started dating a young woman early pandemic, but she broke up with him after about a year and a half of dating. Soon after the breakup, he had a get together with many of our friends for his 25th birthday, in May 2022. Because I hadn't seen him in a long time, I ended up going back to his apartment to hang out with him for longer, as well as another friend who was spending the night, and his mother, who he lives with. On this night, our friend and his mother fell asleep, and he began sexually assaulting me. He shoved his hand so hard in my pants, twice, that I needed to use muscle to pull his arm off of me. When I stood up to leave the room and get away from him, he followed me and raped me. I am a freeze/fawn type of trauma responder, but I did try using my voice to get him to stop. I even tried reminding him that there were other people just 10 feet away, and that they would hear - he said, "so what?" and "I don't care." The next morning, I realized that my genitals where bleeding and in pain, and remained that way for several days. The most damning part of all of this? He sexualized my physical trauma - it actually *turned him on,* and he had no problem with telling me so. It took me many months to stop being in denial about what happened - that someone I was friends with for years, someone who I trusted to keep me safe, violated my personhood in such a deeply degrading way. I strongly believe his mother heard me asking him to stop, as she talked to me after this night happened. She said "he told her everything," that "she woke up to pee during the night and heard us 'banging in the bathroom,'" and she point blank asked me if her own child had raped me. What kind of a mother asks that unless she was a reason to do so, and was either told something or heard something? I didn't connect the dots of that night until recently, but I can say I certainly unconsciously reacted in a trauma response sort of way. I desperately wanted to enter a relationship with him after that night, something I had never truthfully wanted, in a attempt to gain back the control he had taken from me. Because if I could try to form a relationship with him, and we ended up together, it would justify him raping me, right? Of course not, but that's how my brain tried to protect me. I started unraveling without even realizing it. I became hypersexual, putting myself in risky situations by inviting random people over to my home for sex, going over to random people's homes for sex, having unprotected sex. I started changing my appearance. My bulimia flared up. I started smoking again. I lightly confronted him over text last month after I came to terms with what he did to me, and told him that we needed to talk because he seriously violated my boundaries. He responded to say we could "definitely" talk, but I never responded. I need time before I can speak to him. When I do, I want to speak to him in person, not on a phone call, like he wanted. I want to look him right in his dead-eyed face to tell him I know exactly what he did, and I know exactly who he is - he raped me, and he is a rapist. It won't give me justice, it won't make him sorry for what he's done, and I'm at peace with that. I can only hope it will instill a fear in him by making him recognize that I DO have a power he can never take from me as long as I'm alive - my voice. I can tell my story, share it with anyone who I choose to, and there's nothing he can do to stop that. He'd have to kill me first. I haven't told anyone other than my sister/brother in law, one friend, and my therapist about what happened that night, but when I get stronger through therapy and become less scared, I will meet him face-to-face to call him out for what he is. Predator. Abuser. Rapist. I will share my story with more people. Nameis a rapist. I highly doubt he will ever see this post, but in the in the <1% chance you are reading this, Name Initials., I want you to remember that while you sit there and call yourself a "feminist king," YOU are the person articles are referring to when they talk about perpetrators of violence against women. YOU are the person who made your decisions that night, not alcohol. (Too drunk to realize what you were doing, but not too drunk to have sex with my body? Nice try. Funny how I get super drunk with my other friends, and somehow none of them have managed to rape me.) YOU are the one who is responsible for your actions. There was no miscommunication. There was no room for misunderstanding. I was clear with what I was saying, you disregarded and ignored me, and that is on YOU. If you have a conscience, I hope this haunts you for the rest of your time on this earth.

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    I couldn't see me through myself now I'm lost in the forest and the trees

    I'm not going to spell check this story I'm talk texting it just so you know. My first memory as a child I was four moving into a new apartment with my mother and my first stepfather. My mother was a 17 year old heroin addict prostitute when she was pregnant with me by some Hells Angels Bikers who obviously never claimed me. She was a terrible I mean she wasn't a bad mother but she wasn't a mother she was just really fun to party with I guess there's always some sort of roof over my head my first stepfather I would watch him beat her unrecognizable to even myself on a regular basis he was an alcoholic and they were both heroin addicts I didn't know this at the time. He was verbally abusive and torturous to me as well as very physically violent from as early as I can remember. One of the times that she escaped him but she always went back of course we stayed with a friend of hers who had a son that was my age we were both five. The boy's grandparents owned a bar and a liquor store where we would stay in there apartment that was attached to them both while our mothers worked at the bar. I would wake up in the middle of the night in front of the TV on the floor with the boys Grandpa's hand in my pants and fingers inside. One night our mothers had gone out partying and back then we didn't have babysitters I'm sure we weren't any older than 6 years old we were sleeping in his mother's waterbed and he offered to do something to me that I would absolutely love and I said yes and he gave me oral the boy that was my age where no older than six at the most and I remember I loved it and he told me he would do it anytime I wanted all I had to do was ask. Parents teach their children Bad Touch no no spots you have to tell but when you're that age and you don't know any different and it feels good the last thing you want to do is tell anyone I remember being extremely mad when he wouldn't do it one time when I asked. My memories of being a child are spotty there's not a lot of them. I never met my real father I didn't know anything about him or my mom being what she was or what she was involved in when she got pregnant I had no clue. She always told me the reason I didn't have a dad was because this guy got her and another girl pregnant at the same time and chose to be with the other girl and we couldn't ruin their family by trying to track him down and he'd be mad cuz he wouldn't want to pay child support. My mother went through a slew of men all being drug dealers I never understood that or got that at the time. My grandparents hated me because I was basically the other woman's grandchild to my grandma my grandma was my step grandma that's a different story all together but she hated me and my mother was a loser drug addict so they both couldn't stand us. Lot of years went by running from physical abuse and share beatings from all of them some things I remember knowing sexually a very young age now looking back I'm 55 now I don't know how I could have known those things other than being involved in them but I think my brain blocked a lot of it out. And the third grade the little boy next door and I used to pose like the Playboy pictures my step dad had in his books naked and have oral. I had an aunt Carla that was when you're older than me when I was eight seven or eight and we experimented sexually together. I was always very sexually aware and spent a better part of my very very young childhood masturbating all of the time everywhere. The times that my mother was in contact with my grandparents we would go to their house for Christmas or Thanksgiving and I had three cousins to brothers and one sister all from the same family and my mom's half brother my uncle. We would all sleep on the floor in the living room together us kids probably up until age of 13 or 14 and I would always wake up at to my cousin Name playing with my privates. He was quite a bit older than me I know the last time we were there together I could not have been more than 13 and he had just come home from the military. My female cousin which I never understood as being wrong we would what she called tickle each other all over every time we spent the night at Grandma's. Now that's weird. When I was 13 I was introduced to my foster parents that I was unaware of apparently I was given to them at 6 months old when my mother went to prison and stayed with them until I was four I don't have one single memory of them or anything about them the entire time I was there I believed that they were my parents they had two sons that were my brothers they were fantastic people they were stereotypical nuclear 2.5 family when I met them at 13. So at that time I was only told that I was there for 6 months I didn't know it was for 4 years I also did not know that she never came to visit me so when Social Services came and took me back from them and gave me to her I did not know her she was a total stranger to me as well as the man she picked me up and took me home with I don't remember any of that until we walked through the door of the bedroom that she told me was mine. Then I proceeded to live in a life of abuse and alcoholism and heroin and cocaine and just party party my mom did never stop being younger partying she just drug me along with her. Basically I went from a perfect life with my foster parents into sexual assault and abuse Etc. I'm also guessing with no explanation for any of it back then as this was in the'70s early '70s. I have no recollection of being parented being taught about life or life lessons or anything like that growing up. I always hated my mother and I never understood why until I learned about being fostered for so long that made sense that I had no connection to her ever. I always only wanted the attention of men I wanted to grow up and be a stripper some men would like me pay attention to me never had any relationship friendship or parental child anything with any of my adults in my life that wasn't sexual. When I told my mother and my grandmother about my cousin assaulting me like that they didn't believe me. On my 21st birthday which is Christmas Eve so we were all together they got me drunk my cousins and that cousin proceeded to tell me that he had been in love with me his whole life and if he didn't know that it would give our grandmother a heart attack he would ask me to marry him he did not believe that it was wrong whatsoever. Skip way way ahead I'm hanging out with Mike female cousin at 21 years old who is insisting that if I ever decide that I want to be with females let her be the first one. Skip forward a little bit more and my second male cousin has invited me to live with him in City because he's doing very well for himself and he wants to give me an opportunity to build my life up go to school whatever which ends because I will not have sexual relations with him at some point and he did not understand how the fact that we share the same blood in our bodies made it wrong none of them did. I'm 55 years old right now and it did not occur to me until just today for some reason who did all that to them because somebody did. So the rest of my story isn't really so important other than I spent my entire years growing up a very pretty little girl young lady and no one ever wanted anything to do with me if it wasn't about sex and I just wanted people to want to be my friend and to like me and I want to hang out with me for anything other than sex notice I had a brain or I was fun or I had a sense of humor that's always been my plight I just want to be noticed and loved. Marrying a narcissist covert narcissist for 20 years did not do that for me. My mother got me addicted to cocaine when I was 15 I quit at 19 and started doing meth which I continued to do until I was 30 something I think and then I got clean and had my second child my first one died when she was born not because of drugs because of genetics I have my son and he fixed me that he fixed me all of me as far as I was concerned four years later we had a daughter oh yeah I forgot I got set up for this guy on a one night stand intentional one night stand for both of us and wake up pregnant and ended up with him a complete covert narcissist for 16 years I raised his child from a previous and then our son that was 4 here's younger then we had a her daughter we had a daughter 4 years later he was not a father he didn't do anything to help in the household with the family you girls know what I mean I don't have to explain that. Put all every one of my whole life was to grow up and have babies and be a wife and be a mom and be the family that I wasn't a part of growing up and I had that and I was so grateful I was so eternally gratefully happy that I thought that my marriage was making me happy it took me a lot of years to realize it wasn't my marriage at all he was a piece of s*** who neglected me it was my children that made me happy I accepted it I had my children and that's all I ever wanted was to grow up and have a family and not be my mother and give my children something that I didn't have which was family and he stuck around so I outweighed the situation and was willing to sacrifice whatever I had to to have that family. Finally after 16 years of it I couldn't take it anymore and for some reason one day I made the mistake of standing up for myself and demanding to not be treated horribly anymore because when all I wanted was to be noticed and loved in life that's exactly what he didn't do he neglected and rejected me day in and day out for decades so I just asked him to stop being mean to me I would beg him for my for his friendship I would beg him to just talk to me anything I knew we weren't in love but we had committed to this family and apparently we're both both going to stick it out I didn't see why we couldn't be a little bit happy birthday could you just please stop being mean and if you can't stop being mean then leave I didn't even ask him to be nice to me just not being mean which he refused and moved out into the park down the street now I'll just jump real forward my kids are 21 and 17 and he has turned them against me and they hate me we followed him across the United States to try to keep things together after he disappeared two days after finding out that our son was cutting himself we've been fighting off and on and we talked and he sat down with our son and promise he wasn't going to go across the country to visit his brother he was going to stick around and we were going to make things work and we were going to help fix him she might send it started cutting because his life was absolutely perfect day in and day out for the first 10 years of his life we never argued we never fought we didn't have problems he never called me names he didn't treat me badly he just didn't treat me like anything I protected him coddled my children and kept them from the evils of the world as much as I could and that was wrong because then when things went bad they had no idea how to handle it and I failed them and I got so wrapped up and trying to put back together or what I knew that they needed and I had messed up and put my own needs first for once which I had never done everything was always for them and I tried so hard to take it back that I lost my mind and I did not behave with any decorum or couth and instead of holding their hands and ushering them through the most difficult part of their life I lost my mind because I didn't know how to go through the most difficult time in mine and I pay for that daily and so do they unfortunately I didn't see any of it while it was happening I really didn't if you were my friend or even my enemy and you were going through the same exact things I went through with this whole situation and my kids and my husband I would have stood right by you and showed you hey you can't do that you know what they need is you got to do this and you got to be like that and I didn't have anyone there for me to help me like that and I didn't see myself I couldn't see me through myself do you know what I mean like the forest in the trees and I didn't see a lot of it until it was so so too late anyway he disappeared without a word went from California to Tennessee and for three straight months did not answer the phone and I continued to lose my mind and spiral deeper and deeper into a abyss of loss of control which was the only thing that I wanted in my life stability control for myself you know never had it growing up so now I'm spiraling deeper and time is going by and my children are getting ignored because I'm too busy going crazy calling texting. I finally make contact with him we talk and talk and talk and over the course of time agreed to reconcile and I will give up everything in California and put my kids in the car and drive to Tennessee to reconcile our family and so I did I gave up everything but the clothes that fit in the car and long story short on that we came to Tennessee just before I left California and just after I gave up everything of ours I learned that he had a girlfriend here and so I just drowned in that crazy uncontrollable crazy b**** face I lost my mind I lost sight and track of everything else but we still had to come out here so skipping over a bunch of Juicy stuff to get here here we came I sent my son first because he had to get signed up and start high school it was his first year of high school and we were waiting for text me to come to be able to afford to get her unbeknownst to me when my son got here at 14 years old instead of his father trying to help him just like his mother wasn't and he'd been cutting hardly my son stayed in a motel with his father and some girl and at that time and laughed my son didn't even know that those things existed my son did not know people did those things to each other he had no clue so he sucked deeper into that Cesspool of no one cares about me I don't matter so for the 3 months he was in Tennessee before his sister and I he never spoke to me once what was he going to say he wouldn't answer the phone to me you would not talk to me and that's when I lost him that was my baby and he has never really spoken to me since other than to tell me I should off myself. So we came to Tennessee and he was horribly horribly worse to me and I just could never understand why he was begging me to come here and then she has treating me like absolute garbage dirt at the same time it never made any sense to me and it drove me crazier and I could not figure out what was wrong with me what is wrong with me what am I doing it all became about me me and I lost my children's love more more more and more and the connection with them got further and further so now the only thing that's ever mattered to me I am completely out of touch with at this point in it and I don't even realize it I don't even realize it. So we got together we broke up we got together we broke up we got together we broke up when I learned that he was now advertising on Craigslist to sleep with men and I'm not lying about this not one but this is embellished if anything this isn't even the half of it I have no reason to b******* I wait a minute so even before that once we were here he left me for this chick and run off to City 2 with her while me and the kids were here in Tennessee and after 6 months of it not working I bought him a bus ticket to come back here because we're both parents right we're both parents and at this point I've been with this human being for 18 years and I don't know anything different anyway my daughter and I had been living in motels because I lost my home when he left for City 2 my son had already moved out from the age of 17 because he said he couldn't put up with her b******* anymore and I didn't blame him so he comes back he doesn't get a job I don't have enough money to afford the motels anymore we send my daughter to my mother-in-law's because she's about to start high school in a few days and we have to buy a tent and go to sleep in the woods until he procures a job and helps me save money to get into a place now . So now I'm living in a two-man tent in the middle of the Woods 2400 Mi away from home where I don't have anybody except for this person that hates me that I hate he saves the money and leaves me in the tent where I have been homeless now over 2 years my children hate me they won't speak to me it's all my fault that I'm a loser homeless person and Drug them across the country so all of that being said. My cousin Name it was the one who diddled my middle grew up to be some sort of Representative in Utah I don't know what his title is he married a woman that had three daughters and all I could think this whole time was I know he did it to them too and how much it disgusts me that this city in Utah has an elected official who is a child predator and a child molester how disgusting it is that people don't see people for what they are or who they are and the first time that I saw him on Facebook about 5 years into my marriage which I was married in 2004 and I contacted him and one of the first things I said was something to the effect of what he had done and his only response was oh now that's where we're going to start are you kidding me. I made an attempt one time and called the the newspaper there and ask them if they'd be interested in a story about their elected official but then when they got back to me i chickened out and never talked to them right now I want to contact his wife and let her know what she's been with this whole time because it makes me sick that he's just like nothing ever happened and there was nothing wrong with it. The good news is I'm not traumatized sexually or you know it didn't make me a w**** or a s*** it didn't make me not want sex it didn't make me gay it didn't make me not gay it didn't make me anything it didn't as disgusting and disturbing as it is to me my favorite way to have sex is the same way that he used to touch me which is bizarre but I'm pretty normal sexually it doesn't plague me it didn't change me as a person it didn't affect my life entirely and completely like some people it doesn't Define me it's never defined me as far as I'm concerned it's something that happens to everyone and when I raised my children it wasn't is it going to happen to them but when is it going to happen and who is it going to be so I guess I saw this site because I was looking up things to try to slyly jab him in the side like a thorn and involve myself in a couple of Facebook conversations he was having with other political members where they were arguing back and forth about Elon Musk doing that Hitler sign and how stupid they were I wanted to tell them because they're so focused on something that doesn't even matter in life that they don't even realize that they're talking to a sex offender child predator child molester but I wanted to do it in them most professional way so I started researching and asking questions on the internet and this is where I ended up somehow. I told the story hundreds of times it doesn't bother me it doesn't make me sad it doesn't make me anything except for disgusted I don't want or anything I dont want people to feel sorry for me or anything like that I just wanted to share my story because the first three that I read each of those stories were a piece of my total story if you added them all up when I was younger .I used to want to write a book because people say oh yeah my mom was an alcoholic or oh yeah my family was into drugs or oh my family was abusive or my family was neglectful I lived a piece of all of those things throughout my growing up all of them some people only experience one or two of those Lifestyles and I dabbled in a little bit of it all and I thought I could write a book where each chapter was dedicated to one section like that and then no matter who picked up the book and read it they would see that they weren't the only ones that there was someone out there that shared what they were going through or went through and they're not crazy and they're not bad and they're not alone so that's why I just puked out all the story which from what I can recall is about 300 times longer than any of the other ones I read sorry for that I hope I at least kept you entertained I could have made the story way more intense and detailed but I've already taken up too much of your time. I'm just curious should I tell her should I ruin her existence and tell her what she's been living with this whole time so she could at least ask her three daughters who are probably grown women at this point what he did to them should I tell his constituents you think that's going too far I mean it was decades ago. But considering the position that he's in in his community I am firmly against a child predator and molester rapist having the ability to be in control of deciding anything for anyone else and in their community I don't even think he's in office anymore I just think that people should know the type of person that they let have control then at the same time then the same thing happened with our president I mean basically basically nobody cared they still elected him so maybe I just want to matter to someone just matter enough for someone to tell you how you know it f*** that guy . The only other thing I got for you is aside from losing my family unit and the only thing that mattered to me my children the reason that I woke up every morning I don't have any other family members everyone's dead except for my molester cousins two of them the Name and the girl and I never had any brothers or sisters or anyone else so I'm all alone out here and it sucks 3,000 miles away from home haven't had a friend in the world for about 5 years now it's crazy I'm glad you could meet me I'm sorry I wasted so much of everyone's time really all I ask is don't you dare even suggest to yourself inside your own head that any of this is b******* it's just my life that's all and it's just some of it.

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  • Message of Healing
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    Healing means loving my whole self.

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    Letters to name

    It was dark, I can’t feel my legs, I guess my whole body’s been frozen, it was so cold and everyone’s walking in front of me. Running my eyes, the length of spotless street and seeing everybody freshly, some were couples, having a dizzying array of textures and moments, some were kids having cloud nine on their faces, holding gifts they thought was from Santa, Others? Just like me, sitting tight on a cold night, wasn’t waiting for anyone but I settled things, I won’t be coming home. Being alone never surprises me and so as death. Being named name, was a big joke of my entire life, there’s no one coming here for me but that was what I’ve thought, all of sudden, emerging from the mist— “Hey, hi can I sit with you?”, out of the shadows an old bearded man came, and asks me. I startled, how can I ever respond to him? I can’t even talk to people, I’ve been introverted my whole life and no wonder I don’t have any friends so I just nodded at him, just like that. Slowly, feeling almost furtive about it, he turned his head facing on me. “Oh sorry by the way I’m Lee, it’s okay if you don’t talk, I’m just here to sit off my very bad day, looking for someone to share my thoughts.” he said, while his smile turned brittle. I pondered quietly to myself as he started to tell me his story which I never expected to hear from him. I feel so bad and yet I'm feeling so well; he ran his finger through his hair and I could not keep my eyes away from his teary eyes. I never thought that I would speak but then, “Anxiety is like having a car come out of nowhere and nearly swipe you as you cross the road.” Those words came out of my mouth. He chuckled, “They said, I made my own bed, now I should lie on it. I don’t even know why they’ve said that, I never wanted to be loved nor hated by anyone.” I looked deep into him as if to search his whole system. “God is a good parent and wants his children to grow. He sometimes uses suffering to discipline us for our benefit, accordingly to book of Hebrew. So breathe, let go and remind yourself that this very moment is the only one you know you have for sure” First it was doubt groping for truth, then amazement, and finally agonized incredulity passed across his face. He laughed softly, “We just met by chance, you’re not a friend of mine but you are critical of my weaknesses and ready to counsel.” For a minute it made me jump for joy. “I just wondered we never happen to be like this, trying to keep atmosphere lighter.” For one brief moment I was terrified. “Things like this, I hope you were as talkative as you are five minutes ago” Why he sounded like someone knew me. It was breath taking when he suddenly says “Val, you’re a sympathetic one who has the patience to lend your ears to my woes, you were in my gloom of despondency.” My eyes widened at him, rumbling something deep on my throat. I was gasping for air as he kept up a steady pace, never turning around, he fades away like dust in misty night. “Please don’t go!” I was yelling and tells my brain it's time to wake up. Now that he’s gone I can see it was anger and bitterness; but at the same time, there was something almost sad about it. I faced the mirror and saw myself, I was about to cry the blues, but then beside his bed it was our picture together, then feelings grew as I recalled all of our memories together, the times he was in the ugliness of torture, helpless, when everyone smashes against him as rocks, the torments of life were always there but I wished my presence as his sister was present too. These deepest depths, the darkest nights, there was magic in the air, I recovered and discovered something that nourishes my soul and brings joy, care enough about myself because behind that picture, it was his handwriting says “Joshua 1:9 Have not I commanded you? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be you dismayed: for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.” God used my brother as instrument as He calms my raging sea and the storm in me.

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    #1766

    #1766
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  • “Healing means forgiving myself for all the things I may have gotten wrong in the moment.”

    “I have learned to abound in the joy of the small things...and God, the kindness of people. Strangers, teachers, friends. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like it, but there is good in the world, and this gives me hope too.”

    You are surviving and that is enough.

    We believe in you. You are strong.

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    Love isn't suppose to hurt if it does it's not love 💕

    This is my story at 72 sitting here all alone because I allowed my self to be abuised physically and verbally for over a 25 period of a 36 marriage. I lost both my daughter's respect and grandchildren because of his action but blamed for my actions I didn't know what was going on. I found out in 2006 my husband was a drug addict and where he was working gave him the best place to obtain it at state housing project. He was a thief from stealing at work, a liar, a user, drugs addict, gave me herpe.s , kept money from me and the house he could have his stash . Cause me to have a breakdown , I didn't know I part of his plan. He was the good stepfather and neighbor everybody like made up stories and made you feel he was a great guy who loved his wife and family. I was busy raising my family and working. Then I was hit with major medical problems, a brain annersyums which I had surgically fixed but recovered alone and with 36 stiches in my head I was knocked into my kitchen cabinets. I had my rotor cuff torn, I was hit by ball lightning in my basement, my foot broken all well raising a 3 yrs and 8 week grand children with months of each other. I was over whleemed. He left for many weeks and days at a time but I had all I could do was to be standing medically and raising my grand babies. I stayed alone did 10 years of therapy, and also went to a clinic for abuise. Nothing made a difference how I was living the abuise continued. Courts cops, etc. Until just recently I saw they only abuise you when no one is around. My god how true. They run away instead of solving a problem as they are guilty for what they are being accused of. The money, missing the drugs, the liars , stealing , the dead animals, physical and verbal abuse abuses. I was raped , sexually abuised strangled,beaten blooded, and broken . Didn't matter if I got pushed or knocked into something even after 13 hours of a back operation. I could had been parlayed. . I once tried to end my life many years ago just sitting outside in the morning in the sunshine on my deck looking up at the sun and feeling the warmth I couldn't stand the lonelines, the abuise of my marriage and man I loved and the loss of my most precious daughters. I just got up off my deck took my bathrobe rope tried to die. The rope broke . That's strange . My life didn't improve it got worst. I was a beautiful strong independent woman, mother,grandmother. who now wants to die and will all alone. I saw something the other day I had packed from my daughter she wrote look up to the sky, I had a federal law passed for child support They were so proud and made this picture book for me. The news paper said one woman fight became a nation law. 992 I fought for them to get this law passed. They were important and needed to be recognized. Now I sit here crying everyday in pain with no one to talk to embarrass no one comes home and no one cares for me. Every holiday I spend alone and birthday. My only question is why my children who are 50 and 45 don't care about a mother who gave everything to them against all the odds years ago. They know what I'm talking about. I kept a house they grew up in with no skills got a good job had insurance . Not much else but we made it by hard work. What is left of my life is 3 journals-protecting my grandkids while watching them dates and places and their questions about the abuise. I recently found out thru a aaa self analysis he stated he hated my grandson who I raised as a baby. Now I know why he tortured him with unkindness. My daughter has no idea how much I protected that baby. He stopped talking to me over 5 years ago who knows why. I did my job then very well. Why question is why doesn't my daughters understand what happened. I've tried to make contact with them don't want any anything to do with me for over 13 yrs. All because I loved the wrong man who abuse me and I allowed him to. I ruined their lives they believe I think it's the other way around. . I lost my best friends . I thought they were. You can't replace a mother . What happens to me now ? LOVE IS NEVER SUPPOSE TO HURT.

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  • “We believe you. Your stories matter.”

    “Healing to me means that all these things that happened don’t have to define me.”

    “These moments in time, my brokenness, has been transformed into a mission. My voice used to help others. My experiences making an impact. I now choose to see power, strength, and even beauty in my story.”

    We all have the ability to be allies and support the survivors in our lives.

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    The Kitchen Job From Hell

    I worked in a hospital kitchen as a food services assistant, I was 23 years old. My brother had died the year prior he was 24 years of age when he passed. I had so much grief inside whilst also trying to work and had just moved out of home. I was a lost women learning my way on my own. He was 28, he worked as the dishwashing man. I was instantly intimidated by him and his personality, his loud voice, and the jokes he would come up with, but also somehow extremely intrigued by him, and how he manages to charm everyone he works with, how he is so muscly, tanned, jet black hair and gives off so much confidence within himself, it was hard not to be charmed by him. Whilst washing the dishes he would ask questions out loud " anyone have wild sex on the weekend?". There was a time when I was standing close by to my supervisor (a woman in her 60's) and he came over and asked her if she would go to the movies with him. She laughed it off and told him to go back to work. I remember having lunch break with my female coworkers (They were such good friends of mine at the time) and they would tell me how he had showed them porn at the lockers. I remember them saying how they were uncomfortable but they moved subjects quickly and forgot about it. Not sure how long after but one of them came to me in the kitchen when I was working and she said that he had asked her what she thinks I'm like in bed, and asked her if she thinks id be the kinky type. When she came and told me he was not far away and I think he heard her telling me and he looked over to me, and I wanted to hide. When he left to go collect dishes with one of the girls he would say that if they aren't back soon then they are most likely having sex. He would always give me compliments, say he liked my hair, my nails, this love bombing I took like a hungry fish to bait. I remember one day just saying bye to him as I clocked out and he would just yell out I love you. When it was just me and him washing dishes, he would pretend to wank infront of me and then splashed the water everywhere. One of the older women in her 60's he would always be massaging her shoulders in the middle of the kitchen. (this confused me the most as he was 28.) He would walk past wet floor signs and say wow you must be horny. Nobody ever heard. He would stand at the door way and deliberately look the girl infront of me up and down, and then I knew I was next to walk past him. I even had one of the chefs saying to me, go have lunch with him and you'll be sucking him off in the next 5 minutes. I didn't have that one big moment of omg that was inappropriate he must be trying to harass me, it was a slow feed of inappropriate things being delivered to me like a line of IV fluids in the form of sexual harassment (indirectly and directly). At the time I didn't even realise what was happening to me, I loved the compliments and attention he gave me, because I looked up to him because he was so confident, charming and loud. But I was also so scared of him, He had degraded me and made me feel so uncomfortable with his comments, he had me and my 3 work friends on Facebook and he would send so much porn through messenger and making jokes about the other girls at work regarding porn. I felt embarrassed and humiliated for them. One of my good friends, she use to get him to drive her home, and she said they were making sexual jokes to each other and when she went to get out of the car he pulled her back in, she said she just laughed it off but when she got home she messaged us and told us because she was scared. Later on she would say nobody go in the freezer with him unless you want to be molested. then she walked over to me and told me that he had made jokes about her nipples when she was in there. I still remember the moment that I was like what the hell just happened, I was pushing the dishes on a trolley, when the trolley stopped working and he walked right up behind me as close as he could, and said come on you can do it. I literally panicked and just tried my best to get the trolley going. Once I walked around the corner I had to stop and get my breath. And my mind had shut off from that moment. From that moment I realised my boundaries did not exist. I was being intimidated, humiliated, embarrassed, degraded slowly overtime that I did not even realise it was happening to me until it was too late. Id been manipulated and persuaded to give in, I flirted with him. And before I knew it I was making out with him in his car. Completely scared out of my mind that I couldn't even think whilst it was happening. I remember wanting so badly to show him that I wasn't scared of him. But I was. I was terrified, of what he thought of me, being so unsure of him and his personality, not knowing if he was a good or bad guy. I was an absolute mess after being with him, I felt sick, I didn't eat for weeks. I didn't tell my work friends what I had done, everyday I was going to work and facing him, staring at me, feeling judged and humiliated for giving in and being with him. I wanted to feel okay again, and somehow I was in this toxic cycle of telling myself if I can get him to be nice to me everything will be okay, I asked him to talk one day at lunch, he agreed. I met him in his car and I said to him I just wanted to say sorry for how things have turned out between us. and he said so your wanting to do this again? I said that I was unsure. And then we ended up making out again. Every time it happened, the days after I would be in this faded daze, I couldn't think, I was mentally ill for a while afterwards. The going to work, feeling humiliated, degraded, and like I meant nothing. There were days id beg him to talk to me and explain why it happened, and he would say, I don't know why it happened it just did. I couldn't think for myself, I was relying on him for everything, my thinking, my worth, my reality, which he told me was that I had major issues, was awkward and obsessed with him. For months after I would vomit before going to work, couldn't eat and I was close to a breakdown, the days I went to work with him I looked at the ground, watched him flirting with other girls in the kitchen, and saw him disregard me like rubbish. Tonight I write this, its 4 years on and I have come so far, I still think of this man everyday, and the one thing that I struggle to get closure with, is trying to explain to people how mental manipulation mixed with sexual harassment is one of the hardest things ever to explain in therapy and counselling, I've had days where I've blamed myself still, and told myself that it was my fault and that I agreed to go along with it, I wanted him so badly, I ended up begging my abuser to be with me. I wonder how I ended up being the one wanting him when he was the one harassing me. I've literally had to relearn how to love myself after doing that to myself. I'm still learning after all these years. It takes so much time and effort. But I really hope that one day I will move on. I've said outload to myself that I forgive him, but somedays its really hard. I never got closure from him. And I still doubt myself whether I was sexually harassed. I remember calling him on the phone and he would say everyone knows I'm joking otherwise I would be done for sexual harassment by now. I want to stop doubting myself, I've always known wrong from right. But this man took this from me. And I've struggled in life ever since. I know I need to forgive him. I know what happened did happen. I know my panic attacks were telling me something was wrong. I know that he is a hurt person for doing this to others. God please heal my heart.

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    #10

    Around five years ago, I was raped repeatedly by a man I was seeing. It was the kind of rape that some people don’t consider rape - other than the act itself, there was no additional physical violence. There were no threats. There was just the constant knowledge that he would not listen when I said no, that he would not care or stop when I told him it hurt or that I didn’t feel safe. He always kept going. Every time I went over to his house, I knew that it was about to happen again. I kept going over, at least for a little while. Eventually, I tried to end things with him. I stopped answering his calls and texts and a bit later we met for coffee somewhere. I told him I didn’t feel safe with him. I didn’t use the word ‘rape’. I didn’t think of that as what it was, really at all. What was happening to me didn’t fit what I thought rape was supposed to be like. I thought of it as him “pressuring me into sex” or “not listening when I said no.” Not as bad. He told me he was sorry, and that he couldn’t help it. I said okay. He didn’t stop. A few weeks later, I ended it for good. This is not the last time I was raped, but it will always be the episode that affects me the most. Because the other time, I knew what it was. I realized that I was being raped as I was being raped and that somehow made it easier for me to process. But this episode will never stop affecting me. It has sent me to a psychiatric hospital. I have been treated for depression, anxiety, and PTSD. My sex life will never again be effortless. I will never be able to have full-length mirrors in my bedroom. I will never be able to enjoy the things that he didn’t ask if he could do to me. I can live with these things, because I am strong and my support system never fails me. The part I don’t know that I will be able to get over is that I knew I wasn’t consenting, but I didn’t know it was rape. I hope you do know.

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    an affirmation of worthiness

    an affirmation of worthiness
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    #1292

    When I was 9 years old, I had a best friend. I would go to her house often, and I never questioned or tried to stop her when she taught me sexual things. Looking back on it now, I know she was being sexually abused. She told me to keep it secret, and consistently teased me into thinking her grandmother was going to walk in on us. It’s all learnt behaviour from a predator. Her grandmother never checked up on us, I didn’t see it back then but she was neglected and severely lonely. She would tell me to take my clothes off, we would sleep naked together. She told me it was exploring, and I truly wish I could remember all of it because there are so many gaps in my memory where I think it couldn’t have been that bad or maybe it was worse than I remember. I remember her in between my legs but I don’t remember what happened, I get really really disgusted at myself for having encouraged this. I never told her to stop, and now I have a hard time accepting that it wasn’t my fault for stopping her. Either way, I remember constantly having UTIs that never got checked, and I can’t blame anyone for the situation. She was taken advantage of as a child only a year older than me, and it’s not her fault. I can’t help but blame myself, and it plagues my mind on the daily. This went on for 2 years, and I remember the UTI being so frequent and so bad I had pissed on her bed while naked. this was while I was 10, and it was completely humiliating. My past is something I find so so shameful and I struggle to come to terms with the fact that this will never leave me. I can’t help but wish the best for her, the anger is directed at me more than anything. I am healing from this, and I hope one day I can help others who went through complicated SA experiences that aren’t as openly discussed.

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    11:11

    11:11 I was sexually assaulted—violated—by a man I once admired, someone I trusted and looked up to. I was only number years old at the time, just starting out in the industry—doingjob, stepping into an industry I thought would lead to creativity, confidence, and success. But nothing prepared me for how dark and twisted things would become. This man was surrounded by women who defended him, supported him, and stood by him even when the truth started to surface. I now know they were blind—or chose to be blind—to his abuse. During one job, he groped me from behind and sexually touched me. I froze. My mind went blank. I couldn’t move, couldn’t speak. My body shut down, overwhelmed by confusion and fear. I couldn’t process what was happening. Afterward, he drove me home. On the way, he told me to do things to myself—sexual things—while he watched. I was in shock. I said nothing. I ignored his disgusting request. And that’s when he turned it around and said if his wife ever found out what had happened, it would kill her. She was ill at the time, and he said it would be my fault. He made me believe it was all on me. The shame, the fear, the guilt—it consumed me. I truly believed I was to blame. For three months, I told no one. I buried it so deep inside me that it started to rot in silence. I denied it to myself. I kept functioning on the outside, but inside, I was collapsing. Everywhere I turned, I thought I saw him. His car. His name. His presence seemed to follow me like a shadow I couldn’t shake. The fear of being watched, stalked, hunted—it crept into every moment of my day. Eventually, it broke me. I had a complete mental breakdown and finally went to the guards, hoping for justice, for protection, for someone to believe me. Instead, they laughed at my five-page statement. There was no physical evidence. It was just my word against his. That’s all it took for the authorities to dismiss me. Meanwhile, he manipulated the narrative, got other staff to read pre-written scripts, painting me as someone who was in love with him—someone who wanted it. They said I "asked for it.” He told people I was unstable. That I was obsessed. That I was dangerous and that he feared for his life. As if I was the threat. As if I was the predator. He never even had the courage to face me. He let others do his dirty work, turning everyone I thought I could rely on against me. In desperation, I turned to the people I trusted the most—my colleagues. I thought they would believe me. I confided in them, hoping for support. But to my devastation, they continued working with him. To this very day, they still do. It shattered me. I gave up fighting, because no one believed me. I was utterly alone. It has taken me seven years to reach a point where I could open up again about what happened. Number years of carrying this pain from when it all began back in month. And yet, the trauma still haunts me every single day. I see his name pop up on social media, people praising him, celebrating him, completely unaware of the truth. I ask myself constantly: If they knew what he did, would they believe me? Would they finally see who he really is? But then comes the fear: What if they don’t? What if I open myself up again only to be broken again? Do I risk being retraumatized, or do I stay quiet and let him keep living a lie?

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    Grounding activity

    Find a comfortable place to sit. Gently close your eyes and take a couple of deep breaths - in through your nose (count to 3), out through your mouth (count of 3). Now open your eyes and look around you. Name the following out loud:

    5 – things you can see (you can look within the room and out of the window)

    4 – things you can feel (what is in front of you that you can touch?)

    3 – things you can hear

    2 – things you can smell

    1 – thing you like about yourself.

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    From where you are sitting, look around for things that have a texture or are nice or interesting to look at.

    Hold an object in your hand and bring your full focus to it. Look at where shadows fall on parts of it or maybe where there are shapes that form within the object. Feel how heavy or light it is in your hand and what the surface texture feels like under your fingers (This can also be done with a pet if you have one).

    Take a deep breath to end.

    Ask yourself the following questions and answer them out loud:

    1. Where am I?

    2. What day of the week is today?

    3. What is today’s date?

    4. What is the current month?

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    7. What season is it?

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    Put your right hand palm down on your left shoulder. Put your left hand palm down on your right shoulder. Choose a sentence that will strengthen you. For example: “I am powerful.” Say the sentence out loud first and pat your right hand on your left shoulder, then your left hand on your right shoulder.

    Alternate the patting. Do ten pats altogether, five on each side, each time repeating your sentences aloud.

    Take a deep breath to end.

    Cross your arms in front of you and draw them towards your chest. With your right hand, hold your left upper arm. With your left hand, hold your right upper arm. Squeeze gently, and pull your arms inwards. Hold the squeeze for a little while, finding the right amount of squeeze for you in this moment. Hold the tension and release. Then squeeze for a little while again and release. Stay like that for a moment.

    Take a deep breath to end.