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Original story
Even if your experience is very unusual and/or help is not available, you're not alone.
I healed naturally. Though I still have sequelaes, some of them are rational, and some of them haven't much impact on my life.
I can't talk about this in such detail on domestic websites because I might be recognized. My mother tongue isn't English. This event may be very unusual so there'll be many details involved. When I was 16 (now 25), during the summer break when graduating from middle school, a stranger, who was an online friend of my school classmate, pretending to be her after somehow getting her social media account passwords, and managed to get my phone number and photo. Because I thought it was really her and we're all so familiar, I casually took a picture with the front camera of my phone. I have a very recognizable face but haven't any overly conspicuous features like moles or buck teeth, the photo didn't look like the real me because of the lens distortion and without any post-processing, but people who know my real face can tell it's me at a glance. While pretending to be my classmate, he also posted a photo claiming to be himself (he used her identity and said "it's my online friend"), and claimed to be 23. Everything seemed normal afterwards, until he went offline, after a while my classmate went online and asked me what happened before. I sent her the chat log, she said it wasn't her who spoke to me earlier. I was confused and asked her what was going on, and she said she didn't know either. After a while, my classmate told me that he tried to convince her to let me add him as friend (I set the privacy verification question) and sent me a screenshot of the chat log. I asked why does he want to add me and told her to tell him. Later she replied "He said if you don't agree he'll do something" (sic). I asked her what he'll do exactly, she didn't say. I'm confused so added the man. I saw his profile, it's complete, also said that he was 23 and had the photo he sent me before. Then he wooed me with offensive words and I calmly said no to him, it's not only because he's not my type in terms of the photo but also the way he's doing it's unacceptable. He immediately threatened me with self-cutting. He also attempted to pressured me for nudes. I tried to persuade him for more than an hour, during this time, as long as I showing refused, he threatened me again and showed desperate. I was want to pretend I had a boyfriend or I was a lesbian, but I was afraid he would find out or already know my real situation in some way and be more dangerous to everyone. He didn't threaten to hurt me or my loved ones and said he would be nice to me. I was shocked to dissociation and "fighting for my sanity". I know it's not my fault, but it only make me not feeling guilty. Finally I found that he was really unable to communicate, I had no choice but to delete him and had to delete my classmates. We're just school classmate and haven't mutual acquaintance, my mental state didn't allow me to deliberation and/or tell her what happened. Then he called me several times a day at certain times, I put my phone in whitelist mode. It lasted half a summer break (about a month). The age of consent in my country is 14 (at least at the time), but what he did involved coercion, it's still a crime and subject to psychological counseling (it was 2010s, the difference between the appearance of 15-16 yrs and adults is generally only a slightly childish face and clothing style). I know this but I can't seek help because of avoidance symptoms and memory loss. Since my only two symptoms were loss of relevant memory and avoidance, no one noticed. Memory loss isn't the same as total forgetting, it can still feel wrong. After more than 2 years I started to naturally and slowly recover my memory, I don't know how many years before I fully recovered memory and recovered from the avoidance symptoms. I'm afraid of romantic relationship now, because I'm afraid of meeting such a person. I'm also instinctively afraid to answer strange calls unless there's a mark such as "Express", even though I know I've changed my number for an unrelated reason when I was in college. I didn't cancel the whitelist mode until I changed my number. I speculated that he probably have discovered me through my likes and comments on my classmate. I'm always tough, but still almost broke by the situation. If I'm a Transformer, I'm not afraid of someone threatening to hurt me; but if someone threaten to hurt themselves, it's useless that even I'm made of dark matter. If this event got any worse and broke me completely, I may think that those vulnerable people are social harmful and need to be eliminated. If someone is doing this because of mental illness and/or personality disorder, what they need is professional help, not an impossible person.
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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.
Take a deep breath to end.
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?
5. What is the current year?
6. How old am I?
7. What season is it?
Take a deep breath to end.
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.