Comunidad

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

For like three years I’ve been picked on at school but in a weird way. This group of guys would shove each other into me saying things like ‘I know u want it’ two of them would take this as an excuse to touch me, then when I got moved next to one of them in maths it just got worse and he started threatening to r@pe me. There was also a situation in pe when one of them threw a ball at my bum then laughed about it with his friends. When I told the school they got them to stop talking to me but it doesn’t seem as tho they care. Now I cant focus properly in any of my lessons

I was used by my brother who has grown up a lot but I still carry scars. My brother is four years older than me and when I was going from elementary school to Junior high, that summer, he made me think that girls in junior high need to know how to give oral to boys. First he did oral to me to show me it was not a big deal. I thought it was a huge deal. But I did it and he got me trained and had me keep it a secret, except from by best friend. He had his friend over when I had a sleepover one night and had her do it to his friend. Then they would have us do contests where they wear blindfolds. At least I was not alone then. It changed me even though seventh grade itself had nothing to do with anything like that. It was a lie to get pleasure from me. My brother still had me doing it at home. And sometimes he would do it to me and I did climax. So I had this weird secret sex life and felt really messed up about it. Then in eight grade I had my first real boyfriend. My parents are so strict, even though they both worked and left me alone with my brother. To go to the movies with my boyfriend they made sure it was with a group and took me there and waited outside the theater. Well one time when we went to see Snow White and the Huntsman my same BFF and me went through with our plan to go down on our guys in the last row of the theater and we did it. It was only a month later I started having sex with him which never would have happened if not for what my brother had done. We snuck out from her place during a sleepover and met the boys outside and went to the nearby park and did it in the grass. That was my virginity. The really bad event, where my life got knocked off the tracks, is when we tried it from my house, sneaking out the window and going just out farther into my big back yard that opened into nothing but the side of a big hill and my dad caught us. It was awful. The world ended. I was treated like a huge betrayer and almost all my privileges were revoked and essentially I was grounded without any end date. And still by brother would make me do the oral. I was broken hearted because I was not allowed to have my boyfriend to the point my parents made me go to the school and talk to the principal and vice principal and they made sure I would not have any chance to ever see him alone. And my brother kept creeping in at night sometimes or when we were left alone expecting me to do what he had trained me to be used to. The next really bad part was two months into my new restricted life. My brother started doing his oral on me one afternoon after school and decided to take it farther and got up and started kissing me and had sex with me. I was in the moment and did not do anything to stop him and even participated. No condom. It was an afternoon when my parents were away and so we did not have to keep quiet or worry and he did it so much longer than my few times with my boyfriend, because he was older and knew more from being with other girls that I got sore for my first time and got a urine infection. I did not eat my dinner that night and pretended to be sick and cried myself to sleep. My brother really wanted to do it again, telling me it was the best sex he ever had, but I refused and one thing I could say for him back then was at least he was not a rapist. Even though he pressured me he never tried to force himself inside me. Four months after I had lost my incest virginity the school year ended and he graduated. I went to high school and he moved out to live in college dorms 120 miles from our home town. Public school was over for me, as was planned as soon as my dad caught me on the hill. I went to an all girl’s Catholic high school. My dad had to drive me a half hour every morning and my mom picked me up from my whole first year. Then they got me a car so I could drive myself but the mileage and my times were closely monitored. I did not have an intercourse throughout high school but seven times total I did oral on my brother during summer and winter breaks when we were both at home. That was the end of incest in my life. I went to college in Atlanta but not the same one as my brother. I rebelled against my parents and even though they tried to keep control, as a legal adult I did not let them. Turmoil and sadness lasted months until they finally got it. I separated from them financial and worked and took out student loans. I was very promiscuous in college. I drank, partied and used drugs recreationally and had several guys I was seeing on and off for mostly sex. That was my life and I thought I enjoyed it at the time. I became stronger and more assertive and when my brother first hinted during a Thanksgiving meeting at our relative’s house that we go for a drive I told him I never wanted to touch him again in such a powerful way that he knew I was off limits and even seemed like the scared one in our relationship. I didn’t enroll in classes for two nonconsecutive semester just because my party life was so much more fun. I traveled on and off. Sometimes with friends, sometimes with men, usually older, who invited me to exotic places. The Maldives, Portugal, The Virgin Islands. I let my married boss use me for a weekend in Key West. I had an affair with my Spanish teacher, who only took me as far as Panama City, Florida. So many risky one night stands. My identity was that I was not looking for anything permanent, a child of the universe. While I was used as a plaything so many times and believed I liked the game. I would tell them things about wanting to make their dick happy and stuff that would inflate their ego. I’m sure there are so many text messages out there that they saved about the size of their D fitting in my little P, about being a little girl wanting them to teach me to be woman and other depraved fantasies I thought they wanted to hear. Obviously directly related to what my brother did to me. I am almost positive I avoided being raped more than once by going with the flow when I did not expect to or probably want to. It may be good that some of them I probably don’t remember. Once was at one of the few fraternity parties I ever went to. It was three guys, not my usual style. Once was with my roommate's father who was visiting her at our rented house and found his way to my bed in the early morning. One of the more extreme traumatic events was with a police officer who pulled me over for driving when I had been drinking but was under the legal limit on his breathalyzer. He followed me home, like a mile away, “for my safety” and even followed me inside. I was in an apartment then and I thought my roomate was home and told him so. But when she wasn’t there he said I lied to a police officer and he had to do a more thorough search if I wanted to avoid being arrested. He was not attractive or nice. He had a gun thought he never took it out. You can guess what happened. I finally shed that wild life during my second to last semester when I saw the end of college coming. My G.P.A was 3.3. and my major was philosophy and it dawned on me that the future was not bright in terms of what I would do or how I would pay back my loans. I buckled down and decided to change. I had an offer to strip and ‘make a lot of money’ but thankfully not only did never considered myself like that, but when I went with a friend for her interview and they tried to recruit me they were so sleazy we both ran out of there disgusted. I reevaluated my whole life. I considered ending it, but some survival mechanism did not allow it. I did not want to be the person I had been for a few years. I looked ahead and saw it was not sustainable as I aged and had no real love or stability. I quit serving when I got an offer to work in a legal office. I slept with the manager who hired me as a receptionist but it was a drop in the bucket of things to be shameful of. He was the last one like that. I got all A’s and graduated cum laude. I got promoted in the firm mostly by title but used it to spring away and take a lower paying job in a nonprofit law firm where I had not slept with anyone. There I did sleep with a lawyer but I am married to him still and my life is back together. I love him and he loves me. He does not know the extent of my sluttiness in college or about my brother and I doubt he ever will. That darkness is fading and it is not part of my life now. It is not who I am. As for my brother, he has a family now and we are on good terms. We did talk about it once while I was studying like crazy my senior year, although it was not a big deep talk. I did mention that he used me, he apologized, we hugged, and that was it. Not the cathartic confrontation some might expect. My catharsis is my husband, and my life now that I am grateful for. We adopted two toddler brothers and I am their mom. Maybe we’ll have one of our own. Maybe we’ll adopt again. I was used and introduced to sex too young and early and it strained my relationship with my parents for a long time and I’ll never get that back. It derailed my life. I was set adrift for a while but God or the universe or random luck finally put me in a good place. Everything that happened led me what I have now. I can’t say I never contemplated suicide in darker times. But like in the move Cast Away, if I may quote, “I stayed alive. I kept breathing. And one day my logic was proven all wrong because the tide came in, and gave me a sail. And now, here I am.” Thousands of hours spent studying philosophy and I quote a movie that was not even based on a book. But it’s perfect.

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

I got drugged on a festival and ultimately it ended up with me performing sex with a stranger without me even being conscious. I went to the festival with three of my friends. One was already asleep when a drunk guy came to our tents. He was searching for his friend, he said but then he asked if he could stay with us a bit. He was kinda funny and pretty drunk so we thought as a group that it would be okay to give him some water and let him be with us a bit. After some time my remaining awake friends said they wanted to shower and left me alone. That's the last thing I can remember clearly. The rest is in snippets. I can remember him giving me something to drink and I drank. Then I remember him kissing me. And ultimately I woke up the next morning, naked in his tent. My friends searched for me the whole night and were really pissed, that I went with him, without telling anybody and I felt horrible for making them feel that way, so I kinda forgot that I had no memories of this incident and thought for a year or so that I was just a really bad friend, who walked off with a random drunk guy and made my friends worry. Just after that first year I started dating my SO and told him the story. He looked at me, hugged me tightly and said that this is awful. That's the first time I thought about the incident a bit more and tried to understand what happened. It was a shock for me, that he got angry at my friends because in my book they were the ones that did nothing wrong. The more I thought about though, the more I understood: he gave me some kind of drug, that basically knocked me out and had sex with me. I got raped. And this was even more of a shock. I'm still in my healing process. The memories sometimes still haunt me but way less then they did before. I still feel ashamed sometimes but I'm at a point where I can turn the train of thought around and tell myself that I don't have to be. I really hope that sharing my story will help others in one way or another and I can certainly say that it will help me be more open with my story.

It was the guy i was dating at the time, and we were just hanging out at his house like any normal day. He’d push me into sex all the time, and i’m realizing months later i have a lot of trauma from this relationship, but this particular instance has been rattling in my head a lot lately. He started forcing himself on to me, despite that i was saying “stop” “what are you doing” he wouldn’t stop. I specifically remember the look on his face. I’ve never seen someone be able to look evil like that. evil is not a word i use, but it’s exactly how to describe it. I continued to resist, of course, and before anything actually happened, he stopped. I remember saying “(name), what the fuck are you doing?” and the look on his face finally changed and he stepped back and just said “I don’t know... sorry”. i don’t know if this is actually assault or not. but recently i heard from a girl he dated before me, that him and another guy forced themselves onto her, and didn’t stop. i don’t have any way to know if it’s true or not because they all admit there was a lot of drinking and drugs involved that night so their memory is foggy, but she mentioned the look on his face. she said how she only saw anger in his eyes. and i knew what face she was talking about. what if he does it again?? is there anything i can do?? was i actually assaulted or am i in my head over fucking nothing??? i don’t know what to do.

HE picked me up the first day in the shiniest white Toyota I’d ever seen. Hallucinating halos of light around him, I knew in my heart: this was the man I would marry. Almost 15 years older, but so handsome, so experienced. We seemed to have everything in common—intellectual passions (both personal and professional), unbreakable bonds with our widowed mothers, and a shared dream of building an all-American family home. Cruising through the crisp mid-October air, we swapped thoughts and expectations before arriving at Orlando’s downtown library. I’d never even dated before. He, meanwhile, had recently lost out on a girl named Name. After attending a free 3D modeling class, we drove home through the area. Admiring the street art and neighborhood history, Name 2grinned widely. He talked endlessly about books, so our biweekly “dates” shifted to Barnes & Noble. Marriage dreams swirled through my mind; I thought I was in heaven, Ignorance is bliss. Or in this case—a kiss. Her name was Name 3 Emphasis on the DIE. At first, she didn’t look harmful. A government employee and the grandmother of my future children, Provider Name seemed overjoyed when Name 2 told her I’d proposed. She served me huge slices of homemade pistachio cake during what should have been one of our cozy courtship nights at home. On weekends, we both did laundry and cleaning. Even after I returned from an emergency psychiatric stay, she hugged me. Told me she loved me. Promised I was safe. “What’s mine is yours,” she said. Food, water, shelter, family, a bed—even help looking for work. She was like… a mother-in-law to me. Somewhere in that 4 month bloody scuffle - my hymen snapped, and someone forced me to fellate them repeatedly. I thought it was my fiancé on top of me when it happened. But he wasn’t my fiancé. Which means she wasn’t my mother in law either…

The first time I was raped, I did not know it. Blaring music and spilled drinks, you were there Persistent, like a dog. Nagging, Nagging, Nagging. Hands running down my thighs, the phrase “babe it’ll make me feel better.” Your words clanging in my head, pounding like hammers against my ears One phrase slips out of my mouth, “fine just stop asking.” Waking up on the bathroom floor, aching from head to toe Before you take me home, you buy plan b. You had taken the condom off. I cry. My virginity stolen from me, that was my definition of love. The second, oh god the second time. My life plummets. Alcohol burning down my throat, stumbling, falling to the floor, You offer me your bed. Drifting off in a drunken haze, the hands are back But they belong to a friend. Suddenly his hands are choking, digging into my skin, bruising The word “STOP” falls on deaf ears. The tears start spilling down my face when I realize I cannot fight anymore and I go limp. Blood between my legs, oh god it hurt. Oh God, Oh God, why me? Why him? The third time, yes there was a third time. Another friend. Another familiar face. More lights, more pain, too drunk to move, I leave quietly the next morning. I always leave quietly. A thought that will not leave, “I am the common denominator” “I am the problem” Rumors spread like wildfire, each one a knife to the heart, a burning in my stomach. My name in everyone's mouths, I am drowning, my voice gone, stolen. No, ripped from my throat, brutally. My story is not my own. My body is not my own. It is filled with the bile and rot and filth of these men, these men who violated my body like I was not a being with a soul, with emotion and a heart beating like their own, but an object. Women are not made to be abused, to be a scratching post for horny, lonely men who cannot control their hands or their dicks. Survivors have to carry the burden. I carry the burden of my rape. The trauma, the shame, the grief, the horror, the anger, the guilt. But to the men who raped me, I give it to you. It is not my shame, it is yours, it is not my guilt, it is yours, it is not my fault, it is yours. And I am free.

They planned it, they watched it, they laughed about it, they joked about it and then they blamed me. Ridiculed me. Sang songs every day at work about raping me. Gaslit me insofar as I believed it wasn't real. It wasn't serious. It was not rape. But it was. They still protect him even though he's behind bars. I see them around town but they saw me deeper than I'll never know. They know things about my body, that night, my most vulnerable state, my unconscious state that I don’t remember. They know more of their first plan to have me raped which failed because I couldn't ‘be there’. They still think I didn't find out. But I did. I wouldn't wish it on anyone, to wake up everyday knowing that people planned your rape TWICE and they just walk around like nothing happened. What type of people live in this same town as me can POSTPONE a rape because I was going to be studying for my leaving cert that night? Who could do that? They can. They are guilty too. I made sure to tell them. There wasn't enough evidence to prosecute them for aiding a rape. But they have blood on their hands. People know who they really are! But I didn't have to tell them. Because they know what they did. They saw me deeper. But we all know them better now.

Most of the abuse and neglect I grew up with was verbal abuse and emotional neglect. It was a lot of being yelled at by a parent. A lot of violence on objects in our presence - fists pounding on the dinner table, milk pitchers getting thrown off the table while we were all seated, banished to my room when I was angry and upset, a telephone getting violently torn from the wall while a sister and I stood inches away. The phone incident occurred at night. My memory is my sister and I were in bed. We were called out of our bedroom and yelled at for going to bed without doing the dishes. We were told we were lucky because our parent was so mad at us for not doing the dishes that they wanted to hit us but they didn’t hit us, instead they violently tore the phone out of the wall in front of us. I didn’t feel lucky. I was very upset, angry and scared and walked out of the house at night in my nightgown crying. I was then told I was overreacting and crying in order to get attention and sympathy. Another night as a younger child, I was having nightmares and crying. I was really scared and upset and couldn’t sleep. A parent came to my room and slapped me repeatedly every few seconds on my cheek. As they slapped me, they told me I would continue to get slapped until I stopped crying. I was slapped on the face every few seconds until my crying stopped. I am learning that as a result of the verbal abuse and emotional neglect I grew up with, I have thought and acted as though I was to blame for how I was treated as a child. I have lived a life plagued with guilt and self-reproach. My brain interpreted how I was treated as how I deserved to be treated and that I, not my parents, were at fault. If I hadn’t been scared and crying, I wouldn’t have gotten slapped. If I had done the dishes, the phone wouldn’t have been torn out of the wall in front of me. It’s pretty messed up thinking but not uncommon in people who were treated the way I was as a child. I am working hard to unlearn that way of thinking. The effects of the abuse and neglect endure to the present day. I have come to understand that a lot of my current overwhelming emotions like rage, anger, depression and passive suicide ideation are throwbacks to my childhood when no one helped me contain, process and move through big, strong, volatile feelings. As a result, I have had bouts of profound and debilitating depression. I have been passively suicidal, wishing I was dead or at least in a hospital. All my siblings have suffered. I have a sister who has been hospitalized over fifty times for mental health issues and is also on disability for those issues. I have pretty constant low grade anxiety that has been around so long I wasn't aware of it until recently, such a part of my being it is. I am hyper-vigilant and routinely react to present day situations in ways that don't match the present day issue. Something minor can happen and instead of being slightly bothered by it and quickly returning to calm, my nervous system interprets it as an unsafe situation, I unconsciously go on high alert and have an overblown reaction. I also frequently interpret a benign situation as dangerous. For example, I hear a certain tone in someone's voice and suddenly I think I'm about to get yelled at, hit, or have something thrown at me when someone is merely telling me I dropped a dollar bill on the floor. Learning about complex ptsd (cptsd) has been extremely helpful as has Internal Family Systems (IFS) and my therapy which is in part traditional therapy but also trauma informed with a lot of body based, bottom up (as opposed to brain based, head down) concepts and work. I was 56 when I realized I am dealing with cptsd and now feel, in many ways, like a new person. It’s never too late!

I was assualted, sexual assualted by a man I trusted, who I looked up to. I was 21 at the time, modeling, doing shoots, stepping into the modeling industry. Little did I know how dark things would get. These women who would stand by these abusers. He groped me from behind and touched me sexually on a shoot. I froze, I couldn't say anything. Couldn't process what was happening. He drove me home, told me to play with myself and let him watch. I ignored his requested and he told me if his wife found out, she'd die from the stress (she was sick at the time) and it would be MY FAULT. I strongly believed this and held everything in for three months. I pushed everything to the back of my mind, denied it. Everywhere I looked I saw the make of his car, his name, thought he was following me. I eventually I had a breakdown, went to the guards. Who were absolutely useless and laughed at my five page statement. There was no evidence but my word against his. So he got models to read off scripts and tell the guards how I was in love with this man and "asked for it". Told everyone in the industry that I was "unstable" and how he feared for HIS life. As if I was the predator. The coward couldn't even come forward himself...turned everyone against me. Feeling so alone, I confided in my dance instructors who I really trusted. Only for them to be STILL working with this man to this day. I gave up fighting as no one around me believed me. Taking me 7 years to open up again about my trauma. Everyday it still effects me..seening his name everywhere on social media. People singing him praises, if only they knew... would they believe me?? Do I risk going through the trauma all over again??

For years I questioned what I was doing wrong and how someone who loved me could be so comfortable hurting me. But they didn’t hit me so I never looked at it as DV or myself as a victim. Through different type of relationships, it was a revolving door, but they didn’t hit me so I wasn’t a victim. Until my last relationship. In 3 1/2 years, he put his hands on me once, but if I had just let him leave, he wouldn’t have done it. For the longest time, he was planting it into my head that I was the issue. The good times were really good so I overlooked the bad cause I loved him more than I loved myself in that moment. The way he loved my kids (who were not his) also kept me around for a lot longer than I should have. I planned a life with him in my head cause he was helping raise kids that weren’t his so he must be an amazing man to step up, until he started lacking. Then I realizing me being unhappy with him, was hurting my kids more than I knew. He made me believe that I was so “mentally unstable” no one would ever love me & that being 6ft down in a grave was the only way I was going to be able to get away from him. Then I left & I was so proud of myself. I started doing intensive therapy & working on myself & then the thoughts he planted in my head came back. “No one could ever love you the way I do because I was there for you in your lowest” & I broke the no contact & let him back in. Things were good at first, and then he would shove the past in my face & tell me how much he hated me & the verbal & mental abuse cycle began again. But this time, I knew better. I found out about mental & physical abuse, I did research, I was in groups & I was learning to love myself again. I had boundaries for the first time in a long time. And then I found out about the cheating a year prior while he was living at my house & the summer of the downward spiral had begun. I blocked him again & was so depressed, I began drowning it with alcohol. I felt my heart just break as this man had spent so much time accusing me of cheating while I was working to support my kids, just for him to turn around & do it to me. I almost lost everything & it took me losing 1 of my jobs to finally get back on track. I stopped drinking for a while, I found a better job, I spent more time with my kids & began re-evaluating what made me happy in life. I re-discovered my healthy boundaries, I was working more, I was laughing again & generally meaning it. I started talking to my friends about my feelings & where I was in life. For a year, things were going better (there’s always going to be the ups & downs but it was better). And then the 1 year of me blocking had come up & I caved & unblocked him on his birthday. At first it was to be petty, and then I found out he was seeing someone. I played it like I didn’t know anything, we hung out a few times & then the old him came out again but this time, I was in a better place & I knew what to accept & what to correct. I finally seen him being in my life was not good for me mentally & as much as I miss the him he pretended to be when we first met, I am learning to mourn the person who never existed. I don’t want to call him for every little thing anymore (good or bad). He doesn’t get access to me or my kids life anymore & I love the strong, independent female I am becoming. I’m so proud of the scars I’m healing & acknowledging that I’m human & I am going to have weak days that I might want to message him & I’m taking it 1 day at a time. Going from planning a future & a life with someone you thought was them to mourning someone who never actually existed is something most people will never understand (& I hope they never have too). Some days are easier than others & it’s ok to get lost as long as you find your way back to the track. I am strong because I have no other choice but I’m learning it’s ok to have weak days & I don’t always have to be so strong. Cry, scream, punching a pillow is healthy ways to let all of that out. I’m not perfect & I don’t have to be but I will be there for others going through this & let them know they’re not alone, it’s not their fault & they are very so much loved

he wouldn’t listen to me when i told him i didn’t want to go to his room. i told him i was too drunk and i didn’t feel well, that i wanted to go back to my room. he took me with him anyway. he stuck his hand in my pants and i told him to stop. he did for a moment, then he tried again. i told him no again, and he did stop. we went to bed. i wish he had done more, because now i’m traumatized and having panic attacks but don’t feel like i should be, because he stopped. i feel even worse for wishing he hadn’t. because then my feelings would be valid.

I just wanted to share that after leaving a domestic violence relationship, there is hope for healing and a healthy relationship. I had to learn to love myself again and find my happiness. I truly wanted to give up multiple times through my journey as I could not see a happy end to it but I am forever grateful that I kept pushing forward. I hope my story can reach one person going through the same thing and let her or him know there is hope. My ex husband verbally abused me for years and when the verbal abuse stopped working it turned physical. Anytime he would physically abuse me he would take away all means for me to seek help (ie cell phone, car keys etc) and I would not be able to get away until the next day. Following the abuse he would deprive me of sleep that same night so I was always be physically and mentally drained the following day. I tried to go to the police department multiple times the day after these incidents happened and they would tell me there was nothing they could do unless if I made contact when it was happening. I was baffled with the lack of support. My daughter would witness some of his events but was too scared to call anyone because she was afraid of retribution from her dad. No child should ever have to witness a parent abusing the other. She has had to be in counseling after the divorce because she felt guilt over not calling the cops and PTSD from witnessing his attacks on me. I finally got the courage to leave when he started to threaten to kill me and himself. Law enforcement again said that there was nothing that they could do during this time. We went to court and I thought I would finally get my chance to be heard and I was very wrong. The courts hired a guardian ad litem (GAL) to represent my daughter. I explained the abuse to her and she stated that she no longer cared about the abuse on me because I have removed myself from the situation by moving out. She also told my 10 year old daughter at the time that she needed to forget about it as well and start over fresh. She also said to my daughter to not be listening to me which made my daughter felt like she did not have a voice. My ex husband charmed the GAL into thinking that I filled my daughter's head with all of the abuse and negative talk about him and the GAL threatened to send me in for a mental evaluation. She also threatened to take custody from me. This was all because I was fighting so hard for someone just to listen to me. I had even provided professional witnesses that the GAL refused to contact. I've never felt so down and so voiceless in my life. This is when I decided I was going to fight harder and not give up. I volunteered to go talk to whoever they wanted me to talk to as long as my soon to be ex husband had to have the same evaluation. The judge ordered us to family and individual counseling. Within the first month of counseling the counselor diagnosed him as a narcissistic psychopath and me as having PTSD from domestic violence. She also recommended extensive counseling for our daughter as she was depressed and had severe anxiety. It was freeing to feel validated but the fight was far from over. The second he was diagnosed by the counselor, my ex husband stopped cooperating in counseling even though it was court ordered. I had to file months of contempt court motions and was forced to find a new counselor because he claimed that one was biased. The second counselor diagnosed him with the same thing. I was recommended by the first counselor to bring all of my proof to the police department and try to file charges against him. I had 24 months from the last attack to file a police report. I met one officer that had the kindest soul and was married to a domestic abuse survivor. He stated that State law so infuriating. He informed me that the prosecutor most likely won't even take my case since I've moved out and away from the situation. He did sincerely apologize and he listened to me. He sat down with me and let me tell him my whole story. He told me that he went through all of this with his now wife and it is so frustrating. He also shook my boyfriend's now husband's hand that came up there with me for support. That was the one law enforcement officer that listened to me out of many interactions but he made the biggest impact on my life. I have now been married for 3 years. I still struggle with certain triggers but they are less often. My husband is aware of them and is so patient with me. I had to retrain my brain to not be in constant flight or fight constantly. Some days are harder than others but the hard days are less frequent. I've learned to slow down and appreciate the smaller things in life. I slowly took my voice back. I filed a report with the State of State for the GAL and she was investigated for misconduct. There are many days where I felt like a black cloud was following me. I promise there is green grass and blue skies on the other side of that hill so just keep pushing forward.

I was eleven when it happened. It was Wednesday in September of sixth grade. The boy who assaulted me I had only met on Monday of the same week, when he’d asked me if I had a boyfriend and/or any romantic interests (to which I responded I was gay), told me lesbians shouldn’t get married (to which I responded with the question why), and told me he knew this because he watched pornography. The day he assaulted me, he got uncomfortably close to me, and whispered in my ear that he liked me and wanted to kiss me, before placing his hand on my left thigh and moving it upwards, stopping briefly in the middle. I forgot for over a year, and when I remembered it triggered a relapse of self harm.

What happened to me occurred back on date, although I met this guy back in 2018 where I was in my early 20's & he was in his mid-20's. I've seen him on the bus on my way to school, but didn't really talked to him until he initiated a conversation with me back in date where our public transportation rides & friendship started. Overtime, I've grown to get used to him being around & bump into him a few times while going to school & going back home since we would go the same direction back & forth although we would later be in the same university after I transferred from cc. Once we got comfortable with each other, I developed feelings for him when I didn't want to for fear of being hurt. Once we got to hanging out outside of school & public transportation, his behavior towards me changed once I opened up about myself & also tried to get to know him as well. Looking back, it started out as harassment where he would force me to kiss him even though he only wanted to be my friend back in Nov. of 2019. I didn't know it would later get worse after trying to hangout with him again back in Dec of that same year after telling him my feelings. He never took it seriously & only wanted one thing after dealing with disappointments from past relationships while wanting something more casual, which he wasn't clear about through his mis-matched words & actions. That night then became my worst nightmare since he had no regards for my feelings or boundaries. That night I felt violated since he would called it a "hangout" when it was really🍇. It was my first intimate encounter, but it wasn't out of my own freewill. After graduating, life became more rough & the journey to move forward from the pain was difficult since I've been stuck trying to get a jump start on my career ever since. Currently, I'm seeking therapy to find ways to cope with what happened to me on this rough path to survivorship. Had I had known what would happen...I would've avoided him at all costs & in turn, avoided my trauma.

Noone has the right to invade your personal space. Rape and Sexual Assault is wrong. Speak up. Report your incident. Get Mental Healthcare. Know that YOU matter and you are not alone. Help is available. Do not keep silent any more. Tell someone. Ask for help and accept it. You are loveable and capable.

Praying for forgiveness of the other person and learning to not have a grudge against the perpetrator.

To all of those who have expienced sexual assualt, rape, trauma.' This is for us. I hope you enjoy reading this as I did writing it . You are not alone for all phonexs must rise from the ashes in order to sore,. Never let anyone or anything dim your flame. My name is Name, Im 25 years old to the day and this is my story,. When a child is tossed into the unexpected chaos of the world it can either go one of or two ways ,. That child rises above all the rest or feels nothing at all. as for me,. sadly the universe decided in order for me to heal I myself had to be the one to break the curses that went on for far to long. Healing hurts and sometimes it takes losing everything. Family, Trust , self worth, justice and hope. in order to gain Peace, closure, cessitation and finally acceptance, I chose to be the voice for those who have not yet shared but have so much to say, yet suffer in a silence it is almost deafaning. This is how I take MY voice back I am sick and tired of feeling victimized. Its depressing I hate waking up every single day wondering whats going to trigger me, and im sure im not the only one who feels this way. Relationships well.. HARD.. Going out in public ..HARD and dont get me started when it comes to social invites . Like dont get me wrong I am not crazy about Aunt Name kentucky fried chicken nights but the fact that i sweat the moment I know its a day away and i can feel my pulse racing isnt cool. Its my life so why do we let our affender still control so much of it ? Exactly. Its our turn. We don’t. I sincecerly hope this simple story of my life helps someone take theirs back to because we have suffered to much to go fourth feeling the lable of " victim" I want all of those who have suffered to turn that word into victory, . Thankyou for those who have read. Remember that you are NOT your trauma ~Name