I was 12 or 13 years old, sleeping at a childhood friend’s house. I woke up in the middle of the night to him touching me. The next morning, he and I pretended like nothing happened. We had a really good friendship, I considered him my best guy friend. It was easy to ignore what happened. I slept at his house again and it happened again. I ignored it, again. I could ignore it until I would be settling down to go to sleep at his house. I never really let myself think about it, but I started to sleep with my hands between my legs, make sure to keep my belt buckled, etc, but it would still happen. I was probably 14/15 years old at that point. By the time I was 16/17, I learned that sleeping at his house = him being inappropriate with me so I avoided it, but he was still a close family friend. I never avoided him, only what he did. We would hang out and smoke. He was a lifelong friend, we would laugh and joke. well, I would get too high to go home and I’d stay the night, and it would happen again, but still I would ignore it. One of the last times it happened, he spoke to me for the first time in all those years and said “I know you’re awake. I know you like it” I’m 23 years old now. Within these last two years, I started thinking about it. At first, I had to convince myself over and over again that what he did was NOT consensual and wrong. Still now, saying that he sexually assaulted/abused or raped me is really hard. It seems too harsh. It wasn’t violent and he wasn’t older than me, I was friends with him. I didn’t tell him to stop, I closed my eyes and froze. I would ask myself “Did I like it?” Then, I started to accept it. I got really angry and hated him. I would analyze all the good times we had and think about how twisted it all was, how he was pretending to be a good person all these years. My friends and family would bring him up or invite him over. I stopped seeing my friends and family for a bit because of it. I eventually texted him, and told him not to come around anymore and that I wasn’t pretending that it didn’t happen any longer. He just blocked me. Then, I got scared. One time, I saw headlights in my window in my bedroom, I jumped out of bed and hid, fearing that he would walk into my bedroom. I couldn’t sleep at night. I was worried he’d pop up at my university. When I’d lay down and close my eyes, I felt like I could feel his fingers. I started remembering things that I had forgotten. It had been 3-5 years since anything had happened. Why am I suddenly not okay with what he did? I didn’t mind it for years. Shouldn’t I have been reacting like this years ago? Did I like it back then and now I’ve changed my mind? Is this nothing more than “morning-after” regret? No, it wasn’t. This is what made my sexual trauma really hard. It wasn’t so much the act itself, but the mental gymnastics, the self-doubt, the fear, other people’s reactions to telling them. I struggle now with the fact that I don’t hate him. I hate what he did, but I also had some really good memories. Is that wrong that I feel like I can forgive him? I’m mad that it was my responsibility to be uncomfortable and tell my parents, when I didn’t do anything wrong, it felt like punishment. His mom was like a second mom to me. Do I still talk to her? Do I tell her? What do I do when she texts me ? My purpose for sharing my story is to validate yours, especially if you didn’t report until years later, you stayed friends/lovers with the person, you froze instead of flight or fight, if it was child-on-child, or non-violet. I want more representation/understanding for this type of sexual trauma and I hope that my story contributes to that.