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Story
From a survivor
🇨🇦

You’re A Nightmare & I’ll Always Be Begging For Sleep —

We get on the late bus we’re going to take to get to my house, the “activity” school bus, since we’ve stayed behind after school. He leads me to a seat somewhere in the middle, then shields us from the thin stream of other students trickling in. Without warning, he leans forward and kisses me. The instant our lips meet, a white-hot something flares up inside of me and I think: I don’t want to do this anymore. I pull away almost immediately, the kiss lasts only a few seconds but it feels like an eternity. He says in an almost condescending tone, “That was physically nothing. You made it sound like you knew how to kiss.” As though he’s entitled to someone more experienced. Of course I don’t. Does he not understand what a first kiss is? Did I even like it? Before I have a chance to say anything, he pulls me in and kisses me deeply, his lips pressing against mine. A translucent blush clambers up my neck and caresses my cheeks before it digs its nails in. Once he’s done, he gets up and switches seats, leaving me alone for the remainder of the ride home. In the thick, heavy, humid air of my room, mingled with the smell of our sweat, his cloying scent—of cologne, tropical gum, and mint with a hint of vanilla—penetrates my nostrils. His cruel hands emerge from the shadows, tangled in my hair, cradling my jaw. Without a sound, they slither to my waist. Unsatisfied, they creep, groping lower, wrapping around my hips. His touch is unforgiving. It makes me want to cry. His hands move like it’s easy, like he doesn’t have to think before using me. I can’t tell the difference between him and the dark. It’s so opaque I can’t tell if my eyes are open or closed. I can’t see anything. I can only feel. He kisses me relentlessly, ruthlessly, his lips warm and wet. The sound is nauseating. It makes my skin crawl. As his kisses deepen, they turn cold as he slips his tongue into my mouth. He tastes like all the tears I wish I could cry. He was soft, even gentle at first but he’s allowed his obscene hunger to consume him. He’s getting rough but I can’t say no. I can’t say or do anything, I’m running on autopilot. I tear away from myself, it feels like my soul has been taken out of its socket. I’m a detached spectator watching it all unfold as I hover outside of my body, facing the scene. I don’t recognize the boy kissing him back. It can’t be me. This can’t be happening. But it is. We barely part for air because he just won’t stop. Even when we pause for the briefest moment to catch our breath, I can still feel it. His phantom lips on mine. I didn’t think it would be like this. I don’t want to watch anymore, disgust roils in my stomach, but I can’t look away. Cacospectamania—an obsession with staring at something repulsive or vulgar, where our tendency as humans towards morbid curiosity comes from. I can’t close my eyes and even if I did, the sight has already burned itself into my eyelids. I feel sick. I can’t breathe. But he doesn’t stop, he takes and takes as my skin begins to simmer with the invisible fever beneath his skin, poison seeping through my veins. For the first time, he asks me before he does something. “Can I kiss your neck?” he asks. Without thinking, my head automatically falls forward in a simulated nod, even though I don’t really want him to. My mind is utterly blank, I can’t comprehend, can’t process what’s happening. I’m not even looking at him, I’m watching from behind, peering over my own shoulder into nothing. My motionless body buzzes like a hive, vibrating from within. I feel his hot breath on my neck like a wolf panting on the fur of a rabbit. He kisses it roughly and it feels like he’s rubbing my skin raw. He traces one point along my jugular with his lips and tongue, like he’s a vampire trying to suck the blood out of my body. I wonder if he can feel my pulse screaming his name. I do not want this—it hurts, it hurts like hell—but my body unspeakably betrays me. Pleasure rises to the surface, giving me a high I’ve never felt before and will never feel again. My sole reference is the only other kind of high I’ve experienced, the rush spilling one’s own blood brings. Soon enough, I will slice my skin open in a futile attempt to bleed his fever from my veins. Except this is different. It unfurls like a vapor from the thick ice cover of numbness across the white, barren landscape within my chest, melting from the heat of our bodies. I retreat into my mind, bent on my hands and knees over the foggy surface, and try to break through to and unearth the fear buried far beneath. But it doesn’t feel good. Not in the slightest. The tingling, throbbing skin on the left side of my throat and all over my lips ache as though I’ve been stung by the restless bees inside me. I don’t know if this is normal or not. I wonder, Is it supposed to sting? The sensation is like rope burn, in the same spot where a noose had once dug into my flesh, leaving my skin scraped scarlet from the weight of my body I had left to the mercy of gravity. But at least that left a mark, some kind of proof, even if it was superficial. When it comes to him, all I have is the hurt. Nothing to show for it. Later, he hooks a finger on the collar of my v-neck T-shirt and tugs down. Dizzying, deep, instinctual fear drenches me, ice water being poured down my front as my heart drops to my feet. It arcs through my body, as sensitive as a live wire, electrocuting my nerves. I’m drowning in it, it’s so dark and cold, it’s like being plunged into a frozen lake and pulled to the bottom. I don’t know which way is up or down. But I know I’m going to die. Either from fright or from him. I manage to break the surface and as I do, I push him away with every ounce of my little strength. I’m so scared I can’t think straight, I can’t think at all. Every other emotion has left me except for the terror coursing through my thrumming veins. He’s going to rape me. I’m going to die. He practically said it before, when I told him my mom wanted me to keep the doors open. ‘What, does your mom think I’m gonna fuck you or something?’ The doors are closed. No one is going to help me. In stark contrast to me, he is harrowingly calm. But I can feel him trembling. Why is he shaking when I’m the one getting hurt? Is it excitement? Fear? Shame? Desire? I want to scream and cry until I’m wrung dry of tears, but my voice is stolen from me. I open my mouth but the sounds die in my throat, in the same way I will, an endless, excruciating death. I wish I could say, “No! Get off me. Get away from me. I don’t want to. Stop touching me. Leave me alone. Please. Don’t. Stop it. It hurts.” But he is the only one who can speak. I don’t want to listen anymore but it doesn’t matter. His voice is faded but his words are clear as a bell. “Don’t worry, I’m not taking anything off.” He’s trying to be reassuring but it doesn’t make me feel any safer. I don’t know why I reluctantly go back to him. I thought I could trust him. I wish I hadn’t. When I innocently drape my arm over his waist, he looks at me and says in a blasé tone, “You don’t know what turns me on, do you?” I quickly pull my arm back and cradle it against my chest like a bird with a broken wing, fear turning my blood cold. His expression never changes. Mirroring the countless times he’s gotten turned on by me and verbalizes it, regardless of my then asexuality. Later that same night once he’s home, I regrettably send him a poem with the misnomer desire, simply detailing the strange, foreign sensations all over my body, awaiting his lips and hands—or in retrospect, his hurt—to return. He responds, ‘You’re so sensual.’ I imagine him dragging out each word, slow and sultry, as though to entice me. At some point, I bite down on the inside of his lip. He pulls away and his mouth splits into a chilling smile. He says, “You bit me.” I apologize, even though I don’t mean it. Nothing I do stops him for longer than a few moments. He is ravenous, starving for me. He cannot get enough. He devours me. All I can do is watch, a ghost witnessing their own demise. Words no one else can hear are whispered in my ear from behind me. “This isn’t real. This isn’t happening.” I believe them because it’s better than dying. His response when I later told him it didn’t feel real? ‘You know it was.’ He says, ‘You’re mine, now. Forever.’ I imagine him saying it with a sadistic, self-satisfied grin. The words like hands pinning me down, shrapnel embedded in my skin. A brand on my soul—unforgettable, claiming me, marking me for life. His name threads through, weaving its way between everything. It carves itself into my heart and fuses with my bones, swirling in my bloodstream—every wounded bit of me engraved as his. I wish I could find the voice to say, “I’d rather die than be yours.”

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  • Story
    From a survivor
    🇪🇸

    That night my brother touched me

    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.

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  • Message of Healing
    From a survivor
    🇺🇸

    Healing is hard work and trying to trust again

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  • You are surviving and that is enough.

    Story
    From a survivor
    🇮🇪

    Stuck in the bathroom for 40 years

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

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  • Taking ‘time for yourself’ does not always mean spending the day at the spa. Mental health may also mean it is ok to set boundaries, to recognize your emotions, to prioritize sleep, to find peace in being still. I hope you take time for yourself today, in the way you need it most.

    Story
    From a survivor
    🇺🇸

    Major Sexual Harassment

    It started as sexual harassment. And I let it happen. Do not let it happen to you! I was a college intern working on my supply-chain management major. In business school you know you don’t just get a degree and POOF! A job is magically waiting for you. Unless you already have connections. I was a single woman on financial aid and had squat for family connections. I needed to make some connections while still in school that I could use to climb the ladder. It is a very competitive world. A time when we don’t care so much where we work as long as it has prospects of advancement and making money. I was interning at the corporate offices for a rental car company. I got my first choice for a class in which we had to intern at a real company. My group of four was in their logistics offices and we had no clear job at the time but my school had sent students for a while so we had a contact person and some loose idea of a project that my group of four had to put together and execute for our grade. Well that was kind of of dud and I went along with the bad idea of planning more efficient distribution routes for their cars entering the fleet. It was naive because the company had real pros who designed the system. But, because of my feminine wiles, I got invited to come in and help in my free time by a top manager. Just me. I jumped at the opportunity and on my available days I showed up early in the morning and tried to be like part of the team. It was a very masculine environment. I tried to hang in spite of the pretenses for my special treatment. “You’re not one of those feminist types who go crying to HR if a man gives you a compliment or a pat on the backside, are you?” The man who first invited me had asked. We’ll call him XX. I assured him I was not, anticipating his expected answer. “Work hard, play hard,” was something I said in my denial of values he was obviously opposed to. So the couple times XX introduced me as his mistress I went along with the joke. Another stupid mistake. As an example of my environment, after a male Y in the department first showed me how to use part of a program that calculates stock outages, he had me sit and try it and gave me a massage I did not ask for early in the morning. Well XX came up and made a joke about Y getting his hands of his girl. They had some bro moment where the male Y asked him if he was serious, saying something about XX’s wife, to which XX backed down and said something like “It’s just a joke. I’d love to in my fantasies, but she’s company property, brother.” Company property??! I was sitting right there! I tensed up but tried to pretend I was so absorbed in the computer training as XX left and male Y went back to massaging me, but this time more boldly. He got down my lower back and upper buttock then went down the arms to my thighs, stopping me from doing any work as he blatantly brushed his forearms and hands against my chest. I felt so weak and almost paralyzed by the time I forced myself to stand up to go use the restroom, stopping it. I could have just done that at the beginning but did not. Later hat same day, XX had me go to lunch with him and have a beer at a bar and grill with a pool table. I was 20 but they did not ask for my ID because I was with XX. I hardly ever played pool and while we waited for our food he “showed” me how to play. He made fun of the cliché on movies and television where a man has a woman bend over the pool table to shoot just so he can push his crotch against her backside in a suggestive manger and lean over her with his arms on each side of her to show her how to slide the stick. But while he joked about it he actually did those things to me! That was a good day for my two main molesters and an awful day for me. XX hugged me as we stood up giggling and apparently his hands now had a license to molest my body whenever he wanted. I got numb to it in some ways, but emotionally more on edge. My butt was grabbed or spanked playfully in the department, even by male Y. A few other men were very flirtatious. My shoulders were rubbed, hugs on even minor greetings with XX and finally I was supposed to get used to little pecks on the lips too. I felt like I was in a constant state of mental anguish and defensiveness. My body could be attacked anytime. But I did not defend myself! I would say clearly to XX and some others that I wanted to be respected and considered one of the guys and have a job there when I graduated and they affirmed it. Both main abusers encouraged me, but still sexually harassed me. With my moronic blessing! The semester ended and I kept going in daily during summer break. It was my only lifeline to a possible job after I graduated in a year. I was so groomed that it was not a big leap at all when XX pressured me to give him head in his office. I refused with a smile and head shake and he came back with some rationalization about how I owed him and he really needed it just then. He would not take no for an answer. The first time I lowered myself to kneeling before his desk and took him in my mouth my hands were shaking and I teared up and had to sniffle snot back up. I was the one who was embarrassed! It was like an out of body experience and my mouth dried up to where I had to ask him to drink some of his energy drink. Internally there was a huge change immediately. I was gutted of all pride and self-worth. I was like a zombie. Hardly eating. Lots of coffee. Showing up and doing the reports that had become my responsibility and mechanically giving XX his daily BJ in the afternoon in his small stale office with a small window. I started to have migraines during that summer. I drove home for 4th of July and got so inebriated I ended up sleeping with my much older sister’s ex-husband in the back of his truck. That was a terrible wake up call. I knew I couldn’t pretend much longer without a breakdown so I put my two week in at the rental car place where I was working for free. To secure my future I made sure to keep it all friendly and “you know I’ll be back working here next year”. The idea of all the time and humiliation I had put in being lost to nothing was a major fear. I put myself through two last weeks of it. I had quickie sex with XX twice on and over his desk. I gave into extreme pressure and gave male Y a BJ too when he explicitly made it about a letter of recommendation. He knew about me doing it for XX. He did not even have his own office and we had to use the stairwell. During my final year of school I became aware that I was too traumatized to ever go back there anyway. The extent to which I had been used and abused became obvious to me, where before it had not. As if I had been living in a denial haze. It was a painful time. I was a bit reckless. I got a C in the high level economics elective I took. I said yes to several dates to avoid being alone and either slept with them or freaked out in anger at them. Seeing that I needed the car rental faux-internship on my resume I did email both abusers for letters of recommendation and got a good one from Male Y, but a very impersonal, generic one from XX. I was so dejected and angry. Finally, I told my sister, the one who confronted me about her ex-husband. I TOLD HER EVERYTHING AND THAT WAS MY FIRST STEP TO RECOVERY. To letting out the pain, screaming at myself in the mirror, punching the heavy bag at a boxing gym I joined, and to seeing my first psychologist and psychiatrist. The therapy helped more than the Celexa and Abilify. The support group helped even more. I met two friends for life who have my back in times of sorrow. I have to repeat that it is not my fault that I was abused, even though it kind of was. Don’t let it happen to you! They will take as much as they can from you. Plan your boundaries now and be assertive! Report harassment immediately. Doing so you are being a hero and protecting other women and yourself. If you have already been abused, GET OUT of the situation and talk to someone about it ASAP. There is nothing to be gained by letting the abuse continue! Talking to someone makes it real and lets you start the process of hating less and starting on the path to learning to love yourself again. You deserve real love.

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  • “It can be really difficult to ask for help when you are struggling. Healing is a huge weight to bear, but you do not need to bear it on your own.”

    Story
    From a survivor
    🇬🇧

    #121

    It took me years to come to terms with what was really happening. When I was 9 years old, I met a boy online, and we quickly became friends. We knew everything about each other - He was 15 when we first met. When I was 10 and he was 16, he asked to be my boyfriend. Being a naive 10 year old girl I said yes. I can’t be mad at her for that. It was innocent at first. Just what you’d expect from a childhood relationship - “I love you, goodnight.” “Hope you’re doing okay.” “Let’s play some games together!” The only difference was that one of us were nearly an adult. Someone who should have known better to not even THINK about being romantically involved with a 10 year old girl. However, it went sour. He started talking to me about sexual subjects. Stuff I wasn’t at all familiar with. He’d make us roleplay situations, what he’d do to me if he got ahold of me in real life. Asking for photos. Guilt tripping me for seeming “off” or uninterested. I began to feel distressed at the time, but I was so young, that wasn’t really an emotion I had felt before. I told myself, this sick feeling must be love. That must be why I feel so nervous, why I feel knots in my stomach when I see his name pop up on my screen. I was very attached to him, at least I thought I was. I was always picked on in school and the few friends I had were awful to me, so he was my only real friend. My worst fear was somehow losing him, and he must have known that I thought that. He took advantage of that, and would guilt trip me at any opportunity to make sure I did whatever he wanted me to. After a while, he broke up with me, but we were still very much so “friends”. We would talk everyday, and he was still just as inappropriate and creepy with me as he was before. Throughout the years, he would begin to talk to me about worse and worse stuff. He explicitly told me about his attraction to children, and that he worked as a teaching assistant in a primary school. I tried to brush it off and keep it at the back of my mind, but I got to tipping point last year when he started to pressure me into meeting with him in real life. It went on for 7 years. I hate to say it, and it makes me sad for the little girl that I was, but the rest of my childhood was stolen from me. I’m 17 now, about the same age he was when we met. The thought of EVER saying the stuff to a 10,11,12 year old that he did makes me feel physically ill. I still haven’t fully processed what happened to me, but I’ve been working on it. I’m yet to cry, at least properly, about it. The thing that sucks about this is that this went on for so long, that it felt completely normal. The people in my life who know all cried when I told them. It felt unfair, really - that they could cry about it. And I’m just stuck in a mindset I’m desperately trying to get out of where this is normal, and I feel completely numb. Recently, I decided I wanted to do something about it. I went to the police. This night, I sent off old screenshots of conversations between us to a detective working on my case. It’s terrifying, being that vulnerable. But I feel obligated to do it. The thought of him being around children all day makes me sick. I don’t care if he doesn’t go to prison - as long as he’s never near a child again I’ll be happy. That’s why I’m doing it. I won’t let shame and embarrassment stop me from doing this, and I especially won’t let my brain tell me he doesn’t deserve punishment. Because that’s exactly what he’d want me to think, too.

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  • Story
    From a survivor
    🇺🇸

    You are NOT alone

    You Are Not Alone You are not alone. So many of us had so much taken from us by people who put pleasing their basal urges over our sanity. For their moments of bliss and dominance we suffer. We blame ourselves for their sickness. THEIR pathology. There is an army of us. That is what these stories teach us. They show us we are legion. We are strong. Our psychological reactions of fear, mistrust, hatred are not crazy. They are normal. It is also normal, but not easy, to climb out the darkness together. I grew up in a large low income black of flats that was like a village. My mum worked and we went about by ourselves. In the winter we were never expected to be seen if we left. We were in some flat mucking about with some kids or neighbor, and it all worked out fine. I did lose my virginity when I was eleven to a friend of my older brother who was in year ten. But that was no bother because it was not uncommon there, sadly. I am half Brazilian on my absent father’s side and was considered quite exotic and fit. My secondary sexual characteristics developed early. I was reasonably careful and in control. True abuse began years later when we moved out to a proper house with HIM. HE was my mom’s dream man. HE was fit for a middle-aged man. By that time my brother wasn’t with us because he took work in Alaska on a fishing boat. HE was ex-Army and seemed like a good man at first. I was a bit of trouble maker and over-cheeky and my mom gave HIM carte blanche to discipline me like father. We weren’t there the length of a full season when HE started treating me like a tart. The spanking part mom knew about and thought it was funny, even with me being fifteen. HE spanked my bare bum even when she was home. She said I’d always needed a man’s hand to block of my rough edges. It was cringe, humiliating, but nothing compared to what HE did when mum was away. Not to get detailed, HE soon got to a point where I was going to get HIS load whenever there was the chance. Since HE got to set my schedule he made sure there were regular chances. It was my HELL and HE was the Prince of Darkness. He was rough but careful not to leave any marks. Unless time was short I had to shower first. Sometimes after there would be something specific sitting out to wear, like a costume or lingerie, or my netball kit. The grating anticipation of what was going to follow was the real torture. HE would tell me to “Pick a hole”. My holes! My foof was one, my mouth was two, and you’d think I would never select three. But you’d be wrong. I hated HIM. I am very sensitive sexually and if I went with one I looked like I loved it and if I chose two I was doing work to please HIM. Three was the way I could shut down and brace myself without him ever seeing me smile, even if I was facing toward him. When I was strong with hatred I would choose three. I compartmentalized that small but brutal part of my life for my mum. If was a mere thirty to one hundred twenty minutes per a week of 10080 minutes. And I saw no other way then. Mum, for the first time was living a happy life. I could have won a BAFTA for how I seemed so cozy and content for her. It gutted me that my fear of upsetting HIM made it appear that HE had smoothed out my rough edges and made me into a proper lady. I kept my marks up and stayed on the netball team in spite of being the shortest. I kept going. I developed a habit of stabbing mechanical pencil tips into my skin and biting my nailbeds to illicit pain. I had one boyfriend for a short time. I went to the dances. Home was my hell so I did everything HE would allow to be anywhere else. I could not work but he made my mum keep her job so he could have me. My birthdays I would get my way of having a just girls’ night out with mum. There were only two birthdays before I got free of him. College cost 1000 pounds and when HE paid it HE did not know I was not going to be his tart anymore. I had a friend with a home much closer to my school. They had spare bedroom because an older sibling had moved out. Being seventeen, HE couldn’t force me to live with them if I had other safe accommodations. I took employment and paid the meager rent. He got me one more time when I was sleeping back at his house on Christmas eve. Probably drugged mum to keep her sleeping. I made sure he never got a chance again. Through my Portuguese class I met a man who lived in Portugal and invited me to come stay with him as long as I wanted rent free. I finished one year of sixth form and went to Portugal. I had fleeting relations with the man I stayed with but he traveled often we both had our own things. I worked at an American-themed restaurant as a server then. I spoke with my mum on the phone most days. She visited once, with HIM. I missed her and tried not to show much of my sorrow about being forced apart from her. Seeing HIM was horrendous, yet I kept it contained inside like a cancer. It helped solidify my decision. I traveled with a friend to Florida and got a job serving in a posh restaurant. I applied for a work VISA and on my second try I got it. I am thirty-eight now. Only three years ago did I confront my demons because I read online stories about other abuse survivors. It opened up a deep wound so I could start to heal. It was and still is hard work and an ongoing process. I confessed to my mum who had split with HIM after years of her own abuse that she also kept hidden. HE had let her go when she started having health problems, showing his true black heart. She lives with my brother and his family. I regret losing years with mum and my brother and being chased away from my home when I was young but it made me stronger. I have never married but I have a loving partner, two dogs and I speak three languages. I am a physical trainer and work near the beach where I go to meditate and body surf. Our journeys and stories are individual but we are in this together. Worldwide. You are not alone in carrying the pain and the shame and the fear and the flashbacks! Even if you are in the dark, start toward a path that looks like others are using to try to climb out. Use the resources, even if just right there on your computer, and build from there. Just start and keep climbing, especially when it seems too hard.

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    From a survivor
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    7 sun’s

    7yrs old. full of life and hope. new “relative” entered my life.. looking back now i could tell he was clingy.. it started small by playing games that would lead to uncomfortable moments.. having to mature quickly.. having to understand.. heavily groomed.. was given a ultimatum of allow him to do what he was doing or he said he would do it to my sisters. younger sisters. as i got older it turned darker. being dragged to back fields, drugged and would wake up in the dark.. alone.. hurting and having to find my way back, being locked in his closet for what seemed like forever… i’m sure he wife knew by now.. but paid no attention.. at 13 he thought he had gotten me pregnant. sent me a message to leave the world and he would do the same. that was my first attempt.. luckily it failed but the abuse and rape continues for another year… 7 years.. 7 years of pain, confusion, constant fear, crippling anxiety and depression. all for it to be a lie… all for cps to show up to my school, to hear my youngest sister was in fact not safe.. not like he promised. 4-6 days every week wasn’t enough for him. he turned my mother and i against each other.. he isolated me, degraded me, emotionally and mentally abused me, physically ruined me… the amount of triggers i have is insane.. i feel bad for anyone i get close to… he went to jail for 3 years… released ‘18 my ex raped me while i slept. just a couple years ago. he knew everything about my childhood. yet still did it, said it was only that one time. but who knows. that broke me.

    Dear reader, this story contains language of self-harm that some may find triggering or discomforting.

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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
    🇺🇸

    SpeakUp

    SpeakUp
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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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    Army Officer brutally raped, and left to pick up the pieces.

    Hello, My name is Name, and I used to be patriotic, self-confident, physically fit, and happy. I joined the Army out of love for my country at a time when my wife was pregnant with our first child, and decided to become a commissioned officer so I could positively change the lives of the soldiers in my charge. Specialized School at Location was a challenge for me. I struggled, but always came out among the top performers in my class of nearly Number officer candidates. At this time, I was fairly competitive, and had learned how to dig deep and out-perform many people. Unfortunately, I don't pick up on social cues very well, and was unaware that I had created enemies. I'm unsure if that detail is relevant, but it may have been. It was early September, and we were coming up on our graduation day, so we were given a little more freedom. I was invited by some of my fellow classmates to go with them into the city to go to clubs and all that. Additionally, we all split the cost of a hotel room between myself and 4 others. That night, we got food, and went out to the clubs. I never once had a gut feeling that this night would be one of the worst in my life. I'm unclear on some of the details, but I had about 3 or 4 drinks which I usually could handle just fine without any issues. This night, maybe due to not drinking for several months or possibly other factors, I became too intoxicated to stay out so someone called an uber and took me back to the room which I still don't remember much of that ride. The next thing I remember is waking up to excruciating pain and realizing I was being held down by to people while one was raping me. I recall trying to get away, but I was punched in the head a few times and blacked out. When I woke up I was so sick feeling and in pain with a headache and down below. I was still naked and on the floor by the air conditioner. there were about 10 or more people asleep all around the room. I went to the bathroom and realized what I had been through. At that point I left and went to my officer title and told him what had happened. My officer title and the officer 2 had a meeting where I was told to drop it. I was told it's my word against other people's word, and if I tried to go up the chain with it that my career would be over, and I would be dishonorably discharged which would negatively impact the rest of my life. I ended up just putting my head down and graduated two weeks later. I spent the next several years trying to forget what had happened, and after 3 years I was out with other service members and the memories came flooding back and lead to a suicide attempt. I had been self-medicating with alcohol. I kept the anger and pain inside and suffered in silence. This incident of my attempt got me discharged from the Army for good. I went the next 4 years heavily drinking and became suicidal once again and for the first time I sought out help and told my wife what had happened to me. I sought therapy, went through medical trials, and even had the SGB procedure twice. PTSD has contributed I believe to my development of a debilitating autoimmune disease, Major Depressive Disorder, and nearly constant suicidal thoughts. Somehow I'm able to mask my feelings and appear happy for my 3 kids and wife, but ii am mentally and physically suffering every day, and though I don't blame my assault for every issue I have, but I do believe it was the catalyst that led to them.

    Dear reader, this story contains language of self-harm that some may find triggering or discomforting.

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    From a survivor
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    Saoirse ; Freedom

    It's been 7 years almost to this day since I was raped. Seven years of denial, acceptance, denial again. Seven years of hiding how I am feeling from everyone I know and love because I feel like I should be 'over it' by now. Seven years of wanting so badly to talk about it, to share my story, to take away the guilt that I feel for something I was never guilty of. But always being too afraid. Too afraid of how I'll be seen. Too afraid of if I'll be judged. Too afraid of not being believed. But finally I am on the journey to understanding that for me talking is taking back my power, sharing is taking back control and connecting with people with this shared experience is giving so much power to our voices. Every healing journey is different, and I hope sharing mine will help someone else in theirs, because I know reading everyones experiences and sharing my own is extremely helpful for me. Xo In my third year of college I decided to go to Peru during the summer to volunteer in a home for children who had suffered through childhood SA and violence. I lived in this home for 6weeks and helped with daily activities, cleaning, afterschool fun etc. While there myself and my friend decided we would leave for a week or so to see Machu Picchu. We headed for Cusco and found a travel agency which offered a 5 day adventure trek to Machu Picchu which involved white water rafting, hiking and ziplining...every 22year olds dream trip. The trip started off amazing. Our local guide seemed so kind and interesting. He shared so much of his culture with us and our group was getting on amazingly. Then 3days into the trip we stopped in a small town with a bar. We all had dinner together and decided we would go out to the bar for a beer. We were all dancing salsa and having a good time. My friend and a few others decided to go home and I was left alone with our guide and some people from another group. I felt safe. I felt like we had all built a connection over the previous three days and a trust had been built. Our guide offered me a glass of beer from his bottle and told me he would teach me how to say cheers in Quechua. We shared a drink, chatted a bit and Then everything went black. From that moment on all I have are flashbacks. Nightmarish glimpses of what was happening to me, to my body, while I was helpless. The next morning I woke up in his bed with him next to me as he spun some story about him needing to protect me the night before because I got too drunk. And telling me how nothing had happened. I was groggy and confussed and sore and had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach but no real idea of what had happened or what was going on. I looked for my things and tried to get out of the room as quickly as possible....we had to leave for the next destination in 10minutes. As i left his room my friend found me, she was so worried but I still hadnt processed what had happened and I dont fully remember any of that morning. As the day went on the memories became stronger and the sinking feeling became more and more intense. I finally confided in my friend about what had happened. Thankfully she believed me, but the other girls in the group did not. I warned them to keep away from the guide but they said that it must have just been my imagination. We continued the two day trek. I acted as if nothing had happened. I even remembering trying to get the guides attention, not knowing how or what I was feeling. He ignored me. When we arrived back in Cusco we got the first possible bus back to Lima, back to the home, earlier than planned. A few weeks later I started final year of college and things finally began to sink in. Thats when the panic attacks began. The crossing the road if a man walked behind me. The need to be clean. The self isolation. Crying in the car, crying on the bus, crying at work, crying in college. Then soon after this I began to pretend. Pretend like I was fine and nothing had happened. I began to hide from it all, and in doing this hide who I am as well. Thankfully I am finally on the road to accepting my story and feel strong enough to share how I truly feel so that I can continue to heal. I can acknowlege when I feel down but also am beginning to feel true happiness again. I can think about what happened to me and share my story without being filled with a feeling of dread of how people will percieve me. I have accepted my story, and although I obviosuly still wish it hadnt happened, I am beginning to truly love the strong, resilient, empathetic person it has helped me become! xx

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  • “You are not broken; you are not disgusting or unworthy; you are not unlovable; you are wonderful, strong, and worthy.”

    Story
    From a survivor
    🇩🇪

    678

    It wasn’t until I read this platform that I realised what happened wasn’t trivial. A friend at the time told me to go to the gardai, if not for me, but for anyone else who might have been affected or might later be affected, because you just don’t know. I handed them everything, and they did nothing. If it wasn’t for the help of my friends I don’t think I would still exist. I attempted suicide 6 years after it happened because the concept of getting serious with my boyfriend meant in my head that it would happen again. I suffered flashbacks and he was always so patient. I’m happy to say, now that boyfriend is my fiancée, it does get better. I was in college, I had a serious eating disorder, and this guy was the only one who didn’t try to change me but accepted that I was very sick and didn’t demand that I eat. In hindsight that was a huge red flag. He was happier that I was vulnerable and didn’t want me to get better. After a year together he started to get violent. He refused to let me be by myself. I remember very distinctly the first time he got violent on my birthday, and the only place I could be was in my bathroom because it locked. I sat there all day, knowing he was outside, not knowing what would happen next. When I came out, he was just watching tv as if nothing had happened. He would routinely steal my debit card and buy food for himself, knowing that was my food budget for the week, and none of what he bought I was comfortable with eating. He kept me from recovering for two years. At one point, he took every penny I had, and had no money to go home for the weekend. I had to lie and tell my parents I was staying there to finish essays, I was so ashamed that he could control me like that. I was in denial, believed it was just harsh words and he didn’t know himself or his strength, I was just too weak. I tried to break up with him, but he guilted me into taking him back, saying no one else would ever love me. I took him back. We went to a Christmas party, and he made me feel guilty for him because he ‘missed’ the last bus home, so he asked to stay on my couch. I couldn’t say no. He knew everyone else was out at the Christmas party, so he coerced me into sex, as he had done before, but I saw it as a way to give him what he wanted to avoid him getting violent. Until then the sex got violent too. That night I didn’t consent, I actively said no. I cried quietly and when it got worse I asked him to stop. In response, he strangled me till I couldn’t see properly, and left bruises. When I tried to scream he clawed at my face and scratched my retina, leaving me needing glasses (which I never needed before). I bled everywhere, but he just went to sleep with his arm around my neck so I couldn’t leave. The next day I went into uni, and tried to tell a former friend who studied law, but because she was his friend she joked that he was into BDSM and things like that happen all the time if it just goes wrong. After she told him that I had mentioned it he had me sign a ‘contract’ that said how good he was at sex. I honestly can’t remember how he convinced me to do that, it was all a blur. I don’t remember most of that year, but I know he sent me threatening letters that never stopped until I moved house a year later. After that, as she was the first person I told, I thought no one would ever believe me. But a friend, without me saying anything, let me know that he knew something had gone on. Something was wrong, and finally I told him. He convinced me to tell others, to go to the Gardai, to get therapy, to go to the rape crisis centre and tell them. Another friend let me stay at her house almost all the time as he sent me death threats by text and on social media. They pulled me through university and helped me in any way possible, organised for me to have a separate exam hall from him, and even brought me on nights out to know that I was still able to have fun, and I was still loved even after it all. My one regret is not pursuing it further. He’s an occupation now and I dread the idea of someone that evil near other people and in a position of power over others. I lose sleep over it. I wish I could get back the gardai file and insist that yes it was that bad, yes he is violent. I could stay at my own home for two years. I lost several stone with fear and worry. But I finished my exams, I finished my degree, went on to further study and even found who true friends are.

    Dear reader, this story contains language of self-harm that some may find triggering or discomforting.

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    From a survivor
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    SLIDING SCALE KETAMINE THERAPY TRAP

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

    Dear reader, this story contains language of self-harm that some may find triggering or discomforting.

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  • Every step forward, no matter how small, is still a step forwards. Take all the time you need taking those steps.

    Story
    From a survivor
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    224

    Hello I’m a victim of csa my name is Name my nickname is mj I got the nickname of a show so if the name is familiar you know why that is just a few facts about me here is my story the sexual abuse started as early as 2 years old by a female older cousin. Who I was supposed to trust she would rape me and sexually assault me when she babysat me as I grew older and I no longer needed a babysitter she started taking me out places and buying me gifts and then she would take me to her house and tell me that I needed to give her what she wanted cause she gave me gifts and took me out places while I was suffering from my cousins abuse I was also suffering abuse from a teacher and student along side that the first time I was sexually assaulted at school was by my science teacher he said I needed to stay in because I had not finished my school work and the first time I was assaulted by the student was at a buddy pair sport group I asked to go to the bathroom and the teacher told him to take me that was were he orally raped me at 9 years old I was raped by a male family member who was 14 years old and a couple years later I suffered from a brutal occurrence called gang rape then fast forward to this year I was raped and sexually assaulted at a concert I still have times that I doubt myself that what they did was actually rape or sexual assault but deep down I know it is and I’m getting therapy and psychological help I hope my story can help you to at-least speak up about it or know your not alone

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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
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    You’re A Nightmare & I’ll Always Be Begging For Sleep —

    We get on the late bus we’re going to take to get to my house, the “activity” school bus, since we’ve stayed behind after school. He leads me to a seat somewhere in the middle, then shields us from the thin stream of other students trickling in. Without warning, he leans forward and kisses me. The instant our lips meet, a white-hot something flares up inside of me and I think: I don’t want to do this anymore. I pull away almost immediately, the kiss lasts only a few seconds but it feels like an eternity. He says in an almost condescending tone, “That was physically nothing. You made it sound like you knew how to kiss.” As though he’s entitled to someone more experienced. Of course I don’t. Does he not understand what a first kiss is? Did I even like it? Before I have a chance to say anything, he pulls me in and kisses me deeply, his lips pressing against mine. A translucent blush clambers up my neck and caresses my cheeks before it digs its nails in. Once he’s done, he gets up and switches seats, leaving me alone for the remainder of the ride home. In the thick, heavy, humid air of my room, mingled with the smell of our sweat, his cloying scent—of cologne, tropical gum, and mint with a hint of vanilla—penetrates my nostrils. His cruel hands emerge from the shadows, tangled in my hair, cradling my jaw. Without a sound, they slither to my waist. Unsatisfied, they creep, groping lower, wrapping around my hips. His touch is unforgiving. It makes me want to cry. His hands move like it’s easy, like he doesn’t have to think before using me. I can’t tell the difference between him and the dark. It’s so opaque I can’t tell if my eyes are open or closed. I can’t see anything. I can only feel. He kisses me relentlessly, ruthlessly, his lips warm and wet. The sound is nauseating. It makes my skin crawl. As his kisses deepen, they turn cold as he slips his tongue into my mouth. He tastes like all the tears I wish I could cry. He was soft, even gentle at first but he’s allowed his obscene hunger to consume him. He’s getting rough but I can’t say no. I can’t say or do anything, I’m running on autopilot. I tear away from myself, it feels like my soul has been taken out of its socket. I’m a detached spectator watching it all unfold as I hover outside of my body, facing the scene. I don’t recognize the boy kissing him back. It can’t be me. This can’t be happening. But it is. We barely part for air because he just won’t stop. Even when we pause for the briefest moment to catch our breath, I can still feel it. His phantom lips on mine. I didn’t think it would be like this. I don’t want to watch anymore, disgust roils in my stomach, but I can’t look away. Cacospectamania—an obsession with staring at something repulsive or vulgar, where our tendency as humans towards morbid curiosity comes from. I can’t close my eyes and even if I did, the sight has already burned itself into my eyelids. I feel sick. I can’t breathe. But he doesn’t stop, he takes and takes as my skin begins to simmer with the invisible fever beneath his skin, poison seeping through my veins. For the first time, he asks me before he does something. “Can I kiss your neck?” he asks. Without thinking, my head automatically falls forward in a simulated nod, even though I don’t really want him to. My mind is utterly blank, I can’t comprehend, can’t process what’s happening. I’m not even looking at him, I’m watching from behind, peering over my own shoulder into nothing. My motionless body buzzes like a hive, vibrating from within. I feel his hot breath on my neck like a wolf panting on the fur of a rabbit. He kisses it roughly and it feels like he’s rubbing my skin raw. He traces one point along my jugular with his lips and tongue, like he’s a vampire trying to suck the blood out of my body. I wonder if he can feel my pulse screaming his name. I do not want this—it hurts, it hurts like hell—but my body unspeakably betrays me. Pleasure rises to the surface, giving me a high I’ve never felt before and will never feel again. My sole reference is the only other kind of high I’ve experienced, the rush spilling one’s own blood brings. Soon enough, I will slice my skin open in a futile attempt to bleed his fever from my veins. Except this is different. It unfurls like a vapor from the thick ice cover of numbness across the white, barren landscape within my chest, melting from the heat of our bodies. I retreat into my mind, bent on my hands and knees over the foggy surface, and try to break through to and unearth the fear buried far beneath. But it doesn’t feel good. Not in the slightest. The tingling, throbbing skin on the left side of my throat and all over my lips ache as though I’ve been stung by the restless bees inside me. I don’t know if this is normal or not. I wonder, Is it supposed to sting? The sensation is like rope burn, in the same spot where a noose had once dug into my flesh, leaving my skin scraped scarlet from the weight of my body I had left to the mercy of gravity. But at least that left a mark, some kind of proof, even if it was superficial. When it comes to him, all I have is the hurt. Nothing to show for it. Later, he hooks a finger on the collar of my v-neck T-shirt and tugs down. Dizzying, deep, instinctual fear drenches me, ice water being poured down my front as my heart drops to my feet. It arcs through my body, as sensitive as a live wire, electrocuting my nerves. I’m drowning in it, it’s so dark and cold, it’s like being plunged into a frozen lake and pulled to the bottom. I don’t know which way is up or down. But I know I’m going to die. Either from fright or from him. I manage to break the surface and as I do, I push him away with every ounce of my little strength. I’m so scared I can’t think straight, I can’t think at all. Every other emotion has left me except for the terror coursing through my thrumming veins. He’s going to rape me. I’m going to die. He practically said it before, when I told him my mom wanted me to keep the doors open. ‘What, does your mom think I’m gonna fuck you or something?’ The doors are closed. No one is going to help me. In stark contrast to me, he is harrowingly calm. But I can feel him trembling. Why is he shaking when I’m the one getting hurt? Is it excitement? Fear? Shame? Desire? I want to scream and cry until I’m wrung dry of tears, but my voice is stolen from me. I open my mouth but the sounds die in my throat, in the same way I will, an endless, excruciating death. I wish I could say, “No! Get off me. Get away from me. I don’t want to. Stop touching me. Leave me alone. Please. Don’t. Stop it. It hurts.” But he is the only one who can speak. I don’t want to listen anymore but it doesn’t matter. His voice is faded but his words are clear as a bell. “Don’t worry, I’m not taking anything off.” He’s trying to be reassuring but it doesn’t make me feel any safer. I don’t know why I reluctantly go back to him. I thought I could trust him. I wish I hadn’t. When I innocently drape my arm over his waist, he looks at me and says in a blasé tone, “You don’t know what turns me on, do you?” I quickly pull my arm back and cradle it against my chest like a bird with a broken wing, fear turning my blood cold. His expression never changes. Mirroring the countless times he’s gotten turned on by me and verbalizes it, regardless of my then asexuality. Later that same night once he’s home, I regrettably send him a poem with the misnomer desire, simply detailing the strange, foreign sensations all over my body, awaiting his lips and hands—or in retrospect, his hurt—to return. He responds, ‘You’re so sensual.’ I imagine him dragging out each word, slow and sultry, as though to entice me. At some point, I bite down on the inside of his lip. He pulls away and his mouth splits into a chilling smile. He says, “You bit me.” I apologize, even though I don’t mean it. Nothing I do stops him for longer than a few moments. He is ravenous, starving for me. He cannot get enough. He devours me. All I can do is watch, a ghost witnessing their own demise. Words no one else can hear are whispered in my ear from behind me. “This isn’t real. This isn’t happening.” I believe them because it’s better than dying. His response when I later told him it didn’t feel real? ‘You know it was.’ He says, ‘You’re mine, now. Forever.’ I imagine him saying it with a sadistic, self-satisfied grin. The words like hands pinning me down, shrapnel embedded in my skin. A brand on my soul—unforgettable, claiming me, marking me for life. His name threads through, weaving its way between everything. It carves itself into my heart and fuses with my bones, swirling in my bloodstream—every wounded bit of me engraved as his. I wish I could find the voice to say, “I’d rather die than be yours.”

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  • Message of Healing
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    Healing is hard work and trying to trust again

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    Stuck in the bathroom for 40 years

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

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    Major Sexual Harassment

    It started as sexual harassment. And I let it happen. Do not let it happen to you! I was a college intern working on my supply-chain management major. In business school you know you don’t just get a degree and POOF! A job is magically waiting for you. Unless you already have connections. I was a single woman on financial aid and had squat for family connections. I needed to make some connections while still in school that I could use to climb the ladder. It is a very competitive world. A time when we don’t care so much where we work as long as it has prospects of advancement and making money. I was interning at the corporate offices for a rental car company. I got my first choice for a class in which we had to intern at a real company. My group of four was in their logistics offices and we had no clear job at the time but my school had sent students for a while so we had a contact person and some loose idea of a project that my group of four had to put together and execute for our grade. Well that was kind of of dud and I went along with the bad idea of planning more efficient distribution routes for their cars entering the fleet. It was naive because the company had real pros who designed the system. But, because of my feminine wiles, I got invited to come in and help in my free time by a top manager. Just me. I jumped at the opportunity and on my available days I showed up early in the morning and tried to be like part of the team. It was a very masculine environment. I tried to hang in spite of the pretenses for my special treatment. “You’re not one of those feminist types who go crying to HR if a man gives you a compliment or a pat on the backside, are you?” The man who first invited me had asked. We’ll call him XX. I assured him I was not, anticipating his expected answer. “Work hard, play hard,” was something I said in my denial of values he was obviously opposed to. So the couple times XX introduced me as his mistress I went along with the joke. Another stupid mistake. As an example of my environment, after a male Y in the department first showed me how to use part of a program that calculates stock outages, he had me sit and try it and gave me a massage I did not ask for early in the morning. Well XX came up and made a joke about Y getting his hands of his girl. They had some bro moment where the male Y asked him if he was serious, saying something about XX’s wife, to which XX backed down and said something like “It’s just a joke. I’d love to in my fantasies, but she’s company property, brother.” Company property??! I was sitting right there! I tensed up but tried to pretend I was so absorbed in the computer training as XX left and male Y went back to massaging me, but this time more boldly. He got down my lower back and upper buttock then went down the arms to my thighs, stopping me from doing any work as he blatantly brushed his forearms and hands against my chest. I felt so weak and almost paralyzed by the time I forced myself to stand up to go use the restroom, stopping it. I could have just done that at the beginning but did not. Later hat same day, XX had me go to lunch with him and have a beer at a bar and grill with a pool table. I was 20 but they did not ask for my ID because I was with XX. I hardly ever played pool and while we waited for our food he “showed” me how to play. He made fun of the cliché on movies and television where a man has a woman bend over the pool table to shoot just so he can push his crotch against her backside in a suggestive manger and lean over her with his arms on each side of her to show her how to slide the stick. But while he joked about it he actually did those things to me! That was a good day for my two main molesters and an awful day for me. XX hugged me as we stood up giggling and apparently his hands now had a license to molest my body whenever he wanted. I got numb to it in some ways, but emotionally more on edge. My butt was grabbed or spanked playfully in the department, even by male Y. A few other men were very flirtatious. My shoulders were rubbed, hugs on even minor greetings with XX and finally I was supposed to get used to little pecks on the lips too. I felt like I was in a constant state of mental anguish and defensiveness. My body could be attacked anytime. But I did not defend myself! I would say clearly to XX and some others that I wanted to be respected and considered one of the guys and have a job there when I graduated and they affirmed it. Both main abusers encouraged me, but still sexually harassed me. With my moronic blessing! The semester ended and I kept going in daily during summer break. It was my only lifeline to a possible job after I graduated in a year. I was so groomed that it was not a big leap at all when XX pressured me to give him head in his office. I refused with a smile and head shake and he came back with some rationalization about how I owed him and he really needed it just then. He would not take no for an answer. The first time I lowered myself to kneeling before his desk and took him in my mouth my hands were shaking and I teared up and had to sniffle snot back up. I was the one who was embarrassed! It was like an out of body experience and my mouth dried up to where I had to ask him to drink some of his energy drink. Internally there was a huge change immediately. I was gutted of all pride and self-worth. I was like a zombie. Hardly eating. Lots of coffee. Showing up and doing the reports that had become my responsibility and mechanically giving XX his daily BJ in the afternoon in his small stale office with a small window. I started to have migraines during that summer. I drove home for 4th of July and got so inebriated I ended up sleeping with my much older sister’s ex-husband in the back of his truck. That was a terrible wake up call. I knew I couldn’t pretend much longer without a breakdown so I put my two week in at the rental car place where I was working for free. To secure my future I made sure to keep it all friendly and “you know I’ll be back working here next year”. The idea of all the time and humiliation I had put in being lost to nothing was a major fear. I put myself through two last weeks of it. I had quickie sex with XX twice on and over his desk. I gave into extreme pressure and gave male Y a BJ too when he explicitly made it about a letter of recommendation. He knew about me doing it for XX. He did not even have his own office and we had to use the stairwell. During my final year of school I became aware that I was too traumatized to ever go back there anyway. The extent to which I had been used and abused became obvious to me, where before it had not. As if I had been living in a denial haze. It was a painful time. I was a bit reckless. I got a C in the high level economics elective I took. I said yes to several dates to avoid being alone and either slept with them or freaked out in anger at them. Seeing that I needed the car rental faux-internship on my resume I did email both abusers for letters of recommendation and got a good one from Male Y, but a very impersonal, generic one from XX. I was so dejected and angry. Finally, I told my sister, the one who confronted me about her ex-husband. I TOLD HER EVERYTHING AND THAT WAS MY FIRST STEP TO RECOVERY. To letting out the pain, screaming at myself in the mirror, punching the heavy bag at a boxing gym I joined, and to seeing my first psychologist and psychiatrist. The therapy helped more than the Celexa and Abilify. The support group helped even more. I met two friends for life who have my back in times of sorrow. I have to repeat that it is not my fault that I was abused, even though it kind of was. Don’t let it happen to you! They will take as much as they can from you. Plan your boundaries now and be assertive! Report harassment immediately. Doing so you are being a hero and protecting other women and yourself. If you have already been abused, GET OUT of the situation and talk to someone about it ASAP. There is nothing to be gained by letting the abuse continue! Talking to someone makes it real and lets you start the process of hating less and starting on the path to learning to love yourself again. You deserve real love.

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    7 sun’s

    7yrs old. full of life and hope. new “relative” entered my life.. looking back now i could tell he was clingy.. it started small by playing games that would lead to uncomfortable moments.. having to mature quickly.. having to understand.. heavily groomed.. was given a ultimatum of allow him to do what he was doing or he said he would do it to my sisters. younger sisters. as i got older it turned darker. being dragged to back fields, drugged and would wake up in the dark.. alone.. hurting and having to find my way back, being locked in his closet for what seemed like forever… i’m sure he wife knew by now.. but paid no attention.. at 13 he thought he had gotten me pregnant. sent me a message to leave the world and he would do the same. that was my first attempt.. luckily it failed but the abuse and rape continues for another year… 7 years.. 7 years of pain, confusion, constant fear, crippling anxiety and depression. all for it to be a lie… all for cps to show up to my school, to hear my youngest sister was in fact not safe.. not like he promised. 4-6 days every week wasn’t enough for him. he turned my mother and i against each other.. he isolated me, degraded me, emotionally and mentally abused me, physically ruined me… the amount of triggers i have is insane.. i feel bad for anyone i get close to… he went to jail for 3 years… released ‘18 my ex raped me while i slept. just a couple years ago. he knew everything about my childhood. yet still did it, said it was only that one time. but who knows. that broke me.

    Dear reader, this story contains language of self-harm that some may find triggering or discomforting.

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    SpeakUp

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    Saoirse ; Freedom

    It's been 7 years almost to this day since I was raped. Seven years of denial, acceptance, denial again. Seven years of hiding how I am feeling from everyone I know and love because I feel like I should be 'over it' by now. Seven years of wanting so badly to talk about it, to share my story, to take away the guilt that I feel for something I was never guilty of. But always being too afraid. Too afraid of how I'll be seen. Too afraid of if I'll be judged. Too afraid of not being believed. But finally I am on the journey to understanding that for me talking is taking back my power, sharing is taking back control and connecting with people with this shared experience is giving so much power to our voices. Every healing journey is different, and I hope sharing mine will help someone else in theirs, because I know reading everyones experiences and sharing my own is extremely helpful for me. Xo In my third year of college I decided to go to Peru during the summer to volunteer in a home for children who had suffered through childhood SA and violence. I lived in this home for 6weeks and helped with daily activities, cleaning, afterschool fun etc. While there myself and my friend decided we would leave for a week or so to see Machu Picchu. We headed for Cusco and found a travel agency which offered a 5 day adventure trek to Machu Picchu which involved white water rafting, hiking and ziplining...every 22year olds dream trip. The trip started off amazing. Our local guide seemed so kind and interesting. He shared so much of his culture with us and our group was getting on amazingly. Then 3days into the trip we stopped in a small town with a bar. We all had dinner together and decided we would go out to the bar for a beer. We were all dancing salsa and having a good time. My friend and a few others decided to go home and I was left alone with our guide and some people from another group. I felt safe. I felt like we had all built a connection over the previous three days and a trust had been built. Our guide offered me a glass of beer from his bottle and told me he would teach me how to say cheers in Quechua. We shared a drink, chatted a bit and Then everything went black. From that moment on all I have are flashbacks. Nightmarish glimpses of what was happening to me, to my body, while I was helpless. The next morning I woke up in his bed with him next to me as he spun some story about him needing to protect me the night before because I got too drunk. And telling me how nothing had happened. I was groggy and confussed and sore and had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach but no real idea of what had happened or what was going on. I looked for my things and tried to get out of the room as quickly as possible....we had to leave for the next destination in 10minutes. As i left his room my friend found me, she was so worried but I still hadnt processed what had happened and I dont fully remember any of that morning. As the day went on the memories became stronger and the sinking feeling became more and more intense. I finally confided in my friend about what had happened. Thankfully she believed me, but the other girls in the group did not. I warned them to keep away from the guide but they said that it must have just been my imagination. We continued the two day trek. I acted as if nothing had happened. I even remembering trying to get the guides attention, not knowing how or what I was feeling. He ignored me. When we arrived back in Cusco we got the first possible bus back to Lima, back to the home, earlier than planned. A few weeks later I started final year of college and things finally began to sink in. Thats when the panic attacks began. The crossing the road if a man walked behind me. The need to be clean. The self isolation. Crying in the car, crying on the bus, crying at work, crying in college. Then soon after this I began to pretend. Pretend like I was fine and nothing had happened. I began to hide from it all, and in doing this hide who I am as well. Thankfully I am finally on the road to accepting my story and feel strong enough to share how I truly feel so that I can continue to heal. I can acknowlege when I feel down but also am beginning to feel true happiness again. I can think about what happened to me and share my story without being filled with a feeling of dread of how people will percieve me. I have accepted my story, and although I obviosuly still wish it hadnt happened, I am beginning to truly love the strong, resilient, empathetic person it has helped me become! xx

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    678

    It wasn’t until I read this platform that I realised what happened wasn’t trivial. A friend at the time told me to go to the gardai, if not for me, but for anyone else who might have been affected or might later be affected, because you just don’t know. I handed them everything, and they did nothing. If it wasn’t for the help of my friends I don’t think I would still exist. I attempted suicide 6 years after it happened because the concept of getting serious with my boyfriend meant in my head that it would happen again. I suffered flashbacks and he was always so patient. I’m happy to say, now that boyfriend is my fiancée, it does get better. I was in college, I had a serious eating disorder, and this guy was the only one who didn’t try to change me but accepted that I was very sick and didn’t demand that I eat. In hindsight that was a huge red flag. He was happier that I was vulnerable and didn’t want me to get better. After a year together he started to get violent. He refused to let me be by myself. I remember very distinctly the first time he got violent on my birthday, and the only place I could be was in my bathroom because it locked. I sat there all day, knowing he was outside, not knowing what would happen next. When I came out, he was just watching tv as if nothing had happened. He would routinely steal my debit card and buy food for himself, knowing that was my food budget for the week, and none of what he bought I was comfortable with eating. He kept me from recovering for two years. At one point, he took every penny I had, and had no money to go home for the weekend. I had to lie and tell my parents I was staying there to finish essays, I was so ashamed that he could control me like that. I was in denial, believed it was just harsh words and he didn’t know himself or his strength, I was just too weak. I tried to break up with him, but he guilted me into taking him back, saying no one else would ever love me. I took him back. We went to a Christmas party, and he made me feel guilty for him because he ‘missed’ the last bus home, so he asked to stay on my couch. I couldn’t say no. He knew everyone else was out at the Christmas party, so he coerced me into sex, as he had done before, but I saw it as a way to give him what he wanted to avoid him getting violent. Until then the sex got violent too. That night I didn’t consent, I actively said no. I cried quietly and when it got worse I asked him to stop. In response, he strangled me till I couldn’t see properly, and left bruises. When I tried to scream he clawed at my face and scratched my retina, leaving me needing glasses (which I never needed before). I bled everywhere, but he just went to sleep with his arm around my neck so I couldn’t leave. The next day I went into uni, and tried to tell a former friend who studied law, but because she was his friend she joked that he was into BDSM and things like that happen all the time if it just goes wrong. After she told him that I had mentioned it he had me sign a ‘contract’ that said how good he was at sex. I honestly can’t remember how he convinced me to do that, it was all a blur. I don’t remember most of that year, but I know he sent me threatening letters that never stopped until I moved house a year later. After that, as she was the first person I told, I thought no one would ever believe me. But a friend, without me saying anything, let me know that he knew something had gone on. Something was wrong, and finally I told him. He convinced me to tell others, to go to the Gardai, to get therapy, to go to the rape crisis centre and tell them. Another friend let me stay at her house almost all the time as he sent me death threats by text and on social media. They pulled me through university and helped me in any way possible, organised for me to have a separate exam hall from him, and even brought me on nights out to know that I was still able to have fun, and I was still loved even after it all. My one regret is not pursuing it further. He’s an occupation now and I dread the idea of someone that evil near other people and in a position of power over others. I lose sleep over it. I wish I could get back the gardai file and insist that yes it was that bad, yes he is violent. I could stay at my own home for two years. I lost several stone with fear and worry. But I finished my exams, I finished my degree, went on to further study and even found who true friends are.

    Dear reader, this story contains language of self-harm that some may find triggering or discomforting.

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  • You are surviving and that is enough.

    Taking ‘time for yourself’ does not always mean spending the day at the spa. Mental health may also mean it is ok to set boundaries, to recognize your emotions, to prioritize sleep, to find peace in being still. I hope you take time for yourself today, in the way you need it most.

    “It can be really difficult to ask for help when you are struggling. Healing is a huge weight to bear, but you do not need to bear it on your own.”

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    You are NOT alone

    You Are Not Alone You are not alone. So many of us had so much taken from us by people who put pleasing their basal urges over our sanity. For their moments of bliss and dominance we suffer. We blame ourselves for their sickness. THEIR pathology. There is an army of us. That is what these stories teach us. They show us we are legion. We are strong. Our psychological reactions of fear, mistrust, hatred are not crazy. They are normal. It is also normal, but not easy, to climb out the darkness together. I grew up in a large low income black of flats that was like a village. My mum worked and we went about by ourselves. In the winter we were never expected to be seen if we left. We were in some flat mucking about with some kids or neighbor, and it all worked out fine. I did lose my virginity when I was eleven to a friend of my older brother who was in year ten. But that was no bother because it was not uncommon there, sadly. I am half Brazilian on my absent father’s side and was considered quite exotic and fit. My secondary sexual characteristics developed early. I was reasonably careful and in control. True abuse began years later when we moved out to a proper house with HIM. HE was my mom’s dream man. HE was fit for a middle-aged man. By that time my brother wasn’t with us because he took work in Alaska on a fishing boat. HE was ex-Army and seemed like a good man at first. I was a bit of trouble maker and over-cheeky and my mom gave HIM carte blanche to discipline me like father. We weren’t there the length of a full season when HE started treating me like a tart. The spanking part mom knew about and thought it was funny, even with me being fifteen. HE spanked my bare bum even when she was home. She said I’d always needed a man’s hand to block of my rough edges. It was cringe, humiliating, but nothing compared to what HE did when mum was away. Not to get detailed, HE soon got to a point where I was going to get HIS load whenever there was the chance. Since HE got to set my schedule he made sure there were regular chances. It was my HELL and HE was the Prince of Darkness. He was rough but careful not to leave any marks. Unless time was short I had to shower first. Sometimes after there would be something specific sitting out to wear, like a costume or lingerie, or my netball kit. The grating anticipation of what was going to follow was the real torture. HE would tell me to “Pick a hole”. My holes! My foof was one, my mouth was two, and you’d think I would never select three. But you’d be wrong. I hated HIM. I am very sensitive sexually and if I went with one I looked like I loved it and if I chose two I was doing work to please HIM. Three was the way I could shut down and brace myself without him ever seeing me smile, even if I was facing toward him. When I was strong with hatred I would choose three. I compartmentalized that small but brutal part of my life for my mum. If was a mere thirty to one hundred twenty minutes per a week of 10080 minutes. And I saw no other way then. Mum, for the first time was living a happy life. I could have won a BAFTA for how I seemed so cozy and content for her. It gutted me that my fear of upsetting HIM made it appear that HE had smoothed out my rough edges and made me into a proper lady. I kept my marks up and stayed on the netball team in spite of being the shortest. I kept going. I developed a habit of stabbing mechanical pencil tips into my skin and biting my nailbeds to illicit pain. I had one boyfriend for a short time. I went to the dances. Home was my hell so I did everything HE would allow to be anywhere else. I could not work but he made my mum keep her job so he could have me. My birthdays I would get my way of having a just girls’ night out with mum. There were only two birthdays before I got free of him. College cost 1000 pounds and when HE paid it HE did not know I was not going to be his tart anymore. I had a friend with a home much closer to my school. They had spare bedroom because an older sibling had moved out. Being seventeen, HE couldn’t force me to live with them if I had other safe accommodations. I took employment and paid the meager rent. He got me one more time when I was sleeping back at his house on Christmas eve. Probably drugged mum to keep her sleeping. I made sure he never got a chance again. Through my Portuguese class I met a man who lived in Portugal and invited me to come stay with him as long as I wanted rent free. I finished one year of sixth form and went to Portugal. I had fleeting relations with the man I stayed with but he traveled often we both had our own things. I worked at an American-themed restaurant as a server then. I spoke with my mum on the phone most days. She visited once, with HIM. I missed her and tried not to show much of my sorrow about being forced apart from her. Seeing HIM was horrendous, yet I kept it contained inside like a cancer. It helped solidify my decision. I traveled with a friend to Florida and got a job serving in a posh restaurant. I applied for a work VISA and on my second try I got it. I am thirty-eight now. Only three years ago did I confront my demons because I read online stories about other abuse survivors. It opened up a deep wound so I could start to heal. It was and still is hard work and an ongoing process. I confessed to my mum who had split with HIM after years of her own abuse that she also kept hidden. HE had let her go when she started having health problems, showing his true black heart. She lives with my brother and his family. I regret losing years with mum and my brother and being chased away from my home when I was young but it made me stronger. I have never married but I have a loving partner, two dogs and I speak three languages. I am a physical trainer and work near the beach where I go to meditate and body surf. Our journeys and stories are individual but we are in this together. Worldwide. You are not alone in carrying the pain and the shame and the fear and the flashbacks! Even if you are in the dark, start toward a path that looks like others are using to try to climb out. Use the resources, even if just right there on your computer, and build from there. Just start and keep climbing, especially when it seems too hard.

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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.”

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

    Story
    From a survivor
    🇺🇸

    Army Officer brutally raped, and left to pick up the pieces.

    Hello, My name is Name, and I used to be patriotic, self-confident, physically fit, and happy. I joined the Army out of love for my country at a time when my wife was pregnant with our first child, and decided to become a commissioned officer so I could positively change the lives of the soldiers in my charge. Specialized School at Location was a challenge for me. I struggled, but always came out among the top performers in my class of nearly Number officer candidates. At this time, I was fairly competitive, and had learned how to dig deep and out-perform many people. Unfortunately, I don't pick up on social cues very well, and was unaware that I had created enemies. I'm unsure if that detail is relevant, but it may have been. It was early September, and we were coming up on our graduation day, so we were given a little more freedom. I was invited by some of my fellow classmates to go with them into the city to go to clubs and all that. Additionally, we all split the cost of a hotel room between myself and 4 others. That night, we got food, and went out to the clubs. I never once had a gut feeling that this night would be one of the worst in my life. I'm unclear on some of the details, but I had about 3 or 4 drinks which I usually could handle just fine without any issues. This night, maybe due to not drinking for several months or possibly other factors, I became too intoxicated to stay out so someone called an uber and took me back to the room which I still don't remember much of that ride. The next thing I remember is waking up to excruciating pain and realizing I was being held down by to people while one was raping me. I recall trying to get away, but I was punched in the head a few times and blacked out. When I woke up I was so sick feeling and in pain with a headache and down below. I was still naked and on the floor by the air conditioner. there were about 10 or more people asleep all around the room. I went to the bathroom and realized what I had been through. At that point I left and went to my officer title and told him what had happened. My officer title and the officer 2 had a meeting where I was told to drop it. I was told it's my word against other people's word, and if I tried to go up the chain with it that my career would be over, and I would be dishonorably discharged which would negatively impact the rest of my life. I ended up just putting my head down and graduated two weeks later. I spent the next several years trying to forget what had happened, and after 3 years I was out with other service members and the memories came flooding back and lead to a suicide attempt. I had been self-medicating with alcohol. I kept the anger and pain inside and suffered in silence. This incident of my attempt got me discharged from the Army for good. I went the next 4 years heavily drinking and became suicidal once again and for the first time I sought out help and told my wife what had happened to me. I sought therapy, went through medical trials, and even had the SGB procedure twice. PTSD has contributed I believe to my development of a debilitating autoimmune disease, Major Depressive Disorder, and nearly constant suicidal thoughts. Somehow I'm able to mask my feelings and appear happy for my 3 kids and wife, but ii am mentally and physically suffering every day, and though I don't blame my assault for every issue I have, but I do believe it was the catalyst that led to them.

    Dear reader, this story contains language of self-harm that some may find triggering or discomforting.

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  • “You are not broken; you are not disgusting or unworthy; you are not unlovable; you are wonderful, strong, and worthy.”

    Every step forward, no matter how small, is still a step forwards. Take all the time you need taking those steps.

    “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
    🇪🇸

    That night my brother touched me

    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.

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  • Story
    From a survivor
    🇬🇧

    #121

    It took me years to come to terms with what was really happening. When I was 9 years old, I met a boy online, and we quickly became friends. We knew everything about each other - He was 15 when we first met. When I was 10 and he was 16, he asked to be my boyfriend. Being a naive 10 year old girl I said yes. I can’t be mad at her for that. It was innocent at first. Just what you’d expect from a childhood relationship - “I love you, goodnight.” “Hope you’re doing okay.” “Let’s play some games together!” The only difference was that one of us were nearly an adult. Someone who should have known better to not even THINK about being romantically involved with a 10 year old girl. However, it went sour. He started talking to me about sexual subjects. Stuff I wasn’t at all familiar with. He’d make us roleplay situations, what he’d do to me if he got ahold of me in real life. Asking for photos. Guilt tripping me for seeming “off” or uninterested. I began to feel distressed at the time, but I was so young, that wasn’t really an emotion I had felt before. I told myself, this sick feeling must be love. That must be why I feel so nervous, why I feel knots in my stomach when I see his name pop up on my screen. I was very attached to him, at least I thought I was. I was always picked on in school and the few friends I had were awful to me, so he was my only real friend. My worst fear was somehow losing him, and he must have known that I thought that. He took advantage of that, and would guilt trip me at any opportunity to make sure I did whatever he wanted me to. After a while, he broke up with me, but we were still very much so “friends”. We would talk everyday, and he was still just as inappropriate and creepy with me as he was before. Throughout the years, he would begin to talk to me about worse and worse stuff. He explicitly told me about his attraction to children, and that he worked as a teaching assistant in a primary school. I tried to brush it off and keep it at the back of my mind, but I got to tipping point last year when he started to pressure me into meeting with him in real life. It went on for 7 years. I hate to say it, and it makes me sad for the little girl that I was, but the rest of my childhood was stolen from me. I’m 17 now, about the same age he was when we met. The thought of EVER saying the stuff to a 10,11,12 year old that he did makes me feel physically ill. I still haven’t fully processed what happened to me, but I’ve been working on it. I’m yet to cry, at least properly, about it. The thing that sucks about this is that this went on for so long, that it felt completely normal. The people in my life who know all cried when I told them. It felt unfair, really - that they could cry about it. And I’m just stuck in a mindset I’m desperately trying to get out of where this is normal, and I feel completely numb. Recently, I decided I wanted to do something about it. I went to the police. This night, I sent off old screenshots of conversations between us to a detective working on my case. It’s terrifying, being that vulnerable. But I feel obligated to do it. The thought of him being around children all day makes me sick. I don’t care if he doesn’t go to prison - as long as he’s never near a child again I’ll be happy. That’s why I’m doing it. I won’t let shame and embarrassment stop me from doing this, and I especially won’t let my brain tell me he doesn’t deserve punishment. Because that’s exactly what he’d want me to think, too.

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  • Story
    From a survivor
    🇺🇸

    SLIDING SCALE KETAMINE THERAPY TRAP

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

    Dear reader, this story contains language of self-harm that some may find triggering or discomforting.

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    Hello I’m a victim of csa my name is Name my nickname is mj I got the nickname of a show so if the name is familiar you know why that is just a few facts about me here is my story the sexual abuse started as early as 2 years old by a female older cousin. Who I was supposed to trust she would rape me and sexually assault me when she babysat me as I grew older and I no longer needed a babysitter she started taking me out places and buying me gifts and then she would take me to her house and tell me that I needed to give her what she wanted cause she gave me gifts and took me out places while I was suffering from my cousins abuse I was also suffering abuse from a teacher and student along side that the first time I was sexually assaulted at school was by my science teacher he said I needed to stay in because I had not finished my school work and the first time I was assaulted by the student was at a buddy pair sport group I asked to go to the bathroom and the teacher told him to take me that was were he orally raped me at 9 years old I was raped by a male family member who was 14 years old and a couple years later I suffered from a brutal occurrence called gang rape then fast forward to this year I was raped and sexually assaulted at a concert I still have times that I doubt myself that what they did was actually rape or sexual assault but deep down I know it is and I’m getting therapy and psychological help I hope my story can help you to at-least speak up about it or know your not alone

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