Community

I was only 5 years old when my 7-year-old sister took advantage of me to do things she had seen. It makes me so angry that my parents didn't supervise her. It infuriates me that I only found out now that she was watching those things and imitating them with me. Why, if they knew she was watching them, didn't they scold her or correct her? Why did I have to endure it? She was always dragging me around, always seeking me out. I'm disgusted with myself for not noticing and not doing anything, but I was only 5 years old. She never said anything; I was the one who decided to speak up. I told my mother, afraid she would hate me or be disgusted by me, crying and with a pain in my chest. But my mother talked to me, and with her, I felt so relieved. I had stopped thinking about it; it no longer tormented me. I get along well with her now; she's my sister, of course I love her. But when I remember, even though I don't cry or get hurt anymore, it makes me so angry that it could have been avoided. Now I have a problem: I haven't had my first kiss. It disgusts me. Even though I like that person, it repulses me so much. But I'm ashamed to tell a psychologist what they would think if I told them my sister did that. They would be disgusted, even though it wasn't my fault.

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

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 antipsych. 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.

Just words. You have trouble talking about these things. You realize you have trouble talking about a lot of things. You remember being excited about your first job at Company Name. One of your friends works there and you know a lot of people work there as a summer job. It’s the 1990’s and it’s been grandfathered in that they can pay you less than minimum wage because it’s like a part time training experience for students getting their first work experience. Like a newspaper route. Those are for boys. You got so excited after being nervous you asked for an application along with your friend. You don’t remember meeting him then. So many people want to get chosen for that crap job because for some reason it’s become a sought after thing among the cool kids. You do remember the phone call that you can come for an interview. Walking home you wonder if being cute and having larger breasts than most almost freshman girls had something to do with it. You met Name and remember him for sure this time. The way you look has been a curse far more than a blessing. One reason people would not feel that bad for you. 'God sure blessed you, honey." You have so many bad memories, blocked memories, repressed memories because of Name. You are having second thoughts as tears build up. You need a drink. You quit drinking years ago and today you have three months and eight days sober. Your record is nine months and two days. You are strong. Most of the time. You are hollow. All the time. Name wasn’t the last but he was the first. You change his name although you don’t want to. He is the symbol of your hatred of all that is wrong with men. You were tricked. Name got what he wanted from you. Too many times. Too many times before you stopped going back. Just stopped. You could have just stopped after the first time he held you close and caressed you before your mom picked you up that night. The first time. You still don’t understand or forgive yourself for that. You had let a boy at a party and a boy at an 8th grade dance put their hand up your shirt. You had liked it so much those times. It had been exciting and happy. Name did not make you happy. You went back. You want to talk about something else now. Not the other men who thought your body was their plaything. Not the time you went to Ireland with your Aunts and mom. You miss mom. That was a good trip. You got back to that a lot. You sat down to talk about things you don’t talk about. On a family trip to Adventureland you asked your cousin if was considered losing your virginity of a boy did it to your boobs. You pretended it was a cute boy, not Name. It was hard to breathe with him sitting on your torso thrusting. You sometimes break things and scream. Never when your son is around. You have two jobs and don’t really like the one that pays the most. Your college degree does not count much. How much life is wasted on despair and doubt and taking the wrong path? You feel relief when he finally finished. You hate when he finishes because you know he is stealing his ultimate pleasure from you when he has a wife. He acts like it was just another day at work to keep you on his leash. You are pathetic. His remnants are inside you every time you go home after closing with him. Just another miserable day in the life. You say nothing. You tell no one. You are worthless except as a vessel for him. Your parents say nice things to you, about you. They always have. They have to. They don’t know what you really are. A black shame is the times you felt pleasure in your body while he was doing it do you. At least while you remained quiet and motionless there was some dignity. Defiance. Insult to him. When your body and voice reacted like you liked it it was a betrayal. Like you liked that tub of disgusting man on top of you and inside of you, fucking you on that tile floor, kissing you like a lover. You befriended a group of guys by mid high school. Over a year after Name was more than thorn in your soul. A deep callous. The group figured out what you were. They played football. They were important and had strong will. They shared you and passed you around. They told you they loved you. That you were the coolest girl. They took what they wanted when they wanted. Why? Name 2 was you lab partner for biology. He was the first. He was the only one your age. You went in his car for lunch and met some others. They wanted you. You volunteered. It is all you are good for. Draining them of their juice so they can be happy and feel like men. So you can feel empty and dirty. Even after they graduated they got together for group fun, or had you sneak out at night to go for a ride. You headed far west after you graduated. A fresh start. An exodus. An escape. You went to one reunion. The ten year reunion. Name 2 came with his wife. He introduced you as his ex-girlfriend. You let hm take you to the disabled restroom and have his quickie. You went to the bars afterward and ditched your real friend and let Name 3 take you back to his hotel room to live his fantasies just because he claimed that he always loved you. They say attractive people have sex more frequently with more partners than normal people. The darkness behind that statement is that for females it is no always because they want it that way but because of the relentless pressure from men and how they will do anything if they get the opportunity. You are not a nice innocent girl. Would you have been if it had not been for Name like you want to think? Would you have let your much older cousin you barely know take you back into the woods with him behind their house to the shack where he smokes pot after a wedding. Then wait there for him to call his friends after he found out you were a bad girl and wait for them too. Swatting flies in your underwear while you waited for them. You did not drink because your mom did not allow it even though kids younger than you were. But your cousin and his local friends did. Four of them counting your cousin old enough to be your uncle. Still, you acted like you liked everything they did. They took it so far like you were the world's greatest toy. Porn star, they called you like it was the best thing you could be. The anal was excruciating. It was easier to just wash off all your makeup than to try to fix it after all the sweat and sticky. Smiles and complements followed by the deep hollow feeling of total isolation in the station wagon on the way back home from Kansas city. Hating Name and feeling like you betrayed your aunt because one of them was her fiancé. You got an infection and it was embarrassing when the doctor told you. At least it was a female doctor. The idea of a male gynecologist is unnerving. The one time you were examined by one was terrifying. You were in college. He was way too thorough and talkative like he was working up to asking you out on a date and you decided never again. The only one you ever had that did not wear gloves for the breast exam. The most sensual digital vaginal exam you ever had to check the cervix and ovaries for pain. Was his thumb supposed to be brushing your clitoris? You even wonder if he was recording it on his phone that you saw him adjust twice as it was peaking out of the breast pocket of his lab coat. His stupid November mustache he asked you if you liked. So some days you don’t eat. You exercise to maintain the body they want. It gives you value to them. You are nothing. People always say nice things. Hollow things. What if you had never met Name? What if you never got fucked on the floor for $3.45 an hour. On your back, on your hands and knees, sometimes even on top of him. Your first orgasm on that floor that smelled like stale milk and bleach. Having to tell your mom pick you up 45 minutes after the place closes for your cleaning duties. You used tampons just to keep from his semen leaking out on the way home. You pretended to be a virgin when you were far from it. He told you not to worry because he had a vasectomy. That part must have been true. You don't got on dates even though they always try to set you up. Not a chance. Your son is a good excuse. And a real reason. Real love. The Earth spins in space. Why can’t it just freeze and die like me? Your boss doesn’t go all the way with you because he won’t cheat on his wife. You give him oral because he doesn’t think that counts. Preserves his purity. He says he wants to so badly, like he can take whatever he wants from you but he is strong and valiant. You are nothing. He is handsome. You let him kiss you and fondle you. You long for his touch. He is not a great man but you long for him. The closest thing to a good man you have known. A father figure. Your son needs a father figure. He is everything. He deserves better. He loves you. He tells you are a good mom and that is worth enduring the world for as long as it takes. You put on a good face but he knows you are hollow, deep down. A wounded duck pretending to be a swan. Always pretending. Was there no pretending before Name? Maybe not. The days begin and your mind pretends and it is hard and the days end. Bad dreams on both ends. Will he be a good man? The funny thing is you want him to be a prince because he is your prince but even if he is like most men you want his total happiness. You want beautiful girls, good times, and strong friends for him. You exist to fake it and to have let those men enjoy you but mostly to give your son the best life possible beyond you. You are not worthless. It is not your fault. You are stronger than you know. Hollow words. They have to say it. They always have. No creativity. No insight. No truth. Just words.

My name is Survivor and when I was around age 3, my father started raping me. My mother helped hold me down. He was raping her, and she offered me up in her place. This continued until age 23, maybe 24, shortly before my wedding. By the time I was 6, he was raping other members of my family too. He’d come into my room at night and would throw my nightgown up into the headboard and then I’d have to wait my turn in fear and naked shame while others were raped. We had a large waterbed and I still remember the bed rolling up and down, up, and down, up, and down like on a boat. Once done, he wiped me down roughly with a red shop rag he used in cleaning the garage. It allowed him to keep the rag around to smell it and hold it close with no one questioning why it was so dirty with red stains. Most of the time, my dad was friendly and polite. But once he turned into the monster no one did anything to stop him. He never did these things when he was nice. Only when he was the monster. But he used the nice times to make it easier to attack. He would lull you into a false sense of safety and peace which really made you question your intuition and gut instincts that this was a bad man. This made it easier for him to sexually assault other children and adults. As I got older, my parents controlled the narrative of our lives, every aspect was carefully controlled. Like my mom knowing how to force miscarriages. The first abortion forced on me was when I was 15. I don’t know how I managed to make it to adulthood. I continue to remember more and more of the abuse by other family and church members. And other things my dad did within the church where he was pastor and then later deacon. But I still can’t talk about those memories. I think my dad felt like anything he did was inevitable, therefore, never his fault because he couldn’t control himself and when it happened God would forgive him, so it was all right. I know this because I overheard him grooming another family member to do the same things when he was 11 years old. Males in our family were groomed to be abusers too. I was groomed too. To always be the abused. Forced to keep silent, I learned quickly what happens to people who stand up to my dad. They die or get assaulted. As you can imagine, I had terrible anxiety growing up about being sexually assaulted and worked hard to fade into the background. I thought that might help. I thought it mattered what I wore, color of my hair, how much I weighed. It’s taken years and it will probably continue to take years to unlearn the lies I was taught. The worry made me constantly ill with one thing after another-- I got cancer when I was 32 and before that incapacitating vertigo and motion sickness. My parents met while working down in Texas for an independent fundamental Baptist preacher. Lester Roloff—an Independent Fundamental Baptist preacher who opened homes across the country for “troubled” children, teens, and adults. He liked to say he was saving dope fiends, whores, and hippies. I believe many of the children in the homes had already experienced abuse growing up and Lester Roloff homes should have been a safe place to heal. Instead, the kids met caretakers like my parents. My mom was in a charge of the 16 and older home and my dad flew around the country raising money and preaching the party line: men were akin to gods and women were lower than dirt—their only worth was in being a virgin and then baby factories once married. Very masochistic and minimizing of abuse of any kind, my parents ate up the evil rhetoric being preached from the pulpit My parents eventually took their brand of abuse from Lester Roloff’s out into the churches and communities where we lived-from Texas to Washington and eventually into Alaska. He disappeared in a plane over the waters near Anchorage in 2006. The events surrounding his disappearance were always very suspect but intense pressure from my family kept me quiet. Every day for almost three years straight, a family member called and reminded me talking about “our family issues” was causing generational sin to 4 generations. The pressure to keep quiet and do what my family told me to do was so significant I would have rather died than disappoint them. It wasn’t until I set out to heal from all the trauma, that I found out my dad faked his death. I had always been told since he was gone, there was nothing to be done for what I experienced growing up. But let me tell you, knowing he’s still out there perpetrating on other children and men and women really compelled me to come forward. I finally felt free to start talking. Getting past the pressure to stay silent was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. Harder, even, than fighting cancer. I have spent many years in intensive CBT, EMDR and Polyvagal therapy learning how to process my wounds in a healthy way. I had pushed for criminal and civil suits against my perpetrators but the Texas statute of limitations don’t allow for justice to be done. So now, I spend my time now speaking on panels, podcasts, and community platforms about the intersections of trauma, faith, and advocacy. One of the biggest honors of my life has been sharing my story and advocating for Trey’s Law on the Texas Senate floor in Spring 2025. Forcing a sexual assault victim to keep quiet is what allowed people like my parents to continue their mistreatment for so many years. I will do what I can to make sure justice isn’t minimized by NDAs and Statute of Limitations. My efforts connect me with survivors, true crime audiences, mental health communities, and faith groups seeking to understand and confront abuse. I invest my time in mentoring survivors, creating resources for healing, and building digital tools to expand access to supportive materials. Because living a life whole and healthy is what I really want for me, all the victims and their families. We make our own opportunities to heal.

Last year I was gang raped. I have an ear ringing called tinnitus that has not stopped since. I have nightmares. I flew with my mom to a wedding overseas. I was excited. She would be busy with her friends and cousin and I would get to spend time with my awesome second cousin who is two years older than me. After the rehearsal dinner we went out. It was fun because I was not legally able to drink there even though the age was lower than in my province, but they did not check ID’s. I did not drink much because it was not my thing and I had a boyfriend but I was able to go to some bars then a club attached to a hotel. So much fun up to when we met two soldiers in uniform who were cute and separated us from her friends because of our looks. My cousin is stunning beautiful. They had a private room at the club and several soldiers were there and two prostitutes also. Those prostitutes definitely hated us being there. I wanted to get out anyway and the cute ones that invited us acted like they understood and took us out of there. We stupidly let them take us to their hotel room where they totally dropped the cute romantic act and made us strip our clothes to music. They showed us a gun they had in a drawer. I was terrified. They made us lay on our stomachs bent over the bed side by side and had sex with us that way. They switched like we were interchangeable before finishing in us with no protection. We held hands. I was crying while my cousin was trying to be strong and cheer me up. We weren’t allowed to leave and our clothes were hidden. Before took our phones we had to text that we were staying at my cousin’s friend’s house. Then they called two other soldiers, one of them a huge tall dark guy with body builder muscles. He was the worst to me. They made us dance and then we had to use our mouths on the cute ones that had lured us there while the other two had sex with us. I vomited and my cousin cleaned it up but then it started again. They had cocaine and made us sniff it off their parts and sniffed it off us. Another one came and I think it was just those five during the night but they kept raping us and making us do things even when we would pass out. I would like to have been more unconscious but cocaine makes you so awake. I want to remember less and think about it all less. We showered many times. The big dark one peed on me and in my mouth the shower. He did it more than once like I was his toilet. The other men even had to tell him to chill out when he was making me scream liking his fingers and pushing them in my arse, but not when he made me crawl around like a dog using my hair as a leash. I remember one of them calling their friends to tell them to turn all their t.v.’s way up to hide the noise in our room. They watched sports news on the t.v. They had me and my cousin kiss each other and stuff. I could not act like it was a fun party like my cousin did sometimes and encouraged me to do. She tried to take some of their attention away from me over and over. I love her for it but they did not leave me alone. My chest is something they were obsessed with. They did not care that I was obviously distressed and freaking out or that in my country I was three years below the age of consent. There I was the minimum. We woke up in the morning on one the beds together with only the two soldiers sleeping on the floor. The black one was gone! They had sex with us again and another man who was much older and who they called SIR came in and had sex with both us but mostly me. They cheered him on and my head was pounding and I was crying and it seemed to last forever. Finally we got our clothes back but they took us for brunch wearing their normal clothes. They showed me pictures on their phones that made it look like I was having fun and warned us how bad it would be if we said anything different than we had a nice party. A nice party in hell! Before that I’d had sex with only my 1 boyfriend ever. One night of hell and now my number was seven!! We had to start getting ready for the wedding right away and I was exhausted. My cousin hid me and I took a nap in my dress, hair and makeup until the last minute. I cried in the ceremony but not for the wedding. I was so sore in my vagina, muscles, and brain that I got so drunk at the reception I barely remember any of it. Just part of being on the plane home. I told my mom the truth when I got back and she got all crazy, so did my dad, and they tried to call over there and the hotel and such but there was nothing the police would do. I saw my dad cry for the first time as I told the whole story. My boyfriend could not handle it and dumped me. I go to group and do therapy. I take a pill everyday and now benzo’s for break through anxiety. I try to hide my large chest under baggy clothes where before I used it for attention. STUPID! My cousin does not seem to have the trauma I do or the nightmares. In her country they are done with secondary school up to two years before us and are more treated like adults sooner. I said mean things to her once because of it. She forgave me but we talk much less since I asked if she has gang bangs all the time. I felt terrible because she even let them have anal sex with her to lure them away from me. I could tell it hurt her so much but at the time was just thinking about my own survival. My childhood is OVER but I do not feel like an adult. Her advice is -Don’t let it get you so down-. Like I have a choice in this!! She went to a therapist ONCE because her mom made the appointment and does not plan to go back. Her life did not really change!! She works reception at a tech company and models on the side and still goes to parties and clubs and dates. How??? It is unbelievable how attitudes toward something like this can be so different in different countries. I am a victim now and I usually feel like it. Definitely damaged. Everybody at my school knows why. I am THAT girl. My new more mature boyfriend is understanding but I feel like a sad little burden to him. I am hypersexual sometimes now and can’t help it. It is a coping mechanism that happens to some victims of sexual assault. I did not ask for it. I worry my boyfriend can’t trust me because of it. I had an older guy friend who’s been my neighbor for years take advantage of me after I told him the story of what happened at his house. We had sex and then he felt guilty for being turned on by my rape story. He admitted it and asked me to forgive him. The sex helped me calm the ear ringing for just short time periods so I did it with him more than once a day for a bit until my dad started to suspect something and talked to him. Since then I don’t trust myself. I want to marry my boyfriend in large part just to protect myself and show him I love him and am loyal even though I am not sure I can be. I worry I cannot love like a normal person. I worry I push him away being too needy and wanting to marry him so soon. I need him more than he needs me. Is that the way it will always be in relationships for rape victims??? I work hard at school not to ruin my future. It is so hard to focus. My ears ring constantly. Thank you for listening.

I started dating him during college. I remember him catching my eye the day I met him, his laugh, his curiosity with the world and the way he smiled when we spoke. We got to know each other over hours of tea time, and we started dating at the end of my senior year of college. I was off to med school in a city 4 hours away, and we were determined to make long distance work. He was my first boyfriend, and after COVID had thinned out my experience of college, I was excited to have found my person. I was incredibly happy in the beginning of our relationship, getting to do things for the first time with a boyfriend and experiencing what it was like to be desired and loved romantically. The feelings were intoxicating. In my naivety of a first relationship, especially my first serious relationship at the age of 21, I failed to seriously question behaviors that I saw in my partner. Take it as a result from my limited exposure to healthy relationships in childhood or my fear of admitting to myself that something was wrong. The part that was most foreign to me as someone new to relationships was navigating my own relationship with sex. I enjoyed sex, especially with someone that I loved, and I was convinced of the idea that I needed to always be able to provide sexually for my partner since now, we were exclusive, and I was his girlfriend. I appreciated knowing that I was desired, and my partner enjoyed being intimate with me. This worked for a while, until I started to need to set boundaries and prioritize my need for sleep and being able to function well in the high pressure environment of medical school. This is a story of a night that happened too many times for me to count in my relationship, so often that I knew it was going to happen every time he came to visit. There would be nights when I needed to get to sleep early because I needed to get a good night of sleep before an exam, or be well rested for another day of clinicals at the hospital. It would be about 10:30 pm, I would get ready for bed, knowing that I’d get a decent 7 hours of sleep if I was in bed by 11. He would be working or winding down his work, I would remind him that I needed to get to sleep so I could get enough rest for my next day. His work was very time consuming and he worked late into the night often, so I never pushed him to go to bed when he had something to work on. The one thing I would remind him of however, was that I wanted to be asleep by 11. If you want to have some intimate time, please wrap up soon because I need to sleep. I would brush my teeth, get in bed and he would say that he was wrapping up. I would try my hardest to stay awake until 11, scrolling on Tik Tok, or Instagram, hoping the blue light would do its job. 10:55. He closes his laptop and heads to the bathroom. I try my best to stay awake. 11:05. 11:10. 11:15. 11:20. I hear a toilet flush and the shower turn on. I can’t fight my exhaustion anymore, maybe it’s the frustration, the stress from studying, or just the exhaustion of cooking, cleaning, packing lunches and breakfast and making dinner for two whiles being a medical student. I fall asleep. 11:45. I’m woken up by him sliding into bed and I turn to curl up on his chest. He pulls me in to a cuddle , stokes my back and kisses my head. “Maybe do you want to do some sexy time?” He asks me. This is a question I know all too well in this exact situation that has played our too many times to count in our relationship. I respond the way I always do, convincing myself that this time, I’m going to stand my ground. “Baby it’s really late and I told you I needed to sleep, I don’t want to have sex, I’m really tired” “That’s okay! Then maybe we can do things other than sex?” The dance between us has started, and I know I really need to sleep but that he is going to get quiet and distant for the next day if I keep refusing. I tell myself that I need to prioritize my sleep right now, and he will get over not having sex for a night. It puzzles me that he thinks that giving him a blow job is any less exhausting than having sex and somehow is still okay to ask for when I told him I was really tired and needed to sleep. “Baby please I’m really tired, I don’t have the energy to blow you” “That’s fine, we can do it in the morning then” I hate making commitments that I can’t keep and I hate when anyone does the same to me. My response is a reflection of that, and in hindsight, not the best decision to getting this dance over with. “I have to be up at 6 I’m not getting up any earlier than that and I don’t think you will be waking up that early either” He goes quiet for a moment. “Maybe we can do some kissy?” I understand that his love language is physical touch and at this point, the guilt overwhelms me. The boy that I love has traveled hours to come see me and spend time with me, and here I am trying to sleep instead of making him feel loved. I know the logic is skewed, but I always wanted him to feel loved and know how much I loved him. If I could just kiss him a little bit, subtract some of my sleep, then that’s okay. This boy loved me and I loved him, I can spend a bit of time kissing him and reminding him that I found him attractive and desirable as well. I would lift my chin and kiss him, gently, softly, as passionately as I could for someone half asleep. I would try to meet his level of intensity, the sleep and exhaustion weighing on my eyelids. Eventually the exhaustion would catch up to me and I would stop moving my mouth as much. “Baby! I’m trying to kiss you but you’re not seeming very into it!” He says. “I’m sorry handsome I’m just so tired, I love you” He lets out a sigh and reaches for my hand that is laying on his chest. He takes my hand and places It right where he wants it. He’s hard. The feeling of dread washes over me. I love this boy, I do, and I’m flattered that he desires me. But I am just so sleepy and exhausted right now. He moves my hand against himself. He uses his other hand and reaches for my waistband. He slides his hands inside and touches me. “I think someone wants me” he says. Of course I find him attractive. I’m just so tired right now and I don’t want to do anything but sleep. He kisses me more passionately. Touches me more aggressively. Makes me touch him more aggressively. The exhaustion has won over my determination to not let this happen again. “Please I’m really tired” My plea goes unanswered as he takes off my bottoms and his own. I know at this point, it is easier and faster to get this over with than to keep trying to fight for myself and refuse his advances. Any time I had refused his sexual advances in the past I’d be met with cruelty. I would beg him to say something while I profusely apologized, and he would keep silent. If it was in the morning, I would explain that I was in pain and would ask to figure out our days together. He would refuse to partake, roll his eyes and would go back to sleep. He would get out of bed after 10am, ensuring that I wouldn’t be able to of any of the things that I wanted to do with him that morning. Once he wore me down and I gave him reluctant consent when I was in pain, asking him to be gentle. The pain was severe as soon as he entered me, and I cried out. I profusely apologized but he stayed silent, even as I begged him to say something. I didn’t realize that this was stonewalling and emotional abuse. Come to think of it, I could never have a period in peace when I was with him. If I lied in bed moaning in pain, he would sometimes comfort me a little. But every single time it would end in him making the same joke, even after I had expressed numerous times how much it bothered me. “You know what would make your cramps feel a lot better?” He meant sex. He always meant sex. Even when I explained to him what excruciating pain I was experiencing, he wanted sex. Even after I explained to him that it bothered me that he kept making that same joke, explained how it made me feel like he didn’t understand the amount of pain I was in. He just wanted sex. It never mattered if I was in pain. He laughed when I cried about how upset that joke made me. My naïve heart was convinced that laughter was innocent. Most of those times he wouldn't relent until we had sex, or I pleasured him in some other way. 12:10. He reaches for a condom, and before I know it, we’re having sex. I’m doing anything I possibly can to get this over with as quickly as possible. Move the way he wants me to touch him the way he wants me to. All the while thinking to myself, “please just finish I’m so tired and need to sleep”. 12:30. He’s done. I try to hold back my tears as I head to the bathroom. How did I let this happen again? I talked to him about this again just last week. I told him I need him to respect my bedtime didn’t I? I asked him to please not push it when I say I don’t want to have sex. I asked him to please not reach for my hand and make me touch you. He verbalized understanding, said that he only wanted to have sex if I did. What was I doing wrong that this kept happening even after I talked to him about it? I go back to bed, he’s curled up facing away from me, starting to fall asleep. I know he likes to have sex before bed to help him fall asleep, it helps him work out the “zoomies before bed” as he calls them. I lay next to him and the tears start silently falling down my cheeks. Is this what being an exclusive partner is supposed to be like? Am I rarely going to be able to sleep when I want to because I need to be there for him to have sex with before bed, the way he likes? Are my pleas to be left alone always going to get ignored? If we live together, get married, is this what the rest of my life is going to be like? One thought sinks to the pit of my stomach. Is this assault? 12:45. I finally get the chance to sleep undisturbed. My hope for 7 hours of sleep has dwindled down to 5. I guess I’ll just be groggy and exhausted working at the hospital again. This was my boyfriend, the boy I have been with for years. He says he loves me. I love him. He cares about me, buys me groceries, buys me birthday presents. He goes to dinner and comes to visit me while I’m at school. He helps fix my car and my devices. We brush our teeth together most nights before bed. He’s my best friend. Some of my friends say we look cute together and have funny banter. Could a person like that assault me? I certainly didn’t say yes. I said no at the beginning and said that I did not want to have sex, but I’m not sure I said no or asked him to stop when he grabbed a condom. I was too tired to put up a fight, I just wanted to get it over with. This wasn’t the first time. It happened just about every month he came to visit me. I tried to talk to him about it often, he called it bickering and said that he liked sex before bed and first thing in the morning and it was hard for him to wrap up work earlier so things wouldn’t happen so late. He shut down when I brought up the topic and said that this was his love language and it made him feel loved. I wanted him to feel loved, just not at the expense of my lack of sleep. I initiated sex often to make him feel loved, and at a time that would be conducive to my need for sleep. But no matter how many times we had sex before I was winding down my night, he always wanted sex when he went to bed because it helped him get to sleep easier. We talked about making time for sex, planning. He agreed when we spoke about it, but the action never happened. What was I left with? No matter what we spoke about, the same thing happened. I spoke to someone close to him about my distress because I wanted to understand anything I could to help reframe my feelings, and hopefully understand him better and feel less hurt. “He’s a 23 year old boy who sees his girlfriend once a month, what do you expect? You’re being irrational” “Maybe you shouldn’t sleep in the same bed then” “If you can’t meet his needs then you need to talk to him about it” “So what if he cheats on you, it’s just sex he’s still choosing to be with you right?” Was I the girl that was depriving him of happiness? I wasn’t giving him the kind of sex he wanted at the hour he wanted? I didn’t think he was a malicious person. The kindest explanation that I could come up with was that his brain shut down when he was in the mood, and he had a hard time thinking about much else other than his desire for sex. His frontal lobe forgot to consider that maybe his actions were hurting me, and he saw convincing me as a challenge. After all, I was his girlfriend and we should be intimate together, and there were many times when I enjoyed it. All he could think about in the moment was just working out his zoomies to help him get to sleep. However, there is a reason why were are humans, not bunnies – we have advanced cognitive reasoning and I don’t think idiocy is an excuse. He loved me, right? Why would he want to hurt me? These thoughts are why I stayed as long as I did. He didn’t mean to hurt me, he just was young and dumb and was working on developing his emotional intelligence. I was convinced that it would grow with time and the more we spoke about it, little by little he would understand. But he didn’t. Was I just being impatient? Long story short, things in our relationship feel apart when things surfaced about how angry he was about the times I refused sex when I was tired, and his desires to be with someone who was more sexually exciting than me, someone with bigger breasts and fuller curves like the porn he looked at multiple times a day. The feelings and questions from all the times that I was pressured into sex surfaced. I felt that these feelings and situations when I felt pressured were the reason why I was so guarded with him sexually and didn’t always feel comfortable and I wanted to work through it with him so I could be more sexually exciting for him. I talked to him about these situations. “I think that was a form of assault. I was pressured into sex when I didn’t want to and it made me uncomfortable” “I never meant to be assaulting you, I’m sorry you felt like that. I can see how you took as that though” He wanted to see if moving in together would fix things for us. The thought of spending every night like this terrified me. “We can have two different bedrooms so that doesn’t happen” he offered. Why couldn’t he just respect my boundaries? I wanted to be able to cuddle in bed with my partner at the end of a long day and feel comfort without the worry that I had to provide sexually when I was exhausted. “I’d appreciate being able to talk through this with you because I have felt violated in this relationship and I’m in a pretty bad place” I told him I was done when he yelled at me over the phone. He was going to look into couples counseling. He said he was doing some deep introspection about his feelings. He sent me a letter saying he didn’t want to be with me a few days later because I was bickering and upset with him. “This is just too much, and I don’t have the time to deal with this and work through these things with you. My work is an extension of me, my priority, and I need to focus on that...I don’t want you to come away from this feeling like you were abused for 3 years” The boy who said he loved me unconditionally had found his condition. His points were valid, everyone has a right to their own priorities. However, it struck me that after 3 years together, he still didn’t respect me or care about me enough to take responsibility and help me talk through the trauma that I had undergone in our relationship. It is always hard to confront that we have hurt someone that we love, and I want to think that his avoidant tendencies put him in fight or flight mode when he heard how much pain I was in. He must have thought it was easier to just run away, stop hurting me instead of confronting the hurt that he had caused me. I convinced myself of every excuse I could possibly make for him. At the end of the day, I was left with myself, healing from being violated throughout my relationship, screaming, crying, not knowing how to speak about what had happened to me. But here I am now, trying to learn how. Was this ignorance? A habitual miscommunication every month? Even that just sounded ridiculous, how can I speak to him about the same thing every month just for him to never hear it? Was I making too many excuses for him? Was I too much of a people pleaser, and was he looking to steam roll me to get what he wanted? Assault always felt like too strong of a word to describe this. Was there a smaller tier to describe being touched when I didn’t want to be and being nudged into sex when I did not want it? Is there a word to describe your partner of years habitually having sex with you when you did not say yes, and did not want to? ChatGPT says “the term for that is ‘coercive sex’ or ‘sexual coercion’ if there was pressure, guilt-tripping, or manipulation involved. If there was no consent at all, even if it was within a long-term relationship, it is legally and ethically considered rape or sexual assault, depending on jurisdiction.” I’ve never been able to call this rape, but I’m coming to understand that rape isn’t always violent and can be done by someone who is an intimate partner who was not physically abusive. He never hit me or got violent with me. But this, whatever it was, came with emotional abuse and still sucked. I felt very disrespected and violated. One thing that I am sure of (unfortunately) is that I am not alone in this experience. I appreciate you for reading this story, whether you can relate or not.

On the Date i got sexually assaulted by my cousin (this was in somalia) I was in my room then needed the bathroom when i was going to the bathroom my cousin stopped me to talk to him then he forces a kiss on my lips then i pushed him away and my auntie came and said ”sabrin doesn’t know somali leave her alone” then he said okay and walked away. Then when my cousin went home my other cousin came in and forced himself on me.

Hey! I'm 18, and all this happened a year and a half ago, I was 16. It's a really weird and messed up story, I never heard a similar one. I was going home late afternoon and got literally attacked by a group of I think 3 or 4 people older than me, all male. I dont know which language they were speaking. I really really tried to kick them and scream and resist but there was nothing I could do. I dont know how long it lasted, I was scared what they would do when they're done, if they would kill me or let me run away. They let me go when they were done, I picked up my things and literally ran home without stopping. I am so grateful there was nobody home and that nobody saw me going home. It was this feeling of emotionless and numbness when you cant feel anything that saved me. I showered, last time next 9 months, got dressed and prayed no one gets home soon. I didn't go out much next few days, acted normal enough that my parents wouldn't notice and tried to not think about it. I only told people online: a close friend and anonymously to hundreds who would read my reddit post. After a few months of constant crying in my room, I tried to kill myself, every time I decided I'd rather not die yet and threw up the pills, then be mad and try again... I cut myself, hit myself, would cry and scream in a corner of my room and hit myself with something when nobody is home. Hid all pretty well, parents would tell me I've changed and tried to get to me, mom would cry and ask me what's wrong but I would, barely holding it in, tell her shes making it all up and go to my room rolling my eyes. I still cut myself, sometimes hit myself and pull my hair, subconsciously pick the skin around my fingernails so it bleeds, my hands look absolutely horrible. My thighs are covered in 30cm long scars from knee to hip and it's sometimes a pain to walk and even sleep. Idk how I survived the summer, people at the beach would look at my leg but nobody ever said anything. I've still never told anyone in real life, I am extremely ashamed of all of it, cant walk down the street with my head up, cant imagine telling parents or talking to a therapist. I really just dont want to be sad anymore. This text is poorly written and doesnt really transfer all emotions well, I didnt really see the keyboard because of crying. But thank you for reading this. Knowing someone knows I'm going through this helps. And that there are other people. Thank you really.

When I was 8 I was molested by my older 13 year old “friend.” It was a typical grooming situation with secrets we can’t tell others that weren’t playing our “game”. This time was very confusing and I felt like I couldn’t talk to my parents or sister about it. It lasted for months- touching, hiding spots, secrets, oral sex, and vaginal sex. She ended up telling her friends at school - my mom was a school counselor that worked there. She overheard and reacted. She came to my elementary school and said that the girl said that I started it. I felt completely unsupported by my mom- unloved, unheard, not trusted, hurt, broken. I shut down from then emotionally. My parents didn’t hug me or tell me it wasn’t my fault or anything it was just pure fear and chaos and their disbelief that they didn’t know it happened even though it would happen in the same room as them sometimes. I told them this and they still couldn’t validate me or take responsibility- they never even cried for me- for the devastation I went through. We went on like all was normal. When I was 11 I started trying drinking. When I was 13 I basically wanted to die but didn’t know why. I went to a different school when I was 14 and it was all people that were upper class- I didn’t quite fit it but it was very important to my parents that we did. I was stealing to have the clothes the other girls wore- I didn’t want to depend on my parents. I then got into my first relationship at 15 and lost my virginity in the back of his car- it was abusive- verbally, sexually, emotionally and psychologically. He would intimidate me by throwing boxes, raging, screaming in my face for hours, calling me every name in the book and not letting me leave the house- he isolated me from my friends- and cheated on me whenever he wanted. That lasted for 2 years. Then I went to college, broken. I was raped 10 times when I was in college at parties or in their dorm room or mine. I woke up with a condom inside me one time… bruises on my vagina another… with no recollection of how or who did it. I was over drinking so I felt like they were my fault. I told the dean of students about one time I got roofied and nothing happened- he was a D2 football player so got a slap on the wrist. He then harassed and followed me for months intimidating me saying I was lying and ruined my reputation. I felt the same every time I woke up- confused, shocked, embarrassed, sick, alone, empty, raw, and scared to death- how did it happen again. I got sober thinking that would stop the assaults- I have since been assaulted and taken advantage of on multiple dates. Most recently, at work, I was sexually harassed for months and raped at my coworkers house. I reported it after he was reported to HR by another colleague and the state police didn’t do a thorough investigation and didn’t seem to believe me or care. He violated the restraining order and has faced no ramifications- he is a nurse. I have undergone trauma treatment for 6 months now. Healing means waking up in the morning free to do what I want, when I want, where I want, with who I want. I am learning how to voice myself and say no, set boundaries and speak up when I am uncomfortable. I have come a long way from the chaos and trauma that I reenacted without a solution. I go to sex and love addicts anonymous meetings- I went no contact, went through a painful withdrawal and am starting to see things differently. I see that the lies were not love. Love bombing isn’t love. I was chasing a fantasy of someone I wanted him to be but he never was. I live in mental health housing and I’m looking for a job. I have peace now because I spoke up. I am grateful to be alive. I pray anyone in an unsafe situation trusts the smallest voice inside you that knows what is happening isn’t right. I pray you get out safely with a plan. Don’t think “I should have” or “I was smarter than this” we are smart and we may have known better, but abusers are good at what they do - mine was when I was 15 and I recreated that traumatic hell for 15 more years. It needs to end now. I deserve a good life with a healthy person. I deserve to be treated with respect and love. I am loveable, and I am worthwhile. I say affirmations each day to move toward the life I want and not look back to a life where I was suffering in silence. I thank God everyday that I get the chance to heal, pray, laugh and have the chance to know what real love looks like, starting with my friendships. I hope to find and participate in therapy groups so I can continue to be vulnerable and heal. I hold on to the hope that I will feel safe in my body as I did when I did to prepare for EMDR. I had never felt safe in my body before. I will feel this again- I wake up every day with hope. Things are getting better slowly, healing is possible, and I am grateful for the start of a new life.

I'm a woman from a middle class background living in a small town in Ireland. I work full time just as I have for most of my life. Abuse of any sort was to me something that happened to others. I guess I lived a protected life going from my daddy's house in to my first marriage. The end of the marriage started my road of abuse. Which I now tell in a conversation to my abuser : “Ha ha you got me at a vulnerable time in life. Do you remember the party we met at, the one in the country hall? I pretended that my colleague was my husband to try and get rid of you. But you were so persistent that eventually you wore me down with your sweet funny chat and smile. I was captured by the spell of a promise, a promise of a different life. So we moved in together. Everything was fine for a while but now looking back I see how you monitored me. I used to wonder at request texts for money always came when I was at the pass machine across from the taxi rank. Later much later I discovered your spy, the taxi driver. I avoided that place and walked further in all weathers. You began to text if I was later coming home from work, never asking if I was ok but demanding to know where I was, demanding to know what was keeping me. Now I know you timed my walk home from work, and questioned me if I left for work early. But I covered my tracks at times because I left my work rota lying around with the hours adjusted to give myself some me time. Boy, little did I know that the texts and time monitoring were to be mild forms of abuse compared to what you were going to put me through. Do you remember the night you wanted burger and chips but we had no money and you threatened to cut me up and put me in the boot or the night you beat me with the steel lamp because I used to light it to sleep as I was afraid of the dark. I was so lucky you didn't kill me. Flying plates of dinner became the norm because the food was either to hot/cold or not what you wanted. No matter how hard I worked outside the home to keep a roof over our heads you got worse. Trying to intimidate me and my manager by coming to the shop where I worked, insisting that we celebrate your birthday by going to mass. You even abused me with the readings from the bible. I got to the stage that I tore random pages from your bible. It was my secret pleasure when you searched for passages to quote from and couldn't find them. The public abuse happened very little but it was embarrassing. But it also was my saving because at your nephews holy communion your lovely display gave me the courage to tell your family that I had a safety order against you. Do you know that even with all of your following of me I still managed to keep most of my appointments with the lovely lady from Organisation. She gave me the courage to go to the Gardai and complain about you. But I learned from them that you'd complained about me being a bad wife. What a massive mistake it was to marry you but that was before your abuse got physical and I didn't see anything abusive in your behaviour. I made enough notes about what you did to me for court. Boy was I naïve going in to that court room. Looking back now I should have taken the barring order when the judge was giving it to me. BUT no, I was going to change the world and us, everything was going to work out fine and we would all live happy ever after. Fairy tales ha ha. I settled for a safety order which the Gardai explained to you when they came to our house later that day. Nothing really worked because you though you could still follow me around on your bike. I could write a book on the ways you abused me, locking me out of the bathroom when I needed to use the toilet but then I rented a house with 3 bathrooms. Things grew so bad that when I got the courage to throw you out that didn't even work. Wisdom hit you and you'd get the Gardai around to tell me that because your name was on the lease I'd have to let you in. The night you raped me was one of those times and it was the last time ever you touched me. I thought I'd jammed my bedroom door tight enough to keep you out but when I was sleeping you got in. You pinned me to the bed and told me you loved me as you forced yourself inside of me. The pain and fear still live with me. The DPP decide the evidence was not enough for a court case so I moved to an apartment behind coded gates for my safety. Yes you were gone but the impact of what you did to me changed my life for years. Walking and singing as I walked kept me sane at times. I threw myself in to my job and even got a new job in the city. But the city meant more loud noises to make me jump a mile off the ground. If anyone shouted not even at me I shook and had to try not to cry. I witnessed a row one day and it brought everything back. The emotional and physiological damage done by you left me a shell of my former self. Yes in work I used to be a power lady but not anymore. YOU changed me. BUT you know what, with the help of the Organisation, Organisation and my social worker I have found myself again. I have a great job, a great life and wonderful supportive friends who are here for me. YOU did not destroy me. I am a victor over your abuse because I walked away and stayed away. Today I live in a happy home where the food is eaten and not thrown around. I am not beaten but loved and respected. I work full time at my day job, while I blog and have gotten my confidence back so that I am now a public speaker. To anyone reading this and suffering abuse I say to you "Please contact Organisation. You deserve to be loved and respected" Darkness only lasts for a short time and then the sun shines forever

I, I don’t quite know how to start this. I’m confused, scared, and don’t have anyone to confide in when it comes to, this type of stuff. I’ll start at the beginning I guess. A bit of background, my parents were never married, there was a custody battle going on until I was about 6 (lasted from when I was born until I was 6), and my step mom was in the picture, and my younger sister was born when I was 2. As a kid I was, fascinated for lack of better words, with private body parts and sexual acts. I have no recollection of how I learned of these things, and that’s what haunts me. I can remember being a young child, maybe 5, being infatuated with pregnancy, birth, sex, among other personal things of the sorts. It makes me nauseous just to think about it now. My dad used to watch the news & Two and a Half Men around me as a child, but that’s the only exposure I can recall when it came to sexual acts. I have a few memories of my dad spreading some sort of cream onto my vagina as a young child, and to this day I cannot tell whether or not it was not meant as a sexual act, and that perhaps I had a rash or something, or if it was meant as a sexual act. Either way that’s one of the most disgusting memories I have. As I grew up, maybe about 3-7 range, my curiosity and infatuation expanded, I would touch myself and actively seek out books that contained pregnancy, for example, some health books at my after school program. I also struggled with potty issues, such as constipation and other things. Private parts have been well, very private, for as long as I can remember. And this is where I have the most trouble. As a child, perhaps 5 years old with my 3 year old sister, or maybe I was 6 and she was 4, either way we were both young. We would play “house” and whatnot with our stuffed animals, and would often have our “husbands” and “kids” but we often acted out the pregnancies, which I suppose is to be expected of two young impressionable girls. Everything stayed with just our stuffed animals, but I have one horrid memory between her and I. All I remember is sitting under some covers in my bed- the fucking bed I’m laying on as I type this out- I had my underwear off, and she was under the covers as the “baby”. God I feel like I’m gonna puke typing this. She mentioned that it was hot, and I think I told her to stay down there. I can’t remember, I’ve tried to hard to forget this memory. I feel so guilty. I’m scared she remembers. I’m scared she hates me. I love my sister, she’s my absolute world and I would give my life to make sure she’s safe. I was a child. A child who I don’t know if I was raped or molested as. A child who was dealing with the ever changing custody battle. A child who slept in her mom and dads beds because she was scared to be alone. A girl who slept in her dads bed until she was 11, and slept in her moms bed until she was 14. A girl whose scared of her past and worried of her future. I don’t know what to do, I feel so bad knowing that I may have sexually manipulated my younger sister and another childhood friend. I didn’t know that was wrong as a kid, I know it’s wrong now and I hate myself. I hate myself for not knowing if I was sexually abused as a kid, and I hate my child self for doing those things. I can’t look at pictures of myself as a child, only seeing her as a monster who was possibly molested/raped and who took her own confused and scared feelings out on two people around her. I don’t know what to do anymore, I just live with this horrid knowledge and accept the fact that it happened, and that it sits, simmering in my chest for years and years.

My name is Survivor and I live in Huntsville, TX. In 2004, at the age of 15 I was introduced to a man who was a pedophile. This was just after my parents divorced and after growing up with a severely abusive father, I was desperate from male leadership in my life. Needless to say, I was an easy victim. This man began grooming me and would eventually begin molesting me. This happened once or twice a month for the rest of my high school. Little did I know, this man was working alongside a college ministry called Chi Alpha and the Assemblies of God for at least 2 decades and had already molested other boys. For which he served a mere 90 days in Alaska jail. Pastors in our ministry tried to convince students, many of whom who were victims, to write letters of lienance on behalf of the abuser. You would think after high school and turning 18 I would have moved on and left him. After all, why would anyone continue to let themselves get abused? Unfortunately, that’s not how grooming or the mind of a victim works. So, I’m sad to say, the abuse continued. When I was abused in 2005, the statute of limitations in Texas at that time were until the age of 23. At the age of 23, I was still being molested by this man. For a significant amount of time the leadership in the Assemblies of God, which was the denomination I had been apart of my whole life, knew that this man was a registered sex offender and did not take needed steps to rid our ministries of him. I was one of the first victims to publicly come forward in 2023. For nearly 20 years I told no one, not even my wife. Myself and 5 friends, some even pastors in the Assemblies of God, started making calls to friends figuring other men had been abused heard dozens of stories of abuse because we were trying to help over 40 victims get help, seek justice, and heal. We all watched in horror as NDAs were used to insulate organizational leadership to cover themselves, using the NDAs as a fog of ignorance and hiding behind it. Because of this, Justice has not been served. Since then the Assemblies of God has tried to dismiss valid civil claims of negligence, has sidelined victims in the investigation process, and has sneakily tried to get victims to sign NDA’s. I’ll also add that I am a high school teacher here in Texas, and every year I hear stories from students who have been sexually harassed or abused in all kinds of scenarios. The happy side of my story is the abuser is currently in jail and awaiting trial. My wife and I have a rule in our house with our kids - no secrets. Last night I talked to my 8 year old daughter (in kid language) how NDA’s are used. And she said “but if you keep it secret doesn’t that bad person keep hurting children?” I had the privilege of working with Elizabeth and everyone involved with Trey’s Law. It helped my healing so much to be able to meet and talk with other survivors. To hear their struggles and to know I wasn’t crazy or alone. Through that legislative process I found my voice and gained confidence in sharing my story. Thank you Elizabeth for helping me tag along!

This story, my story, started 25 or 24 years ago, when I was 7 or 8 years of age. I was sexually abused (once only but enough to make an impact) by my dad, the first person that's meant to protect you. I never told a soul about it, no one but myself knew it during those 25 years, and even I did not want to think about it. As the years went I learnt to put it at the back of my mind, it was to painful, disgusting and worst of all, I was ashamed, ashamed for something I didn't do, but something that someone too close to me did instead. I learnt to push back if that memory ever came back to me. I grew (somehow) very closed to my dad, and pretended that never happened; only last year I learnt that very action has a name, and it's called compartimentalising. It was only last year, when I started to have issues with anxiety to another level that I finally, when I was about to have a nervous break down, decided that it was time to say it out loud. Weirdly enough, I never had considered myself a victim of sexual abuse... and the words 'sexual abuse' were really difficult for me to mention when talking about what happened to me, although, over time I grew used them and more comfortable (it still hurts though). I was on therapy for over 10 months, followed by a 3 months of CTB course, I still have catch up calls with my therapist every now and then. The worst part of my therapy was, what my own body needed, and that was to seek my dad's accountability, the one which, after confronting him, still hasn't acknowledge, and let's be honest, he won't ever do it. But I learnt to move on not expecting that to happened and at least, my dad knows the big impact that one action that happened that one time, has badly affected my throughout these past years, and my present. I discovered that most people that has suffered this type of abuse tend to develop any sort of chronic pain condition, which I did at the age of 13, mostly from what it felt like, was eating me alive from the inside of my body. Discovering the condition I have had for more than half of my life, is there because of my dad, was no easy discovery and that's where the panic attacks started. As you can imagine, and like all of you, it's been a long healing process. My 4 most important things that really helped me through my healing process (unfinished healing process) were: - My support network (my friends as family only found out after and they still don't know who did it). - Exercising, the best thing I have done for my mental health. - An incredible manager at work who supported me throughout my journey - And (unfortunately) antidepressants to manage better anxiety, as it got really bad at some points. I know, my healing isn't over, I know I might never get what I really want which is that accountability, but at least I know that what ever I decide to do, I'm now (mostly) in control, not my dad or my fears. We all still have bad days, but at least now I know, I'm not alone.

I was sexually assaulted between the ages of 18 and 19 by my then-boyfriend. I remember when it first started, I didn't even think of it as sexual assault, only that I knew I didn't want to and always felt upset after it happened. There was one specific event that made me realise what I was experiencing was not normal. I remember repeating "no" to the point of almost yelling and trying to push him off me with all my strength. He had a grip of my jumper which ripped when I eventually broke free. I didn't know what to do, so I did nothing. I went to dinner with his family that evening and cried in the bathroom. To this day, I still haven't told anyone and I wonder if he even understands the gravity of what he had done.

i have autism and i had been raped in my old class by a old man that looked like Putin, his face looked familiar but i can't verify it because i had never went to the hospital for rape check expect other things, i was having urinary incontinence for months and after months when the female police came i told her that my weeks old baby fall down the toilet after taking the pill She didn't write her note. only when she write it when my abusive and manipulated father tell her that i had "paranoia" and bah bah bah with evil-looking voice. i had been verbally abused and mocked after telling my parents about the sexual abuse at my home and then after that i decided to silence myself to avoid being abused again. i just wanna share with you i thought i can't because i was afraid i will get killed and getting taken down, i hate being slienced. i hate the way that my government and social media didn't provide accessible help but i finally found this website that i can share it with you.

After spending a year being single on purpose, I had decided that I was finally ready to invest myself in a relationship. The very next morning, I opened my phone to see a message from someone on Facebook asking me out on a date. Apparently they were following my photography page on Instagram and we had a mutual Facebook friend, and they decided they would shoot their shot. From the very beginning they were extremely funny, our sense of humor seemed to mesh really well, and they were easy to chat with. We met at a pub, and it seemed to go pretty well for a first date. It ended up getting crashed by their coworkers, so it turned into some drinks and karaoke. My cheeks hurt from laughing, they seemed really outgoing which I appreciated and their coworkers said really great things about them. On the second date we talked for hours - I felt like I had known them my entire life. No nervousness, I felt seen and accepted right away for who I was, and it was comfortable. It was a dream come true, which is how it felt for the first few months of the relationship. They appeared to check all of my boxes: self aware, empathetic, honest, open-minded. We fell in love quite quickly. The early signs of psychological and emotional abuse started within the first 6 months, but I didn't recognize it as abuse at the time. They were extremely jealous and would often say very hurtful and derogatory things about me. I'd catch them in lies and then they would break up with me stating indifferences in morals, but then would return the next day with heartfelt apologies and promises to work on their insecurities. I believed them. Of course I did, because I excused this behavior as a result of their trauma, the stress they were enduring at work, they were drunk, etc. I thought I could love them through it, so we made plans to move in with each other. That was when the insults, gaslighting, stonewalling worsened - and new aspects developed. Now I was being criticized daily, punished if I didn't tell them where I was going before leaving the house, threatened to send emails to my boss or intimate photos to my family, and my things would be written on with permanent marker or urinated on. That was when the violence started. I didn't feel safe in my own home because my things would get smashed and broken regularly. Police came to the house twice and told me if they came a 3rd time, they would make an arrest, so I ensured they never got called again. However, if I tried to call someone else for support I would get chased, held down, grabbed so I couldn't make the call. I locked myself in the bathroom once and the door was kicked down. I didn't see that as abuse at the time though, because they never hit me. I was so lost in this disillusionment of "love" that I thought they just needed my support, I needed to be more compassionate, I needed to love them better, that's what they told me anyways. This was my fault and I had to fix it. All areas of my life had been threatened: my home, my job, my relationships with my family, my pets, my safety, my health. I became extremely depressed and lost in a state of dissociation. My family became aware of some things (I kept most of it secret until near the end of the relationship, but there was much I wasn't able to hide), and they told me they feared for my life. I didn't respond, as that thought had crossed my mind already many times before and it no longer evoked a reaction in me. I was completely dissociated by this time and I had accepted the possibility. One night while I was driving, they grabbed the steering wheel and steered us into the ditch. That was when the fears became a reality for me. I started safety planning with the hopes that we could still make the relationship work. The trauma bond was strong. One night they started drinking and things were escalating, so I left the house and went to my sister's. In the past I would stay to ensure the things I loved most didn't get destroyed, or I would leave and sleep in my car - but this time I chose to see my family. I started getting text after text all hours throughout the night with horrible things being said. They hinted that my new kitten had "escaped" from the house, and my family had me back at the house, kitten and bags packed, and out the door in 20 minutes. At this point my family had seen everything and there was no turning back. Ending the relationship was confusing, because I didn't feel like I consciously made the choice myself. My family drafted my messages to kick them out of the house. I accepted it, because I just felt so drained and defeated by that point, I had absolutely nothing left to give. We continued to talk for a few months and both discussed how we missed each other and wished things could work, but I knew I could never go back to that, I didn't have the strength. My heart hurt and I definitely grieved - on the floor sobbing - for months on end because I truly felt as though this was my person, this was someone who I thought knew me and saw me for who I truly was. But the truth was, they didn't know me. They didn't even know the color of my eyes after 2 years together. I eventually realized I was grieving a version of them that didn't exist. I was grieving the life I thought we could have, the future family, the relationship that I thought we could work towards. I also realized I was grieving myself. My self esteem was diminished, I felt a huge loss of identity, I couldn't make a decision to save my life, I was exhausted and irritable and angry. I didn't recognize myself for a very, very long time. I felt betrayed and manipulated, and there was a lot of shame towards myself as I felt it was my fault for not seeing the signs or for somehow finding a way to make it work, or for staying as long as I did. I felt like I couldn't trust my judgment anymore. It's been two years now, and I am finally feeling closer to my old self. I struggled for a year and a half with my grief and learning that what I had gone through was abuse. I experienced survivor's guilt, hypervigilance, nightmares, depression, and panic attacks for months. I would start to feel better with the support of my therapist and the domestic violence specialist that I was working with, and a new trigger would happen or another development in my story would occur and I would be back at square one. I felt like I had no hope in finding myself again. I missed the person I used to be and it seemed impossible to ever shake these feelings. But even when I felt the most stuck, I still pressed forward. Even if that meant just making it to work that day, then staying in bed for the rest of the weekend. Or eating a piece of toast before bed if nothing else. Or attending the therapy appointment even if I didn't have the words. There would be weeks of darkness, but then I would have one day where I would cry and felt a little bit lighter. I would visit my family and a genuine laugh would escape my lips. It took very, very small steps, but I do believe I am finally at a place where I am surrounded by the light. I know there is still so much more work to be done, but once I started allowing myself to feel the anger, feel the hurt, feel the pain without shaming myself for it, things started getting better. Keep going - after everything you have survived, I know you can survive this.