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the lights flashed in my eyes, red and white, blurry but equally bright. i had consumed more than enough alcohol to be out of control of my surroundings but remembered things, clearly. he had always assured me that he’d keep me safe and would never hurt me. but isn’t that what they all say? the car doors shut, followed by a locking sound. the music started and surrounded me with a sense of safety. he started to drive and promised to take me home but as we drove i realised we’d been making circles and several minutes had passed when we should’ve reached ages ago. the car stopped, in a dark but familiar place. he unzipped his pants and grabbed me by my hair hard forcing me down on him, until he was disappointed and dissatisfied- he threw me aside. i was broken on the inside but paralysed too. i said, “i want to go home." he smirked and started driving again until his rough hands made their way into my pants and he forced himself on me until he was satisfied with the pain i was feeling. the pain was sharp like needles poking me at my most delicate point, again and again and it wouldn’t stop, until he wanted it to. when he was done- i was done too, not with just him but with everything i had built for myself. every fragment of a healthy mental state, every single hope in life and every small piece of trust. it was all gone.

2021 was the year that I decided to face my rape head on. For 6 years, I lived In fear and I was finally done. I didn’t want to give that man a second more of my life. So I began the hard journey of acknowledging, feeling, and remembering. I walked into a new therapists office and said “On December 23, 2015 I was raped, and I need to stop living in fear”. So that’s exactly what my therapist and I did. After many sessions and weeks of lil flashbacks, I finally was able to piece together what had happened to me. For the first time in 6 years, and it was terrifying, and made me angry, and sad, and ashamed. But I think one of the biggest realizations I came too was, I wouldn’t change a damn thing. He took my power for one night, but since then, I’ve used it as fuel. I switched my profession to social work, I started lifting weights and falling in love with my body again, I learned to advocate for myself and others. I met an amazing community of people who are also survivors. I got the most amazing emotional support dog who taught me love and trust again. So even though I experienced something horrific, and something no one should ever have to go through, I wouldn’t change it because it lit a fire in me that has changed my life for the better.

Home should be where you're safe right? As a child your home should be your protective little bubble, where your surrounded by people who love you. Even as an adult home should feel safe. You shouldn't be 21 and balling your eyes out as your friend explains to you all the reasons you can't move in with them and assures you despite the obstacles you will be able to leave one day. It's hard because I understand for many reasons I'm lucky, for many reasons I can sympathize and put logic to their actions. But that doesn't stop it hurting, it doesn't stop me wanting to go back and hug my smaller, scared and hopeless self. It's hard because even now as an adult who is stronger, smarter and more or less self sufficient part of me is still scared, on edge and waiting to defend myself. Let me make it clear I am not in a safe enviroment but I am in the safest enviroment that is available, I will not thrive here but I will survive and I will make it to the next chapter. Home should be where you're safe right? Not where you're physically and emotionally abused. It should not be the place you dread to return to because your family, who claim to love you, are the ones who leave you bruised.

I was only 16 years old. I was dating someone for 4 months, when all of a sudden he woke up one day, and had different feelings towards me. Little did I know, he video taped us having sex, without me knowing. I found out weeks after, that he sent it to his whole sports team, and parents. The cops took my phone and erased everything off mine but not the video off his. I am now 18 years old, and I just got out of a very emotional abusive relationship. Trauma affected me so much from my past, and I have never been worse than these last couple months. I did choose to leave the abusive relationship, but everyday is so hard. Living with that trauma, and not knowing what to do or how to live with it. Feeling likes it’s affecting my future relationships. With my anxiety it just keeps getting worse and worse each day.

TW: sexual violence, child abuse This is something I’ve never spoken about like this, never sought help for and still think about all the time. When I was a 15 year old virgin, I was raped by a man I met 2 months prior and someone who knew I had no intention of having sex until I was married. MK approached me outside McDonalds and my friend gave my number to him. We started speaking and started meeting up. We never even kissed. I never allowed him to touch me sexually and I never touched him sexually. He was someone I really liked even though he was almost 20 years old, I was so naive and trusting as a young girl. He knew I was a virgin and once said to me ‘U think yuh pussys made of gold?!’ Until one day, he drugged me and then raped me. It wasn’t a case of we were doing things and I decided in the middle of it no actually I dont wanna do this. It was me sitting fully clothed on the edge on the bed, to waking up screaming from pain and passing out again. Then when I woke up again I was practically naked on the bed with him on top of me saying ‘I think u should get checked. The condom split.’ I couldn’t understand and didn’t understand for many, many years, that MK planned what he did. He planned on drugging me that day I so innocently went to meet him at his friends house, and he planned to rape me. As a 33 year old woman now, this is something that still really messes me up. I had a completely dysfunctional life after that. I self harmed for many years, got heavily involved in drugs and became very promiscuous. The only thing that broke me out of that was looking into the religion of Islam and finding God. It was the first time in 8 years I felt peace. I still have too much hate for M. I hate the fact he took what was mine, away from me. He took it because he wanted it and was adamant on having it. He knew I had a strict Pakistani family and they had no idea about me meeting up with a Grenadian man. He knew he could do whatever he wanted and get away with it. Why do people always want to destroy what’s innocent? I was so beautiful, so trusting, so sweet. And he fucked me, a child, while I was unconscious. It’s something that still makes me cry. I hid it for 3 years until my aunty forced me to tell her why I had huge slashes on my arms. I told her. And as my relationship with my family completely broke down as I fell furthur and furthur into depression and destruction, 6 years after I told her and had made her promise not to tell anyone, she told my whole family. She told them because she wanted them to understand why I’d become what I’d become, but I felt so ashamed knowing that my dad now knew his only daughter was raped as a young girl. I still see him on facebook and know where he lives. I’ve thought so many times about going to the police even though its been 18 years, but I don’t want to put my family through any more. I already put them through so much between the ages of 16 and 25. I wish he’d go to jail. I know I can’t be the only girl he raped. What he did was premeditated and he did it with such ease. I remember after he got off me, I was completely out of it I couldn’t wait straight or think straight. He dropped me to the tube station and I just remember my friend waiting to meet me and me telling her ‘I think we had sex.’ She took me to get the morning after pill but everything was such a blur. There’s a special place in Hell for MK and for all other groomers, rapists and abusers. I just wish I’d been able to lose my virginity to someone I loved and someone who loved me.

I take the last line, drink that last sip of beer from the dented can. I feel another piece of my consciousness float away. It doesn't matter what has just come before though. I feel a sudden grip on my outer leg, it wakes me. I start to blink, try to get rid of my weary vision. I pull my body away from this grip, he pulls back harder. I start to use my voice... repeating the classic "no" "stop". my already limp body starts to struggle; pushing, elbowing and scratching. My wrists are met with yet another, tighter, grip. I feel his digging in, between my tendons. he pushes his weight inside and upon me. the consistent "no" coming from my mouth is answered with a soft "shhh" like an attentive father to a crying baby. After five or so minutes it is as if he can hear me; "should I stop" he says. "please stop, stop" "ahh, a little more" he responds. He goes harder. Maybe my voice is bothering or worrying him. He jams his hand deep into my mouth, clawing at the back of my throat. I start to splutter and search for air, he pulls out his hands and places his grip around my mouth and jaw and vigorously shakes my head around. "are you mine" "are you mine" he asks me with a low volumed rage, while his body still beats fiercely into mine. I start to wonder how these same hands that must have once combed through his young daughters hair were the same ones ragging and tearing at mine. He finally takes a break, the mass of his legs still crushing on top of mine. While I think he's sleeping I throw off his arm that is wrapped around me. Not yet "heyy" he says as he hurls it back around me tighter. As if I am his sulking lover upset by his late arrival home from a night of drinking. In those minutes, while I can only stare into my surroundings, I start to think of this setting being my new life. I will physically remain like this, a worn out body to be misused and wounded by this creature forever. Until I am so damaged that my body and my mind become numb and irreparable. He's awake and ready for round 2, I still have fragments of fight left. He pulls my legs apart as I use all of my strength trying to keep them together. he is completely on top of me , his sweat smothering my skin. His face above mine but his gaze is somewhere; anywhere except into my eyes. he goes again, each thrust more painful than the last. His heavy painted body sagging over me again and again. He pauses again. The sweat drips from his hair down the side of his face over his pulsing veins. I look at his eyes, hooded and bloodshot with an emptiness I have never seen before. I have seen spite from people who didn't like me, but I have never before felt that someone wanted to destroy me like this. I have heard this man say I was pretty before, but I know in this moment that his pleasure comes from damaging me. Round three. He goes again, this time he squeezes my neck. He starts to shake me, his grip still firm, my weak body stops its fighting. I start to hear an echoey voice of my mother, as if she is here but just not in my sights. I start to see an image of a friend of mine, as if he is standing on a balcony looking down at me with either pity or disgust but I don’t have the capacity to tell. I gasp for air in away I have never felt before. Some time has passed , I don’t know how long. Some ten seconds I stare, I see the door half open to a room where there are several hanging patterned shirts. I look at the floor and see a pair of crumpled jeans, I don’t yet realise they are mine. I start to hear a faint voice, saying my name. It reminds me of a time in hospital, awaking from anaesthetic to a doctors voice. I start to put the pieces together and remember where I am. He looks at me. “You scared me” he says, as if he posits some kind of care. Although I am breathing again, I am just a small mass of flesh, slowly decomposing into the sheets under his heavy body. Eventually I notice him sleeping, this time deeply. I get up quietly and pick up my clothes, feeling my jeans scrape across my bruised hips. I pass by the mirror in the corner of the room, I almost cannot recognise the reflection that is there. My hair sticks out, matted and messy. I pat it down and try to comb my fingers through. I feel my face is dirty, it is rough and red where his hands have corroded. I look over at the disheveled bed, the sweaty sleeping body upon it. I notice a slight grin on his face as he continues sleeping soundly. I look at my own eyes, smeared outlines of mascara, I can tell something in there is missing in this moment. I go to the door, open it with my shaking hand and o down to the street, and I hope that no one notices my hair.

TW: sexual violence We dated for a long time. He supported me the most and we were always together, like our identities merged into one. Looking back I know it as codependency. Looking back I know there were signs, but I wasn’t educated enough to see them. He made me think I was the abuser after it all ended. One night, I was 19. We were at his parents house while they were away, with all his friends from high school that I had grown to call my own friends. We played video games and watched tv. Got drunk. Tried to sleep. I remember him telling me he was horny when I got into his bed. I was so tired but I said “okay”. That’s why I struggle. Because I gave the verbal consent but I wasn’t aware. I wasn’t sober. I remember falling asleep and waking up to him inside of me. I felt my underwear with my hand on the side of the bed. I said “what are you doing?” And he said “we’re having sex.” I remember his body on top of mine. I remember him yelling my name to wake me up while he was still thrusting. Then he stopped. A moment of clarity. The destruction of who I was. Tears from him. Apologies. Threats to kill himself the next day. It doesn’t matter. He’s still a rapist.

TW: sexual violence I am a survivor. I don’t know a lot of what happened when I was small. I only have short memories of incidents, and then it’s black. I know they’ll come back to haunt me someday. Especially because I want to know what happened to me. I know men, particularly my mom’s boyfriends, were involved. But I can’t remember. I know the sound of Sublime’s music makes me uncomfortable. I know that for a while I hated big spoons. Besides all of that, I know that I was raped when I was 10 by two boys who were older than me and attended the same school. They kept me in the bathroom and forced me to give oral to one of them. One of them stood in front of the door and wouldn’t let me out. I cried and I begged, but they wouldn’t let me go. That only came back to me recently too. I’ve suppressed all of these memories because I lived with an abusive father. They’re coming out slowly and I know I’ll be ok because I’m safe now. Thanks to pages like [Unapologetically Surviving] they give me peace and make me feel like I’m not alone.

TW: sexual violence 1 gallon of Diva detergent costs $71.95. His apartment reeked of its sweet scent, clogging my pores and cutting off my airways. When I folded my clothes the morning after, the faint scent of the detergent made my stomach churn and I immediately threw up. I was visiting a friend from college in her new city when I agreed to meet up with him. He had always had a girlfriend, I had always had a boyfriend, but the sexual tension between us was still charged a full year after college graduation. When I told him I was coming into town, I made it clear that I wasn’t looking for anything. I said “I’m taking a break from men” and “No, I won’t change my mind” and “I’m letting you know so you don’t get your hopes up.” He said “I won’t push you.” We pregamed with tequila. My mistake. Around 1 am, I made my way across town to meet him at another bar. My mistake. I kissed him at the bar. My mistake. He wanted to go get a drink at his place, so I made him pinky promise that he wouldn’t try anything if I went with him. My mistake. The problem with making promises when your brain slowly fades to black is that you begin to question how much you can trust yourself. Snippets of the night come back to me as short videos with blurred edges. Are they memories or am I dreaming? Stepping on the balcony to escape the scent of detergent stirring up old memories. Looking out at the city with an impressive pour of wine. Pressing me up against the wall. Pushing me onto the bed. Never stopped him, never tried leave. A rag doll with huge glass eyes. A puppet going through the motions without resistance. My next memory is standing in his shower, washing my makeup off, scrubbing away his scent. Yelling threats and insults, expressing fear the only way I could. I thought my vulnerability would save me as I told him how this situation reminded me of a previous sexual assault. He responded by asking for my consent in writing. I apologized that my previous trauma triggered a panic attack. He asked me to leave. I cried the entire uber ride home, first humiliated, then relieved. I took another shower at my friends apartment, this time to wash away the shame and anger. Why did he push me? Why didn’t I resist? Why doesn’t anyone honor a pinky promise anymore. One month into therapy, these questions remain: Does sex with an acquaintance in a dark one-bedroom apartment, in a strange city, at 3 am, with too much alcohol in my blood and frozen terror in my limbs amount to sexual assault? Does asking for consent after the fact negate the lack of consent during the act? Finally, why did he ask me to come over the next night, and why did I almost say yes?

It started as me being 16 and him being 28. He and I met on an AOL chatroom, and it started with the generic a/s/l question. He ended up driving from his home over 1.5 hours away to my mom's home. The graphic nature of it is I felt dehumanized during the entire experience, he stated later when he turned himself in that I had invited him to the house for sex. Never mind that I was a literal child, and he was a fully grown adult. Later on, he would apologize to me and in my not being ready to process the full extent of what happened I had told him that it was consensual (it was not) and that it was not his fault (it most definitely was). I decided that to fully heal from my experience with him I took a friend to the federal courthouse 22 years later to see what exactly he said to the police when he had turned himself in. There were lies and manipulations within him trying to paint himself as the "good guy" who had "guilt" towards the situation. He said he picked me because of geographic location, that due to my age I would probably not expect marriage from him, and he could control when we would meet and talk. He lied about the number of times that we had had sex and also the location where the sex took place. The bulk of the file is a psychiatric evaluation. I recall the Sheriff coming to our house, but I could also tell that 1) it was not taken very seriously because I talked to a Sheriff very briefly and 2) it was a complete violation of what I had told him I actually wanted to happen. Like always, he had to control the narrative, not the victim. He knew that if I had come forward with the truth of what happened, had I opened up to my therapist, friends or dad about what this man had done then he would have gotten way more than 3 years' probation and a slap on the wrist fine with very minimal sex offender classes. It has taken me 22 years to want to regain control of what happened to me at 16 years old. It has taken me 22 years to realize that I need to heal from the trauma that this man gave me at way too young of an age to fully comprehend said trauma and way too young of an age to ever have given consent to him. Going to the federal courthouse to obtain copies of the lies that he told, including the lies he told in order to get friends and acquaintances to write character references (one mentioned a job, and another mentioned a program he was wanting to enter). I know the truth about what happened, even if a court of law never did, he knows the truth about what happened as well, but wants to continue to control the narrative, because that is just how he wants to be perceived. His life is in a whirlwind, but as long as he believes he is in control, then he is in control.

I was 17 years old and desperate for love and connection. I met someone who showered me with constant attention and I became addicted to that feeling. "Finally someone has chosen me!" I thought. He was very coercive and forceful when it came to sex. I was extremely naive and ultimately was willing to put up with anything in order to be "loved." One time during sex I became so overwhelmed with emotion. The act felt so animalistic and wrong to me. I knew he didn't care about me. I laid there and started to cry. He asked if I would stop crying and hold on until he finished. Which is exactly what he did as I laid there crying, feeling completely numb and empty. Another time I had my period and didn't want to have sex. We were in the back of his car. He ripped my tampon out, threw it out the window, and held me down and told me that he would hurt me if I continued to resist. After it was over I just laid in the backseat with the same numb feeling as he drove me home. Neither one of us spoke a word. These memories, along with other painful ones, play in a loop in my head daily. That same ache has stayed in my soul. I am now 31 years old and am feeling so much anger and sadness over how much this has negatively affected me for all of these years. There is also a loop of negative self-talk that plays in my head: "I will never be normal. I will never be loved. No one will ever understand. I will never have a healthy sex life. No one will ever see me." My experience with him is what led me into the arms of another abuser at the age of 26. I spent almost four years with him until I decided enough is enough. I feel even more damaged and hopeless now than ever before. I have recurrent nightmares that someone is trying to find me and torture/kill me. My insomnia, acne, allergies, and digestive issues have flared. My body feels tight and on edge at all times. I wish so badly that time would heal, but I know that I need to put in the work in order to heal. I am trying. I am so exhausted and can't see the light at the end of the tunnel.

TW: description of sexual assault Deep breath. The thing that I hate about my story is that while I hate that it happened to me, I hate how similar it is to so many other people’s stories. I don’t mean that I wish that there had been a unique or standout factor in my rape (wow, even typing that word makes breathing a chore), but that it kills me that so many others know exactly what I am talking about despite there only being some differences in our respective situations, and likewise, I know exactly what they’re talking about. I don’t know how other survivors felt when their sexual assaults happened because that is what is unique to everyone’s story across the board; everyone describes it, expresses it, and experiences it differently. While I cannot and do not wish to speak for all survivors, as I believe and know that each story from us is valuable, I can tell you my own. It is something that I have never written out or even thought out in full, only in fragments. Maybe this was my brain’s way of protecting me, even four years after I was raped and three after I was assaulted, but anyway, here’s my survivor story. I was a freshman in college, it was April, and I was two and a half weeks in to my nineteenth trip around the sun. I had been drinking some and was on my way home from a party when I realized I had told a friend that I would stop by a party that she was attending. I changed my course and headed for the campus house. Over the course of maybe twenty minutes, a guy had chatted me up and we were just talking. He seemed funny and nice at the time, but if alcohol does anything, it makes a lot of people seem fun and nice. We ended up leaving the party together and he offered to walk me back to my dorm, to which I consented. I was wearing flip flops, which made me stumble a bit, so he picked me up and did not put me down until we arrived at my dorm room. It was now that time where everything gets a little awkward because it’s the end of the night and you don’t know what to do with yourself, let alone how to handle the other person: I chose to be bold. I told him to wait outside while I changed into something a little sexier. I had a roommate who was in always in the room, so we couldn’t hook up in my room. After changing into a lacy bra and lacy black underwear, I put on an oversized button down and opened my door. I told him we could go to the laundry room since there was a slim chance that anyone would be doing their laundry at two in the morning on a Saturday. This is where my throat gets tight and my fingers grow more reluctant to pound out my survivorship. I unbuttoned my shirt and we began making out. I knew what I was doing and what was going on. He asked if I wanted to have sex and I said yes, so he propped me up on top of a washing machine and took off his pants. Between the height and the angle, the dynamics and physics just were not working out. He asked if I would give him a blow job. I said yes. When he finished, he asked for another one. I was still on my knees. This is the part where time stands still. I said no. I said it. The words left my lips. He responded by putting his hands on the back of my head and shoving my head toward his crotch until my face was smushed up against his penis. It was right there in my face. He took one hand from the back of my head and held his penis up to my lips and began trying to press it into my mouth, forcing me to take it. I had said no, and all that did was land me here. I felt my kneecaps dig into the linoleum floor. I felt the silence of the wee hours of the morning. What I felt the most was my inability to breathe or to speak: my own silence. When he finally eased up on the pressure on my head, I pulled away, stood up, and straightened myself out. He smiled at me and said good night. I walked back to my room, and that was that. However, that wasn’t that. I thought that this was normal, how things usually went. That night was always in the back of my mind until I decided to bring it up in therapy in the October of my sophomore year. I described the night and both of our actions and words to my therapist. I was expecting her to agree with me: it had just been another night at college. I was expecting her to tell me to not worry about it and to rid my mind of the night. Instead, I became the one statistic I never thought that I would ever become. That night went from being in the back of my mind to the very front of it, consuming me. “You were raped.” I was silent. I thought I had misheard her, even though I knew in my heart of hearts that I had not. The rest of that session is a blur, but how it affected me from that day forth is not. When the semester started, I would often party with my friends on the weekends. The person whose room in which we would most frequently party was roommates with my rapist. During parties before that therapy session, I always felt genuinely uncomfortable seeing him in the same room as me, so I would just drink the discomfort away. After that therapy session, I felt suffocating fear and overwhelming panic. I disappeared from partying with my friends and they noticed. When they asked what was up, I lied and said I had a lot of homework or that I had a big test coming up that I needed to study for. None of them knew the truth. I went to a small school with just under 2000 total students, so I saw my rapist a lot. The amount of anxiety I felt whenever I would see him, even if he was on the other side of the quad, was incredible. Even seeing him from afar would cause me to power walk or run in any direction but his. So that’s how I spent his remaining two years on campus: as an anxiety-ridden, fearful, guilty, embarrassed, relatively isolated, nightmare and panic attack-having girl. I thought he was in Spanish with me on the first day of second semester classes sophomore year, but it was actually another guy who bore some resemblance to him. My junior year, I went to Commencement to watch a good friend graduate. My rapist was also graduating. I put my hands over my ears and buried my head in my arms when they got close to calling his name. How, I thought, how the hell is he graduating and going out into the workforce or to graduate school? Why does his world keep spinning when mine just stopped? It’s not fair. My junior year was the same year that I finally told my father that I was raped. I called him sobbing. As soon as I finished telling him that I had been raped, his immediate response was to ask if I had been drinking. Then he asked if I had reported, which I hadn’t at that point because I was absolutely terrified. He concluded the conversation by saying how it on me and my fault that I had gotten raped. Furthermore, I was also selfish and irresponsible for not reporting. By senior year, I thought that everything would be fine. He was no longer on campus, so I should be okay, right? Wrong. I quickly learned that just because my rapist was gone did not mean that the damage he had done through that heinous act just magically vanished. The February of my senior year, I was getting ready for a party with my friends in one of their rooms. I had been so caught up in trying to wrap up my thesis that I had not been partying in the recent weeks, so this was my emergence into the social scene. One of my friends suddenly exclaimed how she had just gotten a text from my rapist saying that he was coming to campus. She was the one person in that room of four people who did not know that I had been raped and that it was by him. I froze and tried to keep taking deep breaths; it was sort of working. He’s probably just going to be visiting his buddies. He won’t be at this party. I was trying to rationalize. Fifteen minutes later, she got another text from him saying he would be at the party we were going to. I excused myself and went out to the deserted lounge where I broke down on the couch. I could not stop crying and hyperventilating, so, as much as I did not want to go, I ran to the wellness center, tears still streaming down my face. That Tuesday, I had my weekly meeting with my two thesis advisors. I had spent Friday night in the wellness center, but had returned to my room on Saturday where I spent the remainder of the weekend unable to sleep, eat, breathe, or move. On Monday, I barely made it through my morning class before I went back to the wellness center and spent the night there. Tuesday was the first day that I felt even remotely okay. I knew I hadn’t done a lot of work on my thesis, so I was not looking forward to my advisor meeting that afternoon. When it came time for the meeting, I just talked about the work that I had done and tried to control the conversation. While they both thought that what I had accomplished was good, one of my advisors asked me something to the extent of why hadn’t I done more. It was then that I felt my voice give out and I felt tears roll down my face. When I composed myself enough to muster words, I told them the background, the original incident, before telling them about what had occurred over the weekend. They were silent. I was drowning in shame. My history advisor spoke up first, apologizing for what I had been through, before saying that if I ever chose to report, she would be happy to accompany me. I thanked her and left. The next day I received an email from her asking me to come to her office when I could. I finished up my lunch and went over to the humanities building. In her office, she told me that she had an obligation to report my rape since she was a professor. I felt all the color drain from my face. This was not a part of the plan. Then she said that I could sit in her office to absorb what she had said and to talk through what I wanted to say. She said that it really pissed her off that someone had done this to me and how she couldn’t imagine how much energy I expended on avoiding him, and then she said something that began to change how I saw my situation: she told me that I need to let the people whose job it is to protect me do their job instead of assuming that role myself. About an hour and a half later, we began our walk to the administrative building where the Title IX coordinator worked. She put her arm around my shoulder and reassured me the whole walk over. Once we were in the coordinator’s office, I asked her to stay. I couldn’t do it alone. The coordinator asked me a few questions, including the name of my rapist, and then she gave me some options regarding potential next steps, including issuing a no trespass order. I told her I would think about it and thanked her for her time. My advisor and I made it to the top of the stairs before I began sobbing. She walked me into the bathroom and sat with me on the bench, calming me down and offering comforting words and wisdom. That’s my story. What I have learned about healing, especially from something such as rape and sexual assault is that you don’t get over it; you get through it. The pain from the trauma ebbs and flows. Some days your lungs will be so open and welcoming to air, and other times, you’ll be gasping for your life. Something else I have learned in healing is regarding the victim versus survivor label. While some write-off the victim label as someone who is too caught up in what happened to them and associate it with an unwillingness to move forward in life, I don’t see it that way. I think victim captures the true heinous and terrible nature of the act, and I think it both reminds others and the person who was assaulted that a crime was committed. That it wasn’t some little sex game of another night at college, but an actual crime. I am simultaneously in support of the survivor label because I think it captures the heart, bravery, and strength one has to have in order to endure the crime and come out on the other side, even if you’re barely breathing. You can call yourself whatever you want, even if it doesn’t fit within the victim/survivor dichotomy, but know that there is no shame in calling yourself a victim and it is never too self-centered to call yourself a survivor, because no matter what, you’re here today, and that’s what’s important.

He was my husband, but he was also my abuser. It started when we were dating with some details that didn’t add up. But I never questioned him. Then we got engaged, and I caught myself questioning if this was the person I wanted to spend forever with. But his gaslighting made me feel like I was the crazy one. I felt guilty for wanted to call off the wedding after my parents put so much money in. Nine months into our marriage, he wanted a child. I wasn’t ready. I was only 25 and had so many dreams. He decided we were having one against my will. When I found out I was pregnant, I didn’t feel the excitement I thought I would. When he found out it was a girl, he completely checked out. He only wanted a boy. That’s when he stopped coming home, started “working late” often, and started drinking heavily. He wasn’t there for me through an extremely difficult pregnancy, and even almost didn’t make it to her birth. He chose to be anywhere but the hospital. His desires and life were more important than mine. On top of all that, he was a firearms dealer with unlimited access to weapons. He began yelling at me in front of the baby, kicking holes in walls and furniture, and even grabbing my arm to subdue me. When my daughter was 4 months old, my therapist told me to run. Run away as far and as secretory as I could. By the time she was 7 months, I filed for divorce. I found 15 women he had affairs with in the last year while pregnant and post part in. He lied, he manipulated, he made me feel like I was crazy and made me scared of him. He left and never came back. Now, over two years later, I’m still fighting for my life back in court. He stole my money and my trust, but I am moving forward. My daughter is almost three and my new husband is everything that he wasn’t. He plans to adopt my daughter, knowing that my ex will put up a fight in court. But we are in good hands and he loves and supports me without fear or abuse.

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.

in january of this year i was sexually assaulted by the head chef at a restaurant that i worked for. the restaurants manager asked me to not go to the police otherwise i would lose my job. i went to the police anyway but they closed my case because of the little evidence they had. however, it has just come out now that this chef has a criminal record and three other girls have come forward claiming it has happened to them too, from the same man! our case is going to trial and there is a strong chance he might face prison time!!!

TW: Description of sexual assault and rape included I, like many others, don’t talk about it much. I’ve always been one to deal with bad things on my own. I don’t enjoy burdening other people with the knowledge of my problems. Even just thinking about it puts a knot in my stomach and a lump in my throat. Every muscle in my body feels week as I begin to think about how I should tell this story. I will preface this by saying that I was raised Christian. I have always had Christian beliefs and values deep in my heart. I believe that sex – at least in my romantic relationship(s) – should be saved for marriage. I should also preface this by saying that I’ve never been comfortable in my own skin. I never thought of myself as someone who could find a “good” guy or even just a guy that didn’t do bad things because of my lack of confidence. Anyway this is all besides the point. My point is that my self esteem, for much of my life, was so low that I cared little for myself or the things that might happen to me. That is why I decided to start dating my attacker. It was my sophomore year of high school and at that point, no guy had ever really shown any interest in me (save for a one month middle school fling), so when my attacker asked if I wanted to go out with him, I was thrilled. There was, however, a small piece of me that knew he wouldn’t be good for me. He smoked pot on the regular and would drink way more often than what might be considered “healthy” but I went for it anyway. After all, he was the first guy to actually like me so that was probably the best I could do, right? That was the mindset I had up until probably four months before the end of that relationship. Three entire years later. I know it took me so long to end things with my attacker because my experience with him was the only one I knew. I was terrified of being alone and I was always being told by him, “I love you so much you can’t leave me,” or sometimes, “if you leave me you’ll have nobody else. You’ll regret your decision so you might as well just stay.” Those things he said to me were never really things I was concerned about until the nights -yes, nights plural – he decided to take advantage of me. I wasn’t worried until the nights he said “I just love you too much to not have sex with you. I need you and you won’t be able to stop me.” I wish I could say that this was something that only happened to me once. Actually I wish I could say it never happened to me at all, however this was something that happened to me a countless number of times over the course of the latter two years we were dating. It makes my skin crawl just thinking about the things he did to me. The first time was the absolute worst out of all of them. It happened on a Tuesday afternoon in February. Up until this particular Tuesday, we had been getting together weekly to study or do homework together and to just hang out for a while and watch Netflix or whatever we decided to do. We were dating after all. He had been bugging me for a while to have sex with him but every time he asked, I said no because, like I said, that was not something I wanted to do. Up until that awful Tuesday night he listened. Up until that night he respected my decision to wait until marriage. Up until that night he didn’t seem to have a problem with my choice. But that night, it was like something flipped inside of him. We had decided to take a quick study break to make out for a little bit because why not, ya know? Everything was completely fine, but then I felt his fingers reach to unbutton the top button of my blouse. I pulled away, startled. I asked him what he thought he was doing and he said, “just trust me,” so I did. He hadn’t given me a reason not to trust him with my safety in the past. His hands went back to the buttons and as more and more of them came undone, a feeling of sickness and dread grew in my stomach. I knew I needed to distract him somehow so I grabbed his hands before he had the chance to take my blouse off completely and said “I don’t want to do this,” but his response was, “relax its not like I’m going to rape you or anything.” He shook his wrists from my hands and pinned my arms down on one side of me with one hand so he had the other hand free to slip my blouse off. Then he started kissing me (rather forcefully) everywhere. My neck, my chest, my stomach… His hands then travelled from my wrists to the button on my jeans. I told him to stop. He didn’t. I told him I didn’t want to go any further. He didn’t care. I told him this was wrong and that he needed to stop right now or I would scream. He acted as though he didn’t hear a word I said. Before I knew what was happening, he had peeled my jeans from my legs and was beginning to take off my underwear as well. I tried to fight back. I tried to convince him to stop. I said no. I said it so many times. It was all for nothing. He didn’t listen. My body froze and I could not make any sound come out. It was like my mind was forcing me to just take it. After that, all I remember is feeling him inside me. All I remember is the pain, both physical and emotional. There was just so much pain. I couldn’t understand why he thought everything was okay as he was having sex with my practically lifeless body. As I was laying there, so many thoughts were flying through my mind. “This isn’t happening. Boyfriends don’t rape their girlfriends. This is how I’m losing my virginity. Maybe I’ll wake up and this will all have been a bad dream.” It WAS happening. A boyfriend WAS raping his girlfriend. It WASN’T just a bad dream. When he was finished, all I could do was lay there. I was still frozen. I was still absolutely terrified. He acted as though everything was fine. All he did afterwards was put something on Netflix and lay down beside me. I stared through the TV as the words “I was just raped” crossed through my mind about a million times. After, there was just emptiness. There was just darkness. Emptiness and darkness are painful. The most unfortunate thing about my survivor story (in my opinion) is that this happened almost every time we were together. Sometimes multiple times in a night. Every time I said no and every time he didn’t listen. Eventually I started blaming myself. I turned to self harm for a while just so that I could feel anything but empty.. so that I could feel my pain on the outside rather than on the inside. I have learned so many things from my experiences with sexual assault and rape. First, you should never try to deal with these things alone. Even if you don’t want to talk to anyone you know personally about them, you should at least call a hotline or talk to someone who is trained to give advice about these situations. I was lucky enough to be blessed with an amazing best friend and an incredible boyfriend who have done nothing but support me and love me and encourage me throughout my healing journey. I don’t know where I would be without them. Second, none of it is your fault as the survivor. The blame is always and will always be solely on your attacker. You are not to blame. Third, you are not alone. Not one survivor’s story is the same as yours, but people know how you’re feeling. Don’t be afraid to post in a site like this. You won’t only be heard, but you will also be acknowledged and validated. Lastly, even if its sometimes difficult to believe it, you have so many people in your life that love you and want only the best for you. They don’t necessarily need to know your whole story or even any of your story at all, but they’re there. Don’t forget that. You’re worthy of life, you’re worthy of love, and you’re worthy of the knowledge that someone cares for you deeply. Don’t ever give up fighting. The pain is tough sometimes. I have days where my rape is all I can think about. I have days where I almost can’t even bring myself to lay in a bed that isn’t mine because beds and other people’s bedrooms are a trigger for me. But I also have days where I feel like I’ve come so far since everything happened. I have days where everything is light and happy and I almost forget what happened completely. This is a fight that may never end but that doesn’t mean you should just stop fighting. Keep fighting.

Dear K, I met you when I was only 11, I was lonely, vulnerable, and so sad. At the time, everyone was calling me a slut and a prostitute for simply having breasts and curves. When you would talk to me, you never made me feel ugly or disgusting, you made me feel appreciated and loved. Our friendship was "beautiful" at first, you would always ask me how I was, what I was going to do after school, but I never realized that you wanted to control every living moment of mine. At age 12, when I said no to you asking me out, you would ask me out every single day, first, it was a hand on the shoulder, then a shove into the lockers, then yanking my hair and hitting me and slapping my butt. I couldn't escape you because you were always there, at class, at lunch, in front of my locker, outside school, on the train, in the grocery store, and even on my doorstep. At age 13 I couldn't be myself without you, I knew how terrible of a person you were, but you were the only one who would talk to me, spend time with me. I felt like I deserved how you treated me, so I would do anything to make you happy, so you wouldn't hit me. I would wear the clothes you liked, smile and laugh when you wanted me to, let you touch me inside out, but that was never enough for you. You pushed me to my limit, you drove me insane that my body couldn't stop you from stealing from me. I couldn't scream, I couldn't wriggle around, I couldn't say no, I was just paralyzed, numb, but my brain was on fire because I knew I should've been fighting back. When my friend realized what you had done to me, he never let you go near me again, but you still stole from me. I can't sleep without having nightmares of you, without hearing you whisper how you would steal more from me, without feeling your touch and wincing whenever someone hugs me. I am scared that if I open up again, I will only be robbed again. Whenever I see you, I shudder at the mere reminder of how you owned and brainwashed me. I am still healing, and always will be. My promise to you is that I will never let you hurt another girl again and that I will forever be an advocate so that we survivors can have a voice. So that I can have my voice again!

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

When I was 7, I started being sexually abused. This wasn’t by a family member, it was my grans second husband. It all stopped when I was 12, when we moved a few miles away and he didn’t visit as much. When I was 17, I was having therapy for other things, it eventually came out then. They helped me decide how I was going to tell my mum. They also said I should prepare for family members to not believe me. I thought, you don’t know my family. They all stick up for each other. Well so I thought. My mum never wanted to talk about it. I understand now that was due to guilt, she had her own mental illnesses to deal with. My sister, well she turned against me for a few years. Saying I was lying, I tried to ruin my grans marriage with my lies, threatening to beat me up. My sister even tried to prove I was lying buy having him watch her new born baby whilst she went and done his food shop. When this man died, it got worse. My sister and aunt said they can’t grieve over him cause of the lies I said about him. Saying I’m evil and not wanting me near her child incase I do stuff to her. I had cousins asking “what exactly is it he did to you? My gran saying “he’s not a pedophile”. All this almost destroyed me. It was worse than the sexual abuse I had went through as a child. I decided I wanted away from my family. So I enrolled in college at 23, at 27 I was qualified and got straight into a job, I had been saving through college, so managed to move onto my own place pretty quickly. Now 33 years old and looking back I often think, did all that really happen. I’ve since moved further away from my family, Doing this has helped me stay away from their drama and only visit on occasions. They’re a lot better now, but I’d still rather keep my distance. I’m in a good place mentally. I’ve got great friends and built a good life for myself. My advice to anyone going thought it. Prepare yourself for family not to believe you. Only talk about it to people you trust and only when you want to talk about it. Don’t feel you need to explain yourself to anyone. The best thing my therapist said, no matter what you did or didn’t do, it wasn’t your fault. You were only a child.

When I turned 24, my life began to change. I started having severe bouts of sadness that seemed to come out of nowhere. They would leave me feeling low and upset. I was confused, asking myself, “What was going on? Why was this happening?”. As time passed, these episodes started lasting hours, and they came coupled with memories from my past. They were memories of when I was a young 8-year-old boy. I was in disbelief that this was happening after all of this time. Why now?! I had come so far since the abuse. I had a good job, great friends, and life was generally going well. Of course, I had never forgotten what happened to me. Occasionally something would come up on the news, or somebody would say something that would remind me of it, but I didn’t care, life was good and I wanted it to stay that way. I decided the best thing to do was to fight the memories. My strategy was to keep pushing them away until they gave up and disappeared. But it seemed the more I pushed, the more strength it gave them. They started attacking me from all angles, and I couldn’t hold them off. They even made their way into my dreams, where I would wake up screaming that he had snuck into my room. At this point, I knew the fight was over, and I needed to do something about it. I spoke out for the first time to a close friend when I was 27-years-old, which was just short of 20 years after the abuse happened. As soon as I did this, I felt an incredible lift, like I had achieved something great. It encouraged me to continue sharing my story, one person at a time. As the years went on, I could feel myself growing in confidence. It was a fantastic feeling, and to add to this, as the confidence grew, the fear of what other people may think was reducing. I spent a lot of time reflecting on the journey I had been on to get to this point, looking at the different stages of coming to terms with my past and figuring out how to move forward. It led me to wonder what other people may be going through. How were they doing? I started searching online to find out. I came across a chat room where people were writing their stories and expressing how they felt. There was one post that really struck a chord with me. So much so that I had to re-read it several times. It was from a 70-year-old woman; she explained that she never told anyone what happened to her as a child. She felt this was one of the main reasons that held her back in life. She explained that she will now take this secret to the grave her. I couldn’t believe it; I felt so sad for her. It made me realise how fortunate I was to have people around me that I could tell. I felt a sense of gratitude to be in that situation, and I decided that I should try to do something for people like her. I began to think of how I could be of use, how I could use my story to help others. I thought the first thing to do was start sharing my story publicly. I remembered that I had been to an open mic night earlier that year, which was a free event to the public where you could sign up on the door and perform that night. I knew this would be a good starting point, so I went as a storyteller and began speaking on the open mic stages around City. These events were held in pubs and bars. They were busy venues where people came to have a drink with friends and listen to the musicians and singers who were performing. It was the wrong environment for my story. The audiences looked uncomfortable as I spoke, and things were not going well at all. One venue cut my microphone halfway through my story and told me that I had to stop and come off the stage. It felt terrible. On another night, I had a guy from the audience stand up and shout, “This is meant to be a night of entertainment, and you’ve come here talking about kids getting touched!”. I literally couldn’t believe it; I felt completely defeated. It was like I couldn’t take one more night, but I knew I couldn’t stop. It was the best option for me, and I had to keep going. I needed to improve my performance to stand any chance of getting somewhere at these venues. I needed to be more creative with how I told my story. I started experimenting with different ideas. I wrote a performance that explained why I never said anything at the time the abuse was going on, and I delivered it over music. It was catching people's attention. One night I started with two or three people watching, and by the end of my performance, I had the whole venue's attention. They clapped and cheered; I will never forget that moment. From there on, I knew I was on to something. I began performing at every event that I could. I didn’t care what type of venue it was anymore. If the night went ‘badly,’ then so be it; it was all helping me develop my content and delivery on stage. I started recording my performances and uploading them onto social media. Somebody saw my work and told me about a poetry and spoken word open mic night happening in City, so I went. I couldn’t believe it when I arrived. It was a room packed with a supportive audience, who were there solely to watch the performers. Everybody paid full attention to the stage and showed overwhelming support. The night was fantastic. I felt like I had finally found the right platform to share my story. I have now been speaking out in public for two years. I have also been creating videos and social media posts online. I have collaborated with filmmakers, illustrators, and photographers to be as creative as possible in communicating this topic. I believe if things can be kept engaging and interesting for the viewer, then we can bring more attention to this subject, which is essential if we stand any chance of breaking the stigma and the silence. I truly believe we can do this. Thank you for listening to my story. If you would like to see the content I have been creating around child sexual abuse, please go to survivor on social media platforms and YouTube.