I’m 22 and I was raped by my neighbor, who was also a co-worker and a trusted friend. I kind of felt like his big sister; I was always looking out for him and protecting him. Until one night he came over to watch movies and brought alcohol. I never drink, but I did that night, I regret it. I’m still having issues with blaming myself, or strangely enough, trying to protect him. Is there something wrong with me? How could I try to protect someone who did this to me?!

I kept yelling at him because he wasn’t very interested in the movie, which is why he came over. He kept trying to talk and brought the conversation to our significant others. He was talking about his girlfriend and how she was younger than him so she didn’t want to do anything but normal sex. We talked a little about my boyfriend and his two kids and he kept telling asking me in a playful voice, how I liked to have sex with john, and was I a “freak”. I told him how john and I rarely get time to be intimate because his kids are always around so we really didn’t have a very active life in that way. He poured the drinks again and kept goading me to chug it. I did. He kept going on with compliments about my breasts and a*s and what he would do if he were John. He leaned forward to kiss me and I started to laugh. I told him that things would get way too weird at work and that he was just drunk. He confessed to having a crush and always wanting “to get with me”. I remember telling him that that was nice but it wouldn’t happen. I was saying it lightly to keep this from sounding mean. He leaned forward again and I let him kiss me but I didn’t kiss him back. I made a joke and I moved off the bed, turned on the lights and started to throw away the cold spaghetti. He came up behind me and put his arms around me, he pressed in and told me that I made him hard and what was I going to do about it. I joked about him going back to his room with some Vaseline and that he could probably take care of it better than I could. He grabbed my chest then, and I turned around to break his hold. He tried to kiss me again and he bumped his teeth against my lip and I had a slightly puffy lip the next day. He turned off the lights again. I don’t really remember how he got my shirt off but I remember trying to find it in the dark. I found my zip up sweater instead so I put that on and asked him to leave. He looked upset and tried to apologize explaining that he was just drunk. I literally shoved and pushed him out the door. A few minutes later he politely knocked and asked for his jacket, which he left. I let him in for his jacket and I remember him pushing me down on my bed. He took off my shirt and bra; I was wearing only my jeans and was trying to cover myself with my pillow, which he took away from me. He knelt over my face and exposed himself, right in my face. I told him that I was going to throw up and he got off me so I could run to the bathroom. I locked myself in there. It was so dark I couldn’t find the light switch and I was drunk enough to feel unsteady even standing up. He asked if I was okay through the door and I told him I was okay but that I wouldn’t come out until he left. He kept saying, “don’t be like that, you know you wanted it”, and other stuff like that. I heard him get mad and started to say “fine if that’s the way you want it to be, I thought we were friends, I guess not, we’ll see what happens at work tomorrow” I heard the door close so I opened the bathroom door. The only towel in the bathroom was a small hand towel, and I remember holding it close around me. When I turned the corner of my room to see the rest, the lights were out and he was still on my bed. He took my towel from me and threw it. He grabbed my breasts really hard, hard enough that the next day I had small finger sized bruises on them. I remember sitting on the bed with my sheets pulled up over my neck and just repeating “get out, get out, get out get out” like a chant. He got mad at me then. Saying I was blaming him for something that I wanted too. He told me that he would leave if I would give him a blowjob. He undressed himself, until he was wearing only socks. I had the sheets over my head then and kept repeating please just get out. Then he started to whine, saying all he wanted was oral sex and I caused him to get excited so I had to help him. I was quiet then. I think he took that as me saying yes because he took my sheet away from me and while I was trying to grab that back he started undoing my pants. I got really dizzy and I felt like I was going to throw up so I begged him to stop and let me up but he wouldn’t, he thought I was tricking him like last time. He shoved my pants down so they trapped my ankles. He changed his mind and forced oral sex on me, but with the taste and it hitting my throat, I threw up on him, I was able to shove away from him to my kitchen sink which is right next to the bed. The pants were tripping me so I kicked them off and grabbed my robe hanging on the closet door and put that on. I belted it and told him to leave and that I would forget this happened if he would just leave then. He got up and grabbed my arm. My robe ripped on the sleeve and it opened for him. He pushed me on the bed and hit my stomach with his elbow accidentally. He then pushed me over so I was lying on my stomach and pushed himself into me. I don’t know why I just laid there. But I did and he was done in less than a minute. He didn’t say anything else, he just got up got dressed and left without a word. I briefly thought about going to the base hospital but rejected the idea because it was late, and I was too drunk to drive there and I wasn’t thinking very clearly. I wasn’t physically very hurt either. All I wanted to do was take a shower. I slept in the bathtub that night. The next day at work I kind of just blocked it out of my mind. At the end of the day though, he asked me what kind of alcohol he should pick up to see me again that night. I told him not to come over that I didn’t want to. I was in shock. He acted like nothing had happened. He really expected us to still be friends. Ever since, I’ve been acting like it never happened but trying to avoid him if possible, until I started having nightmares and people started to notice that I wasn’t acting normal, and now I’m starting to get the shakes when I think about it, and I’m slowly falling apart. I’ve been moody and restless and my work is starting to go downhill. If I tell anyone, it would get reported and I’d have to prove it happened and I don’t think I could face being told that I was making it up. It’s his word against mine and everyone likes him. The nightmares won’t go away and I sleep in the bathtub every night because I get flashbacks around my bed. Does anyone have a good way to make the nightmares go away?
by Annon 3 Dec 2004

Well, as you can imagine, it’s very difficult to come out to such a wide group of people, but I feel a strange kind of comfort knowing that everyone here will understand. I lost my virginity at 15 when my boyfriend raped me. We had been dating for a month and it started out innocently enough. After a few days, he subtly started wearing down my self esteem by manipulating me and trying to coerce me into having sex with him, but I remained firm that my virginity was not his to take, it was mine to give. He told me that I was stupid not to do what he said, that I was nothing to anyone but him and even then I wasn’t much more than the s**t on his shoe. So this continued and one day when he had convinced me to leave school with him and go to my house, he trapped me in my room, pinned me down, and raped me. Every time I protested he would jab me with a pen until I laid still. He had an erection problem and blamed it on me, so any time he couldn’t stay stimulated he forced my mouth onto him. If I vomited, he would shove it back in my face and leave me to clean up. Then it would start again. This continued for another 2 months and progressively got worse. By the time he dumped me, I was nothing but a puddle compared to my original self. I like to explain this way, in the beginning I was a perfectly built pyramid. In that relationship he took me apart brick by brick until there was nothing but rubble left. I know I’ll never be put together correctly, but I can try. When that relationship ended (and he had a new girlfriend by the end of the day) I didn’t know what to do. By that time I felt I was dependent on him and without him I was nothing. I had a friend, Zach, who came and saved me. He took me to Planned Parenthood for a check up and proper medical care. (There were some cuts and bruises that my previous boyfriend wouldn’t let heal) Soon, though, he started to take advantage of my weakness and he started to rape me in his own way. Not as physically abusive as before, but he used me and prayed on my vulnerability. He used me for another two months and dumped me out of the blue one day. I believed that I loved him and that he loved me so this came as a big shock to me. It was a very hard and lonely 2 years before I felt I was going to end everything once and for all. I was in a mindless sexual relationship where we didn’t care for each other but I felt I needed to pleasure someone because that was all I was good for. Eventually I became so sour, depressed and dark that I almost did kill myself. I stayed for my dad who had recently been diagnosed as manic depressive and I didn’t want him to suffer if I was gone. One day I was on the internet and by some remote chance I met a nice man, a REAL nice man. I won’t get into it too much, but he proved himself to me by moving 1700 miles and away from his family to be with me. That was almost 3 years ago and I am now married with a one-year-old son. In most aspects of life I am happy, but even now I have horrible nightmares, flashbacks and memories that haunt me almost every day. It sometimes makes our intimate moments awkward and painful and I flash back to my sexual experiences from before. I wish I could put all of this behind me and I have made it farther than I ever thought I could, but the deepest and most disturbing parts of my experiences seem to be hardwired into my mind. They can be triggered at any time and for any reason. I’m hoping that someday I will be able to find a way to vent the remainder of my past and let it be just that, the past.
by Vicki on 12 Mar 2005

Hi. This is the first time in 8 years that I have talked to anyone about this. I don’t remember much of my childhood before my uncle Larry died. I do remember when my parents divorced. I remember my mom working so many jobs trying to raise my sister and me. Then in 1991 my mom was seeing a man named Dale G. He left in 1992 and went to South Carolina. In 1993 he came back here to Mississippi. He moved in with my mom and us. In 1994, my mom got pregnant with my little brother. The night my little brother went back to the hospital is when it first happened. I was 12 years old, and the man, I wanted so dearly as a father figure, tried to touch me. He was sitting on the couch. I was laying on the couch with my feet on his lap. I started having a stomach ache. He asked me if I wanted him to rub my stomach so it would stop hurting. I didn’t think anything of it so I said sure. His hand started going further down. I got up off the couch and locked myself in the bathroom. Well, I told my mom. She asked him and he lied. He told her I was lying about the whole thing. One year later on my 13th birthday, he asked me if I wanted to be a woman. I said no. I wanted to be a kid. That night I was sitting on the back doorstep. He joined me and asked what was wrong. I said I couldn’t sleep. He came around so that he could be in front of me. He started hugging me. After a few minutes I felt something strange. He asked if I wanted to feel it again. I said no, but he pushed me back and pulled me down. He pulled his penis out of his boxers and forced it in my vagina. Every time my mother was gone somewhere and I was alone with him, he would rape me. I would mentally leave my body and block what was happening out. I told my mother several times, but she said I seduced him. From then until 1997, I tried suicide, running away, drugs, and drinking to take it all away. In 1997 on a Friday, I went to breakfast that morning and told my best friend that I’d be dead by lunch. In study hall, I asked to go to the bathroom. My best friend knew why. I went to the bathroom and slit my wrists. Five minutes later, she found me almost dead. Ms. Shona Jordon called my mother at the hospital in Oxford, MS and told her to come to the school. That night I was supposed to go to the prom with my boy friend. I never made it. My mom sent me to Charter Parkwood for help. In Family Therapy I told everything I remembered to my therapist while both sets of my parents were there. My mom called me a liar. One week later my grandfather passed away. My sis & I moved in with our dad. My sis stayed mad at me for years. My dad was in so much shock he didn’t believe at first. In the summer of 97, he finally believed after my sixth suicide attempt. He sent me to St. Francis in Memphis, TN. I got better for a while. Then in 98, he sent my sis and I to live with our aunt Betty and Uncle James in Jackson, TN. I had a wonderful time living there. I graduated high school. I moved back here to Pontotoc, MS. I took care of my grandmother. Then I moved in with my first fiancé. He became verbally, mentally, and physically abusive. I left him because he ended up being gay and abusive. I lived with my grandmother again. I started seeing the guy who was to take me to the prom the night I left for Parkwood. He was great at first, then he forced me to take drugs and he abused me in every way. I was forced to do crack cocaine, and smoke pot. I had been drinking since the age of 13. At 21, I was drinking Vodka every day all day. Then I found out I was pregnant. The doctor said my baby was so hooked on drugs that he probably wouldn’t live. I had my son 1 month before my grandmother died. He died 10 mins after birth. All due to my abuse, my life was hell. I went through other abuse in ‘02 to ‘03. My ex-fiance Jason was a drinker. I had stopped drinking after my son’s death mind you. He almost choked me to death because I wouldn’t get him a beer. Then in Sept. of 2003 I found the most loving man. Douglas has been wonderful to me. We have been through a lot together. I have had 2 car crashes and lived. He treats me like a queen. We plan to marry in March ‘06. He has me understand that it wasn’t my fault. My mom is still married to the man that hurt me, but she’ll understand on judgment day that what happened. Thanks for your time.
by Mitti Dillardon 25 Feb 2005

I’m currently 22 years old, my stepfather died in 2001, and half of me is glad the monster of my childhood is gone. From the ages of 3 1/2 to 12 my step dad fondled sodominized and me me. I was also to perform oral on him. He liked to touch me when I was trying to sleep at night and when my mom wasn’t home from work yet, I think that could be why now I have trouble sleeping at night without being scared of the darkness but scared of someone coming in unannounced who didn’t belong there. After that he wanted my virginity and when I told him “NO” and told him I was going to go to the teachers or some authority at school he began beating me. Taking out his frustrations out on me through violence since I wasn’t going to give him what he wanted. I used to hide the bruises under my clothes and hide the ones on my legs during Gym class claiming I “forgot” my gym suit. At one point I had social services come in the house because of my dad’s verbal abuse when he got drunk and to wake up my mom who is also an alcoholic and it just didn’t wake her up. It made them angry at me and I was told to be glad I wasn’t going to be sent to an orphanage. At that point of age 16, I think I wished for it to be sent to an orphanage so I wouldn’t have to be beaten anymore. I didn’t tell anybody of the beatings because I was scared he was really going to kill me like he threatened. He already broke my mom’s nose when I was a wee little girl, what’s to say he wasn’t going to kill me too. In 2001, he told me he was ashamed to call me his daughter, I remember sitting up all night crying falling in a depression so far because I spent so much time trying to make him proud, and I was never enough. I turned to poetry to get my anger, frustrations, and tears out. Because under his cardinal Nazi rule nobody could cry – it equaled weakness. Tears equal strength, and I couldn’t cry it.

He was diagnosed in 2001, with lung cancer of the lymphnodes and it was terminal. After he spent so much time breaking me apart where I was so fragile inside I was about to commit my own form of emotional suicide barely feeling anything, let alone feeling for anyone, he wanted me to cry for him. I couldn’t, he was already dead in my eyes, my innocence gone, and my heart torn apart. I felt broken. Yet when he was in the hospice bed in the middle of the living room, I told him it was okay “to go” because I wanted to be the one with the upper hand and show him that I was still me under the dirt and grime of his hatred of me, I still had a big heart. I showed compassion where I thought none was left inside. And he died. My monster gone and I watched him go. Half of me is torn, I loved him when he was sober and he showed me the ocean. And half of me hates him for the monster he was to me when he hurt me. I guess I’ll always be this way. I can’t escape it. Just don’t know what to do about it. How to move on from it.

I’ve started to move on though, I’ve got a bigger heart and I’ve uncovered the child within who still likes to play. I’ve uncovered the true me and pieced her back together with super-glue. I just wanted to share my story with everyone and let you know that you are not alone. *gives big hug to everyone*

by Aikoon 21 Sep 2005

It’s weird running across this site. It brings back so many repressed memories I have never talked about. My situation my mom and step dad to this day have no idea about. I am from Tokyo Japan. We were raised in a very loving but rigid discipline of the Asian culture. My dad died in a car wreck when I was 11. Heartbroken and economically we were broke. I guess it may be true love on my mom’s part, I will never really know. At 13 my mom was dating an American business man. By 14, they were married. By 15 we were transferred to America by his company. My step dad was 35 when we came here and my mom was 37. She seemed to want a nice life, home and family. He seemed very immature and wanted to drink and part constantly. One of his many friends he had over Mike was a younger guy around 25. Mike showed me a lot of interest and attention, and secretly he and I were talking on the phone a lot. After being tricked, I feel now into caring about him a lot, he turned many of the conversations sexual, about how he would make love to me etc. I was 15 and proudly a virgin and didn’t want to change that until I was married, so I backed away from him quickly. He would come by after school and ring the bell after I stopped taking his calls. After about a month he stopped. He was at the house a couple of times partying with my step dad and would constantly stare at me and try to talk nice until I stayed out of the room, he was making me very nervous when he did come over. My older sister had complained to our mom about him flirting with her and was admonished to not make trouble with her husband and her. My mom and dad went to Florida on a three day seminar for his work, two weekends before my 16th birthday. My sister was working at Dillard’s at our local mall, and I was sunning on the deck of our pool, and Mike is in our backyard talking to me, completely naked. I sat up with my heart in my throat, speechless. He was a good looking very muscular guy, and seeing him like that, he seemed so powerful and intimidating. No I didn’t scream for help, and if I did it would have been to no avail as we live on a 120 acre ranch, and only the wildlife would hear. He tried desperately to sooth me and makes me cooperate, and when 15 minutes of that not working, he changed. He became mean and strong and very aggressive and snatched my bikini of off me in seconds and very forcefully held my wrist to the ground, forced my legs apart with his knees and raped me hard for what seemed like forever, but I think was about 30 minutes. He made it clear to me when he orgasmed and told me while he did that he hoped we could be together forever one day and make a beautiful family. Telling me what every young girl dreams of, a beautiful man, strong, and wanting to be together forever and have a beautiful family. What a way to lose your virginity. After this was over I just lay there letting him caress me, I knew he could do what he wanted, and so I didn’t fight it anymore. He kissed me all over, told me wonderful things, cleaned me up some, preformed oral sex on me and we had sex again before he left. How I hid it from my sister and mom to this day is beyond me still. But that first day he promised if I talked or made trouble, my life would be horrific, but if I would be his girl, we could have many nice times together. I was his for the next two years, whenever, and however he wanted. Taking explicit photos of me alone, and yes he even let other men take me, and made photos, movies and the like. He would even take me to other towns for amateur night and I would strip in front of throngs of strangers. Oddly I began to really like that attention and power it gave me. Eventually he went to jail for credit card fraud, and burglary, which was all a great shock to me, I never knew at all of his other secret life of theft and other crimes. But here I am, just turned 21 and I know I am highly promiscuous with men and women now. Men for their power, and women when I need to feel safe and loved. And I know I am messed up, and I really think the control Mike put on me, I hated, and loved, all at once. But now I seek powerful forceful intimidating men, and the sex that comes of that is highly lust filled and erotic, but I know this is not normal. It is not how I was raised, and is a slap in the face of my culture, and upbringing. And all this is kept secret from my family, and my nice proper boyfriend my mom and sister adore so much, who I know I cannot marry, because he is wimpy. I have thought of calling Oprah and even Dr. Phil for help, but I don’t need everyone knowing. When I started college I started having sex with my female dominates. I think in my heart I want my life companion to be a tender loving woman, but I will always need the lusty power of a man to dominate me. I know this is not normal, but hard as I try, I cannot shake this. I am Aweem, asian_sweetnsingle@yahoo.com if anyone can help me begin to sort this out, I would love to hear from you. Thanks! < Br />

Hugs- Aweem

by Aweemon 30 Jun 2005

When I was ten years old, I was raped by my ex-best friend, who is a girl, just like me. I was sleeping over her house, and we had just got back from the movies. Her parents went to bed; it was late, around 11:00. We camped out with blankets together (the way normal kids do when they are having an innocent, fun-loving slumber party), and we started watching TV. Jennifer was funny but kind of weird at times, she would make odd comments at times. Once we were swimming in her backyard, and she had commented on how “sexy” I looked in my bathing suit, and that we should go skinny dipping, on more than one occasion, which I never did. I thought that she just liked reminding me that I was pretty, because Jennifer was very overweight, and I was comparable to a dainty flower. Once when we were reading magazines on the floor of her bedroom she put her hand on my knee and asked me, “*******, What would you say if I told you I was interested in other girls?” I stared at her for a second, not knowing what to say, and she just started laughing. I figured it was a joke so I laughed along, relieved that I didn’t have to answer that question, although I have nothing against homosexuality. Anyway, getting back to that night, we were hanging out in the dark watching TV in the living room, and all of the sudden she started changing the channels. She said “I want to show you something.” It was porn, hard core porn. I was disgusted; I didn’t even know there were things like this on TV. “We shouldn’t be watching this- we’ll get in trouble,” I said. “Don’t worry, I do this all the time. If I hear my parents coming I can change it really fast” was her response. Disgusted, I buried my face in my pillow and tried to sleep. About fifteen minutes later my friend was nudging me, almost hitting me. “Get up.” I arose from my light slumber, only to see porn still on the TV screen. From there, it was almost a blur. She said something like “I’ve done this before-it feels really good” and got on top of me. She was so heavy, I could hardly breathe. She started moving back and forth in a rhythmic motion, all the while watching the television screen, as if I were her test dummy that was as good as a pillow. I tried to sit up, but she wasn’t exactly on my waist, right above it. It was like doing sit-ups with two tons of cement on your abdomen. I begged her to stop and she just told me if I’m not feeling it then I’m doing something wrong. A few seconds later she took my recorder, which is an elementary instrument that looks like a flute, and jammed it as far as it could go up my vaginal area, and it hurt so bad. I didn’t even know there was a hole there, I was such a stupid, innocent little carefree girl. I remember crying myself to sleep. That morning I was depressed- Jennifer acted oblivious when her mom asked me why I wasn’t eating. After breakfast I needed to get out of that house- so we went outside. I immediately ran into the woods next to her house, but she followed me. I stood among the trees, closing my eyes and smelling the pine, trying so hard to be somewhere else, but I felt so… Dirty. Shameful. Jennifer asked me why I was crying and acting so weird– as if she didn’t know. I told her that I felt guilty for what had gone on last night, that I felt dirty and disgusting, and I felt my recently past grandmother had been watching me from heaven. I told her that I wanted to go home. She offered no help to me- not even a sorry. All she said was “You can’t tell anyone, no one. Not a word about last night. Don’t tell your mom.” She was scared. I could see it in her eyes, I could hear her voice choking. I blamed myself. I thought I was a dirty little girl from then on in, and I was so full of shame. I told no one. I continued a small friendship with Jennifer until she started asking my three year old brother if he wanted to have sex with her. I never talked to her again, and told her to go home. Thank God my little brother doesn’t remember it at all. Then- we moved to another state. I was really depressed now. I started going to church school, and I was told that sex was a sin by my screwed up church school teacher, and that adultery meant having sex before you were married, and that if someone did commit this, they were going to Hell. I hated myself, I thought I was so disgusting. I felt a separation from God- and I knew I could never tell a priest about my sin. My grades dropped- I had been an honor roll student, and I went down to all C’s, then D’s, and then a total pitfall. Since then I confided in my new best friend my secret- looking for some condolence. She had asked me why I sat there and endured it and why I didn’t scream, but she just had no idea what it was like. She even said to me once, “You’re being melodramatic. You don’t know how it feels to be raped by a guy, it’s so much worse.” She had never been raped. Rape, NO MATTER WHAT GENDER, IS STILL RAPE. I considered myself no longer a virgin, and I thought I had lost all of my innocence. Then, because I had no sex education, I wondered if I could get pregnant, or get this new thing called AIDS, which would kill me. I had no idea that STD’s were given by semen or blood. I was so worried, I gained weight, I lost just about all of my friends, I was a calloused person, and I started cutting. It was in the seventh grade that I finally recovered, and learned all the facts, and almost forgot about the incident. I thinned out, I became healthier, my grades went up dramatically, I hung out with better people, and I learned that Jennifer no longer controlled me and my ability to live. It took me two years- but I finally learned that I could move past the darkness and come into the cool, bright air that was freedom. I now call myself a virgin, I have my feeling of innocence back, and I have become a Baptist, so I pray to relieve my sins, rather than confiding them with someone I don’t know. I love myself, my body, and my life, and I am proud to admit that.
by A Proud Survivoron 6 Feb 2005

I’ve been depressed since I was 12. I’ve been put on medication for it but the pills never really worked. I always felt like I was alone and inferior. I caught myself looking at older men, not necessarily in a sexual way, but as father figures, someone to confide in and to comfort me when times got rough. About a week ago I met a man who filled that “void” in me, who made me feel like I was worth something.

He is 25 and I am only 15, but he didn’t seem to mind. In fact, he moved so fast it made my head spin. Being a virgin, I knew I wasn’t ready for sex, but when he took me to his house and layed me on the couch, it was the hardest thing to say “No!”. He was sweet about it, suprisingly enough. I did say no and I struggled to get out from under him, but he held me there and kept telling me how beautiful I was and how much he wanted me. He attempted to take off my clothes but when I fought him, he stopped. Instead, he took his off and proceeded rape me.

The next thing I knew, I was crying in the bathroom with blood all over my clothes. But no one found out. I kept it hush hush with the exception of his wife (very soon to be ex-wife). They hadn’t been with each other for about a year and both had found other romantic partners. Still, she wanted to talk to me, to warn me about him…but it was too late. I came to find out that he has 5 warrants out for his arrest and had a very sexual past being a male pornography star, male stripper, and male prostitute. Along with this, he has three little girls at home.

I just want to let everyone who reads this to know that no matter how charming or sweet he is, he will hurt you. I’ve never been in a relationship with a man who didn’t..whether it was physical, mental, or sexual. Trust no one. Someone’s always looking to use you.
by Laurenon 11 Apr 2004

Easter weekend is always hard for me. It’s become an anniversary of sorts for all of the sexual abuse of my childhood. So much of it happened over Easters, when my family traditionally had the same friends over. Most of it happened between the ages of 4-9, and right under my family’s nose.

I’ve had therapy for PTSD and I’ve come a long way. I’m 33 and married now, living in Australia (I’m American), no kids yet, and am more together than I’ve ever been. I’m a writer and I teach writing at the university level, even hold workshops out of my home. I feel good about who I am and what I’ve done with my life. But every year as Easter approaches, I tell myself, “this year it will be better,” but so far, it’s not. Before I even realize it, I feel irritable, edgey, fretful, worrisome. I have the urge to drink, even though I rarely do anymore, outside of the glass of wine with friends or a pint guinness at the bar once every blue moon.
This year, I noticed I was feeling tired in the week or two approaching this weekend. Then this morning (good friday) I had to get out of bed early and try to sleep out in the livingroom. I couldn’t. I feel restless, nervous. Had frustrating dreams last night. Was lost in a New York City subway station.
Been surfing the net this morning looking for advice and others like me and I found this site. Thank you for setting it up. I like the picture on the homepage. She reminds me how beautiful we all are, despite how we may feel otherwise at these times.

The feelings are so strange when I look at them. I feel like my little girl self is tangible, hanging around at my elbow, nervous, anxious. I feel thin-skinned, literally, like people could see my organs if they looked. I don’t want to be around anyone this weekend, but don’t want to feel alone either.
My husband is good, he’s very supportive, but he doesn’t really understand, either. He’s still asleep this morning and with work and his studies, he has probably forgotten what this holiday does to me every year. This morning I wanted the write “EASTER IS HARD FOR YOUR WIFE” in chicken blood on the wall but I decided that printing up some stuff from a PTSD website for him would be better. Something about all this makes me want to be very dramatic, but I don’t think I can get that much blood out of a chicken from the grocery store anyway. Besides, it would scare him.

I think the hardest part of it all was that it happened right under my parent’s noses. In the same house. A few rooms away. In the cellar. In the backyard. And that growing up Catholic (though I’m more of a spiritual person than any kind of religious person now… orgaized religions just piss me off now), with the theme of what sinners we are and how we should be grateful for the resurrection drummed into our heads, I couldn’t process it all as a little girl. Easter was supposed to be a time of redemption for us all, but with the sexual abuse after going church, my little mind couldn’t cope. Being lectured about joy and love was too jarring when I was victimized the next minute.

I feel a bit better getting to share all of this with you. Thank you. I found a good quote this morning by Dr. Frank Ochberg, the Survivor Psalm: “I may never forget, but I need not always remember.” That is hopeful. And the other side is, that when something inside me begs me to remember, I want to honor it, hold it, let the tears fall, uncurl the little child inside myself and tell her she is safe now and she will always be beautiful.
My story.
A friend of the family molested me for years. Easters stand out the most, but there were times over summers, Christmas holidays, etc. Whenever our families got together. From age 4-9. I’m 33 now. When I was 9, he took my virginity. Standing up by a lake, he made me bleed. My parents arrived moments later and sent me back to the house with him in his truck. They had no idea.

I remember staring at the blood in my bathingsuit with disbelief, like I was floating above it all. It seemed like he worked on me over the years, primed me for that final take. Once he even got a neighbor involved. Some Easter weekend. He called the neighbor over and said, ‘Come on, she likes it.’ I was 6 or 7. What was to like? Two big teenage boys choked me in the backyard and I liked it? I was terrified of them.

20 years later, the neighbor met up with me and my brothers on Christmas Eve. We all went out for a beer. I had forgotten about that time until one moment, at the end of the evening, when the neighbor said, ‘You remember, don’t you?’ I felt something shatter inside me as the memory of that time in the backyard flooded me. I went down into the basement and sobbed where no one could hear me. I wanted to know why, how I’d forgotten and why I was reminded with that simple question. I wanted to hurt myself, I wanted to cut myself into a hundred pieces and scatter myself into the sea. But I didn’t.

Before I remembered that, before I found myself in therapy, when I was 20 years old, I went on a date. I had broken up with a controlling, abusive boyfriend and thought that I should go on a date. Boy did I pick the wrong guy. I think the bad ones can smell it on us, they’re attracted to us, and I know I was attracted to his ugly nature somewhow. I thought I deserved what he had to give me.

He was a stanger that I’d met that day and said yes to meeting him out that night. We met at a bar, I got drunk on gin and got in his car. He took me out to a remote spot and raped me in the car. I froze. I can remember his idea of sex so clearly, he pinned me, lifted himself up, his butt to the windshield, and plunged into me repeatedly. It was agony. He’d put on a condom in the middle of it, when I was laying there like a gaping wound. He broke the condom and just kept going. I left my body and seemed to watch side-on, but I felt every pound of pain.

I came undone. I was babbling. I spilled my guts, said I had been abused as a child, (it pains me to write this, it feels humiliating but I hope you all understand out there) and was coming out of an abusive relationship, that I was a mess, that I needed to go home. I thought I was trying to appeal to his humanity, only he had none to speak of. He listened to my tale of woe, he actually said, ‘Let me make it up to you,’ and he raped me again. I’ll never forget those words.

He left me on the side of the road somewhere near my car. I was bruised all over and felt like I’d fallen down stairs. Something went cold and dead inside me after that for a long time.

A couple months later, I tried to take my life. A roomate had rented ‘The Accused’ and I threw up during the rape scene. It was all too much. My life was a mess with drinking and drugs and one night stands. I couldn’t keep going. So one night, I got good and drunk and all set to carve myself up like a rib roast in the bathtub when someone happened to arrive at the right time. She told me not to push my luck. I was lucky.

I met a good therapist when I was ready to dig it all up and lay it all on the table. Bit by bit. Therapy is a hard and twisted road. So many times I wanted to quit, but I knew it was my lifeline back to someplace that had to be better. Nightmares surfaced, the deepest imaginable sorrow bled. For months I walked around feeling like I was barely stitched together and that the slightest touch would spill me into gore and body parts. Sometimes I was nauseous for weeks with only the first 5 minutes of each morning nausea-free. But I kept going. And that has made all the difference.

So now here it is years later. I married a good man and have a good life. And it’s mine. But I had to work hard to get it back. And it’s never really behind me. Not gone, not forgotten.

Easters are the hardest for me, when I feel closest to the pain and I feel all the tiny cracks of my fragility, despite how strong I tell myself I am for the rest of the year. I let myself have this time to mourn. To pray for all of us, we who shoulders this burden and try to hold onto ourselves in such a violent world. We who try not to let the anger burn us to cinders, and who try not to let the fear and hatred devour us alive.

Our lives do not end with these ugly things. These people cannot take everything from us, they just don’t have that much power. We still have our will, and our will is our power.

Thank you so much for this place to speak. May the angels guide us all to freedom.

by Runs With Wolveson 8 Apr 2004

My story is long but I will make it as short as I can. My parents became separated when I was just a toddler, and I never got to see my father. During that time I longed to have him back and to me it was a miracle when my parents got back together when I was eight. I became obsessed with being the perfect little girl because I thought it would make him not go away again. My mom worked nights at a bar, so it was easy for him when he came into my room at night to sexually abuse me, and I was so desperate for his love that I did whatever he wanted no matter how much I hated it. To me, he was a hero, and nothing could make me think badly of him. When I was twelve my parents divorced, and I told the judge I wanted to stay with my father, so he was given custody of me, with two weekends a month at my mother’s house. My dad did not stay employed for long, and we were always very poor, now especially because my mom’s income was gone. So he began to sell me. The first time, I had no idea what was happening. He dressed me up and put a bunch of make-up on my face and even on my nipples. He told me his friend was coming over for a visit. When the knock on the door came, he told me to answer it. The man on the other side gave me a quick kiss on the mouth and went to say some stuff to my father. I just sat on the couch, a bit confused, until my father told me to go into my bedroom. Soon the man opened the door and came inside and started talking to me. I just nodded at what he was saying and he started to take off my clothes. This was not my father so I did not feel any need to just let it happen and I started screaming and kicking. The man held me down easily and started tearing off my clothes. My father ran in and started yelling at me, but I didn’t hear him over my own screams, so they both held me down and the man raped me. After I heard the man say that he wouldn’t pay as much because he was told it would be easy. When he left, my dad beat me. It was the first and only time he had ever beat me. He withheld food and drink from me for two days saying that I had to make up the money he had lost because of me. As well, he started raping me himself. Up until that point, he had sexually abused me, but never gone so far as raping me. Now that I was no longer a virgin I was lessened in his eyes, and he began to call me a sl*t and a wh*re and that I wanted everything he did. Soon after, other men began to come, and I never fought them. I became this blank shell of a person. there were often slow periods, where my father had trouble finding buyers, and when that happened he would truss me up and take me “for a walk” in a seedy area of the city. Men, and even one woman, who would be interested, seemed to instinctively know what I was, and what my father was doing. I saw many transactions go through with almost no words being said. I very quickly turned to drugs and alcohol and became a huge mess of a little girl. The thing that would save me was the very thing that should have destroyed me. At age fifteen, I became pregnant. The father may have been my own father, or any one of the clients, I will never know. Many of my clients drifted away, not because they were turned off by pregnancy, quite the opposite, but because they were wary of being associated with a pregnant minor. With only a few buyers left, my father became angry and aggressive, but after eight months I gave birth to Samantha. Even after the birth, many clients did not return, and my father became worse. After a few months, I stood up for myself for the first time and refused to let a client rape me. They held me down and it happened anyway, but afterwards he punched Sam in one of his rages, causing me to take her to the hospital. When the nurses asked me how she was injured, I told them my father had hit her. When I was released, I went to my mother’s to live, even though we had become very estranged. I took my father to court over his abuse of Sam, but because I didn’t say a word of what happened to me, he got off very lightly. Soon after, I found out that when he punched Sam, he had rendered her almost completely deaf. I am twenty four now, and it has been eight years since the last time I was raped, but the hell is still alive in my head. Sometimes I see my father, or I think I see one of the men who raped me over the years, and I break down. But I feel that my story is an important one, because even today child prostitution is a topic people simply don’t address, even on child sexual abuse web sites, but it still exists, and people need to be aware.
by Melodyon 8 Dec 2004

How do I start? I was 2 when my grandfather molested me. My parents started leaving me with him and my grandmother while they were at work, because it was convenient, free child-care; even though my dad’s sister told him years earlier that their father had been molesting her. My dad chose not to believe her. My grandmother had even told my mom that Granddaddy had been messing with some of the young girls in the neighborhood, but mom didn’t believe he would touch me, I guess. It was a chance they chose to take at my expense, and I’m still paying for it to this day.

I wonder sometimes why God made me remember this when I was only 2 when it happened– how much easier my life would be if I didn’t remember. But I do remember. I can see him setting me on his left knee so vividly, him sitting in his chair in front of the TV. in the living room. I see him unzipping my pants, and putting his right hand with that awful crooked middle finger inside my underwear. I don’t know how many times this happened, maybe only once, but once was enough to bring me a lifetime of pain and insecurity. Where was my grandmother while this was happening? Why didn’t she protect me when my parents failed me? What must he have done to her, to make her look the other way?

I remember my Mom giving me a bath one night after this had happened, and I told her I was burning “down there.” She asked me why, and I told her that maybe it was because Grandaddy had his hands down there. They never let them keep me after that, but it was too late; the damage was already done. They hoped I would have no memory of it, and since I never mentioned it to them while I was growing up, they assumed I didn’t remember. Then I came home from work one day when I was 18, bawling, and I kept saying “I remember.”

I didn’t realize it affected almost every aspect of my personality development until 3 months ago, when I was hospitalized for depression for the second time in two years. The depression hit me when I was 25. All the coping mechanisms I had developed that kept me alive and “well” up to that day disintegrated in one fell swoop. That was 3 1/2 years ago. The only protection that remained until 3 months ago was denial. Now I know where the unrelenting pain is coming from– why it feels like I am grieving. I feel like I don’t know who I am. I have this deep, deep need to be loved, to feel loved by everyone. I crave affection from older men, even though I have a wonderful marriage, even to the point of having an affair. I am very insecure. I fear failure, of never being “good enough.” I feel tainted and alone most of the time, even if I’m in a room full of friends. The bottom line for me seems to be that I loved my grandfather, but he didn’t love me. And my parents and grandmother essentially abandoned me. And the pain won’t go away. And nobody around me, NOBODY, understands the pain…
by Lucy on 28 Jan 2005

I recently ran across this letter that I wrote to the family member who repeatedly molested & finally raped me when I was a child. I wanted to have it published somewhere since I choose not to send the letter to him for a variety of reasons. Just the process of writing the letter and now rereading it is cathartic to me and I hope, maybe, it will be to someone else with a similar experience. Thanks for providing this forum.

“Dear X,
I am not sure how to start this letter. It seems silly to say things like, ‘“It’s been awhile…”’or ‘“It’s obvious we haven’t talked in awhile…”’. I know this will seem harsh, but, somehow, I always thought you would just disappear from my memory. I hoped that our relatedness would somehow disappear from the genealogies. But, it hasn’t. And, unfortunately, it never will. I will forever be in your family as you will be in mine. You must know that you used to haunt my dreams. I would fall asleep and wake up sweating, thinking you were in the room. I am not asking you to feel anything but I am asking for your sympathy. I wish I could erase my life from the ages of five to eight. I often ask God if that’s possible. I used to wish that I had never been born or that you had never been born. But, once again, God had other plans.

I am getting married in March. That is the reason for this letter. I think that maybe I would have erased you from my memory, except that I had to tell my fiancé about you. We had the usual, ‘“Who have you slept with?”’ And unfortunately, you were apart of it. In fact, you were center stage. I realized in the process that I am still angry. (That should be a warning about the rest of the letter.) I thought I had forgiven you but I have only forgiven you as far as I can forget you. I can only say that I forgive you when I know you are far, far away and I don’t have to see you. It’s easy to forgive someone who is distant and you don’t have to speak of or deal with on regular basis. Suddenly, I had to relate the whole story and I had to uncover what has been so carelessly covered for almost 20 years.

Did you know that I love to sing? Did you know that I don’t like onions, in anything? Did you know that I talk to myself, a lot? All of this to say that it’s so unfair that I am carrying around something for a person who doesn’t even know me. You don’t know me at all, you don’t care what happens to me, and yet, 20 years later, when I am preparing to spend the rest of my life with someone who knows me intimately and better than you ever will, I have to talk about YOU. YOU become the subject of many conversations, many tears, many regrets, and sadness. My fiancé has a wonderful relationship with his extended family. Always felt loved, cared for, and wants them at his wedding because they were loyal beyond compare. What did I have? I was isolated, I was talked about, I was the subject of gossiping aunts, and I was left alone…..and guess what; it all came back to you.

I am going to ask the obvious question, ‘“Why?”’ and ‘“Why me?”’ I know that ________ was not the best of fathers or the best of men. I have heard some of the stories and I know they are likely only the tip of the iceberg. I know that there was pornography involved and that had to have some influence on what you were thinking. But, why? Was it just because I was there? Was it just because I was too naïve to say no? You may not know why but I have to ask. I have to ask for my own sanity because if I don’t ask why, then it still becomes something I brought on myself.

I tried to fit into the family. I tried to ‘“put on a game face”’ and pretend like I could just smile and nod my way through the next 30 years of family reunions. But, I can’t. I am not going to lie. I often used to wish that you would die in a car accident; I could have my final revenge by NOT showing up at your funeral and then be done with you. Then, I could have my extended family back.

If you’ve read this far, you are a better man than I remember. All of this to say that I don’t want you at my wedding. I do wish for healing, reconciliation, and whatever it takes to get things to normal, if that’s possible. But, please don’t ruin our day by being there. I hope to close your chapter of my life soon.

Simply,

Y
by KMon 20 May 2005