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November 11th, 2016

Let’s Fight Back With Love

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Hi fellow survivors. The recent posts I am seeing on this site sadden me because we are all strong survivors and we should try to always remember this. I know like me, many of you are still having a hard time processing that a man who is so clearly a...
June 24th, 2020

Too naïve

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I was 16. I had my first job, a lifeguard. I was so excited. I have been a swimmer since I was 5 so this was a very fitting job for me. I was the youngest person working there by far. Most of the kids were in college and one...
April 9th, 2019

A Message from the Director

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March 30th, 2024

raped & abducted

i went to the park & ran into someone i knew. we were hanging out while doing pills then out of nowhere two of his friends showed up. i was going to stop but one of his drunk friends kept pressuring me to do more so i did. we went to a house of one of the guys & we were just there. i was starting to feel out of it but at that time i was still in control of myself then the next thing i know i was on the bed laying down i guess i blacked out but i know the guys i was with were letting me sleep. then the next thing i hear was a guy i didn’t recognize outside the window. he saw me laying there so out of it he asked the guys who was i then they told him. he then climbed through the window started getting on top me, i kept saying for him to get off. i was so weak from the pills i wasn’t able to move so he then forced himself inside of me. i heard one of the guys try to stop him but then my “friend” told him to let it happen. next i remember him dragging me out the window then into his backseat of his car. the other guys were just watching then my rapist told them to close the door. i begged them not to leave me alone but they closed the door. my rapist forced himself on me again then i blacked out completely. i finally came to in the morning but realized i was on the floor at the park. so many bruises on my thighs & legs that he left me. how can a group of guys just watch him assault me & take me somewhere. thinking of where he took me & kept me all night what else did he do to me.
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i went to the park & ran into someone i knew. we were hanging out while doing pills then out of nowhere two of his friends showed up. i was going to stop but one of his drunk friends kept pressuring me to do more so i did. we went...
April 27th, 2019

Everyone Else Likes You, Too

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I had never been to a bar before. Sure, I’d gone out to Applebees with other coworkers where they’d serve me drinks. But I was 19, and had to drive home. I had never been drunk before, and didn’t push my limits. I went to the bar to see him...
May 24th, 2019

The Statistics that Changed Me

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2 sexual assaults and 1 rape… the statistics of my story. I can’t promise that this story is pleasant, but I can tell you that power and growth comes with telling it. So sincerely, thank you for hearing me out. October 2017 I was in Chebut, Argentina(a part of the...
January 29th, 2020

My brother let him in

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I was 15. Had been to a local party. All my friends were there, my older brother and his friends. We drank, danced and had a good time. I made out with my brothers friend. He was 23. But then I got so drunk. I went home and fall asleep...
June 8th, 2023

Unethical or illegal?

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Last year my partner and I worked for the same business. It was a small business near a small town and it had no management or HR of any sort – only one man owned and ran it, even though it served thousands of people each year. I hit it...
June 20th, 2021

Your truth will change someones’ life.

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Brave Miss World is the first time I knew someone understands the gravity and the depth of what sexual violence does to the souls of the victims but their families. The battle to reclaim my soul’s back is the hardest work I will ever face. The internal growth is where...
August 28th, 2023

I was attacked at 19 years old

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Hi My Name Is Su. I was Kiddnapped,Stabbed and Raped at 19 years old.I was Dragged out of my first little apartment by knife point in the early hours of the MorningI I Did Not know my Attacker. I Suffered My whole life,trying to have some sense of normalcy after...
December 23rd, 2014

Blaming Myself

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I am 20 years old and it happened when I was 17. I was at a party, the kind with drugs and alcohol. I got too drunk and passed out in the basement. When I came to the boy I had been flirting with all night was on top of...
August 30th, 2019

My story growing up with a secret

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I’m a black South African, I’m 40 years old now, and my son it 20 years old… loved, taught but I still can never live him alone with my nieces as I was left alone and violeted💔💔😭😭 I have spoken about this, but I hate putting this down in writting😭😭...
July 10th, 2019

So drunk I can’t remember

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I was turning 18. I was partying like any teen would. I drank a lot. I threw up, sat down. They picked me up and put me in their car. They said “don’t worry we’ll take care of you. You won’t miss the bus”. I remember lying on the bed...
April 21st, 2021

A respectable collegue

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The next day I walked down the stairs to the hotel, aware that he was sitting at the table having breakfast. Some things you think would never happen to you, you think that working externally with a colleague (married and with children) is not dangerous. But then in a moment...
January 4th, 2021

Michelle Johnston

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I just wanted to write on here. Something amazing happened today. I came home and my mom was telling me about this documentary and how Linor was trying to encourage woman to speak out. I got a lump in my throat as I had just reported the rape that happened...
May 16th, 2021

My babysitter

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My mom and dad used to work nights and would have my sisters friend’s parents watch us. They had three children…two sons and a daughter. My mom was always the one that would take us over there. The oldest son would put on horror movies and pin me down and...
October 5th, 2023

my toxic relationship

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on september 9th 2023. last month i was raped by a man i was in a relationship with at the time. i met him from facebook dating. at some point we exchanged numbers. we hung out together numerous times. during the relationship with him. he would buy me cigarettes and...
July 18th, 2020

I should’ve known

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My roommate (Girl 1) and I were close friends. We were both international students and the only 2 in the whole university that came from a tiny country in Asia. When a third girl (Girl 2) joined us, we all rented an apartment together. Girl 1 and I already had...
July 18th, 2019

His name was Kenneth

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I was 13. He was 25. I had just came out the closet. I had met him on MySpace, back when that was popular and it seemed like we clicked. I thought I was ready to be in a relationship with a grown men, but like most teenagers I didnt...
August 17th, 2019

My/our German “Weinstein” Case

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My name is Jany Tempel. I live both in Germany and Thailand. I turned public now, to end the big silence of our country. Almost twenty years ago I had already written a novel about my arduous life. The book wasn’t published back then, mainly because I reported on crimes...
October 12th, 2023

Workplace Sexual Harassment

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As I write this story to you, please note that this sexual harassment case is still in progress. It began in December of 2022 when I worked as a contractor for a company named TEKsystems. I do IT work for Nutrien Ag Solutions. The first week I was there, I...
August 26th, 2019

Family members ex husband

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I was 5 years old going through heart surgery when he would come home late from work drunk, or high or his normal scary self and he would come into my room and put his hands down my pants and feel my butt I would act like I couldn’t feel...
December 26th, 2019

Ms.

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I was raped by a co-worker when I was in my mid-20’s. We were at a work function, we were all drinking, then about 10 of us went to his place to continue the party. He grabbed me on my way out of the washroom and dragged me into his...
May 28th, 2021

06.05.2006

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We were in the office room of my parents house. Both of my parents were out that evening, or maybe it was late afternoon. There had been an incident the week before in my room where we had almost had sex, but I held back at the last minute; starting...
October 15th, 2020

Wide awake

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I was 7 when I met him, he was my sisters softball coach. After a while I started to enjoy softball too so decided to join. Then he started to invite me over with him daughter my age, at first we only hung out for like a hour. Then his...
March 28th, 2025

My abuse story victim to survivor

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Abused by ex-family friend and started to be put into sex trafficking but i survived
August 4th, 2024

April 19th

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When I was in 9th grade I was invited to a party by one of my friends. I had fallen into a bad crowd. Kids that used drugs and drank, violent people, people who were arrested, vandals, stuff like that. I was incredibly depressed at that point and I didn’t...
September 13th, 2019

He was right

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I was dating this older man for about over 3 months and I was very happy with this person and we made so much happy memories in such a short time but long story short it just did not work out. He did not want to break up but I...
March 17th, 2023

Indigo

I returned to fine art in 1990 when I took at class in indigo dyeing at San Francisco State University. I was lucky that the instructor, Yoshiko Wada, and another student from her class, were in the East Bay so that we could carpool together. We would talk textiles on our weekly journey across the Bay Bridge to the Campus. The other student was an accomplished Quilter named Linda MacDonald. Linda lived in Willits near the famous Mendocino Art Center, but traveled to Berkeley to attend this class once a week. The Indigo vat was made in a 32-gallon garbage can and had to be kept covered between dyeing sessions. Indigo is a unique rich blue dye that develops with an oxidization process when exposed to air. Dipping the fabric several times, and allowing the natural fiber to oxidize before dipping it again, creates darker shades of blue. The dye in the vat is created from a mixture of indigo pigment, various chemicals and a reducing agent to remove oxygen from the dye. It is a rich green color while in the vat, which shows up on the fabric before it is fully exposed to the air. The smell emitted from the dye is unusual, a musky odor in my mind. I like to think that it smells like the color blue. The vat needs to be carefully stirred and maintained between dyeing sessions. There is a “bloom” on the top of the vat created by oxidized indigo, making a bubbly and shiny ball of material reminiscent of a flower. The “bloom” gets moved to the side before entry of the pre-wetted fabric. The process reminds me of baking bread or making yogurt where the steps need to be carefully followed to achieve the desired results. In the process of bread and yogurt making, there are living cultures involved in order to create the product, and with the creation and dyeing process of indigo, it has that same feeling of being alive. In order to create interesting patterns, my classmates and I would use resist techniques on the fabric like pastes, stitching and clamping. Simple household items like clothespins could be used to create patterns by folding and then placing the pins at intervals along the fold lines. Beautiful and surprising results were achieved using these methods. Image of Indigo dye on fabric during the oxidization process. My dream of being a professional artist, all started in early childhood, and the first memories of my creations go back to Nursery School. I loved playing with all kinds of materials, like paint, clay, and crayons, just to name a few examples. Mel (Melanie), painting at Jack and Jill Nursery School, Walnut Creek, California, 1960. In 1974, a neighbor in Marin where I was living at the time and studying art at College of Marin told me about an Art School in Mexico. I ended up sending off slides of my work with an application to the Instituto Allende, and was delighted to hear that I was accepted. I began my journey to study there in San Miguel de Allende by flying to Mexico City in January of 1975. A bus ride completed that journey. When I first arrived, I moved in with a family who had two small children, including a newborn. It seemed like a safe living situation for a 19-year-old woman, but that shortly proved to not be true when the husband started coming on to me. I ended up finding my own place on the other side of town. It was a spacious abode with a wall that was shared with a weaving factory next door. There were 2 adjoined bedrooms, a bathroom, a large living/kitchen area and a small concrete patio out the back door. There was no hot water, refrigerator or a telephone. When I needed hot water for dishes, I would boil some on the stove. For showers, I had to build a fire in a box below a water tank outside to get hot water. I felt much more secure living there and walking a further distance to the Instituto on the other side of town than living with the husband who had made me feel so unsafe. There was the Central Plaza, which was called the “Jardin” that was in the middle of town, and I would pass through it on my walk quite frequently. This was the site of fireworks and festivals, like the celebration of Cinco de Mayo. The streets were cobblestone and many charming shops and galleries were located downtown. The School itself was on a beautiful campus with large ornate doors in front that were closed when school was not in session. Photo of the closed front doors of the Instituto Allende I had heard about you and what you had done to other women before you appeared in my main living space one sunny spring afternoon pointing a gun at me. You had a bandana wrapped around your face and tied behind your head. I had heard you first, in the bathroom. Dressed in a long polyester dress with colorful psychedelic patterns. I wasn’t wearing any underwear or shoes. I walked through the 2 bedrooms and turned left when I saw you standing there. I screamed and shouted, “help me,” thinking that workers at the Weaving Factory would hear me and come rescue me. Nobody came. You said to me “Coyote” which I later learned meant to be quiet or to shut up. You grabbed my shoulders and dragged me out the unlocked back door onto the concrete patio. The tops of my feet got scraped. I gave up. I knew you were going to rape me. I just wanted you to finish as quickly as possible. You took off your belt and put down your gun. Somehow I managed to pick up your gun and threw it over the wall embedded with glass on the top, into the alleyway. The same wall you had climbed over to get into my place through the unlocked back door. Towards the end of this ordeal, I heard a knock on my door. You left, climbing back over the wall. I answered the door. My friend Rhonda had come by to visit me. I told her what had happened and we walked to the Police Station nearby. I had your belt with me. The one you left behind. I went to the front counter, telling the officers behind the counter what had happened to me. They were laughing and playing cards at the time. I showed them your belt. They told me to bring you in if I saw you again. I left with Rhonda and took a bath at the where place she lived. We didn’t talk about what happened. We moved in together shortly after that. I sent a telegram to my father and stepmother about what had happened to me. Nobody came to help me. Rhonda helped me when I got hepatitis A and could no longer go to school. I was on my own when it came to figuring out how to return to the Bay Area. I moved in with my father and stepmother. They didn’t talk to me about what happened to me. They sent me to a doctor who diagnosed me with type 1 diabetes. He showed me how to give myself insulin injections. He told me to practice by injecting oranges with empty syringes. My mother told me years later that “You were never the same again” after what you did to me. I survived. I gave up art for 15 years before realizing that I wanted to go back to art school. In those years, I became so disturbed that I had panic attacks, deep depression and needed to move in with my mother at age 30. I started therapy after becoming self destructive in my 20’s. Depression also called “the blues” has been my long time companion. It has taken me a lifetime to heal. My iPhone predicts the words, depression, PTSD and C-PTSD for my text messages. After my Indigo dyeing class at San Francisco State, I enrolled in the Textiles Fine Art program at California College of Arts and Crafts (now known as California College of the Arts) in Oakland. I was married at the time and had become pregnant with our daughter Emily right before classes started in September. Emily was born on May 13, 1991. By the Fall of 1992, I was a single mom and an art student. An inheritance from my mother who died in 1995, allowed me to graduate and to buy my first home. I continued to work with indigo dyeing and created a large textile piece about my experience in Mexico. After many years of therapy and other healing modalities, I recently started painting on canvas. Part of that process has been a Soul Retrieval session to bring back my 4 year old self who loved to paint. I am feeling uplifted and encouraged after many years of recurring periods of severe emotional pain. Stay tuned for more details about my new work. One of my final pieces was a textile called “Out of the Blues.”
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I returned to fine art in 1990 when I took at class in indigo dyeing at San Francisco State University. I was lucky that the instructor, Yoshiko Wada, and another student from her class, were in the East Bay so that we could carpool together. We would talk textiles on...
April 1st, 2021

Sex doll

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After work one night I was drugged by a co-worker. I woke up in his bed naked. He was not in the room. I felt 2 emotions very heavily and immediately. Shame and wrong. I remember looking around for my clothes in a panic. I don’t remember how I got...
February 13th, 2024

1 hour 3 days

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Before you decide to read my journey can I ask that you keep the title 1 hour/ 3 days in the back of your mind? I decided to write about my journey as a survivor of rape and sexual assault to ensure that people are aware of what happens as...
January 15th, 2022

Sharing again

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A few years ago I found this site and I read the stories of others. I was able for maybe the first time in my entire life to speak about what had happened to me without censoring myself for fear of someone else’s reaction or condemnation. I was raped. I...
September 17th, 2019

Multiple Date Rapes/Sexual Abuse During Teen Years...

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I am a happily married (39 years) mother of four beautiful children. My sex life has been such a struggle because of the past experiences I’ve had. The first time I was raped I was 14 or 15. My girlfriend and I met a couple of boys at the park....
June 11th, 2025

Just Words

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Just words. You have trouble talking about these things. You realize you have trouble talking about a lot of things. You remember being excited about your first job at Dairy Queen. One of your friends works there and you know a lot of people work there as a summer job....
August 24th, 2020

He Was a Family Friend

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Trejo molested me when i was 8 years old. We lived on 548 Calle cinco de mayo in Juarez Mexico. He was one of my step dad’s “Carnales” and offered to let him stay with us while him and his wife looked for a new house. The house we lived...
February 13th, 2020

Start of grooming at 15

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When I was around 11 years old my parents and I moved to a new house. It was a lovely time. A neighbour of ours who was very friendly with the rest of our neighbourhood as first was kind. People always said he was very charming. Walking home from school...
June 26th, 2019

Is love assault?

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The first thing I remember growing up is the fact that I was always told that Dschinns are a real thing that live amongst us. The first memory I have is that my mom locked me up in our then living room in Mainz Germany. I remember seeing grey. Our...
April 25th, 2024

Another kid raped me

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When I was in kindergarten there was a girl that everyone hated, she would pin other younger kind down and rape them but to us it just looked like punching and stuff like that. That wasn’t OK but we were scared that she would punch us if we told the...
April 12th, 2017

The abuser

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When I was 4 my mum married the most aggressive man. When I was 6 he started touching me and making me watch him touch himself and was told to never to tell anyone. Of course I never because I was terrified it kept happening until I was about 15,...
July 14th, 2020

Raped in a Psychiatric Hospital in the...

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I apologize for not being able to share my name at this stage- my case is still under investigation, and I do not wish to jeopardize this. The shroud of silence is quadrupled when one is mentally ill and the perpetrator is someone who is meant to be a healer....
June 20th, 2021

Your truth will change someones’ life.

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Brave Miss World is the first time I knew someone understands the gravity and the depth of what sexual violence does to the souls of the victims but their families. The battle to reclaim my soul’s back is the hardest work I will ever face. The internal growth is where...
June 30th, 2019

Need advice

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I posted my story here in the past about how i was raped by a stranger when i was extremely drunk, however I am in need of advice, unfortunately I have to see the person who raped me every now and then in public in my town and it almost...
October 28th, 2025

Dads boss daughter!!!!!!

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I was going to my dad’s bosses house to hang out with his daughter. They were in the pool with their friends kids. We played in the pool for a little bit until it started the rain. We picked up all of the toys and ran inside. Her mom texted...
June 3rd, 2021

he made me loose hope in love…

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I met this boy soon after leaving a long term relationship.. I was heartbroken and had my guard down when we began dating. Our relationship started as innocent “hookups” and turned into more. But he quickly became abusive. In my words i would say, he treated me like a piece...
December 30th, 2020

Miss

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I got raped nearly 14 years ago now, it never gets easier over time im constantly numb, painless and confused. I’ve never felt what it is to be normal I always feel unwanted, scared and betrayed. The police never did anything, didn’t arrest him, didn’t question him they said they...
January 11th, 2016

My Family My Love

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I had always been close with my family. My family is everything to me. We were kids he was only a year older than me…he was my cousin. He was my first kiss, the first boy to tell me I was pretty and I fell in love with him. It...
November 15th, 2020

J’avais 13 ans

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J’avais 13 ans j’étais allé avec mon amie chez un gars pour la soirée ils étaient trois gars et c’etait la première fois que je buvais de l’alcool et ce gars qui s’appelle pascal m’a agressé. Je ne l’ai dis a personne et j’ai fait comme si rien ne s’était...
October 21st, 2019

Miss

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My story is about how I was abused at the age of 9 till the age of 13 by a close family member, and how much this destroyed my life , it was a trauma as a child, it was intense
July 23rd, 2020

Sexual molestation as a child

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I came to the USA from Ireland when I was 6. My mother had been here a year by then. I arrived with my siblings to a new world. My mother had an alcoholic abusive boyfriend that started touching me at the age of 6. It kept on until I...
April 12th, 2019

23 with a secret

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I begin writing every time a new story inspires me but I can never find the words to tell the world what happened so many years ago.I always ask myself why am I not as strong as these other women? Why can’t I ever get the words out my mouth?...
December 5th, 2020

Summer 2019

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I got my first job working at a lovely Mediterranean restaurant/cafe one summer because my teacher said she knew the man who ran the place and put in a reference for me. I was 15. He was in his 60s. Two days after I started, the groping began. Only he...
May 14th, 2019

Drunk and taken advantage of

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It happened in October of 2018, I was 15, and a sophomore in high school. I live in a small town where teens to nothing but party to have fun because there is nothing else to do. In the town next to mine there is a college that a couple...
May 8th, 2019

Spoke out and was blamed

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I am the only girl at a job of 4 men. I am also 20 while these men are 40+. One worker would grab me from behind when I would walk in the back to the bathroom. This would happen often. One day all my coworkers had to go outside...
January 4th, 2016

Rape??

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There is a LOT to this story so I will be cutting out a lot of detail in order to make this shorter. This takes place in 2004 when I was 5 years old. I lived with my Mom, Dad and little sister. My parents were having marriage problems so...
September 1st, 2019

My fiancé is my rapist but I...

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I have a past of sexual abuse but for the most part I’ve put it behind me though I get flashbacks every so often when watching a triggering show or something. My problem currently is my fiancé. This isn’t a new development in our relationship this started since we started...
June 5th, 2019

Christianity teaches men to treat women like...

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I was born into a Christian household, 12 siblings, my mum was pregnant with twins,when I was 19, the guy I started dating (courting) was perfect in the eyes of my father, he has 8 siblings and both attended the same Christian church. We married after 3 months, on our...
October 15th, 2022

Male dancer

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Hello my Name is Tj. This happen about 4 years ago I was 19 years old at very young age I always tried to see the good in people. I was always happy and felt nothing could break me down went threw cancer as a baby lost my brother and...
September 6th, 2019

Breaking the silence

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I know what it’s like to feel like you have lost a part of yourself that you weren’t ready to give up. I know what it’s like to not recognize who you see in the mirror. I know what it’s like to cry until your eyes swell shut. I know...
September 18th, 2019

Raped in the Air Force

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My first duty stationed 28 years ago, i was sexually assaulted by my first supervisor and violently raped by an officer in my unit. The violence of that raped, ruined me for a long time. Suffer from severe PTSD and after 31 years i am being forced out of the...
November 27th, 2024

I know when I see a rapist...

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The stalking, gaslighting, victimizing, and of course sexual abuse, were never okay with me. But you just don’t get that because you’re a predator.
August 18th, 2019

Abusée par un voisin de mes grands...

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Bonjour chère Linor, Je suis en train de regarder Brave Miss World. Merci! Je témoigne car j’en ai peu parlé dans ma vie. J’avais 4 ou 5 ans. Je vivais avec mes grands-parents et ils me posaient parfois le samedi chez la voisine qui me gardait pour aller à un...
July 24th, 2019

LOST

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When I was 5 years old, I was sexually assaulted by many men. The next day I tried to kill myself. At the age of 10, I was raped and again tried to end it by ending my life. I also am a survivor of FASD and there for not...