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August 30th, 2019

My story growing up with a secret

2
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 violeted๐Ÿ’”๐Ÿ’”๐Ÿ˜ญ๐Ÿ˜ญ I have spoken about this, but I hate putting this down in writting๐Ÿ˜ญ๐Ÿ˜ญ...
August 17th, 2019

My/our German “Weinstein” Case

6
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 wasnโ€™t published back then, mainly because I reported on crimes...
March 19th, 2023

Simple games was a way to hide...

1
Trigger warning: I am healing well after many many years of understanding and facing the sexual abuse I experienced as a child. I think itโ€™s important to share this experience so parents can look out for similar behavior in abusers. Please watch for innocent games that could really be more....
December 22nd, 2015

Is There Still Hope

6
I was 9 or 10 when it happen it’s pretty sad because I don’t remember much. I was at my best friend’s house and we were playing with her brother downstairs in his room. So we ended up sleeping down there and I woke up to him raping me. I...
April 27th, 2019

Everyone Else Likes You, Too

2
I had never been to a bar before. Sure, Iโ€™d gone out to Applebees with other coworkers where theyโ€™d serve me drinks. But I was 19, and had to drive home. I had never been drunk before, and didnโ€™t push my limits. I went to the bar to see him...
November 12th, 2019

3 incidents

2
I still don’t know whether I can consider what I experienced rape, but I’m using my therapists help to get a grip of my time traveling through NZ, meeting plenty of men, some of whom have changed things forever. First one was in a dorm I spent my first night...
September 28th, 2019

I Didn’t Know I Was Raped

2
Grass stains on my back and blood in my jeans I gain consciousness while my body is jerked like a rag doll My eyes focus on the hazy streetlights as I try to make sense of my surroundings I hear his zipper as heโ€™s walking away So, I pull up...
September 2nd, 2020

This Is Me, my fight song

1
College has started, around this time I was a college freshman fully moved in and Saying bye to my parents. I felt so cool living on my own in my own place, doing my own thing and the best part was, I was playing soccer. It was everything and more....
August 24th, 2020

My deaf husband sued the Vatican

1
My deaf husband was molested by the priest who is the head of the deaf residential school in which he was raised. This is for your mother and your husband. I am them. Although you were the person who was raped, those of us live with you and love you...
September 25th, 2022

College Professor

2
This is the first time Iโ€™m sharing this story. It happened in 2015 during my senior year of college. After having a couple of beers with friends at the bar I started walking home. While walking one of my professors happens to be driving by and offers to bring me...
April 23rd, 2018

A Night I Canโ€™t Remember

1
Two years ago I went to one of my friends houses. It started out well enough. My son and her daughter played while we played Jenga and drank beer at the table. I am a beer drinker, I never drink hard liquor, but on this night I did. I donโ€™t...
November 4th, 2019

I donโ€™t know anymore

3
My high school ends at 10th grade. So you basically start college at 16. As for me, I decided to go abroad and come to the US for college so definitely the rest of the college students were all older than me. I didnโ€™t really fit in. Then one day,...
August 17th, 2019

My/our German “Weinstein” Case

6
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 wasnโ€™t published back then, mainly because I reported on crimes...
October 15th, 2022

Male dancer

1
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...
April 9th, 2020

People donโ€™t think your spouse can rape...

1
6 months ago my husband forced me to have sex with him because it was his birthday and he deserved it. Even after repeatedly telling him no, I was forced to comply with his request. I felt dirty after that. Like my marriage had been deviled. I went into a...
August 26th, 2020

Stranger, Friend, Lawyer, and Youth Leader

3
People have accused me of being a liar and the one with whom the fault lies… repeatedly. They use statistics to give themselves a platform to shame me or to feel better about their lives, because they don’t want to face reality. The reality is that statistics are not always...
March 11th, 2021

When tears and no arenโ€™t the answer

1
After being in a manipulative, nasty and competitive relationship for quite some time. Being my first relationship, I thought it was normal to be treated like shit. I questioned everything. But something drew me in every single time, I was so blind sighted I was completely blasรฉ to the depth...
July 24th, 2019

LOST

3
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...
May 19th, 2019

I Wanted to See the Aquarium

3
The first person that ever saw my bare chest was Jimmy. We were both 12 at the time. It started off as playful kissing and after saying no a few times, he forced my shirt up so he could see my chest. I laughed and ran away. Jimmy was the...
June 3rd, 2019

I was used. I got left. I...

2
15. That’s how old I was. 15. I thought my life was great. I had just got my permit and was loving my life. 15. I got used and then left. During this, I got strong. I have known this guy since I was in sixth grade. We used to...
March 22nd, 2016

Gang Rape

4
Three years ago I was gang raped by three men, I was 13. It all happened when my mum was sectioned because she has bipolar and I had to live with my auntie for a while. It was just before Christmas and my auntie wanted to go to a friends...
February 1st, 2021

I didn’t know

2
Hello, I don’t always tell this story because I have afraid of reactions but I really need help… When I was 14 a 25 years old man asked me to a coffee, I wanted new friends so I accepted but I hadn’t anything although just a coffee in my head....
October 5th, 2023

my toxic relationship

1
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...
August 30th, 2019

My story growing up with a secret

2
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 violeted๐Ÿ’”๐Ÿ’”๐Ÿ˜ญ๐Ÿ˜ญ I have spoken about this, but I hate putting this down in writting๐Ÿ˜ญ๐Ÿ˜ญ...
December 26th, 2019

Ms.

2
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...
October 12th, 2023

Workplace Sexual Harassment

1
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...
July 18th, 2019

His name was Kenneth

3
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...
December 22nd, 2015

Is There Still Hope

6
I was 9 or 10 when it happen it’s pretty sad because I don’t remember much. I was at my best friend’s house and we were playing with her brother downstairs in his room. So we ended up sleeping down there and I woke up to him raping me. I...
May 24th, 2019

The Statistics that Changed Me

2
2 sexual assaults and 1 rapeโ€ฆ the statistics of my story. I canโ€™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...
April 1st, 2021

Sex doll

1
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...
August 18th, 2019

Abusรฉe par un voisin de mes grands...

2
Bonjour chรจre Linor, Je suis en train de regarder Brave Miss World. Merci! Je tรฉmoigne car j’en ai peu parlรฉ 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 ร  un...
January 5th, 2022

Bus Ride

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I woke up that day and got ready for school. I was particualy happy because I had thought my life was getting better. My school friends were great, I had friends I could walk home with after the school bus, including a guy. I’ll call him A, who was 1...
February 8th, 2021

Sexually abused by my step brothers

2
I have lesbian parents. My mum and dad were never together and me and my mum lived alone until I was 3, she met a lady, who is now my step mum, and they got engaged and we moved in when I was 6. She had 2 sons, one aged...
April 26th, 2019

A poem about a not so perfect...

2
Poems about them: Mom and dad told me just how itโ€™s done They never told me that I should run I was never told to scream or to fight They thought it was implied that it wasnโ€™t right But I cried and I fought and I screamed and I ran...
May 4th, 2019

To my best friend who raped me

1
To my best friend who raped me, I am so torn between feeling love for you and feeling hate for what you have done; what you have taken away from me is irreplaceable. On the first of May, I lost hope for all living things to live and breathe and...
June 16th, 2019

Survivor #metoo

2
Iโ€™m a mere eighteen years old, and I have been sexually assaulted. Twice. Itโ€™s not something I ever expected to have to go through myself. I remember when I first learned what sexual assault was in fifth grade; I was ten years old. How was I supposed to know to...
March 5th, 2021

7 years and it still controls me

1
I seen him today. The exe who thought he had the right to just take what he wanted. Itโ€™s like you need you moved on. That your okay. Then ask if takes is to see him and canโ€™t breathe. I froze. I just turned around and wanted to run. I...
August 16th, 2020

Does the pain ever go away?

4
I really don’t know how to write this but I do want to try. Iโ€™ve been reading these stories for a while and have wanted to write my own but every time I try itโ€™s too hard to actually put words down… I don’t know why this keeps happening. Every...
April 21st, 2021

A respectable collegue

1
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...
July 21st, 2020

He ignored me

1
I was 15 when i was raped. He was my boyfriend at the time. He told me to make him a visit, I did that and after a while we started to kiss and mess around. But when it came down to do something sexually I refused but he completely...
May 12th, 2019

Too good to be true

2
I met him in a gas station and he impressed me mostly because he approached me and seemed genuinely interested in the bond between my daughter and I. Within a couple of weeks we were texting, calling and FaceTiming each other constantly. When he asked me on a first date...
June 8th, 2023

Unethical or illegal?

1
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...
February 13th, 2020

Start of grooming at 15

2
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...
April 28th, 2019

Katie Jones

1
So, 23 Years old In a holiday town, the strip club was the best money to earn. We worked late one night and our manager sold us to a party at a hotel. We thought it was an innocent after party, how ever when I entered the toilet with my...
November 11th, 2016

Let’s Fight Back With Love

0
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...
May 8th, 2019

Spoke out and was blamed

3
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...
March 18th, 2015

The Stepmonster

1
I was only eight when it originally started. My stepdad would touch me in my crotch and chest area. He would only do it with my mom at work. He would even do it in front of my little sister, but he never did it in front of his son....
July 19th, 2021

Child sexual abuse

2
My childโ€™s father has been sexually abusing her since she was 3 months old.
May 14th, 2019

Drunk and taken advantage of

1
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...
October 6th, 2021

My Mother was raped and told me...

0
Back in 1983 my Mother got really drunk. She told me about the time when she was raped in Sept. of 1971. She went in explicit details about it/ In Feb of 1971 My father dissapeared. He was in the insurance buisness and got involved in white collar fraud and...
December 5th, 2020

Summer 2019

1
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...
September 18th, 2019

Raped in the Air Force

2
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 23rd, 2014

Still Unable to Tell People

0
What I remember from that night is feeling flattered that someone older was paying attention. I was underage in a bar. I don’t remember much after that except three men carrying me into a motel room, all at least ten years older. One was the owner of the bar, who...
March 15th, 2024

I’m a Survivor because I am a...

0
My ex husband wanted to get rid of me and my family because he had a new girlfriend so he started bringing the Neighbors in to rape me and his girlfriends to cut my hair and burn me nothing has been done I went to a woman and children’s battered...
July 17th, 2019

Boyfriend Forcefully Sodomized Me

1
I had been with my (still current) boyfriend for about a year the night that it happened. We had been staying out of town in the mountains, having a great time. That night, we had a few drinks at a bar across the street from the hotel we were staying...
August 26th, 2020

Stranger, Friend, Lawyer, and Youth Leader

3
People have accused me of being a liar and the one with whom the fault lies… repeatedly. They use statistics to give themselves a platform to shame me or to feel better about their lives, because they don’t want to face reality. The reality is that statistics are not always...
June 24th, 2020

Too naรฏve

3
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...
January 27th, 2021

Was it rape ?

1
There are 3 different incidents that happened and I still donโ€™t know what to make of it, if it was rape or not. 1. I went over to this hotel where this guy was staying and we had consensual sex though in the middle he asked me if I wanted...
October 22nd, 2019

Choose healing over silence

2
Ke Mosadi gare ga Basadi (This will be the name of the foundation) Choose healing over silence โ€œI was raped by a stranger at the age of 14. Twenty three years ago my life changed. What started off as a fun occasion turned into the biggest nightmare. Like every other...
April 1st, 2021

Sex doll

1
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...
March 29th, 2022

Narcissistic Ex

1
I was 16 when he first met. I had never really had any male attention up until this point and grew up around toxic relationships so didn’t really have a great understanding of how relationships were meant to be. From the get go he was super manipulative. He also had...
April 18th, 2019

My husband raped me when I took...

2
I just want him to be sorry and get help.
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 โ€œbloomโ€ on the top of the vat created by oxidized indigo, making a bubbly and shiny ball of material reminiscent of a flower. The โ€œbloomโ€ 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 โ€œJardinโ€ 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 wasnโ€™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, โ€œhelp me,โ€ thinking that workers at the Weaving Factory would hear me and come rescue me. Nobody came. You said to me โ€œCoyoteโ€ 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 didnโ€™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 didnโ€™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 โ€œYou were never the same againโ€ 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 20โ€™s. Depression also called โ€œthe bluesโ€ 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 โ€œOut of the Blues.โ€
1
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...
January 4th, 2021

Michelle Johnston

2
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...