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December 9th, 2023

Sexually abused by my father

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I grew up in Southern California in the 1980’s. I can remember that the start of my childhood was not so bad. I was a mostly happy child doing normal kids stuff. At some point around 8 this all changed. My early memories of the abuse are extremely fragmented. They...
March 22nd, 2016

Gang Rape

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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...
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...
August 30th, 2021

MY Inspirational Story

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Hi my name is Faizan sheikh. I am 18 years of age and all my life I have lived with Trisomy 18. This is called Mosaic Edwards Syndrome. This is where a very small number of babies with Mosaic Edwards Syndrome about one in a hundred have only a section...
May 16th, 2020

I am a survivor

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MY STORY I WAS REPEATING MY GRADE 9 IN WILLOWMEAD SECONDARY. EVERYTHING WENT WELL UNTILL I DECIDE TO SKIP SCHOOL FOR THE FIRST TIME TO ATTENDED A HOUSE PARTY. MY FRIEND AND I WENT TO THE HOUSE PARTY THERE WHERE STUDENTS FROM SOUTH VIEW HIGH. MY FRIEND AND I WHERE...
March 12th, 2016

Hurt and Anger

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I was 9 years old when it all started, my mom started working in a new restaurant and would leave at 5am and come back at 3pm, and my “father” didn’t work for he had a lawsuit that didn’t let him work. It was random when my “father” started to...
January 17th, 2022

You had no rights

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“Meet me after school, today. I wanted to tell you something,” a boy from my class said, “…in private,” he added, looking at my friend, whom I was talking to. My friend raised an eyebrow at me and I shrugged. “Where?” I asked. “Uhh… At the back of the school.”...
February 26th, 2022

Why was it my fault?

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The sexual abuse started when i was in 1st grade. My cousin would babysit me and my siblings and then take turns molesting us. We were to scared to say anything for a few years. (That is how long it lasted.) When we finally had the courage to tell our...
April 17th, 2019

My Story

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I ask myself the question…..do you get over being raped as an adult? I was 29 at the time….i was just starting to love me, except me, I was excited about life…i had a reason to get up and live. I finally believed I was worth more than what was...
August 30th, 2019

My story growing up with a secret

3
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😭😭...
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...
December 2nd, 2022

Sexual Coercion

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I was sexually coerced this semester at college. It was one of my longtime friends. I thought I could trust him but I was wrong. He and I talked about hanging out and so we did. We talked for a while, was physical and was at first consensual. Then he...
July 16th, 2020

Mental Breakdown

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My life’s a mess at 19, but I don’t like complaining to people (friends + family) because I don’t want to burden someone else with my problems, and to be honest nobody really cares like that, I don’t want to project myself as this ‘weak abused girl’ so later on...
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...
June 1st, 2019

The Life I Live

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When I was 7 my cousin started touch me. He was older and he said it was okay we were practicing. I wasn’t sure what he meant. This went on for 3 years. He would touch my body and claimed it was his. He said it was a way to...
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.
March 12th, 2022

Ex

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On February 24th 2021 by boyfriend (ex now) raped me in my home. I was black out drunk and unable to consent, and he crossed boundaries we had set sober. He lives less than a minute from me, and never faced charges because of lack of physical evidence. The detective...
September 19th, 2019

It had to be my fault.

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I didn’t know him very well. He worked with a family member. I’d seen him around for gatherings every now and then. He was always nice enough to me. I was sitting on the couch listening to the TV but I was more occupied looking at art. He came by...
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...
June 6th, 2019

A night gone wrong

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2 years ago when I was 20 years old I went on a night out with a group of friends in our local town. We went to bars and the club and I began mixing drinks and became incredibly drunk, more then I ever have been, barely able to function...
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...
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...
April 28th, 2019

Katie Jones

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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...
January 24th, 2016

My Brother

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My name is Lila. I am a nurse. When I was 7, I was molested by my brother. This soon progressed to being repeatedly raped from ages 7-9. I was unable to speak up for myself, a friend told her mother, who then drove me to the precinct in Flushing,...
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...
February 4th, 2021

Raped at the Air Force Academy

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In 2002 I was appointed to the Air Force Academy Preparatory School in Colorado Springs, CO. The prep school was a sort of booster school for people who wanted to be at the Academy but fell short of their appointment. It could have been due to grades, SAT/ACT scores, athletics,...
September 22nd, 2020

My mom’s boyfriend assaulted me and my...

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I was assaulted multiple times ! I was assaulted by my mom’s boyfriend when I was 13. My parents got divorced then my mom and her boyfriend found an apartment with just one bedroom so the 3 of us had to sleep together. At night when my mom would fall...
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...
May 25th, 2019

The Trauma That Made Me

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I was raised in a broken home in a broken home from a pretty young age. Not young enough that it’s all I ever knew, but young enough that visitation schedules were a steady part of my life. I am the oldest of my parent’s 3 children, but my dad...
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...
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...
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...
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...
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...
March 5th, 2024

My step dad raped me

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I would have never imagined the person who I praised and idolised could have ever hurt me this much. An individual who I adored more than I could have anyone. A parent is a person whose sole purpose is to provide, care for and show love to their child. A...
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 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...
June 26th, 2020

Was almost raped and no one did...

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When i was 11 me my mom and sister were in a bad situation. we didn’t have anywhere to live because we had lost our house. this was normal for us sadly because my mom is a single disabled mother of 5. while our other siblings had places they went...
July 29th, 2013

Why: A Poem About My Rape

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Soothe my whys with soft whispers Wipe my tears with your love Make me whole again No more, I beg No more No more Unwanted touch Unwelcomed Stiff, rough caresses No man to hold me down, Give me forbidden kisses Legs forced apart Like rusty hinges Hinges to a door...
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 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...
November 3rd, 2020

Ex Boyfriend

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I dated a boy for about 6 months. He was 17 I was 15. He seemed to care about me but there were so many red flags that I ignored. I’ve never told anybody this, but he raped me. The next day and I told my friends that I lost...
November 27th, 2021

I was 5.

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Both of my parents worked full-time. On some days during weekdays, they used to send me and my siblings under the care of our neighbour. The lady was a single mother living with her children. My paternal grandmother and all of my uncle and aunts know her. One of her...
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...
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...
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...
December 10th, 2021

Raped twice within a few hours

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I moved to Beijing in 2005 with my boyfriend of 6 years. We found a fun dive bar there one night, and made friends with a group of Americans, 3 females and 1 guy, dancing at an Indie Night there. As I danced with the new friends, BF was chatting...
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...
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....
April 16th, 2009

Thank you

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I am a survivor of sexual abuse and rape. As a child my father repeatedly raped both my sister and I until we were adopted by my step-father. I suffered from selective amnesia and didn’t remember much of my youth until I was a freshman in college and began having...
June 12th, 2019

A story of a not so perfect...

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When I was growing up my grandfather molested me constantly. When I turned 9 my brother raped me for the first time and it continued until I was 12. My brother raped me 12 times over those 3 years. When I turned 12 I told my parents and they didn’t...
June 14th, 2014

Confused

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When I was 15 years old I had gotten a Facebook message from a guy telling me I was beautiful and that he wanted to take me out for coffee. After he asked me if I wanted to hang out at his place and I went. I had fount out...
November 23rd, 2019

Child abuse 9yo now 45 yo never...

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Hi my name is Rafael I am from Los cabos Mexico and I was raped when I was 9years old by a friend of my father..(couple of times) while my parents where on holiday .. I never told nobody since I didn’t knew what happened at that time I was...
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...
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...
April 20th, 2022

So long, I’ll be seeing you everywhere

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He was my boyfriend. I thought he saw us as equals – after all, we used to be members of progressive parties in our country. But I was wrong. One night, I told him that I do not want to have sex that time because I might get pregnant. He...
February 16th, 2020

My first love

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I was 13 and we went to the same high school. I didn’t know him but we both took part in drama. He was a year and a half older and we met at a school trip to a theatre one evening. He was a ‘bad boy’ causing trouble but...
April 28th, 2021

Around 9 PM

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It was around 9 PM I was walking home from baseball practice on the side walk (Next to the woods), the way how I normally walked home, when a medium sized rock hit me in the head. I fell to the ground. And then I felt someone dragging me into...
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...
April 23rd, 2018

A Night I Can’t Remember

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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 don’t...
June 18th, 2025

Glitter Girl, Gone.

1
HE picked me up the first day in the shiniest white Toyota I’d ever seen. Hallucinating halos of light around him, I knew in my heart: this was the man I would marry. Almost 15 years older, but so handsome, so experienced. We seemed to have everything in common—intellectual passions...
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 wasn’t published back then, mainly because I reported on crimes...
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...
December 6th, 2020

“My Rape” at University

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I was 21 and at my second year of university. I was at a study group with 3 friends and it was around lunchtime. 2 of them suggested Chinese and decided to order and collect. I was left alone with my “friend”. It felt a little awkward as a week...
August 30th, 2019

My story growing up with a secret

3
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😭😭...
June 10th, 2021

Date Rape

2
I was visiting family in Texas and I decided to go on a dating app for a hookup. I felt guilty because I was young and I never told him my age, we went to his hotel because he was on a business trip. I remember taking one shot and...
April 10th, 2023

My principal mom raped me

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When I was just ten years old my mom would remove my clothes then sexually assault me. it didn’t matter how much I cried as she did it. She only cared about what turned her on. :’( I’ve been quiet about it because she’s a principal at a school, but...
May 8th, 2019

UNEXPOSED – AFTER 30 YEARS OF EXTREME...

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Molestation 4-13, dissociation syndrome started, afraid 24/7, PTSD 10, black outs began & were triggered by the smell of certain foods or a male authorities voice. Attempted Rape 15, Physical Abuse 16-31, all my ex-boyfriends. Rape 18, also attempted suicide & started dancing because I needed extra money & no...
May 31st, 2019

I Recorded my Rapist

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I was gang raped almost 30 years ago by my ex boyfriend and at least 3 of his friends, 2 of which I never spoke to. I never spoke of what they did to me until the Supreme Court event, which more than triggered something inside me. I had been...
January 6th, 2019

Black Girl

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As a black child she grew up with many black women An atmosphere of mostly females and children A plether of differences yet many the same someone points the finger but no one takes the blame Attenion seaking variances of competition with the appearance of being soft For the man...
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...