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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...
May 24th, 2019

The Statistics that Changed Me

2
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...
October 12th, 2021

A Family Member Sexually Took Advantage Of...

1
When I was 11 or 12 years old me and my family moved to a new neighborhood. Shortly after my mom helped my other family members move in across the street from us. We all wind up getting close because we were all close in age in someway. A family...
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...
January 3rd, 2024

lucky

1
this is my second post and i’m retelling my story better. i’m 15 and i’ve been struggling with substance abuse since 13, including hard drugs. my anxiety and jealousy in my new relationship has caused me to struggle a lot recently and i ended up going to my guy friends...
August 18th, 2019

Abusée par un voisin de mes grands...

2
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 19th, 2021

Child sexual abuse

2
My child’s father has been sexually abusing her since she was 3 months old.
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...
September 14th, 2019

Men Like Brett Kavanaugh Make It Hard...

1
This will come as no surprise to many, but I found myself thinking about my rape more and more during the Kavanaugh hearings. The rich student party boys taking advantage of girls at parties, forcing themselves upon at least one that we’ve heard about, it all seems too similar to...
May 23rd, 2021

Rape in my locked home

1
I have been raped numerous times in homes that are locked. I am divorced and live alone. Obviously drugged as no memories. The first time in my locked home after my divorce when I broke up with someone who admitted after dating him for months that he used to do...
January 2nd, 2016

It Was the Second

1
This story may not be relevant. But when I was 11 yrs old, I was almost raped by my aunt’s, husbands, uncle. I had such an uncomfortable feeling when I was around him…. well, I’ll just get to the point. He was a guest, so my aunt asked me to...
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...
March 7th, 2016

Doesn’t Define Me

7
The lowest part of my life was between ages 13 to 19 years old. My siblings and I were placed into different homes because of family issues that I will not get in to on here, and we were all separated from our parents. I moved in with my best-friends...
March 14th, 2015

Broken Trust

1
I had a friend who I quickly became very close with. I was very depressed at the time and he was too so I spent all my time with him and went to his house everyday. However, when I started falling asleep there, he would touch me and I would...
May 7th, 2019

Too much trauma

1
I applaud your mission and vision. Watching Brave Miss World was very cathartic. I had a very tough childhood, enduring physical abuse from a stepfather. When I was 11, I was molested by a male cousin. At 19, I was raped and sodomized by my boyfriend at the time who...
January 6th, 2019

Black Girl

1
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...
January 6th, 2021

Consent, control and consequences

1
Just because you consent to one sexual act with a person doesn’t mean they can do what they like. I wish my 16 year old self had understood this. It took me a couple of years to fully process what had happened and to realise I had been raped. By...
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.”
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...
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...
February 26th, 2022

Why was it my fault?

1
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...
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. I’ve been reading these stories for a while and have wanted to write my own but every time I try it’s too hard to actually put words down… I don’t know why this keeps happening. Every...
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...
December 13th, 2021

He was my best friend

2
He was my best friend of 8 years. I was really leaning on him for support as I had just experienced my first sexual assault like 6 months beforehand. I was really struggling mentally so he offered to take me out for a night and we went into the city...
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...
December 9th, 2023

I was only 11

1
When I was elven, I had a boyfriend he was 15. He would send me dick pics often but I just ignored them. One day we were at my house with some of my friends we played boardgames and watched some movies. After some time, I was alone with my...
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...
June 7th, 2016

Was It My Fault?

2
My experience has left me confused so I would really appreciate it if someone could help me understand this. First off I was 19 when this happened & I’m 20 now. This happened back in September of 2015. I was in a sexual relationship with a Marine & I had...
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...
June 15th, 2019

Men get raped too…

2
When I was 17, I was raped by a man who was in his 50’s after boxing training. Couple days later I tried to lie to myself and say that everything was fine but it wasn’t. Therefore I told my brothers girlfriend. At first she believed me and asked to...
April 27th, 2019

Everyone Else Likes You, Too

2
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...
July 22nd, 2022

This is my story

2
It was April 1st, 2012; I was 6 years old. I went to my aunts house (Moms side) to play with my cousins. I do recall being there was not the best time of my life. She told me to go into the back room with her; she then proceeded...
August 22nd, 2022

Fraternity gang rape

1
This is something I have never shared online before only with close family and my current partner. When I was freshly 19 I moved to Eastern Washington University to start school as a freshman. I had just gotten out of a long term relationship and would be attending school with...
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...
September 15th, 2019

I didn’t fight back.

2
I was 17. I went to a house party of a friend of a friend and knew no one other then the friend I went with. I got talking to a guy, he suggested we went upstairs to a bedroom so we could talk properly. I stupidly agreed. He tried...
December 5th, 2020

Constant fear

2
Does he know he destroyed me? Does he know that have a “normal relationship” for 2 years because of him? Does he know that he made me lose weed little confidence I had? Or that I still have nightmares of what you did to me? Does he know that even...
June 1st, 2019

The Life I Live

4
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...
February 4th, 2021

Raped at the Air Force Academy

2
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,...
June 11th, 2020

Afraid, Ashamed and Alone

2
It was a family member. I was sleeping over at their house because my mom had to get a cancerous spot removed on the back of her head. He touched me. He continued to touch me. And i just froze up. The next day, I tried to act like everything...
June 29th, 2020

Red Flags

1
I texted her. The girl he is currently seeing. I reached out to her as soon as I found out they were together. I told her that he was in fact a predator and told her to be careful. I didn’t need to text her, but I did. It was...
November 11th, 2020

I think I was raped

2
I don’t know what to do or what to say. I haven’t told anybody because I don’t even truly know what happened. This weekend I was drinking at a friend’s house. I didn’t drink a ton- one beer and one mixed drink that was in a gallon jug in his...
June 12th, 2019

A story of a not so perfect...

2
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...
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...
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. I’ve been reading these stories for a while and have wanted to write my own but every time I try it’s too hard to actually put words down… I don’t know why this keeps happening. Every...
November 15th, 2020

J’avais 13 ans

1
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...
January 2nd, 2022

I am a Survivor

2
I didn’t want to be a survivor once I realized what happened. Hell, I still don’t want to be a survivor. I was seven years old when I first got raped, when something first happened to me. I didn’t understand, I was so scared. It happened by my aunt’s husband....
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...
September 9th, 2020

Multiple Sexual Assaults

3
I told my story of how I was raped on here. I decided that I would share my story of the times i’ve been molested. The first time I was about 5. My brother had a tournament out of town and so my family and I went. I wanted to...
January 29th, 2022

My stepfather raped me

1
When I was 11 years old my parents were divorced and my mother moved myself and my brother to her hometown which was 18 miles away. It wasn’t long before my mom had a new boyfriend she moved in and married. He wasn’t a stranger, he and his wife had...
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....
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...
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 violeted💔💔😭😭 I have spoken about this, but I hate putting this down in writting😭😭...
June 24th, 2020

Too naïve

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 20th, 2020

School Bathroom

3
I was sexually harassed for a period of two years by a group of eleven boys. The ringleader was stalking me both on and off campus as well as online. One day he followed me into a bathroom and pushed me against a wall when I turned to confront him....
May 24th, 2019

The Statistics that Changed Me

2
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 2nd, 2022

Sexual Coercion

1
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...
November 15th, 2020

J’avais 13 ans

1
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...
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...