I had been off and on with this guy for about a year. He was my best friend, I loved him, and used to be one of the most important people in my life. We had broken up after about a 4 month span of trying to date, but decided to still remain friends because we had always been friends. I should’ve known that he wasn’t respectful of me when we would be in a room alone together and he would continuously put his hands all over me and I would physically have to remove them and say “no” over and over again. I just thought he missed me. Later on, we were studying and I spent the night at his place. The neighbors were having a party next door so the couch in the living room was surrounded by loud noise, so we decided to sleep in the same bed, no touching stated before hand. I woke up to him groping me, and him putting my hands on him hard. I ripped his hands off and ran out of the room. After avoiding him for a week, I decided to talk to him. He said it was my fault for getting into bed with him.
— Survivor, age 19
Dear survivor – thank you for sharing your story here. What happened to you was NOT your fault. Getting into bed with someone does NOT give them consent to touch you and on top of that, you’d explicitly said no. Even if you hadn’t said no, consent is defined as the presence of yes; not the absence of no. No one has the right to touch you without your permission, even if you *had* consented to them touching you previously. I would encourage you to talk to a therapist about your emotions around your relationship with this guy and what happened to you. You deserve peace and love and support and healing. It can be hard work but I believe in you and I know you can do it. Sending love and support! Alexis