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March 14th, 2015

Broken Trust

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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...
April 9th, 2019

A Message from the Director

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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...
May 28th, 2019

You were supposed to be my friend

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This is letter is to you. You were my friend… my best friend. You knew what your dad did to me, yet you looked the other way and pretended like nothing had happened, like nothing was wrong. I was just a little girl, in my eyes, I was. I mean,...
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...
May 1st, 2021

Friend of my Husband

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About 2 weeks ago, Arthur, who works with my husband, came over looking for him, but Carl was out at a car show for the afternoon, which I told him. I was working on the dishes and cleaning the counter when he grabbed my arms and wrestled me to the...
June 21st, 2021

Drugged raped and failed by justice

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On March 31st, 2017, I planned an early evening out wanting to catch up with my good friend Wendy, 35, a teacher for the Santa Clara County Juvenile Detention Center. We went to a place in Downtown Willow Glen. Wendy picked me up from my home about 8 pm. We...
June 3rd, 2019

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

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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...
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...
December 12th, 2021

Blackout

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It’s taken me years to admit what happened. I had just started seeing this guy and had invited him to a Halloween party I was hosting. We had several drinks and my friend agreed that he needed to spend the night, rather than him driving home. I allowed him to...
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...
December 20th, 2019

To the men who hurt me

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Things can change all in an instant and you will never know until it is too late. I’m 22 now and I will try to keep this short and sweet. At 5-6 it all began with someone 4 years older than me showing me his privates. Within the next few...
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...
April 20th, 2019

At 17yr old was raped by my...

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I became pregnant at age 16, forced to marry months later at 17, I went through domestic violence, physical abuse, mental abuse, sexual abuse by him, my husband and my family did nothing to help me out of the nightmare! After 2 yrs I got out with the help of...
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...
March 19th, 2023

Simple games was a way to hide...

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Trigger warning: I am healing well after many many years of understanding and facing the sexual abuse I experienced as a child. I think it’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....
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...
November 18th, 2020

Divided into two

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I am turning 60 next week. When I was officially repeatedly raped in an hotel room by a stranger at the age of 18 it was just another event to prove how worthless and dirty I already felt. Of course I felt it was my fault, because why wouldn’t it...
September 13th, 2022

Raped in my own bed

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Locked forever in Liberty Plaza, Frozen in time, always saying no, But no one hears me, no one listens and no one comes. But why would they? If I don’t scream for help. Locked forever, in my tiny uni room. Your clothes, stained with vomit, in my bathroom. Photos of...
April 15th, 2019

raped as a lone solidier in israeli...

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Hi Linor I was raped by the חובש on my base in the army. Unitl today – almost daily I think about it. At the age of 18 I was a young naive virgin from Australia. I moved to Israel by myself. The guy that raped me, ALL the girls...
March 15th, 2024

I’m a Survivor because I am a...

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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...
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 13th, 2024

I was 11

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It was the summer before 7th grade, I had been living with my biological dad, his wife, her daughter and my brother for about 2 years. Home life was not great, I continuously body shamed as I looked “like a woman” early in life, blamed for things that I had...
January 24th, 2021

Survivor of COCSA

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My sexual assaults story is uncommon for most and hard to most people to grasp. Who would believe that children are capable of knowing and doing such gruesome things to person? Most children are not like this and their experiences are different. It first happened when I was 8 years...
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...
November 12th, 2019

3 incidents

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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 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...
January 23rd, 2019

Raped by my boyfriend

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I was 15 when it happened and my boyfriend was 18. I’d met him as he and his mum worked with my mum. we started dating and were told not to do any funny business, then we went out to watch the Christmas Light switch on and as it finished...
January 21st, 2015

I Didn’t Want to Do It

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At the age of 13, I got my first boyfriend. We went to the same school. He was 16. We were going out for about 1 year. He always wanted to do more things with me, but I always said “No.” One day when I was 14, I went to...
June 12th, 2025

The Chapter Before The End

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Imagine being born into a family that you thought would love and protect you. Imagine being told that you shared the same father as your siblings. Imaging being emotionally, physically, and sexually abused by the ones you looked up to. Well a short back to story to my life. At...
April 15th, 2019

Coercion is never consent

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I have spent my whole life a victim. From early childhood trauma to emotionally abusive paternal figures. For a long time I responded to my trauma the way so many do. I partied to hard, let myself be used by the men in my life. I developed an eating disorder...
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...
December 7th, 2019

Things do get better

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I am a very happy person now. I’m dating the best person I know but I, too had a horrible history. I was bullied in high school. It all started when I was invited to a party. I went there and a guy offered me a drink and dumb me...
February 24th, 2023

I can’t remember before it started

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I knew something was wrong but I figured everyone else was like that. My earliest memory is of being violated. Of pain and an indiscribable feeling of loss. If I were to lay it all out it wouldn’t make for a very readable story. There are only so many things...
March 24th, 2021

My Brother

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I was 7 when it happened the first time. It was my older brother. Our father would read us a chapter from one the Magic Treehouse Books, and I would stay to sleep in his bed because I was afraid to be alone at night. He told me that if...
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...
September 25th, 2021

When Does It End

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I have had a long line of sexual assaults and harassment in my time. I took most on the chin and try to chug in with life but three instances are really causing me daily issues. I feel comfortable enough to talk about one instance where I was invited to...
August 30th, 2020

Drunken Sex or Assault?

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First of all, ‘m not even sure if this was truly a rape or not. My memory of the night is very foggy and I want advice more than anything. I was drinking and catching up with a close male friend of mine. We met my first year of college...
August 29th, 2020

Why you should talk to your daughters...

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At 16 I began dating my first serious boyfriend. I kept it a secret from my mom since she made it feel like I couldn’t talk to her about anything, love, sex, school, nothing. I had recently turned 16 and he was 17 at the time. We went to the...
July 15th, 2025

I trusted my brother.

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I was 15 when everything happened. I’m 17 now, this is the first time I’m sharing this online. When I was 15 and my brother was 22 fresh out of collage he was living with my parents while job hunting. They were out for the weekend so it was just...
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...
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...
June 20th, 2023

Sexual harassment

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When I was 17 years old, I used to go to my older cousin house for the summer and helped babysit her kids. Her husband who was a pastor started touching my me and would constantly tried to convince me to have an affair with him. I tried to stay...
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.
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...
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...
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😭😭...
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...
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...
January 29th, 2022

My stepfather raped me

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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...
April 5th, 2009

Thank you

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Thank you for your voice and for your strength.
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...
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 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 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...
June 26th, 2022

My survival story

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When I was 15 I knew I had to get out of home. My father had been abusing my mum and siblings for as long as I could remember, both physically and verbally, and it was getting worse by the day. So at 15 I decided to break up with...
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 26th, 2023

Daycare Teacher

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To understand this story easier I want you to know I am trans, female to male. When I was a kid I had this daycare teacher. She was everyones favourite, all the kids loved her. I did too. I don’t remember her name, but I do remember she only had...
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...
December 11th, 2020

Letter to…

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To all the boys who watched porn and grew up thinking that’s how women deserve to be treated To the parents, teachers, adults who should know better, who never taught us about consent or that women are equal partners in sex To the society that made me feel like sex...
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...
October 10th, 2021

Is this normal?

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It all started in Febuary 17th 2020. My first boyfriend. At first he was sweet, he’d walk me to school, compliment me, ask me for consent every time he touhed me. But then the honeymoon phase wore off right after he took my virginity 3 months in. He started belittling...
October 31st, 2020

How it makes me feel 5 years...

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When I was a young kid I allways liked to play fairytales. But in my head the stories all had a different ending than the original ones. I remember that I wanted to feel powerful. One time I pretended to be Rapunzel. But instead of waiting in the tower to...
January 2nd, 2016

It Was the Second

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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...
November 11th, 2020

I think I was raped

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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...
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...
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...
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....