The First Time

I was 14 years old the very first time. It was almost summer in 2010, I was walking home from school and it was the second time one of my best friends wasn’t walking home with me. I stopped at the toilets in the local botanical gardens. As I left the stall, a man was there. He said he’d show me what happens to fat little girls who are out on there own. I remember him grabbing me, I remember my head hitting the sink and I remember crying and begging him to stop. I remember the bruises and scrapes all over me. I remember him finishing and kicking me after he got home. The walk home afterwards was painful, physically and emotionally, I showered 8 times that night and I still felt disgusted by my body and what had happened to it. I didn’t even know his name.
I became anorexic, bulimic, anxious and depressed. I needed the control but I was scared. I hated myself and nothing could change that.
A year later, I was raped again by the same man at a playground near the supermarket. And after that, it was two guys at a party that I shouldn’t have gone to.
I blamed myself for all of it, for the guys needing to do that to me, but I shouldn’t have. My first experience of sex was a guy forcing himself in me at a disgusting public toilet with out my consent. I hated myself. I hated everything. I tried to kill myself. I cut myself. I didn’t eat and when I managed to I through it up straight away.
I’m stronger now, 6 years after the first time I now know I didn’t cause any of it. Wearing a dress that was past my knees and not flattering at all didn’t make guy rape me, his sick mind did. Having a few shots of alcohol and feeling confident wasn’t an invitation for two guys to rape me. Their lack of morals and human decency did that.
I was not the reason, I am the survivor.

— Survivor, age 20