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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 29th, 2019

Broken Girl

2
My abuse began at 7 years old at the hands of my 1/2 brother. This went on for almost 8 years. I never spoke a word because he brutally raped me… and my 3 year old sister. He used sharp items, which caused an enormous amount of vaginal scarring. I...
June 10th, 2022

Was Told to Shut My God Damn...

1
I grew up in a family of domestic violence and alcoholism. I was abused physically and neglected throughout my childhood. When I was 12 I felt the calling to be a nun when I grew up. My parents divorced and my dad had custody of three girls, including me. When...
June 29th, 2020

Red Flags

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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 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...
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...
June 11th, 2020

Afraid, Ashamed and Alone

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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 28th, 2020

It was someone I knew and I...

1
I was 17 years old and it was New Year’s Eve. I had met a great guy through some friends we were at his parents farm for NYE. Although we were together, we did not want people to know just yet as we’d met when I was dating a friend...
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...
October 10th, 2021

Is this normal?

1
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...
March 20th, 2021

I said no – but he took...

1
14 years old, not even fully grown or developed, and someone I knew decided to take the opportunity to take advantage of me. It wasn’t one of those ‘being held down moments,’ but one where I said no multiple times over and over and over but he still did it...
December 9th, 2015

They asked if I was lying

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In August 2005, I was raped by someone known to my family. I was drunk and passed out when it happened. For a long time, I felt like it was my mistake. Like it was my fault that someone had done this to me. I remember people asking me if...
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...
July 10th, 2019

So drunk I can’t remember

4
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...
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...
November 27th, 2024

I know when I see a rapist...

0
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.
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...
April 16th, 2020

3 years on

2
I don’t know why I’m writing this out. Maybe so I don’t feel alone, or maybe to just have it in writing, I don’t know. 3 years ago on the 19th I was raped. I can say that now, not that I’m proud of that but I can say it....
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...
June 26th, 2022

My survival story

1
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...
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...
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...
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 31st, 2020

Mrs.

1
 Hi I was raped when I was 18. I am now 40 and been told I have post traumatic stress disorder. I had just broken up with my first love and I went on a night out in Liverpool, UK, I was drinking and ended up kissing a boy and...
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...
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...
February 8th, 2015

Abused at the Age of 4

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I wased raped at the age of 4 by own uncle I was just a innocent child couldn’t do anything to save me! He took avanage of me when my mom would leave to school or when my own parents weren’t home. This happen for about a year straight. Everything...
July 3rd, 2017

Sexually Assaulted or Not?

1
I don’t want to call myself a victim or to say that I was almost raped because rape is a veery big word for me, but probably it was my fault, maybe nothing really happened, maybe something happened but it was not such a big things as I make it...
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...
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...
October 20th, 2024

Me, Myself & Monsters

2
I had more sexual encounters by age 8 than most adults. This is my disturbing story. I met my first monster when I was 4 years old. He was a close family friend who lived with us periodically. He had cold hands and even colder eyes. Monster #1 loved teaching...
October 29th, 2021

Former partner would berate me

1
Super thankful to have this safe space to share my story. It’s been really tough dealing with the level of guilt I’ve felt because I feel I was betrayed by not only my former partner but the girl he left me for (good riddance). As someone who identifies as trans,...
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...
October 3rd, 2024

Asking for advice

1
So the most strange thing happened last night . I was with my school on a 5 day trip . It was to Italy with a boat . I hadn’t slept all night at the boat because I am scared of water . I didn’t sleep the whole day because...
December 2nd, 2020

Mrs

1
I think I may have been raped, nearly 20 years ago. I was staying at my boyfriends house (now ex) at the time. We were young (17) and I was a virgin as we’d decided to wait to progress our relationship. One night I stayed over at his parents house,...
June 11th, 2025

Just Words

4
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....
March 8th, 2016

Abuse Continued

2
My story differs from a lot of stories here in that, there was no actual penetration (unless it happened to me during my sleep, which I sometimes wonder). I was molested by my mother’s ex-husband. I must have been around 7, 8 or 9. This “man” lived in the house,...
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...
June 20th, 2021

Your truth will change someones’ life.

2
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...
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...
March 30th, 2024

raped & abducted

i went to the park & ran into someone i knew. we were hanging out while doing pills then out of nowhere two of his friends showed up. i was going to stop but one of his drunk friends kept pressuring me to do more so i did. we went to a house of one of the guys & we were just there. i was starting to feel out of it but at that time i was still in control of myself then the next thing i know i was on the bed laying down i guess i blacked out but i know the guys i was with were letting me sleep. then the next thing i hear was a guy i didn’t recognize outside the window. he saw me laying there so out of it he asked the guys who was i then they told him. he then climbed through the window started getting on top me, i kept saying for him to get off. i was so weak from the pills i wasn’t able to move so he then forced himself inside of me. i heard one of the guys try to stop him but then my “friend” told him to let it happen. next i remember him dragging me out the window then into his backseat of his car. the other guys were just watching then my rapist told them to close the door. i begged them not to leave me alone but they closed the door. my rapist forced himself on me again then i blacked out completely. i finally came to in the morning but realized i was on the floor at the park. so many bruises on my thighs & legs that he left me. how can a group of guys just watch him assault me & take me somewhere. thinking of where he took me & kept me all night what else did he do to me.
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i went to the park & ran into someone i knew. we were hanging out while doing pills then out of nowhere two of his friends showed up. i was going to stop but one of his drunk friends kept pressuring me to do more so i did. we went...
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...
January 1st, 2021

raped and isolated

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The man who raped me was 30 years older than me. I was very young and lonely, didn´t have contact to my parents or true friends so he was my father figure. He raped me one night before me having my exam. He raped me again one night when I...
July 14th, 2020

Raped in a Psychiatric Hospital in the...

2
I apologize for not being able to share my name at this stage- my case is still under investigation, and I do not wish to jeopardize this. The shroud of silence is quadrupled when one is mentally ill and the perpetrator is someone who is meant to be a healer....
June 3rd, 2019

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

2
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

Constant fear

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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...
March 12th, 2020

If your boyfriend does it is is...

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If your Boyfriend does it is it rape? This is a question I ask myself every night before I go to sleep while I relive the rape I experience a year and a half ago. One night, my boyfriend and I had been out drinking at the bar. My boyfriend...
October 21st, 2019

Miss

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My story is about how I was abused at the age of 9 till the age of 13 by a close family member, and how much this destroyed my life , it was a trauma as a child, it was intense
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...
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...
January 24th, 2021

Survivor of COCSA

1
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...
March 16th, 2021

I just realized this today.

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I am an educated 37 year old social worker. I am married with two kids, 2 dogs, and 3 chickens. Over the last few months I’ve been having a profound experience where things I didn’t even know I had been holding to have surfaced. Today, while sitting in the car...
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...
June 22nd, 2022

1 in 5

1
1 in 5 Prior to joining a university campus, a serious of random webinars with quizzes about how much alcohol can affect the body and cheesy acting about doing the ‘right’ thing. It flies over most college freshman, who all have the same belief that I once had ‘that won’t...
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...
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...
July 24th, 2019

LOST

3
When I was 5 years old, I was sexually assaulted by many men. The next day I tried to kill myself. At the age of 10, I was raped and again tried to end it by ending my life. I also am a survivor of FASD and there for not...
April 17th, 2021

“I should do this more often”

1
I was 6 the first time a man ever touched me. At the time I didn’t know it was wrong, I thought it was normal. My biological father would touch me in the bath and help lotion me up afterwards massaging me as he does. I knew I didn’t like...
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...
August 18th, 2025

We go to the same church

1
I didn’t have the best college experience. While at college there were several men who made inappropriate comments about my body, sent me lewd text messages, and would follow me around campus. I was already uncomfortable around men due to child sexual abuse so it all just heightened my anxiety....
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...
April 10th, 2025

She was never the same…

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She grew up in Philadelphia in a working class area and found her first love living a few blocks from her. Denise loved him very much and went on a Jersey Shore vacation but came home a shell of herself. Her first love took her life and made her mother...
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....
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😭😭...