#WeAreBrave

This all started when I was 14 in my first day of class that I did not realize would turn into the 6 years of terror. I was sexually groomed by a senior at my high school. He’d stared at me the first day he saw me and then made strong sexual contact with me after class. He did this twice more later in the school year. Then he contacted on social media asking me sexual questions and wanted to get familiar with what I knew about sex. Then he figured out where I lived and stalked me there several years later. Throughout the entire 6 years, he forced me to watch him play with himself on Face Time and many other explicit things I won’t mention. He pretended he loved me and that I was the only girl for him. He’d convince me I was the only girl he was talking to. I was vulnerable because I had suffered a serious brain illness and spent a lot of time alone... I had depression... All he had to say is I Love You then I’d allow everything to continue. It’s not like I could think for myself when I could not even function due to autoimmune illness and not able to think clearly. He’d want videos and pictures... anything he could get of me. And he’d never let up on it until I’d say yes. I finally reported him in October of 2019 when he’d finally almost got a hold of me. I’d just started college and he begged me to be his girlfriend. He got me a bus ticket to see him and then things turned dark. He said he’d be locking up my clothes and filming porn of me so he could make money. That’s when I finally closed the door on the toxic relationship. I did not get on the bus and ultimately got the police involved. As scared as I was to contact his work I did it through The National Human Trafficking Hotline who contacted his military base in Killeen Texas at Fort Hood. I sometimes wonder did he love me? Did I walk away from someone who wanted me? He was there was so long and now did I ruin it? All the signs of Stockholm Syndrome. Crazy to call it that? Yes. He may not have been my physical captor but emotionally yes. I was emotionally drawn to him and felt like I needed him. He’d found a way to get me to confide trust into him. He almost got what we wanted but I took my love life back and shut the door that was opened for him to be near me. It was hard though I’m glad I walked away. There are not many sexual groooming stories out there, especially not ones that involve social media. But I’ve had nightmares of sexual assault by him, rape, physical abuse and many more horror stories. He was the perpetrator in every dream. Now that he’s gone I don’t have these dreams and I feel at peace. God was sending me the warning signs that I should be careful not to get too close to him. He’s dangerous. I don’t have these dreams anymore and have never had them about anyone else. You can read articles about sexual grooming all day long but until you experience it, you don’t understand it at all. It’s not just a term for having sexual contact with a child. It’s a term that describes how someone forms a relationship with a target that they think is normal. It van happen to adults but obviously teenagers and kids will probably take longer to recognize it’s happening to them and might take longer to respond or report. It took me 6 years! I thought he was a friend, a lover, someone I could trust. For him, I was just a victim. Someone to trick. How I viewed him is not how he viewed me. But #IAMBRAVE