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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 7th, 2019

Too much trauma

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I applaud your mission and vision. Watching Brave Miss World was very cathartic. I had a very tough childhood, enduring physical abuse from a stepfather. When I was 11, I was molested by a male cousin. At 19, I was raped and sodomized by my boyfriend at the time who...
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...
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...
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...
June 18th, 2020

Feeling lonely and isolated

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I was 11/12 when a friend of my parents raped me for the first time. We were on a vacation together. After that it continued until I was 14. I didn’t dare to tell anyone because I thought no one would believe me because it seemed everyone liked him. I...
September 1st, 2019

My fiancé is my rapist but I...

4
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 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...
March 18th, 2015

The Stepmonster

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I was only eight when it originally started. My stepdad would touch me in my crotch and chest area. He would only do it with my mom at work. He would even do it in front of my little sister, but he never did it in front of his son....
October 15th, 2022

Male dancer

1
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 4th, 2016

Rape??

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There is a LOT to this story so I will be cutting out a lot of detail in order to make this shorter. This takes place in 2004 when I was 5 years old. I lived with my Mom, Dad and little sister. My parents were having marriage problems so...
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...
August 26th, 2019

Family members ex husband

2
I was 5 years old going through heart surgery when he would come home late from work drunk, or high or his normal scary self and he would come into my room and put his hands down my pants and feel my butt I would act like I couldn’t feel...
May 31st, 2023

I loved my job

1
We were on a work conference. I was sleeping. You climbed onto me and touched me. I woke up as soon as your hands touched my bare skin, my pyjamas pushed out of the way. Your girlfriend’s necklace – I had mentioned the night before to deflect your advances, it...
March 25th, 2022

Marital Rape

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My husband raped me through the night of February 7th 2020. I was unconscious due to prescription medication taken after being in a car accident two months prior. Police arrested my husband. He posted 25k bail and got out the very next day. Bruises on my stomach and my hips....
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...
November 27th, 2021

I was 5.

1
Both of my parents worked full-time. On some days during weekdays, they used to send me and my siblings under the care of our neighbour. The lady was a single mother living with her children. My paternal grandmother and all of my uncle and aunts know her. One of her...
July 17th, 2019

Boyfriend Forcefully Sodomized Me

1
I had been with my (still current) boyfriend for about a year the night that it happened. We had been staying out of town in the mountains, having a great time. That night, we had a few drinks at a bar across the street from the hotel we were staying...
July 26th, 2019

Those 8 hours

3
Those Eight Hours Eight hours of that day cost me everything and resulted in a life sentence my five-year-old brain was, at that time, too small to comprehend, so those eight hours, like the monster in the closet, hid from me, for decades, showing only an unexplained unease with myself...
May 20th, 2019

Lied to left brain damged

3
I was completely lied to and mislead . Can you can you believe a hospital would keep the fact that you were raped because of a negligence they caused my arm by putting a catheter in me. You see back in 2014 A co-worker male asked me to go out...
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...
December 10th, 2019

Raped by stranger x2

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In my 2nd rape when I was 20 yrs old, I went into shock during and after the assault. Afterwards, my body shook for hours, but I tried to act normal in front of people. I felt like I was dreaming – everything and everyone seemed unreal. But, I also...
July 16th, 2020

Mental Breakdown

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My life’s a mess at 19, but I don’t like complaining to people (friends + family) because I don’t want to burden someone else with my problems, and to be honest nobody really cares like that, I don’t want to project myself as this ‘weak abused girl’ so later on...
May 24th, 2019

The Statistics that Changed Me

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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...
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...
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...
September 8th, 2021

Raped by ex boyfriend

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This is really hard hard for me because I haven’t really explained this to anyone but here I go. I was raped by a guy I knew when I was 14. I don’t remember much because we drank a lot one day and I only remember getting dropped off home....
September 15th, 2019

Online Dangers

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I had an online friend named Brandon, and he was shockingly nice. I was around 14 at the time. We decided to meet up because he was the town over and i could walk there. So I walked to his house and we got to know eachother. At one point,...
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...
March 5th, 2024

My step dad raped me

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I would have never imagined the person who I praised and idolised could have ever hurt me this much. An individual who I adored more than I could have anyone. A parent is a person whose sole purpose is to provide, care for and show love to their child. A...
August 10th, 2014

Halloween Nightmare

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I was raped at the age of 22 while in college. It was my senior year and all I was looking forward to was running well and making the grades in school. I was on the varsity cross country and track team for my university and when October came it...
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...
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...
March 29th, 2015

Rape

2
When I was 14 (1 year ago) me and my friends had agreed to go to a party on a Friday night. About a week before the party someone mad an Instagram account and started saying mean things to us like “I’m gonna rape you” and “go die” then the...
September 22nd, 2020

My mom’s boyfriend assaulted me and my...

1
I was assaulted multiple times ! I was assaulted by my mom’s boyfriend when I was 13. My parents got divorced then my mom and her boyfriend found an apartment with just one bedroom so the 3 of us had to sleep together. At night when my mom would fall...
September 19th, 2019

It had to be my fault.

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I didn’t know him very well. He worked with a family member. I’d seen him around for gatherings every now and then. He was always nice enough to me. I was sitting on the couch listening to the TV but I was more occupied looking at art. He came by...
May 1st, 2019

I don’t know if I was raped

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One night my boyfriend of three years was out with some friends drinking. When he came back home I was already laying in bed. We got into a little altercation and I could smell the alcohol on his breath. He was always a big drinker and I never liked that...
June 26th, 2020

Was almost raped and no one did...

1
When i was 11 me my mom and sister were in a bad situation. we didn’t have anywhere to live because we had lost our house. this was normal for us sadly because my mom is a single disabled mother of 5. while our other siblings had places they went...
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...
December 22nd, 2015

Is There Still Hope

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I was 9 or 10 when it happen it’s pretty sad because I don’t remember much. I was at my best friend’s house and we were playing with her brother downstairs in his room. So we ended up sleeping down there and I woke up to him raping me. I...
May 31st, 2019

I Recorded my Rapist

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I was gang raped almost 30 years ago by my ex boyfriend and at least 3 of his friends, 2 of which I never spoke to. I never spoke of what they did to me until the Supreme Court event, which more than triggered something inside me. I had been...
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...
May 19th, 2019

I Wanted to See the Aquarium

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The first person that ever saw my bare chest was Jimmy. We were both 12 at the time. It started off as playful kissing and after saying no a few times, he forced my shirt up so he could see my chest. I laughed and ran away. Jimmy was the...
December 26th, 2020

I don’t know what to do

2
Today I was hanging with my brother’s friend at my house and he held me down and tried to have sex with me. I repeatedly said no. I pushed his hands away but he held me down. He asked once more, i said no, he said he wants to take...
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...
January 27th, 2024

Blamed myself …

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I got raped multiple times. I got sexually assaulted multiple times. I blamed myself. I saved a lot of women from being raped even men and when I was being sa and raped. no one saved me till today. I go outside and see the people who did it to...
June 28th, 2021

Boy scout of america

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No one ever told me what to expect once I finally said something that I remembered from over 50 yrs ago. talking about it could bring on some emotion that would possibly need a professional counselor or psychologist to help me with emotion .I didn’t think I needed help with...
January 2nd, 2022

I am a Survivor

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I didn’t want to be a survivor once I realized what happened. Hell, I still don’t want to be a survivor. I was seven years old when I first got raped, when something first happened to me. I didn’t understand, I was so scared. It happened by my aunt’s husband....
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...
October 22nd, 2020

My Life Destroyed in 5 Minutes

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I have been trying to write this out for a long time Let me first introduce myself and my community My name is Rachel and I live in a very strict austere religious community We go to separate genders schools from the age of 3 We aren’t allowed to touch...
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😭😭...
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...
August 6th, 2020

I regret not telling

1
When I was in high school, I dated someone briefly. He never told anyone about me to his family or friends. I ended things after a month or two, because he was really into kissing and wanted to do more than that. I didn’t want that though as I was...
November 4th, 2019

I don’t know anymore

3
My high school ends at 10th grade. So you basically start college at 16. As for me, I decided to go abroad and come to the US for college so definitely the rest of the college students were all older than me. I didn’t really fit in. Then one day,...
August 29th, 2020

Why you should talk to your daughters...

2
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...
December 9th, 2023

Raped by my boyfriend

1
It was a cold night in 2019 I was at a party while on FaceTime arguing with my on again off again boyfriend of 3 years I was at the party and told my friend I wanted to leave. I was not feeling well she said ok. Little did I...
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...
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...
February 8th, 2021

Sexually abused by my step brothers

2
I have lesbian parents. My mum and dad were never together and me and my mum lived alone until I was 3, she met a lady, who is now my step mum, and they got engaged and we moved in when I was 6. She had 2 sons, one aged...
July 25th, 2023

Older

1
When I was 16, I was introduced to a 24 year old retired marine who has had a very difficult life. We became friends first and I wanted to help him through his breakup and fix his depression. We then started dating. A few months into the relationship, after I...
December 17th, 2019

dad and mom rape

2
PLAYED BASEBALL FOR 3 YEARS IN FRONT OF MY HOUSE WITH MY SON, AND THIS 6TH GRADE GIRL NAMED SAM ,WAS TRYING OUT FOR THE BASEBALL TEAM AT SCHOOL .SHE LIVED 4 DOORS DOWN FROM ME .SHE STARTED TO PLAY WITH US AND GET TO KNOW REAL WELL. ONE DAY...
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...
February 4th, 2021

Raped at the Air Force Academy

2
In 2002 I was appointed to the Air Force Academy Preparatory School in Colorado Springs, CO. The prep school was a sort of booster school for people who wanted to be at the Academy but fell short of their appointment. It could have been due to grades, SAT/ACT scores, athletics,...
April 28th, 2021

Around 9 PM

1
It was around 9 PM I was walking home from baseball practice on the side walk (Next to the woods), the way how I normally walked home, when a medium sized rock hit me in the head. I fell to the ground. And then I felt someone dragging me into...