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October 22nd, 2019

Choose healing over silence

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Ke Mosadi gare ga Basadi (This will be the name of the foundation) Choose healing over silence “I was raped by a stranger at the age of 14. Twenty three years ago my life changed. What started off as a fun occasion turned into the biggest nightmare. Like every other...
October 7th, 2019

Drugged

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..I had gone to a concert with some friends at a smaller venue. One of my friends knew one of the guys in the band so we were kind of hanging out with the band, etc. They invited us up to the bus. I remember the tour manager handing me...
May 2nd, 2019

Abused by the boyfriend of my mom...

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Hello Linor, today I saw your story on Netflix, it made me cry and it made me relive the sexual abuse that I experienced when I was 7 years old. He was my mother’s boyfriend since I was 3 years old, years later I started to say dad because my...
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...
May 9th, 2019

To My Rapist

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You remind of my dad a little, the way you like to fly airplanes and because you like to build things. That made me feel comfortable with you, I felt safe and warm, I trusted you. I believed you would listen to me, really listen to me but you didn’t...
July 1st, 2020

My First Boyfriend

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I started dating this boy when I was 15. He talked about sex a lot but since I was still a virgin it made me really nervous and I wasn’t sure if I was ready. One day after school he came to my house. Both my parents were not home...
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....
October 6th, 2024

Lesbian After Assaults

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Hello there, my name is Marley, I am 28 years old and I am a rape survivor. Since the sexual assault, my dad has seen some profound changes in me. First of all, I was completely estranged from my mother as my mother has denied that anything even happened while...
February 16th, 2024

It was

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I was 14, this was my first real relationship. A guy I had lost my virginity too. It was a very toxic relationship with a guy my age. We both came from very rough child hoods. One evening me him and all out friends got together and drank I decided...
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...
December 9th, 2023

I was only 11

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When I was elven, I had a boyfriend he was 15. He would send me dick pics often but I just ignored them. One day we were at my house with some of my friends we played boardgames and watched some movies. After some time, I was alone with my...
March 23rd, 2021

Thought He Was A Friend

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I was raped when I was in my early 20’s by someone I thought was a friend. The night began when a group of us went out to the bars and came back to my friends house afterwards to crash. I had gotten very, very drunk and I passed out...
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😭😭...
September 13th, 2019

He was right

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I was dating this older man for about over 3 months and I was very happy with this person and we made so much happy memories in such a short time but long story short it just did not work out. He did not want to break up but I...
April 18th, 2020

Gang rape

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I have survived multiple rapes from different men through out my life. I was first raped when I was in college around 19 years old by two men much older than me. I didn’t know them exactly, they were friends of my male friend back then and one of them...
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

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...
November 2nd, 2019

Ms

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I was 21 years old. I had moved into a flat with my first boyfriend Pete and his best friend, Paul and his pregnant girlfriend Gerry. Pete and Paul were friends from being in the army together. They were both 26 years old. Paul was also my first cousin. I...
January 2nd, 2024

This could never happen to me

1
I remember when I was little like 9 or 10 I use to watch law and order svu with my grandma my fathers mom and I watched it because I was so grateful to have the family I had although I did not have a mom I was still happy...
February 13th, 2020

Start of grooming at 15

2
When I was around 11 years old my parents and I moved to a new house. It was a lovely time. A neighbour of ours who was very friendly with the rest of our neighbourhood as first was kind. People always said he was very charming. Walking home from school...
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...
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.
November 25th, 2019

Are you sure?

2
Sometimes I wish I could say “Hi, I’m the ONE. The ONLY ONE”. That would be extremely lonely, but it would make me happy to know that no one had to go through the same thing. That is not true, though. So, hello, my name is Mariana. I do not...
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...
August 6th, 2020

I regret not telling

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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...
July 18th, 2024

I was just 9.

2
All I wanted was a father figure, and you were there for me. I always thought it was weird how you would accuse me or now shower and ask to smell my privates just to know if I did, but I was just a child and I didn’t know better....
August 30th, 2021

MY Inspirational Story

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Hi my name is Faizan sheikh. I am 18 years of age and all my life I have lived with Trisomy 18. This is called Mosaic Edwards Syndrome. This is where a very small number of babies with Mosaic Edwards Syndrome about one in a hundred have only a section...
June 19th, 2022

I didn’t even know I was pregnant

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When I was thirteen I had one friend. I had a selective mutism and non-white in a very unsafe households, with a single absent mother who was debting, and I was bullied in school. I was already sexually abused every night by my biological father, and was constantly dissociated from...
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...
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...
March 22nd, 2016

Gang Rape

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Three years ago I was gang raped by three men, I was 13. It all happened when my mum was sectioned because she has bipolar and I had to live with my auntie for a while. It was just before Christmas and my auntie wanted to go to a friends...
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...
May 6th, 2022

My Ongoing Journey

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When I finally decided to switch my major to psychology and now pursue my career as a therapist, I got a lot of questions. Things like, why do you want to be a therapist? I got this from family, friends, and even strangers back in the time I served tables....
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...
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...
June 20th, 2021

Your truth will change someones’ life.

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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...
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...
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 20th, 2019

At 17yr old was raped by my...

2
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...
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...
April 27th, 2019

Everyone Else Likes You, Too

2
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...
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....
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...
February 16th, 2020

My first love

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I was 13 and we went to the same high school. I didn’t know him but we both took part in drama. He was a year and a half older and we met at a school trip to a theatre one evening. He was a ‘bad boy’ causing trouble but...
January 4th, 2021

Michelle Johnston

2
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...
January 6th, 2019

Black Girl

1
As a black child she grew up with many black women An atmosphere of mostly females and children A plether of differences yet many the same someone points the finger but no one takes the blame Attenion seaking variances of competition with the appearance of being soft For the man...
December 9th, 2023

i was a child.

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i was 6, i lived with my dad. I remember when he would get mad he would punch me, kick me, hit me over the head with any chance he got. When i was 6 he sexually assaulted me. I was sitting on the lounge and he started touching me....
September 30th, 2019

Finding Me

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I don’t really know where to begin I don’t really know if some days I belive in myself. Somedays I suppress all the feeling away that in order for me to breath in order for me to stay alive. This is the first time Im telling my story and I...
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...
June 11th, 2019

Another poem about a not so perfect...

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Poem-The blade on the shelf: Plenty of times On plenty of days She does a bad thing To take it away She gets out a blade She lifts up her wrist She sets the blade down And gives it a twist She calms down As the blood grows thick It...
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...
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,...
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

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...
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...
March 28th, 2025

My abuse story victim to survivor

1
Abused by ex-family friend and started to be put into sex trafficking but i survived
January 28th, 2021

Date Raped

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I was heavily love-bombed by a guy that I had met on facebook dating and we had mutual friends. We talked on the phone and face-timed for a week, each time he would call me baby or his forever etc. I had match with him a year prior so he...
October 9th, 2022

When My Body Wasn’t Mine.

1
I remember the times where my body wasn’t mine. When you grabbed my barely developing body forcefully. And my small body with little to no strength could not fight back. Could not take away your hands from places that were supposed to be private. Places that were supposed to be...
June 18th, 2025

Glitter Girl, Gone.

1
HE picked me up the first day in the shiniest white Toyota I’d ever seen. Hallucinating halos of light around him, I knew in my heart: this was the man I would marry. Almost 15 years older, but so handsome, so experienced. We seemed to have everything in common—intellectual passions...
August 26th, 2020

Stranger, Friend, Lawyer, and Youth Leader

3
People have accused me of being a liar and the one with whom the fault lies… repeatedly. They use statistics to give themselves a platform to shame me or to feel better about their lives, because they don’t want to face reality. The reality is that statistics are not always...
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 30th, 2020

Raped

1
I met this man online and after we went out to eat he took me back to his place and after me telling him no I didn’t want to perform any type of sex he proceeded to penetrate me until I started to bleed and he didn’t stop until I...
February 4th, 2021

Raped at the Air Force Academy

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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,...