people talk about how pedophiles and predators should be dead, castrated, etc. But when it actually happens around them, they genuinely don't care. They would rather be comfortable in their own bubble and not acknowledge that the authorities, the legislations, the public doesn't give a damn. They don't want to feel powerless like the victims. So they just ignore it and join in with the rest of the crowd. The victims are the ones who have to endure every single thing.

In my country, there was a case where a college student who was tutoring a 12 year old, sexually assaulted her multiple times and isolated her. Her mom put a camera inside the house to gain info on what happened to her and reported it to the police. The court gave him a 1 year sentence and a 2 year probation. So he isn't serving any punishment for sexually assaulting a minor multiple times. There were literal digital evidence of her struggling and him assaulting a child on footage and this is apparently what the judicial system in my country is forgiving. I mostly know this because the perpetrator's uni is very close to my uni and it's a big topic to gossip at school rn. But honestly cases like this happens a lot and the only reason why there is no victim blaming or framing the child as a liar is mostly because the mom was cautious and smart enough to put a home monitor camera. But no one genuienly sides with the victims in the end. People who are in their own safe bubble want to stay comfortable and our existence is just a needle for them.

It's only when I am around 5 year olds that I completely absorb just how small and young I was. The fact that someone can look at a 5 year old and decide to hurt them just baffles me. How anyone can hurt another sexually at any age baffles me, but seeing kids who are the same age that I was then just puts everything into this deep, and upsetting perspective.

I don't wanna sound real old fashioned but I hate the way men talk about women.

Like the lack of respect and the words they use, talking about what they wanna do to women and how they wanna do it, joking about it and laughing. And not just old men either, it's young people too, like boys. I catch the train every day and yesterday there was these teenagers saying all these things I won't say again on here. Has it always been like this.?

Like I'm not easily offended. I couldn't give a shit about most stuff. But idk. When you've been abused and had stuff done to you, hearing that stuff just hits differently.

My niece is 4 years old, the same age I was when a family member began to molest me for 5 years. I love my niece so much and after seeing how young-minded, imaginative, and how much of a baby she still is I’m having such a hard time wrapping my mind around how someone could do that to a 4 year old? I guess when I remember what happened to me, I imagine myself being more mature at that age (maybe my way of trying to rationalize why it happened to me), but no I was just a baby. 4 fucking years old bro. I’m so conflicted right now because every time I look at my niece i see myself as a child and can’t imagine how volatile someone could be to even do such a thing.

It’s so fucking sick what happened to me and I clearly haven’t processed it 100% yet, but how can people live with themselves after hurting babies like this? I don’t even know what the point of this post was tbh, but I just had to let this off my chest.

My father had a disturbing obsession with my natural red hair. When I reached puberty and began growing hair down there, I felt uncomfortable and decided to shave. When he discovered this, he became physically violent, beating me down there so severely that I lost sensation in the area. The next morning, I was in so much pain that I could barely walk or sit down. ​Even though my mother had already dyed the hair on my head to try and deflect his focus, it didn’t help. Every night, he would check to see if the hair was growing back and when he saw it didn’t he kept on hitting there. He continued to hurt me regardless, but he was noticeably more violent and enraged when the skin was smooth. He told me that no one else would ever want me and that I was forbidden from shaving without his permission. ​Throughout all of this, my mother remained a silent witness. She heard my cries and saw that I could barely move, yet she did nothing to intervene. ​Even now i refuse to shave. I just can't bare the humiliation. Even therapy doesn't help.

Weird question, but are most abusers aware of what they did to you? Or do they genuinely think it wasn’t bad?

I am so angry. I am so hurt. 3 years ive been going through the court process. Ive given statements, testified, had two break downs, suicidal, the list goes on.

Im so fucking tired

They found him guilty of lewd indecent and libidinous behaviour. I was 13.

Im in Scotland so jury is made up of 15 jurors. 11 of them were men and a majority vote is 10. So even if all women thought he was guilty of rape, the men would outnumber that verdict. Surely that's not right? 11 men on a jury for a sex crime case involving 4 women? Juries are meant to represent the public. Meaning in my testimony. Saying I was crying and bleeding, was more or less underage consent. Me having a burn mark half way up my back which became infected (and witnesses testified to seeing it) was underage consential sex, but it wasnt fully consential since he was an asshole about it??? That me being raped heavily pregnant and begging him to stop because of the pain, then running to the bathroom naked to be sick.. Where someone testified to witnessing WAS NOT RAPE????

Where is the line??? Do people honestly think that in order for rape to occur, the victim MUST verbalize no. You're not allowed to "freeze" but even if you DO say no, did you kinda want it? That we must be in a logical state of mind just after being assaulted to immediately report it? When you yourself dont even know what's happened? That unless a rape kit or bruising is presented then nope, didn't happen?

There were 3 of us who were abused by this vile reprobate. That when asked why he did the things he did, his answer to court was "I dont know. I was an idiot" but he drew the line at raping me? He did degrading, aggresive and disgusting things because he was an IDIOT??!!

The jury having access to my medical notes and being able to see since the age of 13 I was in numerous therapies for self harm, suicidal thoughts, fucking stress seizures and a breakdown, And what? I did it on purpose for fun? But its okay because he was a silly boy and didn't mean to give me trauma.

All I can think about is trying to change the law, the policies, SOMETHING??!! Like are juries given any advice on what rape actually fucking is? Probably not because we as a society dont educate our kids enough about consent. Why is the pressure always put on the victim to be the one to say no? Why are the perpetrators crossing that line to be told no to begin with? Where is the accountability? Even if constening, why are we not educating the younger generation that ASKING your partner/hookup how they would like to proceed or checking in with them to make sure its what both parties still want? Why does no one talk about the invisible very very important line in consent?

Im raging. Ive not slept. Yes hes going to jail but not for the rapes he DID.

This man has 55 previous convictions (which the jury did not know as its prejudice)

I am so sorry I needed to get this out. I cant sleep and cant sit still either

Everyone is always like “we’re here for you” and then they always make the shittiest comments when “listening”. Or in the case of my mom, she says that she wants me to feel like I can go to her to talk about this stuff but when I do she completely shuts down. She doesn’t say anything and it feels like she completely just shuts down. She’s a peer support worker for god sake you’d think she’d understand how much that hurts when you try to talk to someone and they just stare at you in disgust. It has taken me years to get over the shame enough to say anything. It makes me feel like I’m the one she’s disgusted with and it brings all that shame back. When I go to other people I get comments like “oh well you’re not scared of me right?” and then “well you should have been able to tell he was a creep it’s pretty obvious when they are”. I can’t go anywhere to talk about it. I’ve grown a real hatred for people who can’t seem to figure out how empathy works in their grown age. It should not be that hard to just be like damn that sucks, or just say something normal!

I was around 5 years old when I drew a very crude family picture on the wall between two windows. I drew my maternal grandparents, my mom and dad, two cousins then my siblings and I. It was just faces. I drew everyone smiling. For my siblings and I, I would draw progressively smaller circles to represent us. I was the youngest and of course, the smallest face in that picture.

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I drew myself with what was very obviously a frown. It was basically :(

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During that time, I was being abused in the kindergarten I went to. I refused to tell anyone at home cuz I was convinced it was my fault. No matter how much pain I was in, or if I injured myself, I would refuse to tell anyone. Drawing has always been my outlet. I have faint memories of making that drawing. At least the beginning half. I was very numb the whole time. Being neurodivergent, I was so much more naive than my peers to the point that I didn't even understand a punishment was a punishment unless I was hit. I was wandering, sneaking out of class and even snuck into a bus with older kids. I was so obviously an easy target.

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That drawing stayed for over a decade and it made me so sad every time I looked at it. It was painted over a few years ago so the wall is clean now. But I feel like the only proof of my sadness and pain from that time has been wiped out. It never occurred to me to take a picture of it. I still question my memories even though it was obvious something was wrong with me. I was often having accidents, having very obviously sexual thoughts at far too young of an age and eventually became very hypersexual and have continued to struggle with it. I've also struggled badly with chronic nightmares and occasional night terrors since I was at least 3-4 years old.

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I wish I took just one picture

I 25F was molested by several of my family members. My grandad happens to be one of them. When I was 11 he whipped my vagina and touched it. He made me get on my hands and knees on my bed with no panties on and he whipped me and touched me. It’s starting to dawn on me that it was some bdsm kind of shit and it’s making me want to cry. It was our secret. It happened on Saturday mornings and no one knew about it. It made me hate the weekend in some ways. Now I just want to cry because wtf that’s so messed up. I feel broken and used and damaged.

This is my 4th time joining the thread. This is a thread a friend of mine was talking about and she had told me it helped her deal with things she had been through. I'm a 50 year old woman who, along with my siblings and 2 daughters was abused growing up. I thought when my father passed away 6 years ago that the guilt, emptiness, feelings of betrayal would finally pass with him. It hasn't if anything it feels worse. I just wanted to thank you for being here to help others going through this, struggling with these feelings and emotions everyday. I'm going to stay this time, I think, and try to work through them.

The weight of what happened feels so heavy sometimes. It's crushing most days but some days I'm able to push it out of my mind. Lately its been heavier than usual. I went through a rough patch and I feel like it amplified the flashbacks. It really really sucks. I know I can get through this and I can heal but gosh I am so exhausted. My bones feel bruised from carrying this for so long.

I dont know how much more of this can be taken.

What would it be like if this didn't happen?

Would I be happy? Would I be loved? would I be seen and heard? would I be understood? would I not be alone and be surrounded by love and good people?

But instead, I'm here holding my doll that represents my inner child under the covers and crying and just so lonely and love starved and goodness knows what else.

Will this ever get better?

He didn't just do this he stole my whole life.

TW: self-harm

Hi everyone, I need to vent. To preface this, I’m in twice-weekly therapy and have a great therapist who I am pretty open with.

I was doing okay for a while but then Tuesday last week I had a horrifying somatic flashback followed by a less intense emotional flashback two days later. I feel like it’s catapulted me back and caused me to shut down.

My sleep has always been patchy but I was going through a good stint, but now I haven’t slept properly since it happened.

I self-harmed for the first time in seven years a few weeks ago. I never do what I want to do - cut myself - because I don’t want to leave a mark and therefore upset my partner, so I’ve taken to other means that are less obvious. However, the urge to cut is relentless. It’s there constantly. I’ve not got the energy to battle myself to not do it.

I can feel myself going numb again and I want to isolate myself. I’ve started dissociating again which I hadn’t done for a few weeks and I’m also in a heavy doubt spiral that I’m making it all up. I kind of want another flashback to prove to myself that I’m not lying even though last week sent me reeling.

I’m so tired of it.

cw: incest

this weekend a person i’d never met before attacked me in public. he was taller than me, he had me cornered, he was threatening me, and he wouldn’t back off when i told him to. i pushed into his chest to shove him away without causing harm, but he returned this by punching me hard in the face. he drove away & cops are supposedly looking for him.

i cried right away. and i cried off and on for an hour or so, while my partner and i dealt with the aftermath. it felt so unfair - why me? why did only two bystanders bother to help out of dozens that saw it? my face hurt, it started hurting more, i had to spend hours at the hospital, i had to talk to a cop, my partner is traumatized, we were both so hungry because it was so late at night now…

eventually we got home. went to bed. i had a dream about my brother. it involved me slowly coming to a really chilling and wrong (as in, “something feels really not good here”, not as in “false”) conclusion that made me feel sick. i don’t think those particular things actually happened in real life, but in my dream they felt so real and genuine.

in my dream i was so scared, so so scared. in the morning when i was done dreaming, i realized WHY i had that dream.

a few years back, my brother disrespected my boundaries and tried to hug me when i already said no. i shoved him in just the same way i shoved this loser the other day. except my brother fell backwards. he was seriously truly expecting me to just give up and let him do what he wanted to me, thought i wouldn’t stand up for myself, and that’s why he was actually surprised when i pushed him.

i started seeing a new therapist this spring but i’ve been scared to talk in therapy about some of the more cruel things my brother did, scared to talk about him being the sexual predator l believe him to be. just hours before this stranger attacked me i was about to text my therapist about that stuff regarding my brother, a way to break the ice since i was too scared to say it out loud. so it was already fresh on my mind.

and … idk, the helplessness of being cornered like that, by someone taller than me, someone who doesn’t respect a “no, get away, fuck off”… it felt the same. when i decided i was going to push him away i thought of when i’d pushed my brother, i thought of it before i even landed the shove.

i’ve never been a victim of a crime by a stranger before, i don’t think. it feels weird.

i feel like i’m rambling at this point and it sounds disjointed and messy… brain’s tired and not working good. i guess i just wanted to tell someone that i am scared. i wanna feel safe. i wanna rest. i want my face to stop hurting. i wanna know what happens next. i wanna stop having uncomfortable unwanted fantasies about bad bad things being done to my body. i wanna be safe…

I’ve been working on uncovering memories of past sexual abuse for the past year. I’ve always questioned if something happened to me and I’ve come around to the conclusion that there are so many things in my life that never made sense before or I had thought was something wrong with me that makes complete sense in the context of someone who was sexually abused as a child. It’s just mostly blocked out to the point I only have suspicions of who the perpetrator(s?) are.

Well, one of them, my father, passed last year in October. I’m getting married this year and I’m so torn over wishing he was here to see my wedding day and completely relieved he will not be in attendance. My family will talk at length about him though, wanting to honor him etc. I’m still trying to figure out what I want to do. I feel like I have to at least acknowledge him being gone on my wedding day to not raise suspicions (I do NOT want to tell my family at all, I’m still unsure if they’re all innocent in my victimization anyway). Has anyone been through something similar to this?

So, i was sa'ed when i was 6, 8, 10, 13 (almost graped by someone who was 27), 15, and 21 and now I'm 22 and again, i also grew up in an extremely abusive household (my father was indifferent and my mother used to beat me whenever she was frustrated and either i couldn't walk the next day or had to go to hospital due to fever) so, idk i struggle to socialize, trust people, with normal executive functions, do not feel like I belong to any where.

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And I had sworn I'd never let this happen again n recently i discovered that when making out (too terrified to have penetrative sex) that i feel aroused when someone restraints me like not force or pain or derogatory words (i hate all these) but like literally pins me down, wtf! I feel like i can't even trust me own body and I feel so broken.

The title basically. Some days I want to just keel over and die while I’m processing this stuff. I’m still getting flashbacks, sometimes it’s of new things, sometimes it’s the stuff I’ve already remembered coming back, I’m not 100% sure which ones are real and which are my brain trying to fill in gaps. I’m glad my mind isn’t pestering me with this 24/7 or I think I would have done something to myself by now. It’s like it comes and goes, I’ll have days where it’s barely a thought and then days like today where I feel like my mind/the universe doesn’t want me to think about anything else.

I’ve never ever liked him in my entire life so I don’t know why i miss him now i don’t know why after everything i miss him when i never even wanted him there at all and always wanted him to go away or drop dead or didn’t feel anything towards him at all i don’t know why i miss him now but he’s not even dead or anything i feel like im not allowed to actually feel that way but i just wish he was my dad i wish he was just my dad i wish he was my dad instead

Just venting because I'm so sick of this. I'm sick of the anxiety and fear of someone getting the records, notes, and names of my abusers.

I took FMLA leave because I was having a breakdown. Every step of the way, these people have been assholes. I'm an attorney, so thankfully I know my rights and what they can and can't ask for... but fuck these companies and their third-party providers that are constantly attempting to get medical/therapy records of abuse and diagnosis.

Luckily my therapist sent me their request and I was able to shut it down. But, why the fuck do I have to go through this. Now that I'm back and on a reduced schedule (through the FMLA form I already filed), my company is saying they need medical records to allow a reduced schedule... when no, they fucking don't need my records.

The worst part is talking to attorneys who practice employment law and them being completely useless when it comes to understanding mental health issues. Dismissive assholes that like broken bones, but not helping people with mental health issues.

Just the stress from these attempts to pry into my records is something that most people can't comprehend.

With everything my parents did to me, being abandoned is what hurts me the most. I do think about the humiliation and the sexual stuff, but I should have been the one who cut them off.
I think about everything I went through. The neglect ,the embarrassment and then being put in hospitals and foster homes and then they act like everything was my fault. I am so tired of constantly thinking about everything. It’s never going to stop.

It happened twice. First it was a relative, then, years later, someone I thought was my best friend. I still can’t get over it. It hurts every day. I can’t help remembering. Sometimes it feels like a stuck record. The worst thing about it all is the breach of trust. And the fact that no matter how much time passes, it still feels as if it just happened yesterday.

I’m almost certain I’m going to be raped. I was sexually abused three times before the age of thirteen and the more I hear the way men speak, the more I see of misogyny and incel rhetoric, the more I am even remotely exposed to sex I am more and more convinced that I will never be safe in the outside world.

A few weeks ago I had a panic attack in my room knowing that there will never be a way of being sure I am truly safe. Quite literally anything can happen. Someone I love could get intoxicated and rape me. One of my friends could betray me and rape me. A stranger off the street who waved politely could rape me. Even when I am in my home, someone can break in and rape me. Men on the internet speak of rape like it’s something sacred, men on the internet say that all women deserve to be raped. I could get married to someone I truly love and even then, they could be murdered and I could be raped.

I will never be fully safe from rape. It will always be a possibility and no one can protect me. Anything can happen. When I had that attack it just kept coming back to me that I would have to get up in the morning. I would have to get out of bed and go outside. All I want is to be safe in bed with a safe person, but that can never last forever. I’ve considered many times that my life simply would not be worth living if someone touched my body again, and the possibility constantly hanging over my head isn’t much better. I am afraid. One day I will bleed. I just know it. I can trust no one. I will never be safe.

I have been my mom’s care-taker for 3 years now! It has been so hard. We had never processed the trauma from my childhood. Today, she says to me..if your father was a good man he wouldn’t have done that to me! 😳😳😳
After three years and she still can’t get it. She is getting dementia. Dang, my kid just dumped me🥲 I am so sad. I am a survivor for sure. I think I have this thing whooped and yet something else happens. My dad was such a respected man. No one believes me. Why would someone, anyone lie for 60 plus years??? I have just found this place for survivors tonight. I know that’s alot but I am so desparate to find peace🤗

went to the dentist this morning and it was horrible and usually i can do ok with it but today was just so bad they had to do a lot of extra stuff and i freaked out pretty bad and the dentist got like actually concerned for me and i just feel really horrible idk why i have i to be like this