quote:

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Originally posted by Miz Scarlet:
Have you been the victim of sexual abuse or rape? If you have, perhaps you need some support. Even if that incident is long past, many of us who are survivors have issues that stay with us that can be really hard to work through.

Talk about them here, leand a hand for someone who needs on, or offer suggestions to heal and keep growing.

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(Continued from Abuse and Rape Survivors)

i believe i was raped by a friend of mine. saturday i went to his apartment where we started to drink. i drank too much and ended up going into his room to go to sleep. i woke up and he's trying to have sex with me. i distinctly remember telling him no...but he kept going anyway.

i started screaming and crying and he still wouldnt stop. that image will be burned into my mind forever. i know it was wrong of me to drink..and to go to his apartment, considering i have a boyfriend.

i never intended on him making any sexual advances towards me. i never intended for any of this to happen, but still, i partially blame myself.

i know this only happened on saturday, but i feel like i cant get these images of him on top of me, rolling me over, and raping me out of my head. he didnt use protection...and kept shoving himself into me when there was no lubrication at all. ive called several crisis hotlines..but i am too scared to tell my dad, or my boyfriend. ive gotten checked out and nothing is wrong with me physically besides some bruises, and him tearing me. its just...i feel like throwing up all the time now because i feel so disgusted.

and i cant tell anyone i know because i dont want anyone to find out what happened. i know this sounds cliche' but i feel so ashamed of myself.

What happened to you was clearly rape and you are not to blame. Going to a friend's apartment is not a crime, and doesn't in any way make you responsible for what happened; nor does getting drunk.

I've had substantial flashbacks, memories, dreams, etc of being abused by my grandfather. But that's it. I can't tell you "On suchandsuch date, thisandthat happened."
What I mostly have are...emotions. Being scared, in pain, screaming. I have a really strong memory of screaming and coughing blood.
I've always been afraid of guys, and with my last boyfriend I was freaky about him touching me, but I got over it.
I thought I was pretty sure that it did happen, but one of my friends who as assaulted got on my case about making up stuff, and that I wouldn't have "vague memories". But what I DO remember is most certainly not vague!!

Help...?

plus, not only am i very shy and a bit scared of guys, sometimes when my boyfriend touches me a certain way, it makes me feel really uncomfortable. true, now that we've been together for a year a lot of those things dont bug me anymore, certain things irritate me and make me have these little flashbacks.

how can i remember or find out if anything really happened or if im just imagining it?

i've always had a very unhealthy attitude towards sex and general sexuality... i developed early, and was really horribley sexually harrassed starting from a very young age, and even got felt up and groped a couple of times by older men in crowded public places (just how screwed up is our society anyway??)... i was completely petrified at even the thought of someone finding me sexually attractive, much less at the thought of them touching me, and i avoided any situation where i might even be kissed by someone until i was 15 and very drunk at a party... then the next schoolyear i did date a boy for a couple of months, but was so scared of doing anything beyond kissing him that i would go to great lengths to avoid being alone with him, and the one time i was i insisted that i needed to keep on my huge winter coat inside of his well-heated house. eventually i just had to break up with him because i was too repulsed by the idea of sexual contact.

i did not date or kiss another guy until the summer (i was 16), when after a strangely surreal series of events i ended up dating a 25 year old man... who was an amazing person, he really was.... and i did the same thing with him, avoiding situations, but then he was leaving the country and ended up pressuring me into going much much further with him the last day i saw him, even tho i didn't want to... the entire time he was begging me to have sex with him and was saying extremely vulgar and explicit things... i was on the brink of tears, and i did make it very clear that i did not want to be doing any of it, but i still never actually said the word 'no', and so i never thought of it as any kind of assault or abuse, despite the subsequent feelings of disgust and shame. i didn't see him or speak to him again for two years, but i couldn't forget about him and what happened.

after another really negative, pressured, sexual experience (this time when i was very very drunk and the boy was stone cold sober), i completely shut off sexually, and it was not until the next summer when i met the boy who seriously is my saving grace that i could at all be touched again. but even with him, things at times were scary for me and i still felt really dirty a lot of the time, and never told him about any of this.

when i did see the older guy again, just this past march, i made a series of really really stupid decisions in one night. he had a party at his house, i got really drunk, he convinced me to sit on his bed and tell him a bedtime story, and i did, and then we ended up making out (i was under-the-influence and he is very charming), but when i realized what was going on i asked him to stop, but he wouldn't, and he was moving his hands all over my body and was touching me and was very rough with me (i had a couple of bruises the next day) and actually pinned me down on the bed. the whole time i was asking to stop and saying no, and he was actually laughing at me and saying all kinds of really disgusting things. finally, when i got sufficiently scared because i realized i couldn't move my arms, he had them pinned down, i started shouting, at which point he actually stopped and pushed me off of the bed really really hard and started swearing at me and saying it was all my fault. i feel really stupid for having trusted him a second time, for having let him hurt me again... and maybe that is why it was so difficult for me to really admit to myself what had happened. i still haven't confronted him, and now that he is gone again i don't have that opportunity. even if he was still around, i'm ashamed to say it, but i know i would probably still hang out with him and he would probably try to do it again... but he's one of the best friends i've ever had and despite all of the negative things he contributed to my life, i still owe a good portion of who i am to him. maybe that's another reason why i feel so guilty about the whole thing.

now i am planning to go visit my kind-of-boyfriend (the one from the other summer) who lives in california soon. this second 'event' (i don't really know what to call it.... i know it was attempted rape) happened after the last time i saw him and i never told him about it, but i know i need to because since then i've even stopped hanging out with a bunch of my really close friends just because they're guys and i felt nervous and uncomfortable. i want to be over this, i want to be able to be ok because i recognize the problem, and i'm much better than i was a couple months ago (crying pretty much everyday, having nightmares all the time, really not being able to be touched by ANYBODY) but i still get horrible pangs of depression and anxiety over this at least a few days a week, and recently i have had a couple of nightmares again... i kind of talked to a couple of people about it, but only in the most vague terms, and it hasn't really seemed to help... i guess i should seek counseling, but in the meantime i'm trying to find a way to bring this up with my boyfriend... i don't want to get to california and suddenly get scared when we're kissing and freak out or something.... i'm really worried about this.... and i know he needs to know but i also don't want his perception of me to change, as it was a series of stupid decisions that led me to that point... i know he loves me, but i'm still scared, and i trust him but it's still so hard to even just broach the subject. please help!! i just want to not feel so dirty all the time and for everything to be ok, because it never really has been.

**sorry this post is so long -- i've just had so much to get off my chest.... thank you so much for this forum!

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Milke, with an L, Mrs BD to you, RATS, TMNTP, MF, CWCD, WAOTA

"...I'm so very sorry about what's happened to all of you, i just want to kill all the people who took advantage of you.

p.s. For my sake, please:
Don't go outside late by yourself.
Don't get drunk with a lot of guys, whether or not you know them.
Don't get into a stranger's car.
You can say it's a matter of freedom, but i'm free to walk into a minefield if i want. Take self-defense...it doesn't make you violent (that's up to you). The worst thing that learning to hurt people has done to me is make me feel powerless when thinking about how to track down the abusers of several women strong enough to share their experiences."

If you want to talk things through, i strongly suggest you find a qualified counselor who can handle difficult topics like rape and abuse. your school guidance counselor should be able to provide you with a referral to a good therapist. that way, you can work through your past hurt and problems with someone who really can give you the help you need.

good luck with that. and for further info, you may wanna check out Crisis Resources

He grabbed me and said plz I want to really bad. Mentally I wanted to too but …but not physically. It was weird to me. So I said I guess going with my mind and not my body. So we started to kiss and fondle or what I like to call touchy feely. (Lol) We started to take off our clothes but I didn’t all the way. (Leaving on my skirt, panties, and bra) I said no can’t do it. Well the he grabbed me again and started to touch me and he said why It might be good for US that word US how is it going to be good for US if I didn’t want it??? Well then he grabbed me and laid me on the long couch where we were sitting. And took off my panties lifted up my skirt and forced it in me…with out protection and I tried hitting him and telling him to stop but it was like hitting and talking to a brick wall…he juss wouldn’t stop…Then he did stop and literally put me in a different position so I couldn’t hit him. It hurt so bad I started to bleed…a lot … and I cried cried cried while he did it and I even screamed so my neighbors could here but it didn’t help not one little bit. And he kept on going and I got to hit him once in the position I was in…
Then this is when it really started to happen. He covered my mouth and told me to shut the F*** up…and bit his hand so he let go… I got one of my hands free so I tried to hit him again but I couldn’t. He grabbed my hand and kept going … and I yelled and screamed some more but the more I screamed the harder he put it in me. So I stopped screaming. Then I stopped feeling it all together. He came twice while he was in me.

After he was done…I hate the way that sounds…He told me he loved me, he was sorry he had to do it, kissed me and left…so about five minutes later. Got up ran to my bathroom and took a bath. I got all the dirt and blood off but I was still dirty inside. So I after I washed I tried to get the bloodstain off the couch but. I couldn’t…so I cried for like 3 hours off and on. He keeps calling me and say I'm sorry and why he did it and all this stuff…even after I broke up with him BUT for some reasons I don’t want to let him go… we have been going out since 4th or 5th grade and that was like 7 or 6 years ago he have been off and on… and there no signs he has cheated…and I love him. I think that’s why I don’t want and can’t let him go in my mind anyways…but after what happened I juss don’t know…and I was wondering about it…

This happened awhile ago this month

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Puerto Rican O.o o.O always spaced out 0.o o.0 Puerto Rican Donde esta corazon??

Even CONSIDERING staying with them in ANY capacity is self-destructive, dangerous and beyond unhealthy.

I don't think i have ever posted on this message board and I think i should have....

I have a VERY important question....

What is RAPE? Like, what counts as rape and what doesn't? Does rape include oral sex acts?

I think i am loosing my mind here and I really need help.

I am a rape victim and I am working through some things.

But, uh, I am really REALLY in need of some help. I have a burning question!

What is RAPE? like, what acts qualify as rape? what counts and what does not? where is the line? Is oral sex counted as possible RAPE? Define Rape.

I was molested by my father when I was in pre-school. What kind of screwed up person would do that to their daughter?! I didn't know what molestation was, but I knew I was scared to death of my father, and how he looked, how he touched me, and the things he would say to me. The most vivid memory of being scared is seeing my father come towards me with that face he always had...that horrible face... and I screamed and slammed the door before he got to my room.

And my mother asked me what was the matter. I can't believe her! She would be there, sitting right next to me on my parents bed while he touched me. When he would make me lie down next to him at night so he could touch me. She wouldn't do anything! She would tell me he was "a very affectionate father, and he doesn't do it with bad intentions".
Another memory. Of course, when you're little and uneducated about the subject, you don't know anything about the opposite sex's anatomy. Once, I touched my father's penis without knowing what that would do... he told me "don't touch me there", but didn't do anything to stop me. He didn't move me. He didn't do anything when I did it again. It was my mother who told me to stop when she found us...that is so sick now that I think of it...

I never used to have flash backs because I never really understood what was happening, mostly because of my mother. She would never let me say it was molestation. She told me that wasn't true. But then I asked her, later on in life, what was it?! He touched me in private places without my consent and I was scared of him. What does that sound like to you?! I'm sure a normal father doesn't go around feeling their 4 year old daughter's breasts because he's "affectionate", or her vulva because he "wants to see how she's developing" when he's not even a doctor... Sometimes I would be taking a shower and he would open the shower door just to look at me. When I had had enough of it all, I told him to stop...and he said "why do you want me to stop?! You're such a little bitch, what do you want, for me to hit you?! You should consider yourself lucky you have a father that cares about you so much". He never even noticed I was uncomfortable with it! He stopped looking at me when I was naked when I got my first period, and he said he noticed because "I never cared if he saw me naked before that night". When I told him I always did, he said "oh, yea right".

I told my school counsellor about it once, and she immediately said it was molestation and called my mother in. My mother said that that was not the case, again, that he was just very lovy dovy. And she told me never to tell anyone about it again because "they might get the wrong idea"... I've only ever told one other person about it because she's gone through the same thing with her grandfather. I can't even have a good cry about it when I'm alone because my mother will hear and rush in and ask me what's wrong... I feel so trapped.

My mother is so submissive... the things she would let happen so my father wouldn't get mad! When I was a baby, she would consent to having sex with him when he was wasted because if she didn't, he would wake me up with his yelling. She was practically raped.

He stopped touching me when I was around 7, but for the longest time, I couldn't bear to be touched by anyone. Not even myself. I never even masturbated before my boyfriend came along and calmed me down. I still can't stand to be touched by my father. For a while, when I was 9 or so, I didn't feel I even smiled naturally. Maybe it was all becuase of that and the constant flow of insulsts I would get. We don't live with him anymore as of last march... but memories of him still affect me as if they happened yesterday.

Last year, my boyfriend and I had been together two months... we had had sex a few times, and I had been pretty permissive of him as far as indulging his tastes. He was always a little high-strung, but he'd never been violent before. He asked me if he could come in me without a condom, and I said no way. He flipped out, got really angry... I felt so low for it at the time, even if I knew I was right, and I tried to talk him down, tried to make him happy with me again. He just got more and more angry with me until he pushed me against the wall and hit me. I blacked out and when I woke up, he was stripping me. I tried to scream or fight back or get up, but the back of my head was bleeding from where it hit the wall and every time I moved my head I came close to blacking out again, so I didn't get very far. He raped me and I'll never forget the feeling of being basically torn open because he didn't use lube or anything while I just lay there totally unable to do anything to stop him, just totally impotent. After he came, he zipped up and put me in his bedroom. He told me I was gonna stay there until I could walk and then I'd better get out and forget what happened and not tell anyone or I'd really get it. Then he just left. I don't really know how long I was in there because I kept on losing consciousness, but it was a good twelve hours at least. When I really fully woke up, he was actually asleep next to me and I almost passed out again on seeing him. I stumbled downstairs to a friend's apartment that I had the key to, but she was away for the week and I was too scared and hurt and confused to go out again so I crawled into her bed and fell asleep again. By the next day, I kept awake long enough to call an ambulance. I had a serious concussion and a broken nose. I was given Plan B, but by now it was almost 48 hours after the rape and I was apparently ovulating at the time... I found out a few weeks later that I was pregnant, and I ended up getting an abortion, one of the hardest things I've ever had to do. I'm strongly pro-choice, but the abortion was still a traumatic thing for me, but I don't feel like I had much of a choice. I was 16 at the time, without even a driver's liscence.

We had been firm friends until about four months ago.
Just over seven months before my friend admitted he had sexual feelings for me and often fantasised about me. I was quite uncomfortable with this, and politely told him that it was flattering but I didn't feel the same. A few months passed and we kind of drifted apart, I think he hoped me to return his feelings and was a little embarrassed when I didn't, I admit I was uncomfortable as I felt our friendship had changed...I missed him, but I missed the past more.

I went to a party in a group of him and friends and really let my hair down having a few drinks, I thought about the fantastic evening before settling down in a spare bed upstairs I was allowed to crash in.

I dozily woke up as I felt someone climb under the covers, but quickly drifted off when I realised it was my male friend. I didn't think anything of it as I trusted him and we had shared beds in the past, he was my friend and I was comfortable with him. I admit the alcohol clouded me a little.

A little while later I woke up with a shot, only to find my hand was in my friend's boxers and his fingers were inside me. I jerked back in shock and he quickly withdrew his hand from my panties. I stared at him in shock and horror as he calmly left the room..his head down...avoiding eye contact.

I just sat there crying until I fell asleep again.

We haven't spoken since and I've been ashamed to tell anyone. My friends all ask why I don't see him anymore as we were so close...but I just tell them we drifted apart. Its been left too long to speak out, and I know that if I tell anyone then the police will get involved...I think it will just be a case of the drunk girl got felt up and regretted it so she tried to pass it off as rape.

The incident has never affected my sexual experiences and I don't feel traumatised, just angry. I wish I had been more careful, but I don't blame myself. I will just be more careful in future. But I believe I'm stronger.

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Yesterday is history
Tomorrow is mystery
Today is a gift

*^_AsHLeY_^*

Your interest made me feel better, really . Just to update, I told my psychologist about it. She said she already expected me to say something like this. She asked my permission to tell my mother, and I granted it. She told her, and now I can finally cry at home. I feel somewhat better now. Although she's still a little off, if she sees me crying she still asks me "why are you crying?" and I said "the same thing as always", and she answered "what's that?". She said she never noticed that my father molested me...even if she was right there next to me. I don't know whether to believe her, I find it really hard to believe that she didn't notice... Then again, she was doing pot at the time, her mind wasn't as keen as it could have been. She started crying like I've never seen her cry in my life. But I think its better this way, because I know that if I didn't get this out, I would end up resenting my mother just as much as I resent my father.

Speak of the devil, I told my mother that I don't want to see him again, at least not for the time being. I'm not strong enough to face him yet. She said she'd take care of it, but I'm really nervous. What if he throws a fit and makes my life more miserable? Then again, like my boyfriend said, "he can throw whatever tantrums he likes and park himself in front of your house for hours, but that's what doors and the police are for." I told my boyfriend too, because it was begining to affect us. I was getting flashbacks at random moments, crying at any moment, and he couldn't even touch me anymore without me getting a bad reaction. I felt he had the right to know. I told him, and he almost started crying with me, and said he didn't "just want to kill him". And I, as harsh as it sounds, didn't protest to that. Of course, we're not going to murder him, though sometimes we feel like it. Hopefully, with the counselling and my boyfriend's support, I'll get better.

It happened when I was 7 or 8, I'm not sure which. We always played with the young boy next door. His family was involved in very curious things, like randomly lugging in expensive steros into their house and torturing their animals. The boy had a crippled father who didn't speak English, but would sit on a stool and watch all of us play. He would often smile and hold out a new batch of kittens in a box, which I'd delight in and pet.

It happened one day that my dad had us send some leftovers from a barbecue to these neighbors.. I don't know, it's hard to remember what happened before the fact. My two sisters had gone inside their house to take it in, while I stooped over near the open garage to pet one of the cats. Then I saw out of the corner of my eye the boy's father, who limped on his crutches to a corner and said in broken english that the kittens were finally old enough to come out of the box, and to come see.

I stepped into the garage, searching for the box, but looked inside and saw nothing. Just then, the man forced me against the wooden shelf, throwing aside his crutches. He seemed to stand and walk alright without them at that moment. He reached his hand underneath my shirt and squeezed my newly developing breasts, so forcefully that I cried out and tried to flinch away. He shoved me again against the shelf and kissed me. He stank of tequila and cheap cologne.. it was disgusting and terrifying beyond words. He reached into my shorts and caressed my private area, and looked at me. I avoid his gaze.. I was so confused and scared, I had no idea what he was doing to me and why. All I remember was feeling so scared. So scared that I.. and I don't know why.. sort of tried to smile and pretend I liked it for some reason, as if not to make him angry and want to hurt me worse. He tinkered with his belt, and I took the opportunity to knock him over, and I ran to my house crying and shaking like I never had before.

I got inside and my dad was the only one home, and he immediately knew something was terribly wrong. He shook me and demanded to know what happened, but I didn't even know what HAD happened. Barely able to speak, I told him that the boy's father had squeezed my chest and kissed me. Even more confusing, the hurt, devestated look on my father's face turned to fury. He took off his belt and hit my bottom with it, yelling "Who told you you could go into the house without permission?!"

He quickly apologized after the incident, but the damage was already done. He made me come back outside with him, and went to the boy's father, and asked, voice trembling "Did you touch my daughter?" To which the man replied "No, I only showed her the kittens." He then told me to go back into the house, where he said something to the man that I couldn't hear. I went into the bathroom, cried, and threw up.

I was on my swing depressed when my mother came home from work. My dad had apparently told her what happened. She hugged me close, and I cried harder than I ever have. I asked her what happened..

"They are bad people. In Mexico, they're immoral. That's the way they were raised and still act. He didn't know any better. There's no need to tell anybody, okay? I'm here if you need to talk to me, and daddy took care of it."

Unfortunately, I am still trying to get over my prejudice towards people from Mexico, with good success. I have since then defied my parents by being open about it. Nobody should be condemned to silence or ashamed. Child molestation is a crime punishable by I don't even know what justice... it just makes me hope there is some sort of natural justice by a higher power, as no man-made punishment could cause as much suffering.

Thank you for reading this. All of you ladies, keep strong. Keep talking. Let nobody shame you, let nobody quiet you. Much love and care to you all.