Growing up the tension in my home was usual and almost normal. My mom and I would stay up late at night on the weekends waiting for my dad to come back home from his nights out. Sometimes my mom would just go to bed frustrated because he didn’t come back from his drinking binges. I was probably 7 when I first saw my drunken dad smack my mom on the face after she was arguing with him about how drunk he was and the fact that he would regularly drive like this. My mom sat there and cried and then went to sleep in my room. I was probably 10 when my dad pointed a rifle at me and my mom as we sat on my bed. He said he would kill us both if my mom didn’t come back to their room. I felt fear for my mom every time he got drunk because of course she didn’t want to sleep in the same room as him but he would get aggressive about it. Time after time I endured his drunken shouts, him threatening us and slapping my mom and sometimes he would punch holes in the wall. Our house was full of huge holes in the wall where he would kick and punch them in his rages. But we never spoke about this and the next day after his rages it was like nothing had happened. My mom finally separated from him last year but can’t legally divorce him for financial reasons yet. Mostly because of my financial aid and it kills me that she has to stay legally married to him until I graduate in two years. He takes advantage of this to stalk her and show up at the house at night to threaten her. He tells her he’ll kill any man that she dates or that she’ll regret talking to men. He tells my mom that he’ll leave forever and never contact me and my sister again if she doesn’t get back with him. He also says he wants to die in order to make her feel bad. Yet this is so usual to us that my mom insists I still maintain a relationship with him. So I have to answer his texts and talk to him when he picks me up from campus on weekends and we act like everything is normal. I actually wonder sometimes if I’m overreacting for wanting to never talk to him again. It has taken me so long to realize that he’s a manipulator and emotional abuser especially when he acts the victim and starts crying about how my mom ruined their marriage. I honestly don’t feel that I know what love is or what normal relationships are like. I don’t know whether or not I should stop talking to him despite my mom’s insistence that I do or if I should demand apologies from him. I don’t know if one day he’ll show up at our house at 4 am and punch my mom or if he’ll escalate the stalking. I don’t know if one day some man will slap me and threaten to stalk me and all I’ll do is think it’s okay or feel helpless. I honestly feel crazy sometimes for questioning whether or not this has been as bad as I’m saying it is and the fact that intimate relationships with guys make my anxiety go through the roof. No one knows about what my life growing up has been like, not even my family and I feel so much shame for my mother, me , and my sister.

He was my housemate. We'd had a couple of things in the past, so when he came into my room and was having a rough time emotionally, I let him spend the night. In the morning, he started making a move on me. I said "I'm not really feeling it" and he put his hand on my neck, pushed me down on the bed, and went at it anyways. I just lay there as still as possible until he left. It honestly didn't even occur to me what happened. Two weeks later, he came into my room and told me he was going to kill himself. I didn't feel comfortable with him staying there, but I let him anyways because I didn't want him to hurt himself. In the morning, he tried making a move again. I said more strongly this time "no" and he tried making a move anyway. I shifted away from him. He held on to me and continued humping me until he got bored and left. It took 6 people to convince me that both of these instances were sexual assault. Two months later, I moved out, but I still see him all of the time because I could only move one house away. Looking back, this event taught me a lot about self respect and friendship. The people who lived in my house with me, who I considered my friends, still hang out with him, and invite him to their parties, even though they know what he did to me. They say "it's more complicated than that," and "you're being over-dramatic." But it's really not. I deserve to be with people who take into consideration who I am and am not comfortable being around, and who do not attempt to belittle my feelings. 

I was age 13 and it happened I lost loads of weight and felt good in my own skin I had met this guy and was head over heels in love with him but he wasn't the one who did it he was my best friend I loved him dearly. It took my 3 years before I told anyone about my incident that I what I call it. It was a normal day I went to my mum friends house everything was good there was her next door neighbour  little boy round he loved the tumble dryer strange child. Well my mum friend had a son who ive known since I was born he was and I felt very close to him like a brother. Turns out I was wrong on this normal day he took my shoes and hid them in his brothers room for a joke we always use to do it to each for some fun. But this time was different he followed me and shut the door I was confused at first until I knew what he was doing. I hit him and punched him and thank god I got out I pulled myself together went to the bathroom and wiped my tears away. NO ONE COULD KNOW this is all I thought in my head but I was in shock I couldn't stop shaking I had to go down stairs and act normal and some how I did no one thought anything had happened. See In my head I thought this would never happened to me I thought I would scream and get help turns out I was wrong. I am still trying to build life back together and be in a happy relationship but it hard as the flashbacks happen often and I know it not my partners fault it mine. 

I had been home for only two weeks and went to a party at my best friend’s house. He was an acquaintance from high school. I don’t remember interacting with him besides a brief “hey how are you” very early on in the night. I had had way too much to drink and hardcore blacked out. The last faint memory I have of that night is laying on the couch catching up with a friend I hadn’t seen since high school. All I can tell you from there is that at 9 am, I woke up on a love sack in the basement in unfamiliar clothes, feeling strangely sore. Then I go to the bathroom, and see my underwear is on backwards with blood in it. While leaving, two of my friends stop me and ask if I remember anything about last night. When I say no, one of them hesitantly says, “We need to talk about it. You hooked up with ‘acquaintance’ and…”

At that moment I knew I wasn’t a virgin anymore, that my rights over my body had been taken away from me. But that was all too scary to admit. Instead, I sat in silence and nodded as my friends chronicled the night. They saw me making out with him and interrupted to ask me the year and who the president was. When I couldn’t correctly answer either or stand up on my own, they pulled me away from him. Thinking that was the end of it, he and I ended up alone in that basement.

They came back down with two other people from the party after a while to find the door locked. After knocking and yelling for ten minutes, he opened the door and immediately yelled, “I swear she said yes!” I was sprawled out on the love sack, basically unconscious, with my pants unbuttoned. Then they noticed the pool of blood between my legs, the trail of it into the bathroom and even some on the toilet and the wall. They decided not to call the police because, “we couldn’t risk everyone else getting in trouble for drinking.” Instead two of them cleaned up my blood, while the other two undressed and showered me, because there was blood on my clothes and body, and I was still too drunk to stand on my own.   

Factually, I knew that it was rape. I knew that it wasn’t my fault. But that wasn’t enough to make me feel ok. Because there were two possible alternatives here that were equally terrifying to accept. One being that I was at fault, I asked for it, and I’m responsible for my decisions under the influence, and I have to live with my guilt for as long as it takes to get over it. The other alternative was that it wasn’t my fault, I have no control over what happens, and that there are people evil enough to take a person’s bodily rights away.

Since both of those were too scary to accept, I coped that summer by pretending to be ok, hoping that would translate into me actually being ok. Instead I just spent countless nights crying myself to sleep and internalizing my freak outs at things as innocuous as my co-worker putting his hand on my shoulder.

Once I started talking more about what happened, I received countless words of support from friends and family. However, what people need to know is that the few insulting words pulled my recovery back so much more than the supportive ones moved me forward. A couple examples include,

“OMG things like this are exactly why I don’t drink.”  

“I mean it’s not his fault he didn’t know that you were a virgin.”

“What were you wearing? How much did you drink? Were you flirting with him?”

“I guess that’s what happens when you drink too much.”

“Why don’t you just talk to him? Straighten things out and get a timeline of everything?”

I thought coming back for my second year of college would halt the crippling seesaw between numbness and pain that became my life this past summer. It didn’t, it only brought back my on-and-off depression and anxiety that I’d had for years. It’s been almost a year now. I tried counseling, I tried medicine but I’ve never been good at sticking with things that I know are good for me. 

I’ve spoken up to my immediate family and close friends. It’s been the best thing I’ve done for myself in terms of healing. But my courage falters. I go through periods of time when I can’t acknowledge or talk about it, even with people I’ve confided in before. It’s so hard to find consistency in anything being a survivor. I hope one day I will get to a point where I can find consistency in being able to speak up.

It was going to be a fun night. Some drinking, some dancing, nothing out of the ordinary. I'm not typically one to drink liquor, but it felt like a special occasion, celebrating the end to a long week of exams, so why not, right? The night started fine, I was very drunk, my friend and I killed a fifth, but I was still functioning. Later in the night, I ran into a mutual friend who I started to talk to. He handed me a few beers, seemed like a nice gesture. We aren't close but having overlapping circles of friends, we've definitely talked a decent amount at quite a few parties prior to this, so this was nothing unusual. Following some dancing, making out, I don't remember anything. Nothing. We then must have left together. I have no recollection of going to this person's house, no recollection of going to the bedroom. I must have been very obviously drunk, at least I thought. Some other friend I spoke to the next day commented on my drunkeness, apparently we had ran into each other that night, of course I didn't know that. Then it happened. The next thing I faintly remember is one of my friends coming into this bedroom helping me put on clothes on my naked body while I vomit off to the side. This person had called a friend to come get me. Unable to be moved, I ended up sleeping there and he disappeared. When I woke up to leave I was wearing a shirt and pants my friend had helped put on me, but no underwear, no bra. I could feel that slight tenderness down there and begin to panic. What the hell happened. I still don't know. Whatever did happen, I had no way of consenting to anything. I feel guilt. I was THAT girl, blackout drunk, it's my fault, I can't remember, I probably didn't say no, making me sick to my stomach. But when in that drunk of a state there's no possible way of giving consent, I have to remember this. But I am still confused. I am in a perpetual state of nausea. It's consuming all of my thoughts. You hear the statistics about sexual assaults on college campuses so many times: "1 in 4 women, usually someone you already know"..... okay, I know that this stuff happens. The hardest thing is realizing I am apart of that statistic.