by Band Back Together | Jun 18, 2014 | Date/Acquaintance Rape, Forgiveness, Intimate Partner Rape, Rape/Sexual Assault, Sadness, Trust |
I was laying in my bed with him, and we were kissing. It was nice. I was having fun. Then, he put his hand in my pants in a way he’d done before, but this time, I had explicitly asked him not to. After all, my family was home.
I told him to stop. I said no. I said please. He would take his hand out of my pants after several moments of my insistence, but it kept managing to snake it’s way back down there. Every time, it was the same. I would protest and, temporarily, he would grudgingly comply, until he decided again that I didn’t really mean my protestations.
One time, when we were just first dating, he asked me how to know when he should stop. I told him that it he did something I didn’t like or didn’t want him to do, I would tell him. He said okay. But when it came down to it, he didn’t listen.
After it happened, he apologized over text, citing what I had said when we first started dating about letting him know when I was uncomfortable. I felt guilty, and sad, and hollow, and dirty, and I didn’t know why. I think if I had known, I wouldn’t have forgiven him so easily, simply warning him not to do it again.
I didn’t realize what exactly had happened until months after the fact. I was reading Full Frontal Feminism by Jessica Valenti (great book) and I came across a definition of sexual assault. I realized that the incident with my ex-boyfriend fit the definition of unwanted sexual contact. More importantly, I realized that the weight on my shoulders and the uneasy feeling in my stomach had a valid reason for plaguing me. I realized I FELT like a victim of sexual assault.
I felt violated, and by someone I had trusted.
We broke up after that happened, but before my epiphany, because he was an unsupportive jerk with the inability to listen. He doesn’t know that I think he’s a predator, a source of fear and anguish. I want him to know, though. I want everyone to know, because it could happen to any girl or woman. After all, it happened to me, and what am I? A well-to-do, privileged, white, cisgendered straight person. I’m not the sort of person people think this happens to. But my gender identity, my sexuality, my race, or socioeconomic class don’t matter. It doesn’t matter that he was my boyfriend, that I had consented in the past or that I would consent again in the future. I said no. And no doesn’t mean anything but NO.
I am a victim of sexual assault. It hurts me. But it is what it is. All I can do is move on, deal with it, and try to help others deal with their experiences as well. I have no animosity towards him. Just sadness. Just a sense of defeat. Just a hollow ache inside of me. I don’t think he realized the severity of his actions, or how they affected me. He didn’t mean any harm. It’s no excuse, but to me, it’s enough reason not to press charges. I hope I can someday have to courage to inform him of what he did to me. To let him know that it was wrong and he should never do it again. Perhaps once I’ve healed a bit. I just hope he doesn’t hurt anyone else in the interim.
by Band Back Together | Jun 6, 2014 | Abandonment, Child Neglect, Emotional Boundaries, Estrangement, Sadness |
Being denied the love and tenderness of a mother lead us to want something we can never have.
This is her story:
Some people should never be allowed to have children. Carol is one of those people. One of my earliest memories is her visiting me at my grandmother’s house during her lunch break at work when I was 3 or 4.
When it was time for her to leave, I would cry uncontrollably, begging her to stay and grabbing at her clothes as if I could stop her from leaving by sheer force of will. Inevitably, she’d go and I’d be left there with my heart broken until the next day when she’d come and start the process over again.
Eventually she stopped coming.
Eventually I got used to it.
In time, I came to accept that our relationship would never be as I wanted it to be.
She calls me a cold-hearted bitch (which is ironic, considering) and I very well may be – where she’s concerned, at least – but if I am, it’s an act of self-preservation; building a wall to keep the thing that hurt me the most out.
It works, or at least I thought it did. Two sentences in a romance novel:
“She hugged her tight, patted her hair and guided her to a kitchen chair. Within minutes her hands were wrapped around a mug of her mothers coffee.”
Punched in the face by experiences I’ll never have and opportunities I missed, suddenly I’m 4 years old again, laying on my grandmother’s floor, desperate for affection and love from someone incapable of giving it.
by Band Back Together | Jun 4, 2014 | A Letter I Can't Send, Anger, Bullying, Forgiveness, Infidelity, Trust |
We all have letters we’d like to send, but know that we can’t. A letter to someone we no longer have a relationship with, a letter to a family member or friend who has died, a letter to reclaim our power or our voice from an abuser.
Letters where actual contact is just not possible.
Do you have a letter you can’t send?
Why not send it to The Band?
Emily,
I thought about changing your name for this but then I realized, nope, screw that. You didn’t care about my feelings when you did what you did, why should I protect you?
I was going through a really hard time when you and I met. I had been dealing with infertility and wasn’t taking it well. We weren’t telling anyone we were trying to have a baby yet, so no one knew why I was fighting with depression as much as I was.
We were still fairly new to the area, and I was desparate for friendship. That’s where you came in. Your office was right next to mine, and we both had a lot of down-time with our individual jobs. We had a lot in common, so our friendship came naturally.
We confided in each other. Neither of us was in a stable marriage. Your husband preferred to go hunting rather than spend time with you. My husband liked hanging out with his friends after work instead of coming home.
I didn’t approve when my boss’ marriage started to fall apart and you flirted with him. You were not appropriate with how you handled that situation. But then one of our co-workers started paying attention to me. I won’t lie. I liked the attention. My husband was ignoring me, and this guy was cute.
I regret that I flirted with him.
Unlike you, I kept my flirtation to just at work. There was nothing more to it than two people who were attracted to each other who talked and flirted at work. I didn’t take breaks with him. I didn’t go anywhere alone with him. Did you know that when I took my breaks, I was in my office working on a Christmas gift for my husband?
You, on the other hand, took my boss out for lunch, just the two of you. You even went so far as to throw a party when your husband was out of town and invited a bunch of guys (and only one girl) from work to the party. There was drinking and craziness, and you admitted to groping my boss. I knew he was too emotionally distraught to return your inappropriate behavior, but I was less than impressed with what you were doing.
Then came that horrible night when my husband confronted me about my supposed affair. He repeated things back to me that I had told you in confidence. My words had been twisted to sound like I was guilty of much more than a mild flirtation. He accused me of a full-blown affair and implied that I was using this other guy to try to get pregnant. He said that I had been seen leaving with this other guy and we had been seen holding hands and kissing. You know as well as I do that that never happened.
He had his mind set that I was cheating on him and anything I said was a lie. I wish I could say I was 100% innocent, but it wouldn’t have mattered anyway.
We were leaving the next day on vacation. We still went. We talked through things and eventually he said he believed me that I hadn’t cheated.
What I couldn’t figure out was how he’d found out the specific things I had said. I had trusted you. Your sister-in-law also worked for the same company we all worked for. I figured you’d blabbed to her and things got back to him through the company grapevine.
We returned from vacation, and I went back to work. I still considered you my friend, but I was much more careful about what I said to you because clearly you couldn’t keep your mouth shut. I completely severed any friendship with our co-worker as soon as I returned. I requested a transfer to a different location, so my husband wouldn’t have to worry about me being around our co-worker.
A few years passed. I found out that the whole time my husband had been “hanging out with friends” after work, he had actually been having multiple affairs. While he never admitted to anything, I had learned to read between the lines to figure out what was going on. One day, he let enough information slip that I figured out you two were sleeping together. All that time I thought I could trust you, not only were you having sex with him, you were reporting back to him everything I said – twisting it to sound like I was mocking my marriage.
I looked you up online recently. I was happy to see your first husband divorced you. I wonder how much of his not being around you was caused by his knowledge of your behavior.
I’m still very angry. I’m angry at all of the women who knew my now-ex-husband was married and chose to have sex with him anyway. I’m angry with the people who knew about his cheating and didn’t tell me. I’m especially angry with you for pretending to be my friend while betraying me in the worst way possible. I don’t want to be angry anymore. The fact is, you’re not worth my anger.
I’ve moved on. I haven’t had any contact with my ex in years. I’m happily married and busy raising my kids. I don’t need to hold on to the past. I’m hoping that writing this letter and releasing it out to the world will help me to forgive you for your actions.
So I’m going to say it, even though I don’t feel it yet, in hopes that I’ll feel it soon.
I forgive you.
by Band Back Together | Jun 3, 2014 | Abuse, Faith, Loneliness, Passive/Aggressive Behavior, Psychological Manipulation |
I’m so sick of how alone he makes me feel; how he tries to control who I talk to.
We both have iPhones so you can see when messages to each other are delivered and read. If I don’t read his messages right away, he asks where I was or what I was doing. I’m too scared to say that I was talking to a friend, so I’ll say that I was changing my alarm or checking on a game. If I do say that I was talking to a friend, he says, “Fine. I’ll let you go.” Then I have to assure him it’s okay; that I want to talk to him.
We both play the same game – you can join a group and talk to people. Last night, I saw one of my favorite people had just been on 5 minutes earlier. So I said, “Hey ____ are you still on?”
My boyfriend wanted to know who I was asking about. My boyfriend was at work late, so he couldn’t text very often. It was past midnight where I was, and I had fallen asleep. When I didn’t respond, he got sassy about it and said something along the lines of, “Fine be that way, good night.”
I have texted him back today. He hasn’t responded, but he is three hours behind me because of time zones.
Am I being isolated?
by Band Back Together | May 29, 2014 | Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse, Alcohol Addiction, Child Abuse, Child Sexual Abuse, Domestic Abuse, Incest, Rape/Sexual Assault |
When I was too small to be understood when I spoke, my father taught me to scream. He was a sadist, and from him I learned to fear.
When I was in junior high, I met a policeman at my school. He was just there visiting someone. I told him that my life at 11 years old was a nightmare. I told him I was being molested by my step father. I asked for help. He said he was out of his jurisdiction. His girlfriend, my teacher, told him that as far as she knew I had a good home life. She knew that because she saw me for less than an hour a day for one semester in gym class. This was a class where I never participated, or dressed for gym because I didn’t want to have to take my clothes off in front of people to shower. From the policeman I learned that no one would really believe me or help me.
From my stepfather I learned to hate my body for the sickness it inspired.
From the cops who arrested me at age 15, I learned to devalue myself and make excuses for people who treated me badly.
From my husband, I learned to hate alcoholism, addiction, and excuses. From ridicule, to assault, to spousal rape, he taught me to despise him.
There was another lesson I learned from my Grandfather. It was his story. From the Jewish boy who grew up in Budapest Hungary, who saved up money he earned as a bell hop to come to America, I learned to leave . From his story, I learned to never give up, and when all else failed, to take those I loved and go.
I know looking back he was not a great man, not even really a good or kind man. Still, he taught me what I needed most. Thank you, Grandpa, for your story.
by Band Back Together | May 28, 2014 | Rape/Sexual Assault, Statutory Rape |
Fourteen years ago I was repeatedly molested by an older man. I was 14, he was 24.
My best friend encouraged me to keep “going out” with this guy. As she saw it, we were “boyfriend and girlfriend.” He really was a creepy low life, but peer pressure is a bitch. She dropped out of High School and came to pick me up after school with her boyfriend and this guy a few times a week.
It lasted about a year. During that time, I did poorly in life and school. I carried a lot of hate for my family. I built a wall of psychological harm around myself that I still carry with me today. Life would be normal if this shit never happened, but it did.
Karma got them: He froze to death in an alley while drunk and passed out. My “friend” never earned her High School Degree, got pregnant, and is raising her child in her parents’ basement. I don’t know what happened to her boyfriend, but hopefully he got his karma as well.
Thank you for reading. Hopefully putting this story into words will help me release the anger I carry with me from enduring this experience.
I have never received any support or advice about this. If you would like to share, I would really appreciate it!
