by Band Back Together | Sep 4, 2013 | Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse, Child Grooming, Child Sexual Abuse, Date/Acquaintance Rape, Healing From A Rape or Sexual Asault, How To Cope With Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Rape/Sexual Assault, Self Injury |
The scars of child sexual abuse last a lifetime.
This is her brave story:
Hi, The Band. I’m not too sure where to start, so I’ll start here.
My uncle’s friend was a police officer. He had a daughter and we played together often; we were like a family all hanging out together.
One night, when I was I was 9 years old, I slept over at his home…everything changed..
Suddenly, I was in his bedroom, the room was dark, and he was on top of me. I started to feel him going in and out of me (sorry I’m not yet able to be specific).
It hurt so much.
I couldn’t do anything.
I couldn’t scream.
Wasn’t I supposed to do what he told me to?
I did. I turned when he told me to, I did all he told me to, and I did nothing to stop it. I just squeezed the sheets tight and hoped for it to be over. But it kept happening, like there was no end.
Finally it was over, or so I thought. Because even now that I’m 22, I still relive it over and over again.
I have PTSD with severe anxiety, seems like there’s no end to this nightmare.
Last year made it worse – my friend sexually assaulted me, I choose not to call it “rape” as it makes it seem so much worse.
I don’t know what to do or think; sometimes I don’t know how to live – I cut my wrist sometimes. Each time I promise that I won’t do it again, but it’s almost addictive especially at my low points. I don’t trust men, especially police officers – it’s ironic how those who are supposed protect us are the ones who hurt us.
I just need someone who can understand what I’m going through, someone who’ve been there, someone I can talk to, and won’t think that I’m too messed up.
I need help.
by Band Back Together | Dec 23, 2010 | Healing From A Rape or Sexual Asault, How To Cope With A Suicide, Rape/Sexual Assault, Sadness, Shame, Stress, Suicide, Trauma |
You had been my friend for 13 long years when you raped me.
You were my best friend’s husband, my son’s god-father.
You were someone I always trusted and could count on.
That one fateful night we were hanging out at Downtown Disney and I got drunk I told you I didn’t want any more, but you kept buying shots. Looking back now, I see this was your plan. I passed out on the way home, only to wake up with you on top of me. I tried to push you off, screaming NO and fighting to push you off me, but you just covered my mouth and told me to shut the fuck up and that you knew I wanted it too.
I passed out again.
The next thing I knew, I woke up in the morning next to my husband. I knew what had happened the night before. I heard your wife out in the kitchen with your kids and my son.
I tried to forget, tried to pretend nothing happened. I tried to go on with my life, but my marriage fell apart for various reasons.
Years have gone by. Six to be exact.
Then I get a phone call from your wife. She is crying and upset. She fills me in on the past year, that you guys were having problems. Then she drops the bomb – you had killed yourself.
Now I feel like I can’t tell anyone what happened. To tell your wife, one of my closest friends, would ruin her and tear apart our friendship. It has been too long to tell anyone else. So now I must live with this.
You have forever changed me. I can’t trust people anymore, even those closest to me. I am glad you are gone. As selfish as it is, I am glad you are not a constant reminder of that bad moment in my life.
by Band Back Together | Nov 29, 2010 | Abuse, Addiction, Alcohol Addiction, Coping With Domestic Abuse, Domestic Abuse, Economic Abuse, Healing From A Rape or Sexual Asault, Rape/Sexual Assault |
You beat me mercilessly and I learned to be gentle with my own kids.
You said hateful things to me and I learned to weigh the consequences of my words carefully.
You sexually abused me and I learned that I could survive pure evil.
You were a raging alcoholic and I learned to watch my alcohol consumption, lest I become you.
You thought only of yourself and I learned to think of others.
You were angry and cruel and I learned that being kind is worth the effort it sometimes take.
You were a judgemental bigot and I learned to be accepting.
You were a horrible parent and I learned what kind of parent I never wanted to be.
You were a horrible husband and I learned to look for a loving heart before appearance, wealth or status.
You always found someone else to blame for your problems and I learned to accept responsibility for my actions.
You would jump to conclusions and accuse and I learned to listen.
You preyed on the weak and I learned to fight for the underdog.
You lied and cheated to get what you wanted and I learned to be honest and trustworthy.
You told me I was worthless and I learned to find my worth from within.
You tried to break me and I learned I have a strength I never knew was possible.
You showed me who you were and I learned exactly what I did NOT want to be.
You tried to kill my spirit and, in the end, all I had learned, set my spirit free.
by Band Back Together | Nov 16, 2010 | Abuse, Healing From A Rape or Sexual Asault, Helping Someone In An Abusive Relationship, Rape/Sexual Assault |
I feel so fucking ugly and dirty and slutty.
I don’t understand it. I know I am none of those things. But the idea is stuck in there.
All those times, all those fucking awful times we “made love”….can I ever allow a man to touch me again? I didn’t know how profound the impact would be until I try to sleep and everything I try so hard to forget comes rushing back and I want to fucking scream. I want the world to know what a fucked up person you are and all the fucked up things you did because it WASN’T right.
I need to vent because I can’t say these things out loud yet. I want someone to be there, but I’m too ashamed to verbalize a word.
Because in those years together, you degraded me into a sexual plaything that would react to your desires and run to please you. In those times, you liked me or so I thought.
How could you…
force me to let you inside?
push my face into the wall?
force me to suck on you, shoving into me until I threw up?
cum on me wherever you wanted?
rip my hair out?
pound into me so hard I screamed and cried and begged?
hurt me like this while other people are in the house and can hear?
leave your mark on me?
trap me in the bathroom to “get ready” for you?
invite another man into our bed to assist you?
call me those awful names?
humiliate me with pictures?
force me to sleep with strangers?
make me feel like I was doing this out of love for you?
put my sexual health at risk but not your own?
come home from work and bend me over wherever you pleased?
digitally assault me while in the presence of others?
How dare you…
make me feel like the only touches I deserve from men need to be rough and sexual?
make me feel like this is all I’m worth?
by Band Back Together | Nov 3, 2010 | Adoption, Estrangement, Healing From A Rape or Sexual Asault, Rape/Sexual Assault, Trauma |
A 30-year family secret is no longer a secret. My sister was the victim of a violent rape, the perpetrator never known or charged. She hid her pregnancy, and the rape, for seven months. When the family found out we all rallied around her, but the decision was hers to give the baby up for adoption.
After the trauma of rape, birth and recovery, that was that. It was never spoken of again. Until last month when my sister tells us she’s been in touch with her birth daughter. We are all delighted to welcome this new niece, cousin, and granddaughter into our lives, but my sister is not so sure. The re-discovery of her daughter has brought back 30 years of repressed memories of the rape. The daughter can’t wait to meet her birth mother (she initiated the contact), but my sister can’t separate the daughter from the rape. I understand, and respect my sister’s decision to never meet her birth daughter.
I have friends and even a cousin who re-discovered their birth families after 20 or more years, and all their stories have happy endings.
But none of them sprung from a rape.
This is all made more difficult by the fact that the girl grew up just a few counties away, and her two families (birth and adoptive) have crossed paths before, albeit unknowingly.
Given the circumstances, it would have been best for my sister to never have found her daughter. But it’s too late to unlearn the truth, and we’re left wondering where to go from here.
There are many resources out there for birth parents reuniting with long-lost children, but I can’t find anything that deals with women who were victims of rape reuniting with their adopted children.
If anyone out there has a similar story to share, my sister could really use the support.
by Band Back Together | Oct 29, 2010 | Healing From A Rape or Sexual Asault, How To Help A Loved One Who Self-Injures, Rape/Sexual Assault, Self Injury, Statutory Rape |
signed up with a fake name, but I am Stephanie.
In 1995, when I was 15, there was an attempted sexual assault on me by some 20-something-ish guy who was a bouncer at a local bar. At the time, my best friend was having sex and knew lots of her older brother’s friends. She was able to get us into the bar. It felt so cool to be doing that at 15.
We were going to hang out with the same bouncer guy, who was friends with her current “boyfriend” the next weekend. I thought it was so neat that a decent looking older guy thought I was pretty and attractive enough to buy drinks for. I was so bloody naive.
It was fall. I remember them picking us up at her house, then driving around to random places (a trailer park somewhere looking for liquor, then someone’s house). We ended up at the local park. It was dark by then. While my friend went off into the dark park to have sex with her boyfriend (just after having an abortion), I was left with this guy who had bought me drinks at the bar the weekend before, who gave me a kiss on the lips, who I thought was cool.
He tried forcefully yanking up my shirt, trying to get my bra off. Kissing me hard. He was scaring the shit out of me and I didn’t know what to do. I think he tried undoing my pants. He kept telling me that I owed it to him. That I was a tease. I remember eventually running a short distance away from the playground equipment to a picnic table, where I told him, terrified, that I was on my period. He was angry and called me a liar. I took an unopened tampon from my pocket and threw it in his direction.
He proceeded to tell me he would hurt my family if I said anything. I had to tell him everyone’s names and where I lived and my phone number. I sat in terror, unsure if he was going to rape me, until I finally heard my friend coming back to where we were. He told me to “walk like you’ve just been fucked.”
I’ll never forget those words. I wish I had stood up to him and told him off. But I was afraid. And had no phone. Wasn’t within walking distance even to a pay phone. I had no ride home. I had no idea what I would say to my parents.
I was a virgin and didn’t even know what that was, so I tried to walk slowly and limp a little while he and his friend snickered on the way back to the truck. I felt humiliated, stupid, foolish, scared. My father was a cop. Why the fuck did I allow myself to be left alone in a dark park at night with a guy I had met once before? I was so stupid. And I felt so exposed, having told him all kinds of details about my family when we were sitting in the park.
I didn’t tell anyone until I told my mother, many months later. I made her promise not to tell my father. I was put on anti-depressants that summer.
On the anniversary of the day, I honestly cut myself to shreds with a razor blade in the shower. I don’t remember what I said, but I remember my father being on duty and having to take me to the emergency room at the hospital in the back of his squad car. I was destroyed. I was a mess. And I managed to humiliate my poor father (and mother) by being taken to the small town hospital like that.
I ended up being admitted and evaluated in the psych. ward for 2 weeks. My first true love, my first real boyfriend, came to visit me. We got caught fooling around in the hospital by my mom. Yet another reason to feel humiliated, dirty and wrong. I was 16.
My boyfriend’s parents were upstanding PTA-type parents who were very cognizant of appearances and perceptions and wanted him to have nothing to do with me. I remember a counselor at the hospital telling me I should break up with him (but I have no idea why… if anything, I was the bad influence). But being in the mental hospital doesn’t make you look that great at 16. I lost the first love of my life because some asshole tried to steal something from me. He didn’t get my virginity, but he took my pride and the majority of my self-worth. I lost my first love, my sense of security, my sense of self-worth, and I humiliated my parents.
Every time I hear “Glycerine”, by the band Bush, I think of my first love, and how I lost him despite pleading on the phone. His parents wouldn’t let me talk to him after that. And “Don’t Speak” by No Doubt. It still makes me tear up now.
While in the hospital, the counselors strongly urged me to press charges. It had been a year since the incident had occurred. My own father was a cop on the force. How ridiculously stupid would I look if I admitted to being in a bar underage the weekend before, then intentionally walking into a dark park with someone who was essentially a stranger? I wasn’t even sure of his last name.
Most of the process was blocked out in my mind, but I will never forget sitting on the witness stand, in front of a room full of people. In front of my mom. And my dad, who looked at the ground the entire time, while the lawyers, officers, and judge all sat there listening to the stupid choices his daughter made, trying to not be a wuss. I remember the female officer who interviewed me was sisters with my co-worker at the mall. I was so afraid people would find out and just assume I was a lying little slut.
When my friend took the stand, she was about 7 months pregnant. When his friend took the stand, he swore under oath and confirmed his birth date (that was incorrect). The asshole never took the stand. But he sat there, and I was scared, while his girlfriend and child sat behind him to support him. In the few instances I met her eyes, she gave me hateful glances and made nasty comments. I felt ill.
Despite the lawyers having their jobs to do, the judge personally grilled me with many many more questions as to how I could be so foolish to do what I did. I wanted to curl up and hide. He kept telling me to raise my voice. He threatened me with something that I don’t remember, if I didn’t keep my voice at a reasonable level. The humiliation never stopped.
From the moment the asshole ripped up my shirt, it felt like the intelligent, wise 15 year old started to die inside. I certainly know things could have ended much much worse. And, in fact, as I type this I am thinking that probably a lot of readers will wonder what the big deal was.
I didn’t go to the sentencing, because I knew my legs would give out and I would give up then and there if he got off free and no one believed me. My parents went and said that the judge praised me for my testimony, being articulate and explaining why an otherwise bright girl would make such poor choices. The asshole got 3 months house arrest. The whole thing was written up in the paper and I was made to look a complete fool.
I remember my father being displeased that the asshole’s lawyer even took the case, since my dad knew the lawyer well. I actually remember my sister being very angry at the way the newspaper portrayed me. That was the last time I remember her caring about that kind of thing.
It was a big deal to me. I lost my first love over the trauma. I was broken at 15, humiliated, embarrassed for my parents, deeply anorexic, depressed and a shadow of the girl I once was. I lost her that day. I wonder who she would be now if that night didn’t happen. Instead, I have me.
I longed for my first love for the rest of my high school days. As we got older, if we ever had a chance to spend time, hang out or be near each other, I always went. My best friend dated him our last year of high school. It crushed me.
Once we went on to college, I had no self-esteem and would actually cave to any booty call from my first boyfriend. I needed his “love” and acceptance so badly, I allowed myself to be treated like dirt. And the worst part? I still feel like I am somehow sub-par without his acceptance. That I was never good enough and will never be, 14 years later. Even though I know that is messed up and I am in a wonderful, healthy long-term relationship with a great guy now.
I remember snippets of all these things, images in my mind and sentences here and there, but the emotion and the fear is still so fresh. The stamp of failure feels firmly affixed to my forehead.
This experience changed me for the worse, and left me feeling helpless, stupid and useless. Then, 6 years later, I was raped. It destroyed the little part of me that I had left.
I am working on that post now.
