by Band Back Together | Apr 20, 2016 | Child Grooming, Child Sexual Abuse, Date/Acquaintance Rape, Fear, Gang Rape, Guilt, Intimate Partner Rape, Love, Male Sexual Assault, Rape/Sexual Assault, Self-Esteem, Statutory Rape |
In the United States, every 107 seconds, someone is sexually assaulted. Four of every five sexual assaults are committed by someone known to the victim. 68% of all sexual assaults go unreported to the proper authorities.
Why? Why do so many sexual assaults go unreported?
Shame. Self blame. Embarrassment. Fear that no one would believe their story. Fear that they may have caused it. Not wanting to be the victim. Wanting to move past the sexual assault. There are a multitude of reasons why sexual assaults go unreported.
Just as there are a number of types of rape (gang rape, date/acquaintance rape, intimate partner rape, statutory rape, sexual assault), there are a multitude of responses to sexual assault. Each of which is completely normal.
This April, The Band Back Together Project is shining a light into the darkness of sexual assault. Please share your story of sexual assault so that we can Light the Darkness.
All are welcome.
I’ve been with my boyfriend for seven months. He moved into my university house, and it wasn’t long before we fell in love with each other. He is the most incredible, caring and loving person I have ever had the pleasure to meet, and I love him so ridiculously much.
He has tried so hard (and it has been hard) to help me become my own person. I’m only 19, but I have been through a lot in those 19 years. I used to live in a women’s refuge, I have been raped by several people, including my uncle who groomed me and coerced me when I had nobody else to show me love. I was 15. Due to all this, I had very very little self respect or self worth.
A few days after he moved in, the evening of our first kiss, I raped him. It was my 19th birthday, and I was so drunk I can’t remember it in the slightest. I didn’t even find out until a month or two afterward. Apparently, I was pulling him onto me, trying to take both of our clothes off. He kept saying no, but in the end, gave in and had sex with me. He did it because he knew I’d never been fully accepted by anyone before, and he wanted to give that to me. Even if it meant giving that.
For seven months, he has felt totally okay with it. Until this morning. He keeps saying he’s sorry because he loves me so much and wants so much for us. He knows it wasn’t really me, but he doesn’t know if he can be with me. He doesn’t know if he can forget. He won’t even let me touch him anymore.
I don’t know what to do. I want to be with him so badly. I’ll never love or be loved like that again. How can I help him to move on from it? How can I help him rebuild his self worth?
by Band Back Together | Sep 11, 2015 | Abuse, Anger, Coping With Domestic Abuse, Domestic Abuse, Fear, Intimate Partner Rape, Jealousy, Self-Esteem, Trust, Violence |
So, I’ve just realized that I’ve been in an emotional, physical, and verbally abusive relationship for five years. I am in the process of healing.
You would think that healing comes easily. It doesn’t. Every day seems like a struggle. Sometimes I hate myself for the person that I have become: fragile, weak, heartbroken, depressed. I thought that I loved this man. He told me that he loved me, and I told him that I loved him, but everything changed so fast. The gentle, sweet talking man that I thought I knew turned out to be an angry, jealous, bitter abuser. I can’t help but think about the chances that I had to walk away.
I met him on a Christian blog. I discovered my spiritual side wanted to learn more about the Christian faith. He sent me a friend request, and I accepted it. I invited this man into my life because I thought that he was a fellow Christian with good intentions. Being 19 at the time, with many problems in my personal life, I realize that I was also naive. I did not think about the repercussions of pouring out my heart to a complete stranger.
Not long after we had met, he started to tell me that he loved me. Soon after, I gave him my phone number. I thought that I could trust him, and I gave him my address. Over time, he would send me gifts: candy, clothes, money, and other things. He told me that I was the only one, different from the other girls that he met. He made me feel loved, in his eyes I was perfect.
The more we got to know each other, the more serious we got. Since the relationship was long distance, we kept in touch with each as much as possible, maybe a little bit too much. We would literally stay on the phone with each other for hours. What I thought was a sign of care was nothing more than his way of control. If I did not return his phone calls, he would text me constantly. When ever we got into an argument, and I would ignore him, he would threaten to commit suicide.
Months into the relationship, I noticed that things were beginning to take a turn for the worse, but since I was going through a tough time in my life, and I needed someone to turn to, I chose to ignore the signs. A began to notice his jealousy, especially after I would tell him about my male friends. He punished for my honesty when I was only trying to establish trust. He started degrading me and calling me names. I thought that this was normal and forgave him after. He then started to send me pictures of himself, some sexual in nature. I was uncomfortable with this, but I did not tell him. I thought that sex would bring us closer since we were so far apart.
After seven months of communicating by phone, email, and text, I took a bus to meet him in Mississippi. I was scared, but felt that this would show how much I really wanted this relationship to turn out. When I saw him for the first time, I felt numb. I didn’t feel attracted to him, but did my best to make him feel loved. When I got to his house, I was nervous. His mom didn’t know I was there and I didn’t know anyone. We ended up having sex that first night. I didn’t enjoy it, but I felt like this would make everything official.
After two weeks, I returned home. I moved out of my parents house and stayed with my grandparents. We continued to stay in touch and we told each other how we wish that we could be together. One day, after an argument with his mother, he decided that he wanted to leave home. He wanted to come live with me even after I told him that I was not ready. He left anyway. I was scared at the fact that this man would come to my home even after I said no. I was worried about what my family would think.
When he got to South Carolina, I met him at the hotel to help him settle. I began to feel responsible for his homelessness and I stayed at the hotel with him. When he ran out of money, he asked if he could stay with me. As worried as I was, I let him.
Since that day, my life has never been the same. I live with a predator. He’s a completely different man from the man that I thought I knew. He accuses me of sleeping around. He’s looked through my phones, and even broken them. He destroys things that have value to me.
I’ve been sexually abused by this man. He touches me inappropriately without my permission. I’ve been physically abused: punched, kicked, slapped, bruised. I’ve called the police on him three times. He’s been arrested once.
I became pregnant by this man. The abuse did not stop after I got pregnant. After my baby was born, he started to isolate himself from me even more.
I wanted to share this story because I wanted to let any one who has been abused know that you can heal. I had to get on my knees and pray for healing. I accepted Jesus Christ into my life so that I could be saved. I know that Jesus loves me, and you, no matter what anyone else says. When we know that we are loved, we begin to love ourselves: then we can heal.
by Band Back Together | Aug 27, 2015 | Anxiety, Intimate Partner Rape, Stay At Home Parenting, Therapy, Trust, Violence |
A few nights ago, my husband forced me to have sex with him. I said no so many times, and told him I didn’t want to. He asked me if I wanted him to stop, and I said yes. He started to stop, but then he continued anyway.
He’s been pushy before, over the course of our marriage, but has never gone that far.
I am devastated. He is so apologetic, but still has tried to have sex with me again (consensual). He makes crude, sexual statements about me that make me so incredibly uncomfortable.
I’ve talked to rape crisis hotlines. They have advised me to leave, but aside from love and loyalty, I also have five children, three biological and two step-children with him. I’m a stay at home mom with no relevant work experience.
Even if I was prepared to throw our marriage away, I would have no resources. I’ve thought about it. He’s admitted that he wouldn’t blame me if I did leave, and even went so far as to say he knows he should be in jail.
I just don’t know what to do. I love my husband, but at the same time, I don’t. I can’t trust him, and now I can’t even kiss him because it’s just too much anxiety. So we don’t touch, and I can’t imagine being intimate again. I should see a counselor, but with no family or friends to watch my youngest two children, I can’t do it.
I keep wondering if since he wasn’t violent with me, and I didn’t struggle, maybe I’m overreacting. I guess I’m just writing this here to feel like I’ve said it out loud somewhere. Thanks for reading.
by Band Back Together | Aug 5, 2015 | Abandonment, Abuse, Bullying, Depression, Domestic Abuse, Fear, Intimate Partner Rape, Psychological Manipulation, Rape/Sexual Assault, Trust, Unemployment |
I am a victim of domestic violence and almost every form of intimate partner abuse that you can name.
Through my therapy, I have heard of “White Knight Syndrome.” This is when a person has a naturally good nature and wants to protect people in danger and people in need. My ex knew that I was an instinctively good person and would help those that I could, the elderly lady that fell off a bus, the disabled man that asked for help to get up the stairs, someone being attacked on the street, a victim of domestic violence, a victim of rape.
She knew, and she took advantage of it. She claimed she was raped one night. She claimed that someone was bullying her because she was a woman. She said that she was unfairly sacked because her boss was racist. She would say anything she could to try and get a reaction out of me, anything to prove to herself that she had control over me by having me fix whatever problem she created.
If I didn’t beat up the rapist, she would say I was controlling.
If I didn’t side with her against her bullying friend, she would say I wasn’t letting her go out.
If I didn’t have a go at her boss for being racist, I was called the racist.
None of this added up to me. Her friends would call me and say I should let her go out, even though she was out with them every week. My friends started threatening to beat me up for something I apparantly did to her whilst I was at work. People started threatening me and attacking me all the time. When I’d ask her if she knew what was happening, she’d deny it.
This is where I knew she was lying.
Not once, not ever, in all times I was beaten did I get a hug, or a kiss, or any empathy, sympathy, or pity from her. When I walked in with my leg nearly broken, she shrugged it off. I went to the hospital alone. When I was threatened, she would just turn the other way and go back to watching something on TV. I gave up telling her. I would either be ignored, or worse, she would deliberately walk away and call me weak for being upset, depressed, down, low.
I was more scared of telling her that I was battered with a pole through fear that this would give her satisfaction. I was terrified of telling her that someone nearly broke my leg. Instead, I told her I fell over. I kept hiding the injuries caused by what she was doing to me. I was hiding the number of times she’d had me battered for something as simple as asking her to sweep up whilst I cooked and cleaned the dishes.
Now when someone tells me that they have been raped, I worry that they might be lying, and I’m going to be manipulated again. I worry I will find myself stuck in a place where I know my heart tells me to protect this person, but my mind is telling me to keep myself safe.
For a very long time, I was running from pillar to post trying to protect the person that I loved, without destroying my own life. I eventually started letting the police deal with it.
That’s when the truth came out.
She wasn’t raped. She arranged to meet up with him because I wasn’t dominant enough.
She wasn’t wrongfully sacked by a racist boss. She had her final disciplinary action because she refused to do her job countless times, and she damaged clients’ property.
She wasn’t being bullied. She wanted to hide the fact that she had stolen money.
The list goes on and on.
Anyone can be in danger of false accusations. The people like me who have suffered forced penetration (that’s what they call it when a man is drugged and raped by a woman) don’t come forward until it’s too late. None of us have the courage to face disbelief from others for what we have suffered.
To all the women out there who are victims of rape, I am sorry for you all.
To all the men who are victims of domestic violence, I am sorry for you all.
I know how hard it is to fear disbelief because I have faced disbelief.
I have had to relive my abuse over and over again with every time I tell someone what happened. Over and over again, I feel scared that the person I’m telling is going to point at me, laugh at me. I’m scared that they will disbelieve me even, when shown the evidence, even when hearing the truth from my abuser, even after becoming a victim of it themselves.
by Band Back Together | Aug 3, 2015 | Date/Acquaintance Rape, Healing From A Rape or Sexual Asault, How To Cope With Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Intimate Partner Rape, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Rape/Sexual Assault, Self Injury, Teen Rape, Teen Self Injury |
In seventh grade, I became a cutter. My parents had a horrible relationship they blamed on me. I was the scapegoat for their tumultuous relationship because something my youth pastor reported brought child protective services brought them to our door.
I was bullied at school. I had no one to talk to. Eventually I lost all my friends. I always focused on academics so I graduated top of my class. That belied the truth. I may have been a star academically, I had 40 bracelets that I refused to take off that hid my cuts. I cut until twelfth grade.
My fitness teacher caught me with fresh cuts on my leg. I told her I was getting help and being who I am I didn’t want to lie, so I confided in an elementary school teacher I was close to. I was unstable and talking slowly to a counselor. I was dealing with a lot – my dad was now a drug addict. My mom was suicidal and depressed.
My family was struggling. So was I
At the end of tenth grade, I unintentionally went to my very first party. I told my boyfriend where I’d be. I walked over to my friend’s house under the assumption we were having a Girl’s Night. Her brother was becoming a bartender and wanted to practice making us drinks. I hadn’t touched alcohol before.
I thought I was safe. We had parental supervision. I trusted the girls I was with, I was close to home, people knew where I was. I took all the proper safety precautions.
I started drinking right after I arrived. I had two or three glasses and was starting to feel pretty tipsy when I learned they were inviting boys over. I thought, Okay cool, more people to join the party. Because I trusted my friends, I trusted they knew who they were inviting over. A little while later they said that she had met the guys online.
That should have been a red flag, but I was already too drunk to care.
They boys arrived and we began playing drinking games. I ran out of alcohol so this nice boy offered me a beer. I took it grateful for the refill. I started feeling really fuzzy and out of it.
This is here my memory becomes spotty. He had drugged my beer. We went outside to have a campfire. I remember her mom coming outside. She told the boy who’d given me the beer to take me upstairs because I was going to pass out.
My memory goes black until I was suddenly in the bedroom. He was over top of me kissing me. I pushed him off and muttered that I had a boyfriend. He continued and I started to get angry. Feeling my consciousness slipping away, I started to get anxious.
My drunk and drugged self picked up my cell phone and dialed the last number I had texted, the number of my good guy friends. Suddenly the guy above me took my phone, said he would take care of me and hung up.
My lifeline was gone and I knew what was happening next.
I started to thrash, fighting to stay conscious. He was holding me down, telling me to shut up. My eyes were closing and I was panicking. I could feel him removing my clothing but I could no longer move. And everything went black. I was still fighting the drug and I woke up a few times in between.
I remember the pain. I remember screaming for him to stop when I’d become conscious for a few moments.
The next time I woke up, I was in a bathtub. It took a second to realize I was in the wrong place and that everyone else was sleeping. I was in a lot of pain where I shouldn’t have been. I noticed I was only wearing my shirt and shorts. No undergarments. I was still pretty out of it and stumbled to back to bed where I fell asleep until morning. Waking up when the sun broke through the curtain, I sat up. I was still in pain.
Moments later, what happened hit me. I just sat up staring at the wall until the other girls came upstairs.
I muttered “I was… raped.”
“No you weren’t,” they claimed. “You asked for it. You lead him on. His buddies were only trying to get him a kill. He only had two”
“Did he use a condom?” I asked, my heart breaking. I couldn’t believe they were denying it. At least ONE of them had to have heard my screams. He didn’t use a condom but he told them he had told them he pulled out before he came.
I didn’t care.
Tears streamed down my face as they denied I had been raped.
Still crying, I called my boyfriend and asked him to come and get me. When I got in his van, he knew something was wrong – I was withdrawn and quiet.
When we got to his house, we sat on his bed and he wanted to cuddle. I kept moving away. I didn’t want him to touch me. I felt disgusting. I began to cry again and I realized I couldn’t hide it.
I told him everything. He got up and took what looked like aspirin. I asked him if we could go to my house so I could shower. He said that he was afraid that I wouldn’t want to have sex with him.
On the way home, he pulled over to a parking lot and made me have sex with him – so that some guy wouldn’t be the last one inside of me.
I thought he loved me, and here he was forcing me to have sex with him.
I had given him my virginity only weeks before.
We finally got to my house. He kept swerving all over the road, freaking me out. When we got home, I immediately showered. I felt horrible and dirty. Thanks to him, I couldn’t even get medical help.
When I got out, he was asleep on my bed. I didn’t think anything of it. Over lunch, I told my best friend – who lived with me – a little bit of what happened. She hugged me and told me she was there for me.
Suddenly I realized my boyfriend still hadn’t gotten up which was extremely unusual. When I remembered all the pills he took, I ran to my room. Frantically, I tried to shake him awake but he wouldn’t get up. When he finally awoke, he couldn’t talk. He was slurring his words so badly. He couldn’t walk.
And I couldn’t hide it from my mom. I told her he may have take a lot of a pills. I called my neighbour, a paramedic, who I thought could help. He determined that my boyfriend had overdosed on anti-anxiety drugs. He told me to let him sleep it off, make sure he didn’t drive, as well as monitor his pulse and breathing.
He woke up six hours later and had to pee. He could walk a bit better. I was watching TV when I realized he’d been gone for a while. I decided to check on him. He said he was fine and would be out in two minutes. I sensed something was wrong. I knocked again. He asked for a sweater. I gave him one of my dad’s old ones. He pulled me into the bathroom.
Everything was covered in blood. He had slit his wrists and hands open multiple times. I grabbed a first aid kit. I was trained in this. I treated his injuries and told my mom he reopened some cuts from work. I told my best friend to watch him and tell me if he went into the bathroom while I called the paramedic back.
As I was talking to him, my best friend came and told me he was looking for me. He was angry as hell because he couldn’t find his keys, which I had hidden. He came outside looking for me. I hid, afraid he would hurt me. He finally went back inside and my best friend came out again. She reported that he’d locked himself in the bathroom and she could hear water running. I told the paramedic I had to go and called 911. The operator stayed on the line as he ran around outside looking for me with a razor blade before he retreated to the bathroom.
Police officers and an ambulance showed up. They went inside and dragged him out, covered in blood. I went with him to the hospital in the back of a police car. He was examined and his injuries treated. The next morning, the day before school was to start, he told my mom that he did it because of his crappy relationship with his parents.
She offered to let him stay with us.
Three months later he broke up with me. and then got back together with me, and then used me as a fuck buddy because he knew I was in love with him.
He’d always wanted was anal sex but I refused. One day at lunch, he said he wanted to hook up so we went to my house. No one was home. He wanted to do it doggy-style – and I said okay.
He went towards the wrong place. I yelled no so he covered my mouth. He shoved himself inside me and it was one of the worst pains I’ve ever experienced. I screamed under his hand, knowing no one could hear me. I cried and screamed and begged him to stop, but he wouldn’t. I was silent as I cleaned myself up and went back to school, and sat in my philosophy class.
I didn’t even realize he had anally raped me until months later.
I couldn’t believe it had happened a second time. Some of my friends knew about the rapes, including the girls at the party. They went around the high school, telling anyone who would listen that I wasn’t raped. I’d lied because I didn’t want to be accused of cheating.
This betrayal hurt more than anything. I knew what had happened and it wasn’t consensual. I talked to a school counselor once, but I didn’t feel like talking much about it – I’d been trying to forget about it. I’d been working with for two years trying to help a suicidal friend, who had incidentally, ended up in jail for shooting threats. She’d seen me at my worst. But I made her promise she wouldn’t ask me about the rape or talk about it unless I wanted to.
I promised that elementary school teacher that I would never cut again. He saved my life. He’f meet with me before I school when something had happened and just let me vent. He kept me alive. I will never have more gratitude for anyone.
All it takes is one person.
I eventually told him about the rapes and all of the shit I’d been through. He supported me through all of it. Despite the shitstorm, I graduated second in my high school class.
Now, I’m a year and almost five months clean. I’m in second year university. But the rapes still haunt me. I wake up crying. I have intense flashbacks and nightmares.
I don’t know what to do.
Now, I’m in a healthy, successful relationship. We live together. He knows about my struggles, but I feel like I shouldn’t put him through dealing with my emotions. I’m stuck. Every time I go to get counseling, I cancel last minute.
I don’t know what to do.
I feel like no one understands.
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.
