My story happened 14 1/2 years ago when I was 21 years old and still a virgin trying to hold out for "mr. right." I didn't date much then and I was extremely innocent. On October 31, 1984, I went to a friends house to study for a college mid-term. After hours of studying we called it a night and I headed back to my apartment that I shared with three girlfriends.When I walked in, the apartment was dark and the first thing I did was check my phone messages. I remember thinking how strange it felt to be alone in the apartment. It was the first time that no one else was home since we moved in together one month earlier, but it was halloween. I thought I saw something from the side of my eye run from one room to another, but I blew if off as paranoia.I went into my room and shut the door and preceded to put on my pajamas before I resumed studying. It was then that I decided to open the door to get some water when it happened. It was so sudden, yet 14 years later still so clear. An arm grabbed me, shut the light, put a knife to my neck and said "scream and I'll kill you." My first thought was that my roomate's boyfriend was playing a practical joke, but I quickly learned that I did not know who this "thing" was. I was pushed to the floor where he removed my panties. The only thing going through my mind was where is the knife. So I decided I wasn't strong enough to fight back so I played along. I told him I was a virgin and would it be ok if he held my hand. He gave me the hand without the knife. I then asked if I could hold both hands. I now felt a little more in control. I knew where the knife was. I told him he seemed like a nice person and asked him questions about himself. He told me to shut up. I thought about all the people who had been in my apartment that previous Saturday for our Halloween party. Where were they now? Where was my dad who said he'd always protect me? The "thing" had trouble and never was actually able to penetrate.It was then that car headlights glared through my window from the parking lot. I knew it wasn't my roomates but told him it was and that I'd help him get out and not tell anyone. He jumped up and ran out. I stood in my room not sure what to do. I went to the window and began banging on the window for John who lived upstairs to come to my rescue. He thought I was joking around and waved to me and kept walking. So I jumped through the glass window. I ran through the parking lot screaming until a couple of neighbors came out. When my roomates returned home the police, an ambulance and believe it or not the FBI were all in my apartment. I returned to school two days later because all I wanted was for my life to be the way it was. My parents wanted me to transfer to a school closer to them but I refused to let him win. It took me a long time, but today I'm a married mother of two beautiful kids. It never goes away no matter how many years pass. But I survived.

I was raped when I was 12. I can't believe I'm saying it...I held it in for six years. I told my mom last Thanksgiving. She doesn't believe me. My father still doesn't know. When I saw you and Tori on 20/20, I cried and cried. Tori had made me cry before...when I was trying to pretend that I wasn't raped. Now that I admit it it's a different sort of crying. I was denying myself up to the point where I came to your webpage and I looked over all the survivor stories, and realized that what I went through was rape. Before I didn't know what it was. I was dating a guy, my first boyfriend. He was extremely violent, would lock me in his room and punch the walls, and used to force me to go down on him. Eventually he just raped me on the couch. I don't remember saying anything. I've blocked most of it from my memory. I told my closest friends and hid it from my parents. I thought they would look down on me because I wasn't a virgin. I write songs about it now...it's my way of getting the poison out. I remember a while ago I swore to myself that I would never come out with this, because it could damage my life, but right now I don't care who it damages. It certainly isn't going to damage me, and if someone points to this and then points to my music and says, 'there, that's where all the pain and angst is coming from' then so be it, because it has to come from somewhere, before it can be driven away. I love your website. I'm pretty sure I'm going to be able to heal myself. I'll never be able to begin to thank you.

thank you for your page and sharing your story. here is mine. it helps to tell it for some unknown reason.

i was on spring break with 3 other girfriends. they all were a little more spontanous and fun than i. i was the boring one, not looking to "hook up" with anyone, i just wanted to enjoy my time in the virgin islands. during the course of the week , i befriended a local named daniel who was originally from los angels. he looked like a hippie and basically he was. he was a carpender on one of the islands. one night, me and my friends went back to that island that daniel lived because of the guys they had picked up and a bar that we liked to hang out at. daniel was there and i went for a walk with him. in my head i knew i shouldn't go anywhere with him but i though i was being paranoid. so we went and he smoked up. we kissed and then i decieded that i should meet back with my friends so we could catch the ferry back to the island we were staying at.

when i met up with them they told me we missed the ferry and we had to stay on this island. daniel offered his place for a retreat for the night. my friends were going to stay a various locations with the guys they had picked up. i was really leary and said so but what had it in their mines that these guys were going to be any safer? i should of stayed with them but i went with daniel.

he had no car so we had to bum a ride from a friend. daniel said that his place was only a couple minutes from the ferry and that i would be able to meet back up with them at 7 am easily. so i went with these men. that car ride made me frightened and i almost said turn the car around and i'll stay with the others but i didn't, i was scared. they stoped about 10 minutes into the car ride and smoked up again. i was pitch dark out because we were heading toward the non-tourist part of the island. finally after 20 minutes we were at his house-if you want to call it that.

it was a shack the size of a dorm room made of wood. there were openings were the windows were but no glass. he had two mattress on the floor, a stove, and a whole bunch of stereo equiptment. i stood there in disbelief. i was frighted so i stood with body language that said go away. but i think he realized that and tried to make me more comfortable. i said that i was really tried so we laid down and he smoked up again. then he started to kiss me and put his rough hands all over me. i didn't want this but i didn't know what to do. he at one point put my hand on his penis. i did an awful job at what he wanted. he said to me "i bet you touch all the boys this way." he just kept touching me and at one point i just kept saying no. he said "relax, it not like i'm going to rape you." for him to say that only made me more unconfortable. i kept fooling around with him because i didn't know what he would do to me if i didn't comply. we did not have sex, or even oral sex, but i felt gross all the same. finally, i think it was about 4:30 in the morning, and i told him i was really tired. so he set his watch for 6:30, so i would make it to the ferry. but then he started to laugh because he had no car and he said that no workers would be going to town because it was sunday and that was an off day. then i said something smart and he patted me on the cheek and said "you want to keep your pretty face, don't you." i was quite after that. all the time i thought to myself- i'm stupid, i'm never going to see my parents again. he fell off to sleep with his hand tightly gripped on my thigh. about a hour later, i woke from dozing and took his hand off my leg and go the hell out of there.

i started to run down the dirt road, not exacty sure where to turn to get back to town. i kept looking behind me to make sure he wasn't following me. my sandle broke the skin on my feet so i took them off and kept going.

i ended up going into a private driveway of a nice house. the owners dogs came barking at me. i was hoping that they would wake the people of the house. a older man came out and asked me what i needed. i told him i needed a ride to town. he let me come in and gave me some orange juice. his wife came out and then she drove me to town. i thanked her and she said something to the effect that now i know better. no kidding i thought.

my friends met me at the ferry, and shocked to see me in hysterics. they went back to the island that night and i stayed home all by myself, all night long. i called my parents and told them what happened and i started to cry and tell them i was sorry. in the end, i ended up going to a support group and shedding my emotions. no one understood what i had gone through and they never tried to discuss it with me. i felt like hell for several months. i cried all the time, didn't smile and never went out. i was frightened that i might die everyday. i spoke out at my school's take back the night. it was refreshing and i had lots of support from the people at the new school i transfered to. my boyfriend and my friend melaine have been an incredible duo at helping me be a survivor.

thank you for listening.

we all heal, it just takes time.
stephanie lee
 

A man with a knee brace walked into the store.

I finished helping the last customer of my shift, counted the register in expert fashion, and clocked out for the day. It was a decent August afternoon and I was looking forward to my 16th birthday in four days. I greeted the man with a knee brace-I can't remember the exact words. We got into his rickety compact car, and I directed him to my house.

At my house, I changed quickly out of my onion-smelling work clothes and took him downstairs to show him my computer. He only seemed mildly interested. The phone rang, I ran upstairs to answer it-it was a solicitor. When I got back downstairs he had usurped the comfy chair in front of the computer - the one I had been sitting on previously. I teasingly asked for it back, and somewhere along the line our lips met in a kiss. It had no mutual feeling in it, but it felt good. I had just broken up with my boyfriend the week before.

I didn't know when my mom was going to get home, so he suggested that we go to his place. I didn't see anything wrong with that, he seemed friendly enough. I left a note for my mother as to where I was going with his phone number. We got into his rickety compact car and headed for Gahanna - ironically, a biblical name for hell.

I will never forget what came after that.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

I still have a fear of being pinned down on a waterbed - drowning.

I can still remember his face, how happy he looked, how hungry he looked, the shadowing of his glasses lenses giving his eyes a distantly eerie look. I can still feel his hands gripping my shoulders. I can still feel the incredible pain as he forced himself into me. I can still remember my cries of "no" going unheard. I can still remember screaming out the sharp pains that I had never before in my life felt.

It wasn't supposed to be this way, was it?

I can remember sitting in that rickety compact car at a gas station afterwards, waiting for him. I can remember the blank thoughts. I can remember the emptiness. I can remember the feeling of giving half of myself away.

He took me home later; my mom had company for awhile, so she didn't really get to meet him. He gave me a hug goodbye, whispering in my ear, "I hope you liked my birthday present." I told him to call me. He said he would.

I can remember that whole day. I never heard from him again.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

I can remember sitting on our sunny porch that night, my thoughts on everything but the tasteless dinner in front of me. I can remember the exact slant of the sunlight through the windows onto the stained yellow-brown carpet. I spent the rest of the night isolated in silence. I got online as I usually did then, I don't remember who I talked to or what I said. It was all hollow. I remember logging onto one of my friend's bulletin board systems, and he was online and took me into chat. I didn't really know him that well, but he had a girlfriend. I asked him.

Is your first time supposed to hurt so much?

Perhaps stupid to ask, but I was too lost. It wasn't supposed to be this way. But he was helpful, he listened to what I had to say. I didn't tell him everything. I wasn't quite sure what had happened myself.

I don't remember anything from the next couple of days.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

My sixteenth birthday was wonderful; it was the best birthday I'd ever had.

A friend of mine had a dozen pink roses sent to work. My co-workers huddled behind the partition of the store when I was helping a customer and put a candle on a cookie for me and sang when I came back. My parents let me go on my own with my four best friends to see "Independence Day" at the movie theater. I was happy.

But something was gone. I was empty.

He never called.

* * * * * * * * * * * *

He never did call.

I waited a week. After that I found him online; talking to someone else, of course, but not to me. I asked him what he had been doing; he had gotten a night job, too busy to call. I told him that was no excuse. He said his sister might have cancer. I told him that was no excuse.

I gathered together as many friends as I could find that night in my own private chat room and we all took turns sending mean messages to him. It helped, but I was still empty.

I told my best friend most of what had happened, she told me, "It sounds like he used you." That hadn't occurred to me yet. But it didn't matter.

It wasn't supposed to happen that way, right?

* * * * * * * * * * * *

Months later I was dragged to social workers and counselors; my parents didn't know why they were taking me, but they quickly found out. I was told I would have to report the whole incident to the county Children's Services. I could no longer press charges -- I didn't want to. It was too much to deal with myself then.

I didn't want to deal with myself.

I thought I deserved what happened. I felt dirty. I figured it would just keep happening to me no matter what I did. So I kept getting closer and closer to doing away with myself. I didn't care about him anymore. I knew what had happened. I wanted to die. I wanted nothing more but to die.

I tried to slit my wrists - wasn't deep enough.

I tried to jump into the river - I was too afraid.

I tried smearing liquid acid on myself - my parents found me.

Eventually I gave up trying to die. I just wanted, more than anything, to give him what he had given me - the pain.

The emptiness.

I wanted, even if only for a minute, for him to know what my life had become. I wanted him to feel what he had made me into. I wanted him to want to kill himself because he had so degraded me that I craved pain.

But I couldn't do that.

So I retreated. I lived my life under my clothing, I self-mutilated, bled, went on with life. I wore dark clothing to hide the blood stains. I wore long socks to hide the deep cuts on my ankles. I would wince when it hurt; nobody noticed, nobody cared.

The emptiness took over again.

I tried to kill myself again.

I just ended up back in rehabilitation; more drugs, more psychologists, more psychiatrists, more people yelling at me. More people asking me what I wanted, what I needed, how could I do this to myself? I was so smart. How could I change? Why should I change?

I still wanted him to know. But I knew that wasn't going to happen.

I made it out. But I still want him to know. I want him to know the pain of the past two years of my life. I want him to know the feeling of every scar on my body, I want him to know the feeling of drug induced haze, I want him to know the feeling of emptiness, the feeling of complete loss, the feeling that I am a victim and will continue to be a victim and nothing will change that. I want him to know the pain that still rips me to the very deepest parts of my soul. I want him to know how it felt to be pinned to a waterbed. I want him to know how loneliness felt, how nobody understood me, how nobody wanted to help me, all because of what he did. I want him to know all of the possible pain that he could feel without dying and then be forced to live again.

It wasn't supposed to happen that way.
 

It's been an amazing revelation to read all of this... and I have to open up myself and let some of this out. I don't know who will read this.

It was 11 years ago - I was 17 years old. Senior in high school, never had a boyfriend, never been kissed. A friend from another town introduced me to an 18 year old guy she was friends with, and set us up on a "blind date." She doesn't know now, nor do I think she will ever know, what she set me up for.

We went out to the mall, walked around, had dinner. He held my hand and I was practially swooning - wow! A boy holding my hand! We went back out to my car and he kissed me there in the mall parking lot. First kiss.

I drove him back to his house. His house was dark, his parents were out for the evening. He suggested that I come inside and hang out but I was a little too nervous, shy, something. So we sat in the car and talked. He kissed me again, then suggested we move to the back seat where he would be more comfortable - he was over 6 feet tall, built like a football player, and it wasn't hard for me to believe that he was uncomfortable in the front seat.

We kissed, then after a while he pulled up my shirt and started touching my breasts. I had no idea what his intentions were and was so excited to be "making out" with a boy that I didn't have the sense to be afraid. He pulled down my pants, then his, and held me down and raped me. I told him "No" repeatedly, and struggled, but I was no match for his size and strength.

Afterwards he left the car, left me there, to try to put myself together again. I drove home. My parents railed me out for coming home later than I was supposed to. I went in my room, shut the door, and cried.

Thankfully, I didn't get pregnant, nor did I contract any STDs. I put it away in the back of my mind. I can't say that I ever really forgot that it happened - I just didn't think about it. Then, about 5 years later, I heard "Me and a Gun," and I couldn't put it away anymore.

Like Tori, I refuse to let myself be "The Girl Who was Raped." But I am. I may be more than that, and someday I may be stronger than that, but the image of that girl in that station wagon with the steamed over windows will haunt me for the rest of my days.
 

When I was 16, my then boyfriend raped me. We were fooling around in his room. I told him to stop that I wasn't ready. At the time I was a virgin. He didn't stop. The worst part was I didn't know at the time that you could have a relationship without sexdd. I also didn't know any self defense. I continued to date him and occasionally have consentual sex. If I ever said no he would beg and plead until I gave in. I now know that this is sexual cooercion. Another time that we were alone he analy raped me. I was bent over a bed and couldn't move. I kept telling him that it hurt and to stop, He didn't. When I told him that I had to go to the bathroom, he even had the nerve to ask if I had to go #1 or #2. I know that if I had said #2 he would not have let me up.

Anyway, the reason that I am writing to you is to tell you that it gets easier. I'm 20 now. I have been talking about my experience to my close friends since December of that year, (the rapes occured over the summer) And the more friends I tell the easier my life gets. It's almost as if each little bit I share takes a little of the pain , anger, shame and blah feeling away from me. I have a wonderful boyfriend (who would never force or cooerce me into anything, even another cookie) He was the first person I ever told about the rape. We had been friends for years and was the only person I trusted to be supportive and not tell anyone else. We were not even going out at the time. Anyway, he spent coutless hours on the phone with me just listening to me rant and talk it out. We didn't start going out until January 1998.

I still have bad days. I still I wake up convinced that Steven is in my bed with me, (Steven is the guy that raped me.) There are days when something can trigger the most vivid of the memories and I can feel, hear smell Steven. to this day I cannot be around people that are wearing Gravity because it makes me physically ill. That was Steven's favorite cologne and what his room smelled like everytime I was force or coerced into sex. The song Closer by nine inch nails has the same effect for the same reasons. I still hear him saying "It doesn't hurt. You feel so good baby."

When those days come, I cry, I take a very hot shower, and I go to Jason's (my boyfriend) house and cry in his arms. I know I'm not healed completely. I don't know if I ever will be. I hope so. I hope that my story can help you in some way, even if only to give you hope or faith in a man that doesn't rape, and of a time when the rape is not you're first and last thought of the day.

One of the most truthful saying that I have ever heard is "What ever doesn't kill us makes us stronger." I do not know who said it, but it has helped me. For a long time I got mad at people saying that to me, especially when I shared my story with them. I'm not trying to make you mad, only to let you know that one day, you will be proof of this saying. I'd like to think that I am.

Tabitha
Rape survivor