My story echoes those of women past and present. There is nothing special about me that makes my rape any different. I was 15, and I invited "him" over to help me with the dreaded algebra I never quite understood. A sultry late summer afternoon, me in a tank top and shorts, I waited under the maple tree in the front yard. He insisted that we go inside the house he was thirsty, and hot. I escorted him through the living room, and he peered around the corner into my bedroom. "Are you home alone" he asked while inviting his hands to explore the treasures displayed on my dresser. "Yes" I answered. "My mom will be home in a few minutes." He mumbled something, then grabbed me and threw me onto my bed. His weight felt enormous and I couldn't move, he was suffocating me with a teddy bear in one hand and ripping my shorts with the other. I hit him, and hit him, knocking the bear away and screaming, spitting in his face. His facial expressions were contorted into a twisted mix of pleasure, annoyance and evil.I ceased my struggle, for some reason thinking that if I played dead like a possum he wouldn't hurt me further. I remained limp and motionless, staring at the algebra book sprawled on my rug next to the closet. I felt like that book, vulnerable with my insides hanging out. He finally finished, standing up and laughing, telling me that I "wasn't that good". He stole my purity and my dignity, my confidence and my existence as he zipped his fly and ran through the living room, out the front door and into the street. My mother returned home one hour later. I sought the comfort of friends, but I continued to see him at school, at work, and in my nightmares.

I was suffering in silent denial, finally breaking the silence nearly one year later when I was 16. I thought I was doing the right thing by reaching out and exposing the monster walking amongst us in the halls, sitting next to us in our classes. I naively thought that everyone would believe me, but how I was wrong. Rumors spread, teachers would glance down at me as I walked down the hall and cluck thier false remorse. My mother blamed me and told me I deserved the rape, and she scolded me for tarnishing the precious (to her) family name.The police complicated the matter but did not attempt to pursue legal action, due to insufficient evidence and facts. I was shamed for not reporting the rape when it happened.

I was so confused. I thought I deserved some sort of positive response for at least breaking my silence and making the effort to punish him for his wrongful and invasive actions. I fell into a deep ravine of depression, not eating or sleeping, just walking around aimlessly, an empty soul inhabiting an equally empty body. I finally found solace once high school had ended and college began. Although skeptical from past failed relationships with therapists, I sought to end my misery.I learned to value my survival, and cope with the rejection I had experienced. I have moved far away from the town where hell rained on my life, and my new passion is raising my battered soul form the ashes and starting over. Slowly I have regained my confidence, and I share my story without tears, just with the promise that I survived, and by surviving I won the war my rapist chose to wage against my sweet teenage innocence.

shannon

I'll try to keep this short. I've only told my husband this and I could not give details when I did it and I still feel like I have so much locked inside of me. I was 17 years old and a friend and I went to a Frat party at the nearby lake. Before I knew it I was very intoxicated and then the next thing I knew I was walking through the woods with some guy I had never met before. He raped me there in the woods and I was stunned. I wondered If I had provoked it or not because I was so drunk. So, My friend and I leave and I guess he was worried that I might tell so he follows me. I went to a subdivision where a friend lived but, no one was home so then, we kept driving until reaching a dead end and he gets out of the car and drives me to his frat house where he raped me 4 times and then let me go. I feel lucky that he let me go. But, this pain that he has caused me will not subside. I deal with it everyday. I am 24 years old now and I have dealt with this alone in my head all this time I cannot bring myself to tell anyone else and I am hoping that this will ease the pain some.

Stacey
 


My name is Jessica. I am nineteen years old, I am a survivor, and I am a strong person. I want everyone who reads this page to know that they, too, can be just as strong as me, or maybe even stronger. I deal with what happened to me every day, but it doesn't sting as bad as it used to, and the memories don't hit me as hard. I've been through some counseling ... maybe someday I will need more. I don't really know for sure. I'm just taking it one day at a time.

My uncle moved into our house when I was six years old, during the spring and summer. He started out just molesting me. He'd come into my room and sit in the chair and have me sit on his lap, or else he'd come to my bed and touch me there. Things got gradually worse ... I can't forget the first time he forced me to give him oral sex. I was standing up, I only came up to his waist. I said I didn't want to put that in my mouth ... he hit me, and I did. When it was over, he held my nose and put his hand over my mouth so I couldn't breathe until I swallowed.

The first time he raped me, my parents were out for the evening and I was in bed. My brother and baby sister were both asleep in their rooms. He came into my room and said that he wanted a goodnight kiss. He said that a lot. He started touching me, then, in the same way he usually did, then he started trying to get me to give him oral sex again, but I kept my mouth shut. He said, "Oh, don't you want it there? I can give it to you somewhere else ..." and as he was climbing on top of me and spreading my legs he said, "I've been waiting to give this to you for a long time." Just before it started he said, "Don't you dare make a sound. I could strangle you right here." I had no idea what was happening to me. But I felt something, and it hurt so much, like my whole body was going to split in half. So I did make a noise, just a little noise, because I knew I wasn't supposed to make any sounds. I just kind of whimpered, but he pulled out and sort of laughed at me, and then he put his hand over my mouth and pressed the side of my face into the pillow. His hand was covering up my whole face and I could hardly breathe. He used his other hand to pin my arms back and he started again. It felt like it took forever. When he was done, I turned over on my side and cried. He made me get up and walk down the hall with him to the bathroom. He put me in the shower and he urinated on my face. Then he turned on the showerhead and washed me off.

Always, it was "Don't tell anybody about this or I'll kill you. Nobody will believe you, anyway. This is our secret, and you're just as much a part of this as I am." He threatened to kill my mom and dad, and even my cat. He also told me that he'd hurt my little sister if I didn't let him do what he wanted with me. He said that he did it because he loved me, and because he had to because I was just so "beautiful" and "sexy." He said that he loved me. That's the one I can't forget. These were all lies that I believed for a long, long time. For so long, I thought it was my fault.

He kept on doing these things to me for a while, and he did other things, too. Once he made me watch pornos with him. I became two different people, in a manner of speaking. One was the perfect little girl who did everything right and was always happy ... the other one was the girl who got abused. Sometimes he was really nice about it, he said nice things to me and tried to be "gentle". other times he was angry and violent, he screamed and yelled and tried to make it hurt. I hated it either way.

He moved out before I turned seven ... but it kept happening, on and off, until I was twelve. It was less often, though only when he came to visit us and he had a minute alone with me. As I got older, he didn't bother to tell me I was pretty, or to touch me. He just took what he wanted, and barely even looked at me. Sometimes he gave me a ten or a twenty dollar bill so that I wouldn't talk. I always felt so guilty for taking that money, especially after I found out what a whore was. I was convinced that I was a whore.

So I grew up ... I went through a very long and deep depression, and the fourth time I tried to kill myself my mother found out about the abuse ... we had some difficult times with it, but for the most part my parents have been supportive, though they have a tendency to blow it off and act like it never happened ... but they always believed me, and they did confront him. I went through a lot of therapy and I accomplished a lot there. I finally know how to love myself. I also discovered that he abused my aunt (he's ten years older than her), and I suspect that he did stuff to one of my cousins, too. If I ever found out that he hurt my sister, I'd kill him, no doubt about it. I tried taking him to court, and we had a preliminary hearing. testifying was hell. the judge said I had a strong case. but i ended up dropping the charges before I went to trial. it was just too much for me to handle. it was just way too much stress.

One thing that was a huge setback in my healing was an experience I had when I was seventeen. My boyfriend raped me in the treehouse in my backyard. (He is not my boyfriend anymore). This is something that I am just coming to terms with. My friends and I like to sit in the treehouse and smoke pot. We were back there last week and it all just came back to me ... I hadn't blocked it out or anything, but I just hadn't thought about it in a long time. I seem to be okay with this memory today, but maybe sometime in the future, when my soul tells me I am ready, I will have to confront that demon, too.

As for my uncle ... I still hate him tremendously, more than I ever thought I'd be capable of hating anybody. I guess this makes me an angry person at times. I try not to be, though. I know that the story isn't over. He is family and probably someday I will run into him again. I'd like to say that if I ran into him today, I'd be strong and confront him head on, and say "Listen you f***er, you messed me up when I was a little girl and you messed me up bad. I hope you die and rot in hell."

I don't know yet if I'd have the courage to do that. I don't want to be afraid of him anymore. Sometimes when I'm driving home late at night and a car is behind me for a long time, I think that it's him, he found me and he's following me, and he's going to kill me because I told on him. Nobody should have to live with fear like that. Someday I won't be afraid anymore.

I don't want to be angry anymore, either. Hate, if you live with it long enough, eats you up inside. I've found so much joy in my life, but I still hate both of the men who raped me, and that's something that I don't know how to let go of. I save the hate for quiet times, when I'm alone and I won't project it on other people. Maybe I push it down inside too much, I really can't tell. All I know is that in my life today, I feel a billion times more happiness than I ever let myself feel before. and I love myself. I guess it doesn't matter how I feel about either of them, as long as I love myself.

I guess that in the end, as long as I have that, nothing else matters.

Jessica
 


I never had the chance to learn that I could say NO. I was so young when it started that I only know when it stopped, I was five. I don't remember what he did, I only remember being held, unable to get away. I parents didn't know their friend was a child molester, they told me I was being bad hiding from him, he didn't have any little girls to love, go sit in his lap. I'll never forget the feeling when my Mom walked in and caught him with me in the bathtub. I stood there, cold and wet, I didn't want to stand and have him touch and kiss me there, but I had to be a good girl and do what he said. There was so much screaming and yelling, my Dad going for his gun no one ever came to see if I was OK, not then not ever. My parents forgave him, no one ever checked on me, we saw him every week at church, he sat there watching me growing up and still no one ever checked on me. I remember when then took me to see him as he was dying, so he could feel better about him self, no one checked on me. My father never forgave himself, but he couldn't touch me anymore either. He could only remind me of how unworthy I was of being loved. I could never be good enough.

I can't remember my childhood. Too much is locked up in boxes with ribbons tied around them to keep them shut. I had three nightmares for years. The first was about the textures: the sheets, the bedspread and the wall. They were so close in my face I could feel them in my dreams. The second dream was of me sitting at the top of the wall where it meets the ceiling, safely watching the me that was being hurt down below, trying not to feel the pain. The third dream I could never remember but I would always wake up terrified, and not being able to sleep again. The last time I had it was the first time I could remember it. I was been held down and I could feel their weight, I still can't seen the person or feel what he is doing to me. I had these three dreams almost overnight, I dreaded sleeping, I still sleep with the TV on, so that I am not alone.

Now I'm 36, I've been married 13 years. He thinks that trying to rape me added spice to our sex life. It turns him on to hit me while we have sex the harder the better. He likes to forceable have anal sex with me, he holds me down and just shoves it in. No asking, no lubricant, no stopping when I say no. No stopping while I'm crying. He says if I really didn't like it I would call the sheriff, 'cause then he would stop. He says he loves me, this isn't love. I told him I want a divorce, he knows that I can't say why. So I protect him with my silence. He attacked in my sleep, he hurt my back and pounded his fists by my head. He says it my fault, another man looked at me, that I don't make him feel like a man, he isn't a man. He makes my three kids think that I am the bad one kicking Daddy out. I can't tell my children why I can't live with their father anymore. He thinks being wonderful because I won't let him sleep in my bed and he doesn't demand to be there. He'll be here tonight, crying to everyone that I'm hurting him by not trying to get back together. He takes no responsibility for what he has done it is all my fault, I caused everything, I was the only one who could stop him and it's my fault that I don't communicate with him.

I will not hide what he does to me anymore. I will not give him that power over me. I am taking back my life, and he hates me for that. I will go on. I will learn to say no. I will learn that I have a choice. I will not allow someone to hurt me and get away with it. Every time he cries that I am hurting him, I will tell HIS secrets. They are not my secrets anymore. He can't hide from himself with me anymore.

I hope that I will have a good life someday. I hope that I will be able to look at a man and not wonder when he will start to hurt me. Or will no really work. I hope to be loved.
 


How funny it is that you never want to believe the things that really happen... I was just barely 16, and had just joined the cross-country team at school, because my parents had bugged me to get involved instead of just being an antisocial loner again. I had managed to hyperextend my tendon or some such, and was stuck icing my leg in a huge trashcan full of ice and water with some therepy massage thingie in it.

They put a guy next to me, and the whole time I was in the ice I felt his hands all over me, but no one in the office saw a thing. When I went to report it, the principal said: "Well, you're just a frosh-soph athelete and he's varsity. Why should we believe you?" Nothing happened to him, and he stayed on the team. I quit in disgust. When I left the school at the end of last year, his friends were still harassing me.

Sara
 


My story is not as horrifying as some of the other stories that I have read or heard but they have all helped me just the same. Listening to Tori and reading the stories finally gives me the courage to tell my story.

It happened when I was five or six, I don't really remember. My family and another family went camping all the time. There were two other boys that went with us all the time, and me being the youngest and the only girl I got a lot of the attention. I loved it. I had a crush on the oldest boy and spent most of my time with him. The two boys, my brother and I would play games while traveling and we sometimes made up games. We played house all the time. And again, being the only girl, I was supposed to be the mother. The oldest said I needed a husband and we had to sleep together and we had to always be in private cause we were the parents. How our parents didn't know what was going is beyond me and they still don't know. It happened in the campers, in his room, in my room, in my living room, outside, in the woods. Anywhere he could get me alone it happened. I still don't remember all the details of what happened but I remember knowing how scared I was and how ashamed I felt. And I knew that it was wrong so I was not going to tell anyone but yet I thought that I was normal. It was a very dark and scary time and but I sometimes wanted to see him just because I had a crush on him and because I thought it was normal. He told me it was. And I believed him.

I remember once being outside with my cousins and one of them dared me to pull down my pants because I was the younger one and they liked to tease me. So I did. I didn't know that it was wrong, I was afraid that if I didn't listen to them then I would be hurt again. So I did. luckily they just laughed and told me to pull them up and I didn't understand why they didn't do anything.

It stopped by the time I was nine or ten. and since then I have grown up believing that sex and any type of intimacy was bad. I became a very depressed person. I was bulimic and anorexic for many years. I started therapy but got frustrated and scared about the truth ever coming out and never went back. I have thought of sex as an evil thing for so long and now that I have a boyfriend that is so incredible. And I am so in love with him, there are limits to how I can show him that I love him. I can't make love to him. when I think of it....I know there would be nothing more magical but I can not help but feel dirty for even thinking about it. I fear that I will always feel like this and that I will never be able to have any sort of intimacy with my boyfriend.

To this day, I still do not hate this guy, and ironically at his wedding is where I met my boyfriend. Maybe this is why I have forgiven him. Even though he has scared me so much that my life seems like a vicious cycle and always ending up back to when I was little. It is my healing that I am still trying to deal with.

Some of my friends have helped because like me, they have experienced similar situations like so many other people. A childhood friend that I lost touch with and then became friends with her again when I got to high school started me on Tori. I think that this was one of the best things that could have happened to me. She has helped me to understand what happened to me. I have yet to come to my own healing but with Tori, my friends, and my boyfriend, I have the strength and a reason to want to heal.

Thank you for your page. With out this, I would not have been able to have the courage to tell my friends what has happened to me and to begin healing.

Bina
 


 


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