My name is Beth. I am 21 years old. When I was 13, I was raped. For seven years I kept it a secret from my friends and family. I didn't tell a soul. I finally got up the courage to tell a friend about a year ago. She was very supportive at first, but when I wanted to talk about it more in-depth, she pushed me away. That really hurt me and sent me back into the darkness I had been living in for the past seven years.

A few months later the subject came up again. I started telling her more about what had happened and more often. I could tell she was getting sick of hearing about it. I didn't know who else to tell though. I she was the only one I had ever confided in to tell this to and she just kept pushing me away.

On February 14, 1998, I finally got up the courage to tell my family and start the heeling process. It was very had at first. I began to tell my mom about that night.

I was at a party down the street. I felt like I was "cool" that night because I was hanging out with kids that were 17 and 18 and I was only 13. I had been drinking and smoking pot for about four hours. I was getting tired and I didn't feel very well, so I decided to go into my friends room and lie down. About 15 minute after I gone to bed the opened and on of her guy friends walked into the room and shut the door behind him. I asked him what he was doing. He told me to be quiet and came and laid down next to me. I tried to get up, but he rolled over top of me and grabbed both of my hands, pinning me down. He started to kiss me and I tried to get free. He was so much stronger than me. I felt his hand move down to my pant. He pulled my shirt up and began fondling my breasts. Then he pulled my pants and underwear down. I was struggling with him trying to get free. He kept yelling at me to shut and sit still. I felt him unbutton his pants. I tried everything I could to get free. He was just too strong. I just laid there. I didn't know what to do. I could fight him anymore. I couldn't function. My mind was racing, my thoughts all ran together. I remember him rolling off of my. He grabbed my chin and said that if I ever told anyone he would kill me.

I finally looked at my mom. The tears were rolling down her face as well as mine. She asked me why I never told her. I said I was scared and confused. I was only 13. I barely even knew what a rape was.

Since that day I have told more people about what has happened to me. I want to help those that experienced and sort of sexual assault or abuse. I don't want anyone to ever have to go through what I and others have been through.

If I never discovered Tori, I don't know where I would be today. Her music gave me the courage to speak out about my rape. RAINN was my saving grace. Some day I will meet Tori and get to thank her personally for all she has done for me.
 

I wrote to this site a while ago about my experience of being assaulted and stalked. I thought that experience was hard enough to write about. But, after talking quite frequently with another survivor, and visiting this site many times, I decided I needed to share another experience.

It took a good month from when I first started to write about this to actually completing it. I never got to actually finishing collecting my thoughts before I decided I needed to take a break from everything that seemed to overtake me. I began to realize that I don't want to define my life by these unspeakable things. I don't want that to be WHO I am. "Hi, my name is Sarah. I am a survivor of sexual assault and abuse." I resent that I have to have that as a defining part of my life. I want to forget, to, I suppose negate it. To make it disappear because I resent that I will have to explain to my boyfriend that I am damaged -- that although I am doing better than I ever have been in my life, that I still fall back sometimes; still feel like that little girl who was so defenseless. I resent the twisted childhood I had; the twisted way I began to view things. The twisted way I began to view myself. I remember when Rick (the older of the two bastards, and the mean one) told me, "We can either fuck today or tomorrow. What do you want?" I didn't know what that meant, but I knew it required no clothes, and that it was going to be bad. I remember after that, anytime my father even got close in proximity to me, I wanted to crawl into myself. Curl up in a dark corner and just be left alone. Somehow, though, and I'm not sure how, I forgot everything that happened. Although I remember feeling really uncomfortable around my father, and very nervous most of the time, for several years I completely blocked the whole time period I was molested from my memory.

There are times when I simply wish that I could be whole. I often wonder if I really should be in therapy. If not being there is making the damage run even deeper and more severe with each passing year, or if I am able to fully recover on my own. I seem to be doing well...better than I ever have been. But there will always be that part of me that will wonder who I would be had this not happened. In the experience I shared on Barbados before, I was astonished at how I could attempt to confront someone that broke into my home and assaulted me while I was asleep. Never would I have thought that I would react the way I did to someone breaking into my home. Never in a million years. Growing up, I feared waking to someone in my room. That was my single biggest fear. The boogie-man, to me, was an ax murderer; someone who was watching me sleep -- Watching me in my most vulnerable state; and yet when I was in that situation, instead of being afraid, I was irate. I didn't understand my reaction for a long time. But, the more I began to write about my childhood, the more I began to understand why.

I don't remember most of what happened, and I believe it is for a reason. I don't want to know any more than what I do remember. The only reason I know for sure it happened (otherwise I would convince myself that it was just my sick and twisted imagination) was that my brother witnessed it. And I wonder, too, if that has anything to do with his behavior now. I wonder if seeing his baby sister violated like that changed him too. I wonder if his rages and trouble with the law has to do with seeing what happened to me and not being able to do anything about it. I wonder all of these things, and I wonder if I need therapy since this is so ingrained in my head. But then I just don't think about it anymore. I go on with my life and just accept that things are fucked up, and I don't wonder why. I don't look for the root because I don't want it to be there. I resent that I am a survivor of this. I resent that I am going to have to tell my boyfriend about it and worry what it will do to him. I want to be whole. Be untouched. Why was my innocence taken away from me when I was so young? I hate that. And that is why I don't think about it a lot. And that is why I don't talk about it a whole lot. And that is why I want it out of me. And I think that is why I reacted the way I did when I awoke to that pervert masturbating over me. It was as if that little girl was still in me. She is grown up now, but still a child. And she was damned if she was going to be violated again after all of the fucking damage it has caused so far; THIS TIME SHE TOOK CONTROL. I speak in the third person because it wasn't as if I jumped off of that couch; it was as if a force inside of me jumped up to confront him.

The other night, when I was riding the train home from work, I fell asleep. I fell into the type of sleep where you still incorporate what is going on around you…the conversations, etc. I overheard someone mention something about child sexual abuse. My mind began reeling with different thoughts. What if I could find those guys? What if I could confront them; would that heal me? What if I could spend five minutes alone with them, and try to fix what they did to me. I would gouge out their eyes, for seeing me as a sexual object when I was so young. I would crush their genitals so they could never feel pleasure again. I would cut off their fingers and tongues so they could not violate any child again. I would damage them just as they damaged me. I want to de-sex them as they did me. I am finally able to have normal relations (at least I think) with a man. I want to destroy every thing about them. They took a five-year-old (I can only guess that is how old I was based on when I began to remember) and destroyed her innocence. I didn't even trust my father after that. To this day, I do not have a relationship with my father. I just felt very uncomfortable around him...I loved him, but I just felt so goddamn dirty…I say I don't have a relationship with him because of his alcoholism, but I wonder if it doesn't have to do with the fact that I never felt a connection with him; That I cut myself off from my family. At least my mom and brother are still around enough that I could develop a relationship with them…but my father has gone somewhere else. A place that is really quite terrifying…And I don't know that I have the strength to try and mend that relationship. I don't know if he would have the strength either. He has his own demons.

I wonder if the two years I was suicidal because I felt so fucking separate from everyone else has to do with the molestation…I couldn't talk (literally) to anyone…anytime I tried, my mind would freeze and I would just sit there…almost shut off…I was only thirteen, and wanted to die…that's all I thought about for two years…and I couldn't tell anyone. That's what I mean when I say that my childhood was stolen. I honestly do not have any purely innocent memories of my childhood. I don't have any memories when I wasn't feeling deep pain that I couldn't explain. Middle School was hell, I'll tell you that much. I had a constant glaze on my face because I didn't know how to feel. I know how dramatic that sounds, but honestly, if someone asked me a question that didn't have a textbook answer, I would be thrown, and wouldn't know how to respond. I was cut off even from my own emotions. Cut off from myself. I wonder if that was a residual affect of the abuse.

I think about these things all the time, and it makes me so sad. I shouldn't have to wonder if any part of my life could have been better had this not happened. I want to scream how unfair it is. People think I am really fanatical about punishing child molesters. I think they should all be castrated, and serve twenty to thirty years mandatory. And hell yes, everyone in the neighborhood should be told what these people are once they are released. It's not fair that the victims get their whole lives taken from them: their childhood and innocence. -- The times that should be beautiful and carefree ripped from them. Just as twenty years later, and I'm still being DEEPLY affected by what happened, so should the molesters be branded for the rest of their lives for these acts. I may be a humanitarian in most cases, but I have no mercy when it comes to sex offenders, especially ones who prey on children.

Five minutes alone with those fuckers is all I ask…No, I ask for more than that. I ask that this doesn't have to be a defining part of my life. I don't want to have this be who I am. I want it gone…expelled from me. I did nothing to deserve such a fate, and yet here I am.

My first boyfriend, sex, love, the whole shebang wasn't until I was nineteen…and it took me so damn long to get to the point where I didn't feel like a whore. The first night we tried to have sex I cried and cried. I told him it was because I was afraid of getting pregnant. How could I tell him that I felt like a whore? How could I tell him that and make him understand?

When I realize that yes, this really did happen to me and no matter how much I try to say it doesn't matter, that it will continue to be a part of me, makes me so angry, that often all I can do is cry and mourn for that little girl. I still remember the layout of the house, but I don't remember where the entrance to the basement is. Funny isn't it? I still remember Rick's 16th birthday cake was in the shape of a football. I still remember being forced to eat asparagus. I still remember the mom and dad's names, the sister's name , both bastard brother's names (Rick and Robbie), and their dog's name, and I can't listen to the Eagle's "Hotel California" because Robbie used to play that song over and over and play his drums along with it. Hearing that song gives me the creeps. But I don't remember their last name, or how old I was, or how to get into the basement where it all happened for god knows how many weekends my brother and I were under their care. Strange isn't it? The sister, mom, and dad never knew. Never knew.

I just want it to go away forever. I'll be fine for a long time, a few years even, but then suddenly like a fucking train it hits me that this really did happen…it often feels like it happened to someone else…I wish it had. I just don't want it in me anymore…

I had probably the saddest dream about a year ago. I still remember it in great detail. The detail wasn't in a visual sense, but on such a deeply emotional level that it is hard to express. I dreamt that I had a sister…one that I had forgotten about. In my dream that sister died a long time ago when I was young. Later in the dream I realized that sister was me as a child. I dreamt I crept into an attic room where the walls were covered with dark oak shelves and books…it was very warm, and felt very protected…On the couch was my father sleeping off a drunken stupor, and kneeling by his side was that little girl in a red party dress…waiting for something to happen. She turned and looked at me with such patience (she had the widest, bluest eyes)…just sitting…almost frozen…just watching and waiting. Her expression was not one of happiness, nor sadness. It was more numb than anything. It's that little girl that I cry for. When I weep I don't weep for my life as it is now -- I have a good life. I weep for what that little girl had to endure for so long. I wish I could protect her. That dream haunts me.
 

For the last three weeks, I have been searching the web for information and assistance to help me through a recent ordeal. Your story touched me, as we have all been secure, fun-loving 15 year olds at one point in time. Here is my story.

Approximately three weeks ago (October 26, 1998), I was at a small local sports bar, which I have frequented for nearly eight years now. I know just about everyone that comes in there (all of the "regulars"), had gone out in social groups with some of the employees, and felt safe and comfortable there. On this particular Monday Night Football evening, I was meeting a friend of mine there, and arrived a little while before her. I sat and talked with some of the regular patrons, with whom I was acqauinted, and a man I had never seen in there before joined in our conversation. He was handsome, well-built, and extremely personable. He was, to me, Mr. Perfect. We ended up hitting it off; talking and flirting most of the night. When it started to get late and became time for me to leave, he offered to walk me to my car. I had found out through the course of the evening, that he was a Federal law official, and felt completely comfortable with him walking me to my car. I let him in my car thinking we would talk, perhaps a kiss goodnight, and exchange phone numbers for future contact. We talked and laughed for a few minutes, then he kissed me. The kissing turned to fondling, consensual at this point, until he became a little too rough with me. I asked him to stop- but he kept going, telling me to shut my mouth and uttering obscenities at me. It all seems surreal now. I was pinned in my car in an awkward position and raped. I remember kicking him to finally get him out of my car. I remember him laughing. I remember that I couldn't drive fast enough to get out of the parking lot. I remember crying uncontrollably the whole way home. That night I couldn't sleep at all. I tossed and turned all night. The only thing that I truly recall about the next morning, is telling my closest friend what had happened, and having her bring me to the hospital. What happened after that I can't discuss, as there are still legal issues that haven't been settled. I don't know why I wrote you, but I feel better for having done it. Thank you.
 

I was 5 years old when my mom and dad got divorced. I still saw my dad regularly, but my mom was dealing with her own issues, so it basiclly left me in charge. I had to go from 5 years old to 25 years old in a matter of days. She would sit in her room for hours which left me to care for my brother, and her some days. I am not angry at her about this, in fact I feel for her, it's just how it was. So there I was, an adult at 5 years old and in Kindergarten. When I was about 7, I think, my grandfather moved from Texas to Illinois, where we lived, because he'd had a stroke and wanted to be at home with his family. He lived next door to my aunt so she could help him out with laundry and whatever else he needed. We'd go over and visit my aunt and see him at the same time. Sometimes we'd all go over there, sometimes, just me or my brother or both of us. I always sat on his lap. He was my grandpa, it was just what I did. He had this big brown reclining chair, so he'd be lying down and I'd just lie down with him and watch TV. Thats when he'd touch me, if we were alone. It was really subtle, so I didn't really know what was going on. I'm not sure if I even thought about it at the time.

About a year or so later, my aunt was moving to a different neighborhood, and the problem came up about what he was going to do without someone to help him out. They talked about a retirement home, but no one really wanted him to have to do that, so my mom offered to have him move in with us. My room got moved to the basement, my brother moved into my room, and my grandpa moved into my brother's room. I loved this! I could have my grandpa here with me all the time. There couldn't be a better set up, I thought. The touching still went on, but again, it was very subtle. It would be something like rubbing my back and "accidently" coming too close to my chest or my bottom, things like that. He was our babysitter, but it seemed I did most of the "taking care of" duties. I was taking care of him AND my brother, and that meant doing whatever he told me to, since he was in charge.

But, one day, I made him mad. I guess I was about 10. He'd been using his walker since the stroke to help him get around. I was sitting in his room, on his bed, talking to him while he rode his exercise bike. He told me to turn around and not to turn back around until he told me I could. So I did. I heard him moving around behind me and I was curious as to what he was doing, so I turned around to look. There he was, walking, without his walker. I was amazed. I said "You can walk!!" (very excited, not accusing him). And he jumped at hearing my voice. He yelled that I wasn't suppossed to turn around yet. I told him I was sorry and he said it wasn't good enough. He said I was bad. He stood there staring at me for what seemed like the longest time with this horrible look on his face. He was SO angry and I had MADE him this way. But I wasn't scared yet, just sad that I had made him mad. He took off his belt and I thought he was going to spank me, but he didn't. He dropped the belt on the ground and unzipped his pants. Thats when I started to get nervous. I didn't know what he was doing, but I knew it was weird. He came and sat beside me on the bed and took my hand and put it on his pants. I just looked at the floor and didn't move. As soon as he let go of my hand, I got up to walk away, but he grabbed my arm and pulled my back onto the bed. He pushed me down and told me I was bad again. I kept saying "I'm sorry." and I was crying. He was touching my face, my hair...telling me to stop crying, that I'd been bad, and he had to punish me. He was touching me all over. Under my shirt, in my pants, everywhere. I squirmed a little, but he would get rough when I moved, so I focussed on holding completely still. Maybe if I closed my eyes, and didn't move, he'd think I was asleep or dead and he'd stop. No such luck. I don't remember how it went from both of us being full clothed and him touching me, to me being naked and him having no pants on and being on top of me. It was so quiet in the house. All I could hear was the sound of his breathing and the clock ticking. He was raping me and I just concentrated on the clock ticking. Counting it. I'd lose count and start all over again. Anything not to be there with him. I don't know how long it lasted or when he stopped or if he said anything. I just remember curling up in a little ball and wishing I was dead. I took a bath not long after that, and I never told anyone. The touching continued until I was 15 and he moved out.

I thought I'd been through the worst, but the next was bad too. I was 19, it was my second year in college, and I was dating two guys (being premiscuous, but I had only slept with one of the two i was seeing.) I went on a date with the other one (the one I hadn't slept with), Rick, one night....October 23, 1997. We went to his apartment to "get something" (he said). And there we drank a little and smoked some pot (which I hardly EVER did, but figured why not.) I had a bad feeling about the whole thing, but I ignored it. We started making out, and that was okay. Things we're going further and he wanted to go to the bedroom, so I went. I thought I wanted to sleep with him--hell, I was sleeping with any guy who wanted it at that point anyway, what was one more? (I thought this at the time). A little while after we were in his room, I changed my mind. I don't know what made me change my mind, but I did. I got scared, confused, a million other things. I told him I wanted to stop. But he didn't. He raped me. I told him he was hurting me and he just told me "don't worry, it'll get better." I told him to stop...i can still hear my voice saying it and it was desperate, begging him to stop, but he wouldn't. He walked me home afterwards. He called me every day for a month and finally the phone calls stopped. I didn't report it right away (i did a month later, but nothing came out of it), but I did tell some friends. I went to counseling for that rape and my grandfather's abuse/rape, but I never really tried. I'm trying now. It's hard as hell and Im not sure I'll ever get through it, but I won't know until I try. i'm also volunteering at a sexual assault center...helping others is helping me. Maybe one day, it'll get easier....but today, I dont' know about that.