i’m so fucking frustrated with myself everytime i try doing homework it just ends with me staring at my laptop screen for a good 30 minutes before my brain decides welp im tired time to sleep! Yall i deadass made my alarm for 7am today in HOPES of going to class. I finally woke up at 1pm. I’m so fucking tired of how my assault affected my brain. I’m like a fucking zombie!! I’m so tired man i’m paranoid all the time, I get tiny panic attacks at random times whenever i remember my assault, i barely eat, i can’t remember shit, i’m starting to hear voices again, and i sleep all the time. I just want to do my schoolwork and everywhere I hear “Oh just do it! Oh just put it into smaller tasks” IM TRYING MY BRAIN WONT ALLOW ME TO!! I feel like im making excuses for myself but anytime i try to push myself to even get out of bed in the morning that alone takes away all my energy for the whole day. I’m tired of this, i just want to learn and I don’t know what to do. Any help??

I hooked up with some guy I had just started talking to and he didn't stop when I asked him to. he also went "back to front" repeatedly, so now I definitely have a UTI and I'm worried about having a vaginal infection. and of course I need to get STI testing now. so that's just great.

I've been feeling self destructive recently, I don't exactly know why, but I made a series of bad decisions that put myself in danger and I got myself hurt. I am putting most of the blame on myself. I feel so embarrassed. I don't want to talk to my partner about it.

I don't even want to talk to my therapist about it. against all instinct I did end up messaging my therapist and asking for a sooner appointment. I told her something happened but didn't say anything more than that. I don't know what I'm going to say to her when I do see her again.

Six months ago, I (32F) was seeing a new man and had a few great dinner dates. I felt comfortable enough with him at this point to have a night in, so we planned to order in sushi and spend the evening at his place.

He and I had (what I thought was) similar aligning interests sexually, and we had thorough conversations about kink, limits, and he checked all the boxes in my vetting process.

Our night started off great, with a great sushi spread and good conversation, nothing felt off or gave me any sort of sense that I was not with a safe person.

I don’t want to get into the details of what happened in this post, but what started off as consensual quickly turned after a limit was crossed and the safe word ignored. The rest of the night turned dark, and it was hours of non-consensual sexual acts, physical violence, and psychological manipulation.

I have not had contact with this man since then, and I don’t worry about him coming after me or anything of the sort, but I really struggle some days with the memories and intrusive thoughts. I now take Prazosin for nightmares caused by PTSD, and I am starting a trauma therapy program in a few weeks.

I guess I’m looking for ways other survivors have coped with a traumatic situation like this, and how to navigate “normal life” when I feel like i’m carrying this awful burden around.

i’m off work for three days and my partner and i haven’t had sex since i got raped. they’re saying they don’t want to freak me out or trigger me but i feel hypersexual lately and have no idea what to do about it. we’re supposed to have sex sometime in the next few days and i just need advice on how i should go about it. i’m worried that i’ll get triggered and start crying in the middle of it or something.

sos . i think i lowkey wanna forgive my abuser, and honestly i feel like im losing my mind fr.

​tbh this whole situation is completely fucked. he’s not some random creep, he’s my cousin. we literally grew up together, inseparable basically my whole life. and now we’re stuck in the exact same class every single day, forced to act like everything is normal.

​like, my brain is literally gaslighting me into thinking it’s no big deal and that i should just forgive him. i keep telling myself “it’s fine, it wasn't a full rape, he just fingered me while i was sleeping.” wth is wrong with me??

​im having nightmares every single night where im just talking to him like normal, and being trapped around him 24/7 is destroying me from the inside out. my mental health is completely in the trash. idk what to do anymore smh.I dont want forgive him.He destroyed me. But..I dont know. I need advice

My therapist told me it doesn’t matter what really happened because we are no law to decide that, and that we can heal whatever i remember and feel. It just doesn’t feel right tho, i need to know, and i don’t want to convince myself it happened if maybe it didn’t happen because i don’t want to be mad at the supposedly perpetrator that i still have contact with.

Im thinking about a specific memory that came fragmented, but i feel its too detailed to be non important (aka, the exact clothes i was wearing, the place, the time, his exact words), 1st part (that was actually the last part of the memory) came last year after a similar physical sensation, 2nd part of the same memory came recently after seeing a picture, but i dont know if my brain is connecting them both and trying to fill the gaps.

Ive been overthinking about it and i feel my mind is trying to connect the story but because now i have a.. kinda, linar story now i feel its not real and my mind invented it. Im scared to be confused because i dont want my mind to convince me to not trust one more person in my life, i feel im crazy and resentful already..

I am turning 18 next month and it feels like I am rotting away. As a child, ages 11-13 I was repeatedly sexually abused and it has left me with PTSD. Turning 18 has been an incredible fear for me for years and now it’s actually around the corner I am terrified.

I’m going to try my best to explain why this is so difficult for me;

Since my brain has been rewired due to my trauma I have the feeling that once I turn 18 I will be ’expired’, in a way. I feel that I was only desired as a child and early teen and when I turn 18 it means I’ll never be special to someone again.

I am also afraid that I will no longer be viewed as a victim. When someone who is still a minor talks about their SA experiences, I feel it is received a lot more gently than when an adult does.

In another way, I am afraid I’ll turn 18 and someone who is older than me will take advantage of me but nobody will care since I will be considered ‘legal’ and ‘an adult’. I don’t feel like an adult at all. I feel like a small child afraid of the outside world.

I told myself I wouldn’t turn 18. I put so much pressure on myself by accident, since to avoid this fear I’ve been telling myself I’ll be dead before 18 and in that way it felt less scary. But I’m alive, I’m breathing and I’m going to become an adult. I can’t stop time from passing.

Does/did anybody else experience this sort of dread with turning 18 due to sexual abuse?

Hello! I'm gonna say here, trigger warnings for rape, abortion, talk of grief, and psychological abuse.

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right, to start, I'm gonna explain my story. I was with a horrible man for a few months, I didn't realise that him doing things to be in my sleep was assault as he was my partner and due to horrible sex education, I thought that all sexual assault had to be violent. This man had also cheated on me and assaulted me in my sleep prior to this specific event happening.

On Christmas day 2024, we smoked a joint, and I'd gone for a nap as I wasn't feeling too good. He had raped me in my sleep. I woke up to, and again. graphic content warning, the feeling that he had finished inside me, I was on birth control at the time. I felt really yucky about the situation, but again, because of my lack of education, I let it sit at the back of my mind.

In February 2025, I was getting ready to go to a friend's birthday party, I'd felt really unwell for the past month and a half, I was finally convinced by a friend to take a pregnancy test, my birth control had failed that day, christmas day of all days and I was pregnant.

This friend helped me through the termination, advising me not to tell him because they knew how emotionally abusive he could be. I eventually told him because I caved, I was trapped. He was completely unsupportive throughout my termination, I felt like a thrown away rag and having to grieve my baby on top of everything because I couldn't have a child at that point, I was 19 and working 13 hours a week as an early morning cleaner.

A week after my termination he asked for no contact but still be together for awhile because his mental health was bad, yeah HIS after his girlfriend who he'd been raping had just had to abort his rape baby because like fuck would I have had a child with that creature as a father. A few weeks later I found out he had cheated again and ended it.

But the grief and the shame from not realising that it was rape sooner eat at my brain every day.

how do I get over this??? please help me

I can’t deal with this mental torture anymore, everyday Im reminded of what he did to me and all I want is for him to die and leave me alone. I’m sick of living my day to day life full of hatred and anguish, I just want him to leave this earth its all I want I want him to experience the death I experienced psychologically except physically. Yet I know it wont happen.

So my boyfriend and I do some dominant sex sometimes. And I also have past trauma, so I don’t know if I’m being dramatic. - yesterday I was having sex with him and *trigger warning with details * doing oral, and he put his hand on the back of my head and started pushing me down. I started gagging and smacking his legs (that’s our safeword) but he didn’t stop. Sometimes I would wiggle out but before I could say anything, he pushed me back down again. He did this for a bit until finally I could pull away to tell him to stop. He said he forgot slapping is a safeword, he could be lying but he is so good to me so I’m not sure. And I always want to make him happy, but I just don’t know about this. It’s sus, and I’m worried :( what does anyone think?

I am tired of hiding. I got r by someone I considered my close friend when I was younger, probably about 7/8 years ago. We had consensual intercourse many times before this but this was different because I was unconscious and he wasn’t allowed in my room. In my friend group alone he has r 2 of them too. I think at the time because he was someone in our circle we justified it as just douchebag behavior but not more. It took me about a year after we stopped talking for me to realize that what happened to me was wrong. It was during the pandemic so it got really bad and at one point I subtweeted about the situation on twitter, I am assuming he got the message because of that and how I would avoid him. Then things started to get really intense..he was my neighbor, it was 2020, we were always home and we literally saw that he would look in our windows and also let his dog poop in our yard. In any social event he would stand really close to me and stare at me almost like he was constant alert. It made this period of my life start to feel scary. So my roommate contacted him and told him to piss off basically and he told her none of this stuff happened and he was the victim because I got into his trunk when I was being dumb/drunk when we were on a date once and told him to get in? But he didn’t even get in? I don’t understand that. Maybe too quirky..but it was innocent.

This feud continued for about couple years where I would constantly feel like he was trying to intimidate me in public and in my own home. And it was hard because we lived in the same proximity and shared a lot of friends. But a lot of people stopped talking to me because of me even vaguely implying something could be wrong. I felt really alone.

Anyway I move on with my life, get a boyfriend..he tried to befriend him. I move, I still see him out in public and he just stares. I run into his friend maybe 3 years after this happened and we start chatting, find out they are no longer friends because he realized he was a bad person. We exchanged info and shared our experiences with each other. The friend told me basically that this guy likes to catfish as multiple Indian men on instagram and try to follow women. I had been getting a lot of weird requests year back but idk. Then today happened…

He tried to follow me on insta, my friends think its because of the cornell 7. This person is somewhat in the public eye so maybe he is trying to clear his conscience. I just deleted and blocked him. Tonight, I get home and tell my now fiancé (same guy from earlier) that this happened. In that moment he tells me he also tried to follow him, and he rejected it. Its weird timing because I am about to get married and I have worked so hard on my life and healing and really have gotten to a good place, then he tries to reenter my life.

Just because we had been intimate before didn’t give him the right to take advantage of me. I trusted him and never thought my friend would do that to me. I avoided all the signs then and I wanna be diligent this time around. Should I be on alert right now or is the past trauma just triggering me? I just don’t understand his intentions and don’t wanna find out.

i feel like being on reddit has made me worse mentally. i came here to try to talk to people about my sexual trauma because i can’t afford a therapist and i know reddit has a lot of support groups. i’ve been messaged and harassed by so many disgusting men that i don’t feel like a human being anymore. i do appreciate the people who are actually trying to help so i don’t want to fully turn off my dms but i feel like i might have to at this point and just find somewhere else to heal. my entire life i’ve been assaulted, raped, everything. i can’t take it anymore, i feel like a joke

I just stumbled across some pics and vids of my assault plus some ai generated shit of myself and idk what to do. I feel like I should report it but I’m also really scared to because I have a bad experience with reporting stuff. I feel rly overwhelmed and just kinda violated tbh all over again. Anyone have any advice?

In my life I had already several relationships that were really bad and violent. And two of them extremely bad and sadistic and abusive. Sometimes I ask myself why does it happen to me? Did I do something in my previous life to deserve that? And after I finally escaped out of such relationship, do i meet another guy who is even worse. Is that bad luck or are some of those guys seeing some of us as easier victims and can analyze us perfectly and put weaknesses. It’s just so frustrating and my mind and body feels so broken after such relationship. I feel even dumb for not being able to just leave them or break up and forgive too much or even follow their orders. Some of the previous boyfriends manipulated me heavily, made me start with kinks I would have never tried, forced me to pleasure them sexually at places that I would never suggest first, forcing me to sexual acts with a friends of them or hookups or sexual acts that are terrible and make me feel cheap. They made violent jokes or even threaten to do the same when we watched horror movies and saw some victims terrible endings. I was constantly emotionally and sexually abused and my body was more like a punching bag for some and I still weren’t able to escape alone. Luckily some friends helped me and I do therapy now again but it’s very challenging and I guess a long road. I‘m sometimes easily scared of men, my exes snapped easily for even the smallest mistakes and even humiliated me in front of others or he flirted with others and kept joking around and I just accepted it. I feel stupid and was totally under their control and I’m worried that it will happen in the future again.

this happened a couple years ago when i was married (gay married to be clear). we were together 9 years and this happened shortly before i left because i realized there were other unhealthy dynamics in our relationship, she generally didnt treat me well & i had enabled the dynamic way too long. anyway—

this particular night we were at a big event we had helped plan where she was performing. i was feeling anxious because she was busy so i was sort of alone, and i was wearing a much more revealing outfit than i usually would, which she brushed off so i tried to just get over it. i was supposed to be on a different team for the event that was there to help but i ended up drinking too much. we weren’t really needed anyway but i shouldn’t have gotten drunk. anyway, by the end of the night i was wasted, and she drove us home. i think she was upset with me about something on the way home, maybe about getting drunk, but i can’t remember.

when we got home i remember flirting with her and i was telling her how good she looked and taking pictures of her in her performance outfit and we were having fun. i was sloppy tho, stumbling around and falling over and rolling around on the floor. i could hardly string a sentence together. we probably kissed and i might have told her i wanted to have sex, i don’t remember. but the next thing i remember is waking up in bed with her sitting on my face and saying something like “i can’t believe you’re falling asleep while eating me out.” she was admonishing me for falling asleep while we were having sex and i felt so bad like i had done something so disrespectful to her. but i was also so confused because i didn’t even know we were having sex, or didn’t remember getting there. idk if we had done anything else sexual before that, if she had fingered me first or anything, i don’t know. i didn’t know what was going on. it didn’t feel right to me the next day but i just felt so guilty about getting too drunk and there was so much else going on that i just tried to put it out of my mind.

a friend recently told me about a sexual assault experience in their relationship and i guess it brought this experience up for me years later because ive been thinking about it all week. the event this all happened after was for a holiday and every year when that holiday comes around i get sick to my stomach all over again and avoid the holiday completely, and then put it out of my mind again… i never really processed a lot of the stuff from my marriage (and there’s a lot of painful shit there to process) but this particular experience is just… something i don’t even know how to name. i know drunk people can’t technically consent but we had had drunk sex before. i guess it was different because i was so wasted and she was almost sober? but idk. there’s something about it that just makes me sick to my stomach but idk if im putting more weight on it than is really there. anyway thank you for reading and for any insight or advice you might have for me.

As a child, I was always told that i was mature from my age, from my parent’s friends, teachers, social workers, neighbors and others.

When I was freshly 16 years old, I signed up to get trained for a summer camp job. It’s during that week that I met a guy that I’ll name him Igor to protect his identity. He was funny, kind, respectful and handsome. We got such a connection that I was surprised to learn that he was 21 years old. We chatted online for a while and hung out after the training. After a while he started to kiss me from time to time, I never initiated it and I was always so uncomfortable when it happened. I had a good libido and was really interested in having intimacy but each time he kissed me, I felt trapped inside or something. He was kind to me, complimenting me and making it clear that he wanted to be appealing to me. I don’t know how to explain it haha.

I was never sexually assaulted before, except once maybe. A relative of mine wanted to have penetration with me, i don’t remember how old i was, but I wasn’t quite a teen yet, and the boy was two or three years younger. He kept asking me and telling me he was doing it with another female friend of his. I kept refusing and that was that. Completely forgotten and I still see him, we get along really well and he became a very, very good person. I also once had a nightmare or two where I was followed or stalked by older men and I knew I was going to get sexually assaulted, but nothing more.

One night, we were in my bed, listening to music and he started kissing me (I was kissing him back too). It dragged on for a few minutes and he started rubbing his hips against mine. We kept on rubbing on each other and kissing for a long time but I never felt any sexual pleasure, every of my movements was thought and not naturally happening. At one point, I started to look at my ceiling and think about something else; Can my parents hear us? And my brother? What time is it? Is there any more bus passing at this hour? I mentioned to him that he should be careful not to miss his bus but he kept on ignoring the question. Then he asked my if he had permission to go down on me, I kinda froze, not expect him to ask before doing something like that and after a second I said “no, not tonight” and we just kept on making out. Nothing else happened, poor guy left with a boner.

I shared this with friends and some were quiet are weirded out, others said he groomed me. Igor was the first person the complement me and care for me, I felt like I was desirable with him.

What do you think? Any comments or questions? I guess I just needed to tell this story again to finally have an opinion on that experience?

I’m so sorry to user Kittycorn. I can’t find your profile but I lashed out at you thinking you were a perv.

If you’re living with sexual trauma and PTSD and feel like you’ve lost years of your life to trauma, please don’t give up hope. ❤️

I’ve wanted to be a social worker since I was 15. At 18, while attending university in 2016, I was sexually assaulted. At 20, I received early acceptance into my dream social work program, but I was constantly triggered by the stories of sexual assault and abuse I encountered throughout my studies.

I kept everything to myself until I broke down after meeting with a young client during my practicum in 2020 and finally told my supervisor. I graduated that year and due to COVID finally left the four-year relationship with the person who had assaulted me. I didn't go back to social work, I couldn't. At that time, it felt like he robbed me of not only my innocence but of my dream career too.

But leaving didn’t mean I had healed. I immediately entered another relationship with someone who eventually became controlling.

In 2021, at just 24, I became a homeowner. I was building a life for myself, a safe space I can call home, and my mental health was improving.

In 2022, I met the first person who encouraged me to start healing. Out of a handful of my friends who knew about the SA, none of them encouraged me to see a therapist or to talk to someone. But I blinded by this one good thing, he was a habitual liar but I still stayed for 2.5 years. Looking back, I can see that I was trying to find love and safety while carrying unresolved trauma. I kept repeating painful patterns before I understood how deeply my past was affecting me. That doesn’t make me responsible for other people’s behaviour, but it helped me recognize how much healing I needed.

I finally found the courage to begin my healing journey, almost 7 years after the SA. A plant medicine ceremony combined with breathwork helped me start confronting years of unresolved trauma and gave me the courage to speak to a therapist about the assault.

Then, in May 2023, I injured my back at work while supporting people with disabilities at a nonprofit organization. They couldn’t find suitable work for me afterward and eventually they laid me off.

There were times when I couldn’t walk more than 200 metres without tears streaming down my face. I couldn’t sit through dinner for more than 15 minutes or tie my own shoelaces. I lived alone, struggled with everyday tasks, and went from specialist to specialist, spending my savings on treatments while trying to keep my home and independence. I couldn’t even manage my laundry for over a year.

Before my injury, I was physically active 3-4 times a week. It helped me cope with my trauma but I couldn't do any of it. This injury hit my mental health hard. Things got worse before they got better, and I had several emergency mental health visits to the ER before being diagnosed with PTSD and some traits of borderline personality disorder. But because I couldn't hide the pain or bury it with work, or exercise, or another way to cope, I had to sit with it. You have to feel it, to heal it so that's what I did. I began to feel all the pain, and I began to heal it.

8 years after the assault, I made a report to the police and spoke about what had happened to me. Nothing could be done, but being able to speak about it and take that step was huge for me. After carrying this alone for so many years, I was finally finding the courage to use my voice, even without the outcome I might have hoped for.

9 years after the SA and 2 years after I started my healing journey, I finally told my parents and my siblings because I had never felt emotionally safe enough to tell them before. By then, I’d reached a point where I knew I couldn’t control their response, but I could tell my truth and be okay regardless.

Right after I told them, I went to Japan for almost three weeks so they could digest this but mostly I just needed to an escape route in case of their reaction. It was also a good way to test out my back and see what it could handle after a year and a half of treatments. It was better but not great. I noticed that my back could feel okay when the weather was sunny, but winter and the cold brought the pain back. I was afraid to go outside because slipping on ice could undo months of progress and cost me thousands more dollars. I couldn’t afford another fall and the possibility of returning to where I’d started. Even when I felt better, I was afraid of losing everything I’d worked so hard to regain. So I went abroad for further treatments and in November 2025, I met the man of my dreams.

Somewhere along the way from the day I began my healing journey to meeting him, I found peace. I had to learn how to wholeheartedly love myself first. I had to heal and believe that I was deserving of true, authentic love. I’ve since moved to China to give our relationship a real chance.

I’m still learning how to care for myself, navigate relationships, and build a future while carrying what I’ve been through.

But if I look back at the person I was at 18, I wish I was able tell her that she was going to be okay. That this is just one painful chapter... or many painful chapters but this not her entire story. That she would graduate, own a home, survive a devastating injury, seek help, and find the courage to speak about what happened to her.

If you’re living with PTSD, please know that healing isn’t always a straight line.

You might repeat painful patterns before you understand them. You might lose your independence, your career, or the life you thought you’d have. You might spend years simply trying to survive, and sometimes progress will feel impossibly slow.
But struggling doesn’t mean you’re broken, and setbacks don’t mean you’ve failed.

I spent years trying to keep going without understanding how deeply trauma had affected me. I needed support, treatment, and time to face things I’d carried alone for years.

I’m still here. I’m still healing. I’m still building a future.
I don’t know exactly what comes next, but I know that what happened to me at 18 wasn’t the end of my story and I'm so glad that I didn't give up.

You are allowed to have a future beyond what happened to you. You are allowed to start over, even if it takes years. You don’t have to be completely healed to deserve a good life.

Please keep going, one day at a time. 💖

I was 14 years old when it happened. He was 18,5 years old. I told him that I was 14 almost 15. What is true because it happened 7 days before my birthday. He told me he just turned 17. 5 days after it happened to me I went to the police and reported him, I already had a court in June 2026, now i’m waiting for another court because he went in appeal. The whole time he’s defending himself telling others I lied about my age. Here’s the thing, I didn’t lie he lied. I looked 11 years old wdym with I looked 18. I’m so pissed knowing I can’t do shit. But i’m not the only victim that’s why i’m even more pissed. He’s now going after a 13 year old. She told me he didn’t believe that she is 13, SHE LOOKS 13 WDYM. He keeps telling her that she is 16.I’m so mad. Police ain’t doing anything. He’s making more victims every single day.

Long story short my friends (b and a) were hanging out at a’s house this summer, b lives in Texas but came to visit us for a week this summer and they decide to go with some older friends and do shrooms. I get a text and 12- 1 late at night from b asking if they can stay the night at my place due to the fear that they might get assaulted by the older sketchy boys there, I said yes because I would literally never forgive myself if that happened. (It’s important to not that I dated b twice a year or two prior but we ended as friends and on good terms) so when they get to my house a is almost sobered up fully but b is at the height of her trip, stumbling and stuff so I pull them past my parents and into my room discreetly. Everything is fine for a bit til b starts touching my inner thigh which I didn’t really do anything abt it because sometimes she does it as a joke, she started grabbing my boobs through my pj top and groping me which I told her to stop but didn’t push her away because i didn’t want to hurt her in her wobbly state, a sat and laughed awkwardly kinda. B went under my shirt and played with my boob and nipple to which I pushed her away and she did it multiple more times.

I confronted her a few weeks later over text and she claimed she didn’t remember any of it and said basically she couldn’t believe she did that and started talking crap about me to a when I posted about it calling it sa (i didn’t name anyone!)

Anywho am I valid for thinking it’s sa and being mad even though I was sober and she wasn’t

I am not even sure if this belongs here but I couldn't find anywhere else.

So I moved to my dorm over a month ago and I am a freshman so I am new in uni too. My dorm is very social so they often organize events and parties.

5 days ago we had a party in our dorm. It was my first party in our dorm, I was having a good time until one of my housemates harassed me. I was basically just walking along the room, looking for my friends and he was walking towards me. I thought he was just gonna pass me by but he grabbed me out of nowhere, forcefully pulled me to himself and try to kiss me. It was disgusting and I pushed him immediately. One of my housemates was apparently behind me and saw that so she came with me to comfort me. We went to kitchen with her since nobody was there and sat in silence for a while. She asked me if I wanted her to talk to him about it but I said "it's okay everybody is drunk right now" because I didn't want to cause any trouble. I was staring at blank while being completely numb for a while. And then I tried to force myself to join the party and have fun again. I tried not to let this ruin my night. But I was not having fun and I was just dissociating every 3 minutes, staring at the blank. So I left early.

I wanted to talk about this with my other housemates since then but I didn't know how to bring that up. I am constantly remembering again during the day ever since. I get insanely uncomfortable and triggered when I see him in the common spaces. For context, our dorm normally interview people before accepting them, and only let them in if the other tenants like them. In this guy's case, he is a subtenant at someone else's apartment while the actual tenant is in erasmus. So he has 5 more months. If he was staying long term I would probably either leave or make him leave. But I am not even sure if I can wait for 5 months.

We had a hause meeting last night to basically talk about bills, wishlist for hause etc. It made me feel so anxious to be in the same room with him for 2-3 hours and I was nearly gonna have a panic attack. And the thing is, the meeting was in German and he is an international with a major in English so he doesn't even understand German. So he didn't even had to join. I catched him staring at me once and it made me even more uncomfortable. How does he have the audacity to show up there when he sexually harassed someone in the room? Not to mention he is 7 years older than me so that makes it even creepier.

Today I went to the kitchen to cook and saw the girl that witnessed me being sexually harassed and him having a casual chill conversation about architecture. I am so disappointed. The only person that knows and literally witnessed that i was harassed can still treat the perpetrator nicely. If I ever know someone that has physically harassed someone, I would never be friendly to them or talk to them. And I thought it was common sense. That's actually the biggest reason I don't tell my other housemates. I am afraid that they are gonna call me dramatic. Even the only person that witnessed it thinks that it's not a big deal.

Maybe I sound like I am overreacting to the people who are reading this. It's not my first time being sexually harassed and then having to coexist with my abuser. In fact, I had to coexist with people that keep physically harassing me over and over again so I just got desensitized to it after a while when it was happening. I constantly remember of this recent one in the random times of the day even though it only happened once with this person. I just don't know why I'm reacting more to this experience even though I had worse ones.

TW: Thoughts of self harm

With the news of the horrifying stuff that has come out of Cornell over the last few weeks. I’ve been finding it hard to try and ignore it given that I (now 22M) was a victim myself of SA by another male classmate around 3 1/2-4 years ago now.

The way that has helped me the best to help cope with what I have dealt with whenever there’s stuff about SA in the news is to try and tune it out mentally so I don’t have flashbacks of what happened to me. This time around however, I’ve found it increasingly difficult to do so and it has been bothering me quite a lot. I have a feeling it’s more to do with a lot more people that I know posting about it online. Or maybe it’s to do with the fact that this also happened on a university campus, but I’m not totally sure.

Another part of it that I’ve found it difficult to cope with what happened is the fact that despite the statistics of men being victims of SA while in University or College is around 1 in 10 while with women it’s around 1 in 4, I don’t know anyone else who was a victim as well. At times, it’s made me feel even more isolated of what’s happened given that there isn’t anyone else in my social circle to my knowledge that was also a victim to this and can relate in a way to help me cope at times.

At times, it’s destroyed me mentally. Despite myself being straight and the person who SA’d me being a male, it’s destroyed my confidence in dating. I have absolutely no confidence in myself to date, not sure if it’s nerves or trust or what. But I can’t bring myself to ask someone out. I’ve also had to deal with flashbacks including about a year ago where a mutual friend (female this time) grinding up on my leg at a club while she was drunk and I hadn’t had anything. That took a major toll on me and took a few of my friends who weren’t there to talk me out of harming myself as I had my razor held to my wrist while texting them. Any advice on what to do and how to cope would be greatly appreciated.