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My sexual assault story

Trauma Support / by Fearlessdragon

March 13th, 2024

...See more TW: Multiple sexual assaults, victim blaming, adults being inappropriate with a child When I was in the 8th grade I met this guy, I'm going to call him 'Alex'. Alex and I became fast friends because we were both shy, nerdy kids with similar interests. After the 8th grade, we ended up going to separate high schools but we remained friends since we lived within walking distance of each other. We usually spent our school breaks together, watching anime and playing video games together. At the time, I didn't have a lot of friends. Alex was the only one I hung out with outside of school and for years I considered him my best friend. Our friendship was pretty normal throughout freshman year of high school, but Alex slowly started to get creepy during sophomore year. The change was subtle. At first, it started with him wanting to watch more "fan service-y" anime together. The shows we watched slowly got more and more sexual. At some point, he started to send me images of characters from the hentai he was watching, telling me how hot he thought the characters were. Now, I want to give a little bit of backstory. Men have been creepy towards me for as far back as I can remember. Even when I was as young as 6 years old. Adult family friends and male family members have said inappropriate things to me. When I was 14, I had an online male friend who was in his 20s. He was super creepy with me too and at one point convinced me to send him ***. I stopped texting him shortly after that, but the point is so many adult men in my life have normalized this behavior. I didn't think Alex's actions were weird or a red flag. They were normal, I thought that's just how guys are. Back to sophomore year. One day, we were walking to McDonalds together, which was pretty normal for us to do. But, this time, when we got to an isolated road, he asked me if he could kiss me. I was so confused and said "No???". But, he leaned over and kissed me anyway. I was so confused, I asked him if he did that because he liked me. Alex told me he didn't. he just wanted to know what it felt like to kiss a girl. I laughed it off and we continued going to McDonalds. But, later, when I got home I couldn't help but feel gross and violated, and I didn't know why. It was just a kiss, I told myself. He was just curious and it was harmless. I eventually convinced myself that I was overreacting and never brought it up to him. My 16th birthday came and Alex wanted to celebrate it together. The weekend after my birthday, he invited me over to his house. He had bought me my favorite snacks and even got me a cake. Which I thought was the sweetest and kindest thing a friend had ever done for me. His family was out that day, so we had the whole house to ourselves. Which I thought was awesome. We ate junk food and watched anime, and I was honestly having a great time. About an hour into the party, though, Alex then pinned me to the couch and raped me. I don't want to go into details, I barely remember them anyway. Weirdly, the one thing I do remember crystal clear was the walk home. I remember feeling so dirty and I felt strangely paranoid that the people in their cars driving by were staring at me, somehow KNOWING what had just happened. I felt so ashamed. I stopped talking to Alex after this. Which was so hard. He was my best friend and one of the only people I talked to and hung out with regularly. Sure, I had friends at school, but I barely ever talked or hung out with them outside school. Alex was the one I spent most of my time with. When I cut ties with him I felt so alone. It took months until I worked up the courage to tell someone. I was so scared, but I just needed to tell someone what happened. I told my longtime friend from middle school. She had actually hung out with Alex and me a couple of times. I thought she could understand what I was going through since she had seen our friendship. When I told her, her response was: it was my fault for being so friendly with him, I was leading him on. Honestly, I didn't even feel bad as she told me this. I just thought," Yeah, she's probably right." For many years, I blamed myself for the assault. In fact, after this conversation, I stopped believing it WAS an assault. I began to believe it was just a misunderstanding between friends and that I was overreacting. I even started to feel bad for Alex for ghosting him. The next year, when I was 17, I had another male friend invite me over to his house to play video games. When we were in his room alone, he started to touch me inappropriately. Luckily it didn't escalate into anything more. But, I just froze when he started to touch me. I didn't say so "no", or say "stop" or fight back. Like I did when I was assaulted by Alex. I think this reinforced my belief that these incidents were my fault. That maybe I sent this friend mixed signals. I even started to believe that I must have somehow wanted it to happen. For years, I have gone back and forward in my own head. I have convinced myself many times that I'm overreacting. That others have had it way worse than me. That it was my fault these assaults happened in the first place. That I wanted it to happen. I repressed these feelings for many, many years. I think I'm in a place now to believe NONE of it was my fault and I want to begin healing from all this. Thank you to anyone who has read this. I know it was a lot, but I wanted to get it all off my chest.

My two best friends might be toxic

Relationship Stress / by Fearlessdragon

April 4th, 2020

...See more I have these two internet friends that I've known and talk to daily for over a year now. They are my two closest friends and the people I ineract with most. Ecspecially now that we are in quarentine. Recently, though, they've been making me feel awful. Let's say their names are T and R. T teases me a lot, sometimes crossing over to straight up bullying territorty. And, R always defends T whenever I get upset about it. For example, just the other day, I was struggling with an essay and T said she could help me since she's good at writing. The three of us get on call and I screen share so T can see what I'm writing. While helping, T keeps making comments about how bad I am at writing. Laughing at all my typos and making sarcastic marks about "what a great writer I am". At one point I snap and tell her to shut the fuck up. T gets upset and R said I was too harsh and in the wrong for insulting someone who was helping. Today, T private messages me and tells me about all the things she working on for R's birthday. It's coming up and we plan to watch R's favorite movies together on that day. T has drawn her art, made her an online card, and is telling me about the present she's going to ship to her. I got extremely jealous. For my birthday I had gotten a 'happy birthday' message in the morning and that was it. No presents, cards, nor did we hang out for it. And I went all out for T's birthday, I also had a lot of stuff planned for R's birthday. When I told T about my jealousy, she brushed it off and kind of said it was my own fault for not saying I wanted to a groupcall on my birthday. My heart just dropped. It really feels like R and T like each other more than they like me. I don't know what to do anymore because they are the only two I really talk to.

Should I get medication for my panic disorder?

Anxiety Support / by Fearlessdragon

November 5th, 2019

Is what I'm experiencing a panic attack?

Anxiety Support / by Fearlessdragon

August 16th, 2019

...See more The past few months I've been having these random spikes in anxiety and I'm not entirely sure if what I'm experiencing is a panic attack or something else. They usually come at out of no where, suddenly I start to feel anxious. Then the anxiety gradually builds for awhile then shoots all the way up. So, it's not like a 0 to 100 sort of thing, its more of a gradually climb to 30 then suddenly 100. If that makes sense. When the anxiety is at it's peak my chest tightens painfully, my heart thumps hard, and I start feel like I'm not getting enough air. I also get a strong urge to cry and I feel like I'm going crazy or I'm losing control of myself. This happens about once a month, give or take. The reasons why I think what I'm experiencing isn't a panic attack is, for one, I don't cry. A friend of mine who does get panic attacks told me that during one you cry uncontrollabley. Secondly, this state of heightened anxiety lasts a long time. I'd say for about an hour (though the anxiety isn't at it's peak the whole hour, the intensity wavers througout that hour). And I heard panic attacks only last a few minutes. Finally, I can still function when I'm going through this. I can still move and talk to people and whatnot. Again, heard you couldn't do that during panic attacks. Anyway, thanks for hearing me out.

Should I talk to my friend (ex-girlfriend) about my hurt feelings?

Relationship Stress / by Fearlessdragon

August 12th, 2019

...See more So, I'm going through a break up right now. It happened a couple of weeks ago. She broke up with me, saying that she wasn't emotional prepared for a relationship. She had a lot of emotions and tramua to work through and didn't want me to have to wait for a partner who couldn't give me the affection I needed. (That's the short version of it anyway). I really didn't want to break up with her, I still loved her dearly, but I had no idea what to say or do. So I let us break up. But we decided to stay friends, which was nice but I'm still very heart broken. It's hard to hang out with her or our friend group becuase, when I do, I usually end up feeling angry, jealous, hurt, and/or sad. I want to talk to her about this but I'm not sure if it's the smart move to make. I don't want to hurt her feelings or make her feel guilty. And, most of all, I really don't want to stop being friends. I also wonder what I'd accomplish from talking to her anyway. It's not like she can make me feel less sad. I also wonder if immediately going back to friends was the smart move. Would some space and distance be better for me? I dont know, I know strangers on the internet can't give me the perfect solution. But, if anyone has any advice I'd gladly take it.

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