Grooming/SA experience

TW // GRAPHIC DISCUSSION OF ASSAULT

I was groomed and then assaulted by a large group of adults when I was 16. I was talking to this guy online for a little while and he invited me to a party with his friends. Like an idiot, I went. It was full with mostly people over 30-40, and when I got there I almost completely shut down. I didn’t know what to do, and that led to my being used as a toy by over 20-25 adults (at least) over the course of three parties. I still don’t know how many, nor do I know their names. Do you know how degrading it feels to not know your body count? I can make as many jokes about it as I want, but it still remains that they took everything from me. They took my innocence, my sense of self, they turned me into an object. I was nothing to them.

They made a few jokes about not carding me and not giving a shit if I was over 18 or not. They even gave me a free HIV test. They knew I wasn’t 21 because they wouldn’t even let me drink. 5 men can hurt me in a room full of strangers but I can’t have something to numb the experience. I bled the second time, but I’m still not sure what it was. Some of the men were as old as my father and grandfather. It puts a nasty taste in your mouth.

I got PTSD from this, as you could imagine. It took 2 years to set in. Once I left my high-stress high school, it all hit me like a ton of bricks. I was having full-on sensory hallucinations in my car on the way to work. I can’t even think about a man sexually without wanting to cringe away. I’ve identified as a lesbian since the onset of my PTSD, but I’m not sure if I’m really a lesbian or just a bi woman with a trauma-induced fear of men.

I can’t help but wonder how much of it is my fault. Did they card me? No. Was I honest? Also no. Not just not honest, I did lie. Was I instructed to lie? Yes. I walked in that door time and time again, groomed into being used for men twice and thrice my age. That’s why I file this under grooming, personally. The grooming was less direct, but it was very very present.

I’m officially in recovery from my PTSD according to my therapist and psych, but I know that I walk a fine line with my triggers on bad days. Being touched by men without my initiating it is the biggest one. I have three men who I would count as my best friends, but they know to not initiate physical contact with me unless I make it explicitly known that I’m comfortable being touched that day. There are some phrases and sensations that will 100% set it off as well, but they’re mostly related to having sex with someone with a penis - so I avoid that. If any kind of fluid ever got on my face or if I got near a real dick, I’d have a breakdown complete with flashbacks & hallucinations/delusions. That’s the most fun part of PTSD!

I still worry, though. I don’t like going back to my hometown on the off chance that I run into one of my rapists. If that happened my whole house of cards would come tumbling down. I also worry about any photos or videos surfacing - I don’t know if any were took, but it wouldn’t surprise me if that was the case. I already know there’s an upskirt video of me floating around.

I’m just sick of being seen as an object that people can do whatever they want with. It hasn’t happened since the end of my first semester of my junior year of high school, but I packed so much sexual trauma (this and other things) into those 7 months that I didn’t even try to have intercourse until this May (2021) - and it took years of talk therapy to get there. I just want to be normal, and to be treated normally. Not like a doll for people to play with.

I feel bad sharing my story sometimes, because it seems so extreme in comparison to others (I know that there are no comparisons that can actually be drawn about these things, but it’s an irrational thought). I don’t share it often outside of the internet. Only my best friends know about it, and even then they don’t know all of the details. My friend Robert and I have bonded extra because he got groomed by a bunch of older guys back where he lived in Cali while he was also around 16-17. Oddest bonding experience I’ve ever had, let me tell you. (There’s a reason we’re both doing the career path we’re on, and the trauma we share definitely plays a role in it.) It felt nice to talk to someone that got what it was like. Just the sheer number of them. My close friend May is the only person who I think knows the entire story, and I’m so thankful she took it in stride like she did.

I just don’t want it to change how people see me. I feel like it’s one thing to get raped, and it’s another to get assaulted by multiple men old enough to be my father/grandfather several times. That changes how people treat you. The only other comparisons I can draw are to some human trafficking survivors. There was money exchanged to enter these parties, and I was “invited” for free because I was a young nubile woman, and therefore would be a star attraction. Dunno if that counts technically, but it fits the spirit of the thing.

I’m a writer if you couldn’t tell by the insanely long post. I’m not writing this for anyone to read really, it’s more of a vent. I just feel like I can’t tell anyone the full story without them going insane with pity, which is not what I want. I don’t want pity. I don’t want guilt. If you feel those emotions that’s fine, I just don’t want to hear them. I’ll go crazy. It just evokes such strong reactions from people that I feel like I have to keep the story hidden so I don’t have to hear the words “I’m so sorry” ever again.

I can still feel their hands on me.

(Edited by @CheeryMngo to fit the forum guidelines)