My story

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When we were working together, he often hit me or shoved me into the grills. At this point I was so sleep deprived that he'd managed to convince my coworkers that I was crazy enough to deserve this. I was at a point where I couldn't tell the difference between reality, nightmares, flashbacks, and hallucinations.

He eventually convinced the other workers to not just ignore the abuse, but to join in. I was going home with new second degree burns everyday from being shoved into grills or having the panini press we used slammed shut on my hand. By the time I quit, I'd had boiling nacho cheese dumped on me, my dish water replaced with water from the Bunn machine, and knives thrown at me. This was on top of being slapped, punched, and kicked repeatedly, as well as being groped. All of this behavior was recorded on camera, and the management just let it go. They even threatened to fire me if I went to the police.

I blacked out while working the fryer one day, which resulted in second degree burns covering the entire back of my hand and a large portion of my forearm. I was told that I would be fired if I left to seek medical attention, and it was 2 weeks before I was allowed to fill out an accident report form.

I was looking for a new at this point, but the management was giving me terrible reviews to prevent me from leaving. I had bills to pay, so I was stuck.

Continued

He finally got a place with his girlfriend and moved out a week after I started my senior year. I ended up breaking down and telling his girlfriend everything, but, of course, she didn't believe me.

Around this same time, I also started seeing someone (whom I'm still with), and having someone to hold me at night really helped me to finally get some sleep at see things a bit more clearly. I hadn't even realized how much I'd been abused until this point.

I still had to work with my rapist because the job search still wasn't going well, so I decided to visit the university's counseling services. The therapist I talked to there told me that my symptoms sounded like PTSD, but civilians don't get that. He also told me that a terrible person for pretending to have something that only affects the military, and that I should just drop out of school and plan to flip burgers for the rest of my life because I was too emotionally immature for the real world. He then had my scholarships revoked on the grounds of stolen valor.

The school system still claims that I actually lost my scholarships due to having poor grades, so this is what my parents go with. I didn't sleep more than 10 mins a night for 6 months, had 1D, 2 As and 2 Bs, and they want to tell people that I'm lazy and partied too much.

Continued

Shortly before Thanksgiving, my rapist started treating his girlfriend the same way he'd been treating me. She recognized the beginnings of the pattern that I'd described to her and finally started to believe me. I helped her move her stuff out, and then decided to quit my job so I no longer had contact with my rapist.

I've since bounced from job to job, but all have been seasonal and under the table. I have yet to find long term employment 2 years later. My rapist has been promoted to a management position and as such, gets to tell my potential future employers whether or not I'm a good worker, which is not helping matters any.

My parents are also convinced that I'm not actually trying as are threatening to kick me out of the house. I've created my own writing business to pay my current bills, but I don't currently have enough to afford my own place. I've sent out literally hundreds of applications looking for something that pays better and is more consistent, but so far I've only had one call me back, and didn't end up getting the position. My parents don't seem to understand that I can't just force employers to call me. They also claim that I'm using my PTSD as an excuse. My rapist still has a key to my house because they won't change it, and they've repeatedly told me that I can't talk about my rape or someone will shoot him and it'll be my fault.

I'd had bad experiences with other counselors before the one I mentioned, and the doctors at our clinic are very inept when it comes to physical wounds, so I don't trust them enough to talk to them about my issues at this point, which is just furthering my parents' belief that I'm making it up. They don't seem to even be able to pretend that they want to understand.

I really don't know what to do at this point, which is why I'm here. I just feel like maybe if I can talk to someone who actually believes me, it'll help.