rumor18894
Learning
Hello! We're just going to jump right into this. I'm sure this is just a heaping mess of self-blame but I can't shake the feeling that I got myself into this situation because of how complicated it is and how I reacted to it. This gets somewhat emotionally intense, although I've tried to keep the graphic details out. EDIT: really sorry if this is in the wrong section - please let me know if I should take it down!
I was sexually abused by my brother as a child and dealt with a lot of internalised self-worth issues as a result. Then, when I started seeing boys for the first time I had lots of troubles because I could never just stick with one (although they were all one at a time) and wasn't great at vetting them, so I had several toxic relationships with some of the guys in my friend group. Lots of control issues, about my body and behavior, which I wasn't taking sitting down, so each relationship didn't last long but then at some point after dumping the last boyfriend, they banded together and decided I was the problem. The one guy I was still friends with, who I kind of regretted dumping because he was the nicest out of all of them, was the one to break the news that I would have no friends going into second year of college.
Fast forward to third year of college, I was still hoping to be friends with the one nice dude (ND) and after some spotty messaging back and forth over the first semester, I invited him to my birthday party. He came over, sat on his phone in a corner the entire time, but then while we were all in the living room after dinner watching a movie, he started getting touchy feely and holding my hand and things. At the time, it was quite sweet (now it puts a pit into my stomach) and then everyone else left organically as the gathering came to a close. He claimed to be too tired/drunk to get home so I let him stay over but put him on the couch. After half an hour, he knocked on my door and I let him in but I was tired and we had slept in the same bed before so I didn't really see a problem with letting him sleep on my bed. He started putting his hands in places but I wasn't interested so I didn't respond in the hopes that he would stop and go to sleep. He continued for more than an hour (maybe two hours) and I kept just waiting for him to stop but when it became apparent to me that he wouldn't without active intervention from myself, I decided to just get it over with. He had the audacity to ask me "should I stop?" when I turned over and I was so angry at the time that I hissed at him (in my culture it's a common sound of displeasure, in context it meant something like "shut up, you're the one who assaulted me this long and now you're putting on the brakes?" - it felt like he'd already run me over so what's the point of asking if he should stop, right?). So yeah, it was unfulfilling and frankly quite scarring psychologically and towards the end I just lay there and didn't participate anymore because I wanted it to be over but this idiot couldn't even finish himself off and afterwards left the apartment looking uncomfortable.
I saw him once a year after this happened (incidentally the next day I got sick and had a fever that kept me unconscious for most of the day but idk if that's relevant to us meeting) and we pretended it hadn't happened because it was mixed company. Never saw him again and this year (three years after our last meeting) I finally got around to blocking him off my social media sites completely.
I've been seeing a therapist for about two years now and only recently came to the realisation that something was very very wrong with this scenario and that I had been assaulted. But the question, I guess, is how much of it was assault? I know it's probably not something I should dwell on but it feels like I can't stop blaming myself for the latter part of the experience (having sex with him) because it was definitely a conscious decision on my part, even if it may have been just a disastrous way of coping with having been molested again. Was it rape? Can I and should I place all the blame on him? Does he even know what he did? Should I confront him? (gut says hard no on that one)
After coming to this realisation I've been becoming increasingly wary of any guys that come in my vicinity whether or not they know me personally. Today, I was doing laundry and my neighbor came in - I kept having flashes of imagined assault even though I haven't ever been subjected to forceful rape or assault (which I know is a little contradictory but the facts are that what I was imagining - being held down, slammed, etc. - and what happened to me were not the same thing). I just want to figure out how I can get past this. I love my therapist, but he is a bit wary of giving me labels so I'm kind of in limbo where I love talking to him and working out my problems but I don't feel like I have a real diagnosis.
Sorry for the long story! Reading some other people's stories has definitely helped me with my own issues, but I felt like a lot of the problem with my situation is that it's not cut so black and white and I've never seen anyone else who has been in a similar place. This is why I felt it was important to keep most of the details in.
I was sexually abused by my brother as a child and dealt with a lot of internalised self-worth issues as a result. Then, when I started seeing boys for the first time I had lots of troubles because I could never just stick with one (although they were all one at a time) and wasn't great at vetting them, so I had several toxic relationships with some of the guys in my friend group. Lots of control issues, about my body and behavior, which I wasn't taking sitting down, so each relationship didn't last long but then at some point after dumping the last boyfriend, they banded together and decided I was the problem. The one guy I was still friends with, who I kind of regretted dumping because he was the nicest out of all of them, was the one to break the news that I would have no friends going into second year of college.
Fast forward to third year of college, I was still hoping to be friends with the one nice dude (ND) and after some spotty messaging back and forth over the first semester, I invited him to my birthday party. He came over, sat on his phone in a corner the entire time, but then while we were all in the living room after dinner watching a movie, he started getting touchy feely and holding my hand and things. At the time, it was quite sweet (now it puts a pit into my stomach) and then everyone else left organically as the gathering came to a close. He claimed to be too tired/drunk to get home so I let him stay over but put him on the couch. After half an hour, he knocked on my door and I let him in but I was tired and we had slept in the same bed before so I didn't really see a problem with letting him sleep on my bed. He started putting his hands in places but I wasn't interested so I didn't respond in the hopes that he would stop and go to sleep. He continued for more than an hour (maybe two hours) and I kept just waiting for him to stop but when it became apparent to me that he wouldn't without active intervention from myself, I decided to just get it over with. He had the audacity to ask me "should I stop?" when I turned over and I was so angry at the time that I hissed at him (in my culture it's a common sound of displeasure, in context it meant something like "shut up, you're the one who assaulted me this long and now you're putting on the brakes?" - it felt like he'd already run me over so what's the point of asking if he should stop, right?). So yeah, it was unfulfilling and frankly quite scarring psychologically and towards the end I just lay there and didn't participate anymore because I wanted it to be over but this idiot couldn't even finish himself off and afterwards left the apartment looking uncomfortable.
I saw him once a year after this happened (incidentally the next day I got sick and had a fever that kept me unconscious for most of the day but idk if that's relevant to us meeting) and we pretended it hadn't happened because it was mixed company. Never saw him again and this year (three years after our last meeting) I finally got around to blocking him off my social media sites completely.
I've been seeing a therapist for about two years now and only recently came to the realisation that something was very very wrong with this scenario and that I had been assaulted. But the question, I guess, is how much of it was assault? I know it's probably not something I should dwell on but it feels like I can't stop blaming myself for the latter part of the experience (having sex with him) because it was definitely a conscious decision on my part, even if it may have been just a disastrous way of coping with having been molested again. Was it rape? Can I and should I place all the blame on him? Does he even know what he did? Should I confront him? (gut says hard no on that one)
After coming to this realisation I've been becoming increasingly wary of any guys that come in my vicinity whether or not they know me personally. Today, I was doing laundry and my neighbor came in - I kept having flashes of imagined assault even though I haven't ever been subjected to forceful rape or assault (which I know is a little contradictory but the facts are that what I was imagining - being held down, slammed, etc. - and what happened to me were not the same thing). I just want to figure out how I can get past this. I love my therapist, but he is a bit wary of giving me labels so I'm kind of in limbo where I love talking to him and working out my problems but I don't feel like I have a real diagnosis.
Sorry for the long story! Reading some other people's stories has definitely helped me with my own issues, but I felt like a lot of the problem with my situation is that it's not cut so black and white and I've never seen anyone else who has been in a similar place. This is why I felt it was important to keep most of the details in.