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I'm a sexual assault survivor. About four years ago during my sophomore year of high school | went to a halloween party and met a guy. At this party we talked and talked and he seemed kind so l continued to hangout with him after the party. One day we were at his house in his room and things escalated. I was comfortable with kissing and cuddling but shortly after that started, he wanted more-he asked me to have sex and I said no. He continued to ask me and I kept saying no and I wasn't sure until | finally gave up and just gave in and said sure. I was so confused at the time because I knew I said yes at one point so I thought that meant it was okay. Shortly after I learned about coercion and I realized that's what happened to me. Even though it's been four years, I haven't been able to fully heal, but l am healing.

When I was 19 was introduced to a police officer (He was 35) by a mutual friend of ours. I was kind of sheltered and was intrigued by the age gap and buy his power. At first, we hit it off really well and within a couple of weeks started dating, but things went south really quickly. A month or so, he started becoming really possessive and was constantly calling asking where I was who I was with etc. within a month or so of the possessive behavior starting, he introduced me to drugs whenever I was around here, he would make sure that I was so high that I couldn’t say no. He raped me multiple times. I tried to report him to the police station that he worked at, but I could not get anybody to believe me. All they said was that I was just a drug addict and I was seeking attention. Shortly after he started to sex traffic me out to his friends, some of whom were in the police force. during this time we also started going to strip clubs where he would also pimp me out to the men at the strip club. This went on for almost a year until one night at the strip club. I tried to run and get free. Him and his friend caught me and forced me into the trunk of his car where I was driven around and eventually brought back to his home where he held me captive for over two weeks. I eventually escaped and never looked back, but that is not where my nightmare ended. For over a year he stalked me. I had to move five times in the span of a year and a half and every time he found me, he broke into my home multiple times, including several times in the night where he held a gun to my head and threatened to kill me on multiple occasions. The last straw was when he called me and told me that he had given me aids. He did not I think he was just trying to scare me into coming back to him which I did not and I guess he got bored with the game and left me alone. For many years after he would try to call me a couple of times a year under a private number I never answered, and I ran into him more times than I can count as he lived in the same area that I did. He was never prosecuted because I could never get anyone to believe me. This happened 19 years ago and I am still living with PTSD and nightmares.

I met a guy in 2018 and we got together after my grandmother died. After seeing each other a couple of times, the physical altercations started. Why I let it happen and stayed, I really could not tell you. I made 3 police reports but they were all eventually dismissed. We eventually moved in together and had a son. I did love him and he took care of me (I'm a type 1 diabetic). He was very sweet and always told me I was the most beautiful woman in the world. BUT he was very jealous and possessive and whenever we fought, he usually put his hands on me. I got a black eye, bruised ribs, scratches, bruises, a busted lip, a chipped tooth and many scars. In 2023, he passed away from a drug overdose. I was very sad but also I felt like I was now free. That sounds so awful but I didn't have to worry anymore about going somewhere he didn't want me to or talking to someone he didn't want me to or just doing anything he didn't want me to. Again, why did I stay? I did truly love him and other than that, I don't know.

Was it really that bad? Healing after getting out can be a rollercoaster of emotions and self doubt. You're not alone, sharing your story helps others to stop being silenced out of shame. Sometimes the healing process is hard because we remember more, or feel what we tried not to feel. You don't have to worry about being believable, focus on your own healing journey because you lived it, and need to trust the process. Your story, and what you lived, is testimony enough.

I wanted to start this assignment with a thought out and solid reflection that I can use as a milestone for my own memory in a visual form as my life’s purpose growth milestone. In my initial Learning Plan I chose to be committed to gain my knowledge by focusing on the Individual Meaning-Making plan. After reflecting on my first journal and the feedback from Discussion 5, I realized that my growth as a disruptor happens most deeply, emotionally, and internally/or spiritually, when I have legitimate space and time to sit with the texts and take personal inventory privately before sharing. This takes much awareness and consistent action from your body. Being in a state of observation, is exhausting at times, due to outside distractions/ & forces. As I grew in wisdom the patterns were hard to ignore, the synchronicities where hard to ignore, and the life force behind these supernatural and teaching moments became energetically strong that a coincidence would have been an understatement to the Creator of the Universe, and to ourselves. Give yourself the opportunity and love with daily purpose filled time for 30 minutes for 1 month, uninterrupted and free of digital distraction. Grounding meditation can restore and give your nervous system a reset and time back that you slacked off in the past. Many growing mature individuals prior to having healthy boundaries with positive reinforcements in their daily habits and lives needed to experience the lesson firsthand. These life lessons/ street smarts aka spiritual wisdom is transfigured for us to understand and process into words for teaching the people of our communities, as they hold the generations new leaders. A 6-month worth of 40 hour work period can accomplish the equivalence of 1 month of endless doom scrolling can. The focus and passion behind your self love is enough frequency and energy to shift a multitude of things in life as whole by showing up for thyself, first, naturally and wholesome. Healing takes place once we recover the pieces we allowed to be scattered by the unwanted distractions media leads us to believe are grandiose. This journal marks my progress in that commitment, moving from identifying the falsified labels of Journal 1 to unmasking the systemic roots that create those labels and life threatening constructs/ systems in the first place. In Journal 1, I explored Eli Clare’s medical model and how it exiles us from our own bodies by treating ourselves as broken parts. While we can be hurt from trauma and emotionally inducing experiences that strike our nervous system to go in defense. Its our body’s way of playing tricks on our minds, it does what it needs to survive and defend its vulnerabilities from reoccurring experiences, they may not always be healthy or positive either. But nonetheless, the innocence of your experience shifted, and the defenses are not malfunctions. We are not robotically “wired” like that, so broken we cannot be. Recovering the lose wire and restoring it can fix the little glitch in our thought processes when it comes to how we see ourselves confidently. You can say it took me going through my own recovery, to be in recovery, in a way for me to really understand it by. I went through life in a repetitive cycle, same spirit behind a person, different person/ body. At times the spirit and force was stronger than before, strengthening the skill/lesson. I had a hard time letting go of people in emotionally dependent way. Withholding care and affection from a child does tremendous disturbances to their brain development, temporarily having a negative affect in their efficacy in adulthood. The keyword was temporarily, because I want to emphasize the part I say, we can not be broken, as a human, as a spirit, as a person, as a live being. This week, I am expanding that lens. I see now that the exile isn't just a doctor’s note but rather it is an environmental reality. When I applied to college I did so only for the purpose of understanding if I was really “trippen” and psycho. My abuser and ‘partner’ roommate, baby’s dad sitter, had done enough damage to me verbally in what was already 3 years together. I was sharing with him a life altering and dark season of my life, I was 16, mom was in prison, and I was living in the home my dad worked hard for to psy off in 15 years what should have been the typical 30 year mortgage plan, without my dad, she divorced him with forged documents and signatures. Her friend Friend's namestayed there in the time she was gone, he was there to “hold down” the place while she was gone and my dad kicked out. I had my boyfriend at the time, over when a fire explosion came from the gas dryer.It took 3.5 hours and 2 attempts to shut it out completely. Well fast forward, I was sharing that with him and last thing I had said was “I would hate to ever experience that again cause WTF”. I was on my way to bed with the kids in their room and I had gotten a wiff of something on fire or burning. I mentioned to Namewhat I was smelling and was met with a dismissal of “your trippen I don’t smell shit”.. I did my due diligence and checked if I left any candles on to make sure my end was clear. Nameis a cig smoker, the least he could of done was give me the benefit of the doubt and at least say “ill check outside” or something reassuring, considering the ending of our conversation. Lame excuse of a man who says they love me but meet it with actions like that. I wake up to my daughter crying as the smoke comes out from underneath her crib and floorboards. It was God’s way of giving me the warning signs before knowing there was a war I was about to go head on with. I wasn’t so aware then, but surely that awakening was enough to clarify that I wasn’t trippen, he is dangerous, and needs his ass whooped. The cig he last smoked started the fire, the very action I told him is ugly to the environment and on himself, was the problem. “Flickering your cigarette butts like that is a big fuck you and is ugly to the environment” earned me the nagging bitch plaque. But was I wrong? His boy ego couldn’t allow him to simply humble himself to see where he went wrong on many levels. And my kids, man that was really the deal breaker for my heart and mind. I didn’t have the role model so I became my role model. I sat in the hotel room that same day after a long morning of betrayal and recovered myself and applied to college in 2022 to see the actions behind the “something has to change and give, cause aint no fucking way this is in my imagination or coincidence” self-revelation. I learned to unlearn so I can understand without barriers and prejudices. I needed to come back and save that young girl in me and validate her when she had none of her own. The courses ive taken over the years and the time gaps in between align in sync with the life changing experiences I have during those seasons. With Minneapolis’ events, and my personal events, and the timing of the courses, the time couldn’t be better. My voice is being used in a time that matters for many on a multitude of levels and dimensions. With the easing of ice pressures and outside noise, to the epstieen files and charges taking place, justice being served, it makes me happy because I too receive that justice. Namegets angry with knowing this. He asked even “why are people talking about it so much anyway? What are they really going to do about it, cus it wont be much” as I was tying my Discussion 5 draft about silencing, as it happened in real time. This is what I mean by my curriculum is in sync with my life, allowing me to get the most out of it. We cannot have a healthy Spirit inside the vessel if the vessel is submerged in a toxic ecosystem. The root of our ick or that intuitive nudge that something is wrong or slightly off is found in the Imperialist Logic of Extraction (as discussed in the works of Jensen and LaDuke). Just as the medical model extracts our authority over our health and wellness, our economic and controlling systems extract life from the biotic community for the sake of falsified luxury. We are told to take personal responsibility for our health while the man-made dictating systems poison the very air and water we rely on and deserve. Professor, You asked how we dismantle these systems and my answer comes from a perspective of a uncorrupted mother and a student of life. We as a society must stop accepting random chance as an excuse for systemic suffering. The molestation and ritualistic sacrifices from my ‘caregivers’ was not enough of an excuse for me to give up on myself. The robbery that took place within me is what I needed to ignite the flame in my heart and do what many wont do. If they don’t do it for themselves, how can I be sure they can do it for me. Is my new motto and affirmation. When a specific group is consistently marginalized or poisoned, it isn't a flipped coin, it is a weighted die. We dismantle the system by refusing the repetitive washed up apologies that have no action behind the verbal meaning of what is being spoken from the mouth. This is the slow violence of the systems, expecting us to accept a verbal apology while the environment is still smoldering. (Nixon 2011, Randall 2009) We move away from the arrogant ego of dominance and return to a meekness that listens to the earth by sitting still and listening to ourselves, allowing the Creator to guide our spirits and minds to a higher level of understanding and knowing. To be a disruptor is to stand in our authority and name the truth and expose lies. We are not masters of the nature, we are members of it. True healing is the return to our nature and doing so unapologetically. By following those little nudges from the Creator/universe, I am learning to slow down and recognize that my wellness is tied to the wellness of the whole. My authority isn't about power over others, but about the power to stay authentic to the truth and stewarding it righteously. This journal is my manual guide to what it looks like to act with effort as I reclaim my identity from the language and false beliefs of oppression and to stand with the truth in the name of love, because loves also needs love in order to heal and recover from this.

The latch clicked quietly as the husband slunk out the front door after pulling it closed behind him. Soon he'd be in the bed of another woman across town. Only anticipating the rapturous evening awaiting him a few sultry miles away, he never once pondered who the wife he was leaving behind the closed door would be having in her bed. Nor did his selfish burning need coax him in the direction of caring. With one hand she snuffed out the glow of the Benson & Hedges in the ashtray and let it fall amongst the remnants of expired fags. With her other hand she pulled me onto her young, firm, milky white body. Like a baker kneading dough she pushed my face into a voluptuous breast whose excited nipple immediately disappeared between my trembling lips. As this was my first time, with many more sinful nights to come, I relied on her every command to guide me as she moaned "Now lick it" while exhaling an intoxicated breath. Swirling my tongue around my new found endeavor was not what I had ever imagined I'd be doing, especially with such a young beautiful wife...of another man. Like a football goalie terminating an attempted goal she cupped my head with a steely grip, and her slender fingers became entangled in my now sweaty hair as my aroused vixen slid my face down past her belly button onto a patch of hair that was as soft as cotton candy, It was a dark place under the covers, but enough light bled through the cotton veil enabling me to see my way to where she murmured more directions. "Put your tongue in it" Still not knowing what I was doing I followed her every command. As I licked where she said, I flinched as her nails dug into my scalp, and like an old hand at it I instinctively darted my tongue between the folds while massaging and prodding with my exploring fingers. I could tell she approved with each trembling moan. Soon there would more undercover escapades, but it seemed she had tired of just me, and I wasn't enough for her vile hunger. Now laying beside me was my younger brother. We did everything together, and here we were at it again. He was two years my junior, and so much more inexperienced than me, so he did like his older bro, following my lead just like I had followed hers. With each click of the front door as he left to engorge in his own delights, our threesome nights grew longer, consequently making my days harder to struggle through. Often, I'd fall asleep on my desk, twitching and knocking my box of Crayons onto the school floor. My first-grade teacher would wipe the drool from my mouth and

I am a victim of domestic violence. 4 out of the 5 relationships I was in through high school til I was about 24, every last one of them was emotional/mental abuse. I would get called names, like dumb ass or stupid. They would look at me in disgust because of what I looked like. I got sent to the hospital one year because I wanted to be skinny by not eating all day. One of my exes would’ve grabbed my stomach and laughed because I had extra weight than he did. Another ex would argue with me over something stupid. He wouldn’t let me hang out with friends. I was single for four years because I didn’t want to feel that pain again. But when I read It Ends with Us, and saw the movie, I was brought to tears because I felt that pain back. There is a happy ending though. My current relationship now, he is the light of my life, he treats me like a queen, he treats me the way someone is supposed to be treated. I never want to go back there again.

It Ends With Us confirmed that I had made the right decision. After twelve years, I ended a marriage in which psychological abuse had begun to creep in. These are scars that no one can see, and one wonders if they’re even real. As a new mother in a different country, I was overwhelmed by everything that comes with it—but my husband's lack of emotional support and the verbal and psychological abuse rendered me invisible and pushed me down every day. All of this weighed heavily on me, I truly loved him. Voicing my struggles only made things harder: more anger, more abuse. I followed my heart, and now I can teach my child the importance of standing up for oneself. From the bottom of my heart: ¡gracias! Thank you for reflecting my strength in this movie. That first night away? The best sleep I’ve ever had.

Hi I'mName. I felt violated when this person who I looked as a second protector, did things to my body. Then mother would scold me and hit me for having normal childhood needs, just because I lived unattended. I got burned each bruise getting worse and worse, my chest not belonging to me. Ever again. Everything felt injured and me; empty.

I got married when I was 25 years old. I truly thought it was going to be just an amazing thing. I had never lived away from home and was immediately now married and moving away from my home, friends and family for my husband's new job. The first few months were truly a honeymoon and I thought if this is the rest of my life then I scored!! My ex was in the military and had finished his service right before we married. We moved for his new job and after a few months the PTSD and stress took a toll on him. That's not an excuse it's the truth I saw it manifest and change. His outbursts always ended with the person closet to him, which was me. The first time I was in complete, utter shock. This could not be happening to me. I was from a good family, I was educated and intelligent, I was starting a great career myself, how could I allow myself to be hurt on a regular basis. Every time there was the apologies, the promise to get help, the cooling off time where we had some happy times and then here we went again. I didn't have the courage to leave, I was so ashamed and scared to tell my family. What would they think? Would they blame me the way he did? Would they tell me to stick it out because I was raised that marriage is hard and you have to stick with it and work it out. I tiptoed every day for 2 years but it still happened. Hospital visits for "falls" and other "accidents" became a regular thing. I was miserable and felt hopeless how did I end up there, how could this be my life. I finally confided in a co-worker who never judged me just listened. One day she said if you're not going to leave than don't be a victim, fight back. Give it as good as you get it. Not sure that was the best advice as it started a cycle of back and forth abuse that was in no way healthy. I took a baseball bat to knees while he slept and I ended up arrested. there was many more instances of him hurting me and me hurting him I was now 3 years in to being abused and one year in to becoming an abuser. NOT GOOD. I had some reprieve as my ex took a job in another state for a few years so did long distance but the abuse was still real when he was home. I never thought I would be happy to find out my husband was cheating on me but 8 years in a woman showed up at my door and said she was pregnant with my husband's child. I literally hugged her. I was free, it was over. I packed up up stuff and my car and left. I called him from the road to let him know what happened and said I wanted a divorce. He did not give it easily but I finally was able to go. I found out I was pregnant a month after I left. My ex has never and will never know he has a son. There was no way he would ever be able to teach him to be an abuser. After much therapy and many years of building an amazing life I can finally say I found healing. I have the most awesome son is truly a man and the kindest soul you'll ever meet. 25 years since I married and I still don't have the courage to meet anyone or get involved but life is good. I just want to do what I can to help others.

My truth almost destroyed me, until I realized that my authentic truth is what built me. I have been abused most of my life I'm told. I had no idea honestly, I didn't know that other people grew up with out someone covering your mouth at night and smiling at you for breakfast. I had no idea he wasn't allowed to hit me, I mean after all he didn't hit me as hard as my mom was hit at times so you see I was better than abuse. No one mentioned that just because I cried and said no while he had sex with me, as it was so much easier than fighting I'd learned. Plus no one likes a dramatic wife he told me. I can't recall the times I was raped and dissuasion and I had become close after all. I still explain it away or forget, until I wake up crying. I wish often no one had ever told me. I had made it after all out of the black eyes only to be wrote up by my superior officer for discretion of government property. They should have protected me, I didn't know, I wore more make up the times after. The first time it occurred to me that I wasn't as lucky as I thought was with his hands around my throat hoping it didn't bruise but he didn't let go this time and as my vision began to fade and while I couldn't speak anyway and fighting would only bring my son to watch, he weren't supposed to watch, I didn't know. His tiny voice was enough for me to get to the company in time to get deployment orders. I knew he would kill me before I seen war, I just cheat because I was a whore he told me. He was arrested for the broken nose I received for explaining I had no choice but to go to Iraq. I was a horrible mother and a whore, he told me. 6 months into my tour of combat, a peaceful time if I'm honest, I received the message he was dead, a car accident. I didn't even believe them but I was next of kin and unfortunately his body was only decomposing as no one could Identify him. It was him, they told me. In the 8 days the Army had given me to put my abuser in the ground and return, I was mission essential after all. I was so good at war, I knew who the enemy was there they pointed guns at us. When I finished my tour now decorated in combat and a leader I just knew I had put in my time, I earned my peace with my son. I took all of the things they told me were abuse and I never complained, I didn't know too. Turns out my brothers in arms had another plan for where I would find peace, It wouldn't be there one of them told me while he held my mouth and nose and forced himself into me so hard I thought my insides had torn. They took turns, my fellow solders. Some hurt less others hurt so bad I cried outloud. The person on my team my Sgt, he was there now, I was safe. I reached for him to stand and he whispered he wouldn't rape me but he had to tell them he did and if I would just stop crying they might go faster, it did just like he told me. I told my HR Sgt. she really seemed to care and for the first time in my life I felt I had been abused. I LITERALLY killed for them and they took turns seeing who would make me bleed first. I left her office, past the group of my brothers in arms who all whispered how women didn't belong here and noted how much blood I had lost laughing. I shouldn't have been there I knew most of all what men do and I drank anyway. I walked away missing the way my husband was gentle when he raped me and wiped my tears away missing him. A female I knew was the wife of one of the solider explained to me that I was mistaken rape for being a whore and my career ended now I served so honorably it was time to quietly go home, she told me. I had already graduated school and now served my country, fair trade I told me. I was shamed, demoted and stripped of all rank, she lied. I wanted to leave and go to my mom take my son and just run back home, a coward I had become. I returned home going into Social Work and Advocacy the only thing in the world that made it okay the abuse as they told me, it made me understand the look on your sons face when you had failed him and the denial and the strength to lie to ashamed to answer the real questions and having to defend yourself. Everything they told me that was abuse seemed worth it and most of it I still didn't know as I had remarried years later to another type of abuser, lucky to have him he told me. I had only been almost killed a handful of times and after I stopped counting me saying no as rape it wasn't as bad as I thought because I drove a nice car and I was able to afford to work with women and children who didn't know their abuse probably caused the abuse of their own child, I told them as I had learned this in blood, they way you sometimes truly weren't told. I ended up with my nice car and my bountiful facebook pictured family. I was working in a place I knew I was barely good enough for a job my dreams were made of a mission I believed in so much my children wore the logo's at the fundraisers. My mother had been drinking and threatened to end her life. The police were called and in 120 seconds of getting out of the squad car he took her with an assault rifle, it took her a month to die and my signature to watch. My husband who hardly hit me and raped me less often since our third child was connived in being held down and with less tears than normal, he left me the day I signed her life away. Leaving me with two small daughters, my mothers body breathing with a machine and a teenage son with a house to pay for and now day care costs and funeral costs. The Soical injustice of the names they called her when I watched the body cam still echo. This no one needed to tell me. What no one ever told me is that while for the first time I knew with everything in me how wrong this was that the nonprofit to end domestic violence would be my next abuser. I was struggling to sleep and afford my lifestyle and the debt of my mothers homicide they told me. It would be women who had told me the mission, empowering women as I barely made it to the end of a leadership cohort I was so blessed to be in and knew someone from a place like me was never going to see again would be the last time I would not know I was being abused. FMLA they said with the wrong paperwork and lies forcing me into the mortgage company started the foreclosure while they used my little minority daughters pictures of the times they came to work sick with me because other people needed me. When I realized I would be fired I knew my last time to ever be anything but a person who didn't know better. I was the opening clip of the video the day I was written up for the first time for getting a restraining order as my daughter was now the victim. I needed to graduate that leadership class to prove to my daughters that the shirts with the logos in glitter and gold were still true mommy had some how failed again. After crying begging to keep my job I loved SO much, the murder of my mother, and the abandonment of what was abuse in all ways they told me had lied and fired me. I haven't left my house much since then the use of the very thing I believed in so much was used against me and I'm defeated. They told so much lied in my story I wanted to tell it myself. I still feel lucky to have learned what abuse is and one day I'll heal from it my therapist tells me. I wish I had seen it coming the worse abuse I ever felt was from an organization who's mission it was to empower women and tell those of us who never knew better how to be better. Soon I'll lose my home and the Army will stop making me tell them where it hurt after the MST, I hate the pretty way they use letters to not say GANG RAPE. maybe it's my fault after all that's what they told me. Women just lie to you so more gently before they take advantage of what life did to me. I still miss the more gentle abuse of my first husband, it'll end they say. My daughters lost the man who raped me to make them the day the police told me I had let my abuse led to theirs, I just wish someone had ever told me the abuse wont ever truiy end. The ones who feed you and your daughters with hope that their is a mission while using our pictures as advertisement was only the second time I knew and no one had to tell me. No one has told me how to stop hurting or how to pick up the pieces, i just someone would tell me.

I was 7 the first time I was ever SA. I still remember every single thing about that day. I was so young that I didn’t know what was happening to me was wrong. But the family member who did it to me, he knew. I told my mom and she didn’t believe me. No one did. In fact, she started abusing me afterwards because I “lied to her”. I’m now 20, and have finally escaped from the awful life I lived, and now know what real love is supposed to feel like. Everyone has a voice, and if no one else has ever believed you, I DO, and i’m always here to listen to anyone. My instagram is instagram account is any of you guys ever need to talk or just need a safe space, because I know I did and I never had one.

Where to begin because abuse and shame has always been a part of my being. But at 55 I've come so far and built so much on my own, I cant help but feel proud and somehow I still feel like I didnt make it. I was born to an unwed mother and was taken from her as a baby, in foster care for maybe 2 years maybe more, no one has ever told me the truth about that. My mother did go and get me, and she married my stepfather and he adopted me. My mothers parents despised my existence. I can clearly remember the first time I can recall speaking to my grandmother, I was about 4. I called her name because my mother had asked me to tell her something. I remember standing there petrified to call my grandmothers name. Something a child should never feel. I just knew she hated that I was even in her house, but yet I didnt know yet why I knew this. Being there was like torture for me and I didnt understand why until I was an adult. I just felt like they just were so bothered by me. I never felt comfort there and we visited them quite a bit. Growing up, my mother was no prize either, thank god for my dad and his family or I'd never known any kind of love. I was constantly told she wished she'd never had me, and was beaten up or neglected pretty badly, though she's say you should know what a beating is, which at the time was scary, as an adult it made me feel anger at her and sorry for her at the same time. It seems I was always chasing someone to love me. It was never just given to me aside from my dad's side. My whole life was a battle. I used to go to the neighbors house to get away from her yelling or insults to why was I like this and why couldnt I be more like that. I never felt like I was enough again not understanding it but hating how I felt. At the neighbors Id play with an older girl that molested me for a few years. And sadly I wanted the attention. I felt gross after though. And embarrassed of myself. In school I always felt like a weird kid, even though I had friends I believed they didn't really like me. Oddly I'm still friends with the same girls now, crazy how abuse and self esteem can destroy ones sense of self. I was sexually active by the time I was 14. Met my future husband at 15. He was a horrible boyfriend and on drugs when we met but I was happy to get the one night a week we'd hangout. He was 5 years older than me, had no business being with a 15 year old. But I had a boyfriend and that was all that mattered. My mom left when I was 13 so the abuse and nastiness only occurred when I was forced to visit her which I tried to avoid. But when I was 16 almost 17 she decided she wanted to be a mother again. Now I was taking care of life on my own for awhile. She insisted I break up with my boyfriend. We'd been together a year and a half, I wasnt breaking up with him. The fights got worse, they became physical, I was alot older and stronger now and at 17 I ran away to my boyfriends apartment. And the next month I was pregnant and in high school. More shame more embarrassment. But i married my boyfriend on prom weekend and I thought I was set. We had a beautiful baby boy, then another boy when I found out he was a heroin addict, I wasn't as all set as I thought. I tried to help him get clean and all that. But ultimately he chose drugs and I found out I was having our third son. We separated. 3 babies no dad. My family shook their head at me. My mother told me my grandparents would never accept me as a single mother or if i lived with another man. I couldnt figure out how to do it on my own. When my youngest was a year and a half maybe almost 2 my mother took my kids claiming she was helping me get on my feet, I wasnt allowed to see my kids for 18 months. I was devastated and lost. I took a job at a bar bartending and got caught up in that world of drinking and cocaine. I wasnt a big drinker or drug user but I wanted to belong to something and there I did. I met a guy though that helped me get my kids back and helped me get an apartment and I thought Id found the one. We were together 7 years total, and in that time he reminded me how he should of left me in the bar where he found me and I was damaged goods and what ever other name I could be called. He used to tell me all these guys think you are all that but I get to see how you look with no make up and how gross I was. Who would want that? He'd kick me while we were out in front of people. I always kept trying to be perfect enough but i never was. There was verbal and physical abuse for years but he accepted me and 3 kids and who'd want that? My mother would say I was lucky to have found him. The final straw was he was verbally abusing my oldest. He was awful to him and he was worth getting away from him. Years later I found the abuse so much more than I couldve imagined and I didnt get my kids out soon enough. I then dated a guy who was on the run from the cops, I found out. It didnt last long but long enough to have my face bashed in and end up in the hospital. And my oldest son went to live with my sister. Because I wasnt good enough to raise him. It was all good though. He was safe. From there it was on to baby dad number 2, a ladies man married and in the process of a divorce. He thought he was the shit. And I found out I was pregnant about a year into "dating" . I had that baby on my own. He denied it was his child. I was a slut to him, even though I wasnt. We worked together so I had to act like it wasnt his and the whole job questioned it. My 2 other sons had issues with school and getting in trouble so it was us and the baby and trying to keep them in line. I never felt more defeated. The new baby was about 6 months old and dad wanted to play daddy. By the time my youngest was 9 months old we'd moved in together after his begging to let him be a dad, as if I'd ever stopped him. We moved in together and within a month I caught him cheating with multiple women. WTF was I going to do now. I gave up my house and moved all the younger kids in. So I stayed. The 2 boys from my first marriage were in and out of juvie. The babys father held it over my head and threatened me with it. So I kept trying to make it work. And he kept cheating. But at his insistence, we tried for another baby, he said he'd stop cheating. We got pregnant with my daughter, and he kept cheating. I mean like he was on dating websites. It was insane. He was a narcissist. He cheated on me while I was having our daughter in the hospital. He was all day telling me if I were more like this or that he'd stop or he'd take my babies because of the trouble my boys were in. I was 2 months post partum and he said if i wasnt so fat he wouldnt cheat. Who says that? Couldnt I ever just have a normal family? Maybe I was damaged good as Id heard all those years ago. After back and forth moving across the country to try and fix this, moving back after the housing market crashed, right before my daughters first birthday I threw him out. Out of his own house. Go be with the girl and he did. And cheated on her. Years go by constant berating and belittling because now I'm the ex with the kids and suing him for support. Years of it, Didn't matter that I had court orders and full custody, he was going to tear me apart, sooo many texts. Saying the most vile things that could be said. For years. So in the meantime he'd lived with about 7-9 different women I lived alone with the kids. But wait there's more... I had a good life and my shit together, when along came the worst of the worst, a loud, mean, life of the party type guy that everyone outside loved and anyone that knew him closely despised. And now he's my boyfriend. And in the beginning he was the sweetest. He wined and dined me and was sweeping off of my feet. I deserved it! After all the years I found my guy. Secretly, and slowly he showed who he was. We were together 4 years. Lived together 18 months. I hated him when we lived together 6 months. He hated my daughter with a vengeance. He was outwardly verbally abusive to her once we lived together. And I was having no part of it and asked him to leave, he did not. Mind you there were 2 and a half years of abuse, more vile than my kids father said to me and once again I keep effing trying. So desperate for normal. So badly wanting a family and happiness. So I moved in with him. And I said he was torturous. And god forbid Id make him stop abusing me, it was when it was my child yet again I got out. But this one not so easy, I asked him to go and he didnt and I couldnt get him out because the landlord insisted on having his name on the lease. So he wouldnt leave. And verbally, mentally emotionally and financially put me through it. One year to the day I asked him to get out, he left. After a final year of literal torture, verbally abusing my daughter and eventually my autistic son, he left. And went on to say he left me. Haha. 2 years later I moved to a small beach town with my kids, I bought a home. Reconnecting with all those I lost in the years with him. Havent heard a word from him since. Finding my way. Learning to trust myself and others. Im a full on work in progress. But I can say the strength is within and if you choose to use it , life can be a beautiful.

I went through this kind of thing twice in my lifetime. Once as a child and once as an adult too. I know I'm not alone. There are many who have had this twice sometimes more in a lifetime mine the first one happened when I was 6 to 8 years old. The second one I was much older in my late thirties. Having been through it twice in a lifetime takes allot out of you but somehow you persevere even if you don't think you can. My adult one happened in my last foster home.Tt happened over 4 years I was trying to keep the peace in my home. And he took advantage. I want everyone to know I'm ok now I live in a better place now. Just sometimes it overshadows me. And I know it's not my fault. Thanks for listening.

I won't protect him anymore. I won't hide what he did. I won't suffer in silence because the atrocities of what happened makes the bystanders uncomfortable when I tell my story. Sit with it. Feel the discomfort. Feel a crumb of the fear I felt every day I came home from school. Feel the shame of not believing me when I said I was afraid for my life, and you denied me shelter. Sent me back to the place where I was supposed to feel safety, but instead feared for my life by my father. He tells me "a parents' job is to be better than their parents were to them." Well the bar was set pretty damn low. Just because your dad was abusive too, doesn't give you an excuse to abuse me. How is my heart opened and more compassionate after how you've broken it, but yours only wants to break others? I didn't choose to be born. You brought me into this world, and you made it very clear that you could take me out of it, if you so desired. I loved you. I still love you. The hardest part of all of this was fighting the childlike, optimistic image I had of you. I still fight it. Everything in my soul wants to love you. Wants to have more of your "good days." But the other side of me hates that you stole my childhood. For haunting my dreams. For the everyday fear - even though I've moved thousands of miles away. Bystanders - don't tell me "one day things will be okay, and you will talk to your father again." He can't change.

I believe that my ex-boyfriend, Name — a bodybuilder currently living in State — has been engaging in serious digital harassment, including hacking my devices, spoofing text messages, and attempting to make it appear that I sent messages I did not. I have also noticed individuals around me—such as neighbors or coworkers—acting in ways that seem coordinated, including color-coding, winking, and using specific terms like “widgets” when referring to my family. I have reported this situation to the police, but so far there has been insufficient evidence to link these incidents directly to him. If anyone else has experienced similar behavior from this person, please come forward and share your experience.

My story has a good ending but it took a rocky road to get there. The reason that I wanted to share it is to emphasize the importance to victims of reporting every time to the police, even if one of those times might not go the way you wanted it to go or even if you got embarrassed after you did it. And I don't mean just every time you are hit but every time you think there is a threat of being hit. I am 100% convinced this is what ultimately stopped the abuse that I endured. I got married after I became pregnant when I was 24. The first time I was abused was New Year's Day when I was 25. My husband had gone to a friend's house to watch a football game with other friends and left me home with our baby and the number where he was. When I called the number, a woman answered the phone and got him. I was mad because he said he was going to be with a bunch of guy friends. He told me it was the wife of his friend but when he came home, he took out his embarrassment and anger that I called him there on me and pulled me down by my hair while I was holding our baby. The second instance of abuse happened after we took our baby to The Lion King in the theater and witnessed Scar slap Sarabi. My husband slapped me in the same way on our way home when we fought about him being able to enjoy the movie while I had to be the one to attend to the baby. It was at this point that I sought out a counselor who enlightened me that I was experiencing abuse and referred us to Family Advocacy, a military program for families experiencing abuse. The final instance of abuse in the apartment we were living in happened right before we moved to a new state by the military and was bad enough to leave bruises on my face. A few days before this incident, we had heard a woman screaming in the apartment below ours and called the police to help her. So when I was being abused, I screamed also when my husband was choking me and I think that that neighbor returned the favor by calling the police for me. The police arrived and it was the one and only time that I felt that the police questioned me more than him because I had been drinking. We were living in city, state and I will always remember the police there for being uncaring about what he did to me but they also stopped the abuse by showing up at our apartment. My husband moved before I did and I faced a really daunting decision at that time whether to move with him. I think if my mom had supported me staying back with her, I would have done that but she wanted me to move with him so I did. After we moved, the military forced my husband to take anger management classes and offered supportive counseling for me. My husband had a harder time keeping me isolated because I am an outgoing person and loved meeting and becoming friends with the other wives. I planned a path of escape from him by going back to school to get my teaching certificate so I could work and have the same schedule as my baby as she grew older. I also told him he needed to move out of our apartment because we weren't getting along and he moved in with one of the guys he worked with in the barracks. We had a 6 month lease on the apartment and when that was up, the military was ready to move us into military housing but I would not move there by myself with our little girl so he moved back and then we moved to military housing. The next instance of abuse happened when my husband came home drunk after a night with a friend. He fell right to sleep and I found a girl's name and number in his back pocket. I woke him up and demanded to know what happened and he punched me and gave me a bloody nose. I called the police and they made him leave and the military forbade him from coming to see me for 2 weeks. I really think this is what made him think twice about abusing me again, despite verbal threats. I did get my teaching certificate but as soon as I got my first job teaching, my husband became romantic and charming and enticed me to stay with him. I ended up getting pregnant with our second child and after a couple years, we moved back to our hometown city. We have lived in our hometown city for 24 years now and there have been a few instances when I felt threatened by my husband and immediately called the police who came over, gave me resources to call, and put my husband in his place. He is a rule follower type so it embarrassed him enough that he has altogether stopped. I sometimes think I must be really stupid to have stayed with him all these years but since the abuse has stopped and we had 2 more kids, there is really no reason to leave. Especially since I have circles of very close friends who I can go out with and travel with. He has never been financially abusive and has always been a good provider so that helps. And he has never tried to prevent me from going out with my friends or traveling with them. I have always believed that boys in our country, maybe even our world, are very much influenced by what they are exposed to on screens. My husband was always into very violent movies and TV shows and there are so many instances of abuse against women on the screen, even in video games, even in Lion King. So although it is not an excuse, I am cognizant that he has been very influenced by them.

No one should go through what I went through at the hands of my abuser. I found myself in a difficult situation after getting married to my ex-husband, who was and still is the title of one of the Magistrates Courts of that Country. I had a battered and traumatic experience all the 9 years of our marriage (experiences like having seven stitches done on my torn neck, being battered on a weekly basis with men’s leather belt and a big wooden cane made from tree he kept in his private room just for me; often times asked to go on my knees as an act of discipline or preparation to get beaten, internal bleeding, skin bruising, bleeding from my ears, noses, mouth; blows and punches to my face that spills blood from cuts) but because I loved him, his reputation, against the advice of many. I suffered in silence and lived in fear due to the threat to my life. The police failed me as they called him their boss. Escape! Say No More!!!

For a long time I hid behind the shame of what happened to me. It took a long time and some therapy before I was able to speak about my childhood. Growing up in a chaotic home due to parents that were addicts made it easy for me to be hurt. I always thought that somehow it was my fault. I don’t remember every part of what happened but the pieces that I can recall are unsettling. I have memories of an older cousin showing myself and two other cousins different parts of his body as a child. I knew it was wrong and from what I remember, most of it was being in a dark living room with the TV on and trying to hide from an adult seeing us. After some time I remember my female cousin who was the same age as me showing me how to masturbate and later on we engaged in oral sexual acts on various occasions. Her bother who was two years younger than me would touch me until I caved in to do things with him as well. I just remember feeling so scared that someone was going to find out. I can’t even recall how we learned how to do those things. I was embarrassed but also terrified of an adult finding out and us getting into trouble. I carried that shame with me forever and always felt like it was my fault since I was older than him. I wish I could recall all of the details and how it all started and ended. Later in life, I had a guy over to hook up with which I regret. After we had sex the first time I was done. I didn’t want to have unprotected sex but I didn’t stop him when he started up again. I just remembered feeling frozen and the sound of his breathing and his smell made me relive the experiences with my cousin. That was when I decided to talk to my therapist about what had happened. It took a while for me to understand that I had no reason to feel shame and that it was not my fault. I have worked on my healing process and I can understand it a lot better now as an adult.

In the months following my assasult, I grew so angry. Poetry was my outlet, to not be quiet and be as angry as I wanted. 100 pages of poetry marred by tears, anger, betrayal, hope, and happiness. On the 100th page, it was dedicated to survivors, I hope that whoever reads this, will find some degree of comfort as I did when writing it. Dear Survivors, You are more than enough. You are worthy of all the stars and gold combined on this Earth. What happened does not define you, you are more than that. From one to another, it’s tough, it’s difficult. You’ll have your ups and downs, happy moments and miserably haunting ones. But, I’ll say this; Thrive. In all honesty, thriving will be tough. But it’s the best reward there ever will be. You deserve to thrive and live and have fun and experience life. What happened to you does not define you, but it is a part of you. What happened to you is not shameful, what happened to you is not your fault- it never will be. Do not let those around you shame you and beat down on you, quieting you and your story. You are the writer of your own story. You decide if you want to forgive. You decide if you don’t want to forgive. You decide if you want to be the bigger person or not. You get to decide. Don't let anyone else tell you any differently. C.P.