SoulSpeakOut

Survivor Story

By: Anonymous

I had gone on vacation, to one of my favorite places on this earth, a place where I felt safe, I felt completely myself…I had 2 weeks..for fun, for laughter, for relaxation and enjoyment…I had my family there, I had close friends who are like family…we had it all planned..fun in the sun. Happiness and enjoyment. Good times. And then you. You weasled your way into our group and mooched off of the generosity of my friends and family…don’t think for a second I didn’t spot you eying me up and down for 2 days. The eying I could deal with. That was not enough for you. You have children my age and older, you were rude, and pushy, but I never expected for you to do what you did to me. You waited like a sneak, like a predator feeling out his prey.You waited until one night I was alone and you put your arm around me and told me how gorgeous and beautiful I was, you came onto me so quickly and out of the blue, you told me you knew what I liked..clearly you knew absolutely nothing…you told me I was to “take care of your needs..I said no, and I wasn’t interested and you just pulled me in closer to your miserable body…you called me baby, even as I said no way! I was lucky enough to get away from you and get back to my family and friends…but will the next one be???? I had to tell everyone what happened to me at your hands because I feared for every woman and young boy in the community. I was so embarrassed by you, and what had happened…I felt cheap,dirty and easy…I asked myself in the mirror “what did I do or say to make him feel he could do this to me?!” I Blamed myself, felt like cheap common gutter trash! BECAUSE OF YOU! My fun filled vacation came to a screeching hault…because of you. I went out with my loved ones, tried to compose myself…still a nervous wreck that you’d come back, that you’d show your miserable face in our community again and would try it all over again…I couldn’t bare the thought of it…I felt I had to be with someone all the time to be safe while I was there…my father ran you out of there pretty darn quick…did he strike a nerve??? Is this a pattern? Had you done this to other innocent people?? I just thank God that you did not have the nerve and the Gaul to show your face in there again..and as I boarded that plane 2 weeks later for home, I realized I was blaming the wrong person…I was blaming myself, for no reason at all…I should have been blaming you right from the get go. You are a pig, always will be in my book…I take comfort in the fact I will never see you again! You did through your actions prove me one thing though…you proved to me that my father will always love and protect me no matter what and always keep me safe and be there to help me. You proved to me that those friends of mine are true,loyal, loving friends through and through and will have my back no matter what the case may be. No, you failed miserably at your vile crude attempts, but you did succeed in proving to me that you just made myself,my family, and my friends a whole hell of a lot stronger, and closer than ever…and for THAT I do thank you.

Survivor Story

By: Jenny, Pennsylvania 

I think because I had a reputation in school I didn’t call it rape. I had a reputation for making out and flirting but people spread rumors that I had done more, I didn’t mind because I was popular. I had great friends and a perfect boyfriend. It happened at a party. We were all drunk and I mean drunk. I was a junior and I was hanging out with seniors. I was talking to my boyfriends best friend Nick. His name isn’t Nick but I can’t say it for legal matters. Anyway Nick kept giving me drink. After a couple of minutes I blacked out.

I woke up with Nick taking off my underwear. He’s struggling to get them off.
I hear laughing. Nick. Oh god no not Nick please anybody but Nick. It is Nick. With 3 other members of the football team. How could Nick do this? They are all laughing at me trying to fight back. Nick said ” I knew there was that fighter in there somewhere” More laughs. Oh no please no. Nick starts.The pain he covers my mouth with his hand to stop me from screaming. They all take turns and I can’t breathe and the pain of 4 guys forcing themselves inside me is like being stabbed with a knife.

When they were finished they left. I somehow staggered home. I don’t know how. When I got home I blacked out again. I woke up in hospital. I hated telling the cops since he was my boyfriend. My brothers got so paranoid they drove me to and from school everyday. I hope girls who can even just half relate please report it.

Survivor Story: Clearing Your Skies

By: Claire, Richmond

It was a Saturday. I was in his car. My dad had given me permission to go out. My big brother played with him he was a senior. We had eaten and went to see a movie. We were on our way home, when he pulled over, he said we could look at the stars. I was kind of anxious but I agreed but I didn’t want to look like a loser by wanting to go home early.

The next thing I know, my seat has gone down the whole way and he’s on top of me. I can’t get up and I can’t fight him off no matter how hard I try. He’s laughing at me he actually laughs at me trying to fight back I stop immediately because I don’t want him to laugh at me trying to stop whats going to happen. He has me pinned down by my wrists and I scream and I’m begging him not to do it but he says that he likes me and that I shouldn’t be making me do this he said it was my fault. My elbows are digging into the seat and my throat hurts from crying and then I feel this sharp pain he slapped me in the chest and has me held down with one hand between my breasts. he undoes his pants and pulls up my dress. I’m crying and screaming no and stop to let me go. He laughs again and starts. Im in pain I’ve never done it before and I didn’t want to have sex with a senior. The pain is so bad I feel like i’m tearing. He started to go faster and harder and then he comes. But not in me, he said he didn’t want any little juniors, I’m in shock. He said that I was the best ride he’s had since his ex. He got out of the car and pulled me out and left me there in the gravel. I’m on my knees and I’m choking on my tears I feel like I can’t breathe. After a while he pulls up again and throws me into the car. He drives me home and I can still feel him. He drops me home and I run upstairs my sister follows me and sees the bruises and the blood. She screams at my brother to get the car, I guess I must have blacked out because the next thing I’m in hospital. My dad and my uncle are looking after me since my mom died. My sister is talking to the doctor. I panic my sister tells me to calm down. My bruises are purple and are ugly. My brother tells me that the doctor knows something happened and that Sam my uncle, and Dean my dad are on their way. I tell them too let me go home and I continued to scream and kick so they eventually had to sedate me.

After, I calmed down and I had to tell the police. I hated it but I survived and now a year later I go to therapy and I’m getting ready for the trial.

Survivor Story: Free at Last

By: Kate

When I was 12 a boy i knew began to sexually molest me. It happened for so many years and I dont even remember how many times it has happened. I became bulimic and considered suicide a few times. My life was wasting away from me and I was unable to control it. One night I listened to Dawson Mcallitser’s Hopeline and asked them for help. They contacted the police, I never have to worry about this problem anymore. There is such joy and freedom in my life now. If any one is going through something remember you can always tell someone and God is always there. He was for me. He will be for you. I am at last free.

Survivor Story: I Forgive, I Will Never Forget And I Always Will Remember My Abuser!

By: Loleta L. White, Baltimore, MD

It all started around the age of when I was about eight or nine years old, my life had just started to begin and end all at the same time. I was raised my my grandmother since i was one years old. The time had come when she wanted me to reunite with my mother, so she shipped me off for the summer so we could have that mother and daughter bond. During that time my mothers boyfriend which is also my brothers father had molested me. It started with him coming into my room at night while my mother was in the living room watching t.v. He asked me for a good night kiss and as i went to kiss his cheak he turned his head to kiss my mouth as i felt his tongue almost go down my throat. I didnt know what to think but i knew it was wrong and i felt scared. As time, days,months and years went by I never told a soul and he reminded me that if I did he would kill me. At the age eleven to twelve it started all over again but this time he would tell me to sit on his lap while his pants are unzipped so that he could rub his penis up and down on my butt to get arroused. He use to tell me how pretty my lips was and how fully developed i was at my age, that really made me feel uncomfortable. He use to feel on my chest and private area and make me promise to never tell. But I did tell, I got up the courage to tell my mother. What good did that do me if she didnt believed me, my own mother. to make the long story of my life short, the man that molested me never served any jail time, just one year of probation. My mother gave up on me believing everything that i told her was a lie. As for my self, for eight months I ended up in a all girls group home called Peggies Place in Baltimore Maryland on Broadway. After that for six years I lived with my foster mother. Being sexually abused have changed my life in so many ways; the way i think, act, feel, talk, walk, and even the way that i raise my children. I wish this to happen to no one not even my worse enemy. I Forgive, I Will Never Forget And I Always Will Remember My Abuser!

Survivor Story: Janie’s Got a Gun

I don’t remember the first time it happened.

I don’t remember the first couple of times it happened.

I just have these memories that are dark, painful, sickening and cold. Stained into my membrane like dirty cheap red wine. Ugh.

I do remember the first time I tried to fight you. I feel so proud of that brave little seven year old girl, that’s how I know my memories are of me, nothing but strength, bravery and determination even when I knew in my heart I was too small.

You were staying over at my mothers house, in the spare bedroom where Jack stayed once, another man who tried taking my spirit. I’m so glad the walls have been painted since, but I can still remember that ugly wallpaper and how helpless I felt as my arms and legs flailed into them in my battle against my own creator.

I had gotten to the stage where I knew something wasn’t right, that what you were doing wasn’t special- like you said it was. And as you picked me outta bed and took me into that room, I woke up and fought. I kicked, I punched, I yelled. You told me my mother would be upset if she found out…and as she was all I had, I stopped fighting.

Mother never woke up.

I remember when I was starting the first day of term two in my second year of highschool. You had raped me that morning and I felt sicker and dirtier than ever before, I was fourteen and had a boyfriend. I was afraid of how revolting I would feel greeting my boyfriend only hours after as nothing had happened, I had to fight through every second of that day, all alone in my head.

I remember the scars, how secretive yet relieving they were of these demons in my soul. How I controlled this hurt. How I got to choose when, where and how I was abused. I remember how they tasted as I licked my repulsive wounds. I became my own worst enemy. Nineteen scars I had on one at at one stage. Nineteen was my lucky number, so I thought I would cut out nineteen pieces of my filthy, dirty, disgusting shards of flesh.

This new found sense of control wrapped me in a false sense of security. But I was addicted.

I was so good at lying or scaring people into secrecy that sometimes I could allow a short sleeve top. I can flashback right to the moment my uncle asked me about them during a family affair in mother’s garden. ‘You been gettin’ a bit depressed or something?’ …. ‘nah, I got owned by the wire on the rabbit cage’…it worked a treat on everybody. I remember playing a game of trust in phys ed. and the yellow ribbon around my wrist came loose. Tracy looked me dead in the eye as I help my finger to my lips and told her she couldn’t tell. She never did.

The only reason you are still breathing is because of Cindy and my mother. Cindy’s mother is just as bad as you, leaving you to be the only one Cindy has and we are not close enough for me to take you away. Mother’s so mentally depressed that if she found out it would indefinitely break her.
But this is about to change.

I’m starting to get closer to Cindy, so that she can trust me to care for her once I put you away. And I’ve been dropping ques to mother, which shall soften the blow and hopefully allow her to get through this. I’m so sorry you thought you could get away with this, but how was it meant to be a secret forever? You saw how I put that other man away, right?

You’re next.

I will not apologize to anybody for anything. I did nothing wrong. If anything you all did something wrong…it happened so often and right under your noses, yet nobody stopped it. It will not be until I know it’s over that I can heal,

I just wanted to warn you that I’m a survivor.

Sincerely, Your Daughter.                                            

Survivor Story: My Sexual Abuse Story

By: Nikky

My Childhood was not one of the ordinary. I didn’t experience the love, joy and innocence of childhood. From the age of 4, I was being sexually abused by my cousins. I didn’t know it at the time. They used to call it “Playing the Game”. Life went downhill from that point. I was now being raped by some other cousins; it was four of them in total. I was bullied at school, called all kinds of different names. It was at the age of 12 yrs I only then comprehended what had happened to me in my life. I was going to tell my parents but I was threatened by them and even choked one night.
I became a living corpse from then on. I was a living dead. I was cold. I was just an entity in a body. Nights on end I cried myself to sleep from my demise. I felt dirty. Constantly bathing, trying to cleanse off their touch from my body. I felt like someone poured acid on me; it was eating me away daily, bit by bit, piece by piece. I was full of hurt, pain, anger and rage. Years past, and the pains grew stronger and stronger. Nothing quelled the raging inferno burning inside me. Day by day, I was becoming less human. I tried everything and nothing worked such as different religious prayers etc. Suicide was the only way out, the only solution to ease my pain. It would all soon go away I thought.

One night I put a tape around my neck, and I was going to strangle myself, but something pulled me back. My teacher had told me about Jesus. I had nothing to lose, I had already lost the will to live, was too tired fighting to survive and too weak from daily battling. So I closed my eyes and prayed to Jesus. When I closed my eyes……I saw Jesus himself and He was holding a door ledge. He grasped it tightly and was looking towards the sky praying. I said “Jesus, I need u in my life, I cannot carry these burdens again for they are too heavy, come into my life and take them and wash me from my sins.” Then I saw him kneel down in front of me and said “If you had called me earlier, I would have come.” I looked into His eyes and I cannot describe what I saw. It was so full of compassion, love, peace, joy and reassurance and most of all care. He touched me, and everything just vanished. All the pain, anger, hurt, broken heartedness, everything just vanished immediately, like it never happened! What I was searching for all these years, Jesus came and did it in seconds.

I don’t know what about some of the pains that you have gone through, but I know what it is to be broken hearted, abused, alone and rejected. The thought of getting up after this sounds impossible. But I did it; I found my strength in Jesus. I encourage you, if there is any one here, whose burdens are too heavy and whose legs have given up, give your life to Christ and He will come and heal you and make you complete. I once thought that God had forgotten about me because he allowed this to happen but when Jesus came to me Himself and I looked into those precious eyes saw His undying love for me, I understood that He had to wait until I invited him. His love is unconditional, it is eternal.

He taught me how to love myself first when I hated what I saw in the mirror, how to forgive my transgressors when I only had hate for them and how to love His people, just as He loves me. This is my testimony, my testimony of truth of the great works that Jesus did in my life. He can do the same for you. Invite him in and accept Him as your savior if you haven’t yet. He is all too willing to come and carry ALL your burdens as He always care for ALL HIS PEOPLE. Accept God’s gift of redemption today before it is too late. I have a reason to live now…………….his name is JESUS.

Your brother in Christ. God Bless You always. Peace be with You in the name of Jesus.

Survivor Story: My life story…

By: Sarah Jayne, Paducah, Kentucky

Hello everyone, I am Sarah. I am now 15 years old. I have a twin sister. I was 3 months premature and they informed my mom they would only live the hospital with only one child, cause I was born with a disease, 95% people die from. Then we got sick and got scarlet fever and almost died. Then we got better and got to come home and our dad is a drug and alcoholic addict and he started beating us.. We moved out when we turned four. Since then its been pretty normal bad things along the way but nothing to bad except moving so much. But 8th grade is when it has exploded. I was sexually assaulted by a guy that goes to school with me. He threatened me, and I kept it in for so long but when I told we went to court and i lost.. I let him touch me 11 times. I started cutting myself and I attempted suicide 3 times, every attempt failed.. But now I still go to school with him and struggle everyday with cutting… and depression.

Survivor Story: I Trusted Him

By: Zoey, Richmond

I am raised by my father and Uncle Samuel or Sam. My dad had me young so he talks to me all the time about sex and how it’s okay not to want to do things I don’t want to. We lived in Washington but moved to Virginia after.

I walk home from school everyday, it’s a long walk. One day, it was a Monday I was walking home and I wanted to take the long way home because I had felt sick in school and thought that a walk might clear my head. Big mistake! I was walking behind an old building to take the alley across the street. When 4 guys I knew from school Jumped out at me to scare me.

I screamed and they laughed. We talked for a bit and I told them I had to go. When my crush 17 year old Mark, I knew he was 2 years older, told me not to go. I said I had to go that my Dad would be worried. Mark pulled me closer to him and begged me to stay. I was a bit worried so I pulled free and told him I had to go. As I was walking home Pete and Josh grabbed me and pulled me deeper into the alley and far behind the old school. They dragged me into the school and pushed me onto the floor. I got up and tried to run out the door but they caught me and pinned me down on the floor. Mark pulled down my panties as I was wearing a dress and I was begging for him not to do it. The pain was unbearable as he forced his penis inside me. My breathe was gone and he thrusted himself harder and faster. He whispered into my ear saying he liked me that I was very pretty. When he finished the others took turns Josh was like hot iron and he grabbed my shoulder and pulled me down to him. Pete was rough and he kept kissing me to stop me from screaming . Marks other friend Luke ran out and I heard him vomiting. He came back in and told the boys that they had to leave because he could hear someone coming.

I curled up in a ball and lay there all cut, bruised and bleeding. Mark came back in pulled me into his face and told me if I told anyone he would kill me. He pushed me down and I must have hit my head because I woke up in a hospital. After that I told the police and dad was so angry he drove me to school, but I was getting hassled and so we moved when Uncle Sam got a job promotion.

Sam and Dad support me and were really there for me during the trial. Sometimes I hear dad crying at night, I always think its my fault but dad says it’s because he’s scared for me. I love them so much and 6 months on they’re in jail and I’m starting my life over.

Survivor Story: Support and Friendship

By: Hailey, Lawrence

GRAPHIC- TRIGGER WARNING

My name is Hailey. I’m 16 and I was 15 when it happened. I live with my dad Dean, 35 and my uncle Sam, 31.

We live in Lawrence, Kansas. Let me just get to the story. I had just entered high school and so far I was loving it. I was doing well in my classes and dad and Uncle Sam were proud of me for getting straight A’s in a christmas report card so they bought me an iPad. Dad works as a lawyer and Uncle Sammy works as a teacher. They work late so dad wants me home as soon as school finishes. Dad had me when he was 19 so he didn’t want me having sex or being in a serious relationship with a boy.

One day in March, My English teacher Mr. Daniels called me behind from class. He favored me and always gave me A’s. He asked me if I liked him. I told him only as a teacher and that I should go home. He grabbed me threw me onto his desk and said if I screamed no one would hear me. He held my wrists together with one hand and undid himself wit the other. He forced up my dress and and pinned my wrists down.All of sudden this jolt of pain went through my body. He had forced himself inside me was thrusting into me and the pain was searing, he felt like hot iron inside me. He whispered into my ear and told me that I shouldn’t have been teasing him and I was asking for it. He was beginning to come and grabbed my thigh to get deeper he thrusted harder and faster. the pain was awful and I felt my insides ripping. He was very young and was so strong his weight on top of me I couldn’t breathe. He finished and was panting like a wild animal. He got off and I stumbled onto my feet and got out into the hallway.

I washed my face and hands before smoothing out my dress and each step was agony. I was taking the shortcut home through the back roads where my friends were but it was late so I didn’t think anyone would be there. My best friend Mark came up behind me and grabbed me by my waist and pulled me up in the air. I screamed and cried and was hitting him to let me down, he let me drop and he seen the blood running down my legs.He asked me what happened and I told him. He pulled me gently into his car before taking me to the hospital. After that it was a rape exam, police reports and a trial. He was found guilty but I didn’t show up for the sentencing.

After that my dad and uncle Sam sent me to a therapist. They support me so much and protect and love me everyday. Dad is strange he drives me everywhere and Sam walks me to the store or a friends if I need to go. Mark is still my best friend. We are good friends and to this day I am thankful I took the short way home.