#MeToo

I know I'm a bit late to this movement but better late than never; and when better to dig up past trauma than the middle of the night ya know?

I'm not the best at formal writing so I'm sorry if this is a bit of a hot mess; but also trauma isn't pretty so why should talking about it be?

It started in Primary School. I was an early developer and after years of bullying the popular boys finally decided they wanted to be friends; little did I know they were only interested in my developing body but little me didn't know any better when they started touching me in places they shouldn't have. I didn't know any better when they wanted to look at my body and I didn't know any better when they wanted me to touch them. I was 10.

I lost my virginity at 14. I was in a long distance relationship with this boy I'd become friends with online, his family came down to visit for a week so we could meet. We'd spoken about sex and he said he wanted to do it, I realised I wasn't ready and I didn't want to. He said that wasn't fair, I'd said I wanted to before and he didn't know when he would see me again. He wore me down and made me feel guilty for changing my mind. Eventually I agreed, it hurt, it was uncomfortable and I cried after.

At 16 I had my first long term 'serious' relationship with who was at the time my best friend. It was the worst 12 months of my life; he was controlling, abusive and manipulative and I'm still not completely recovered from it. We broke up and got back together 3 or 4 times until he eventually left me for another girl. We met on the first day and ended up in the same friendship group, I had no intention of dating him until he confessed he thought he was 'falling for me' or something along those lines, I do my best not to remember the exact details. After some consideration I decided to give it a try and was invited to his house by his family for dinner which of course lead to me staying the night.

That evening while kissing in bed he asked me if I'd give him head "because I'd bragged about it so much to the girls in college he wanted to see for himself'" I told him I wasn't feeling it and didn't want to. He climbed on top of me and tried to force himself into my mouth- I did manage to push him off of me but terrified he'd try something else I told him I'd have sex with him instead. I've never felt as disgusting as I did after that experience. The next morning however he still wasn't happy about me refusing to give him head so he asked again and again I said I didn't want to; this time he grabbed my head and tried to pull me down to do it. (Again he didn't succeed with this and I broke up with him the next day at College, although sadly that wasn't the end of the relationship-but he never tried anything like that again so the rest is for a different day.)

At 19 I met a boy on Tinder who seemed really sweet. After asking me to be his Girlfriend we met my friend and her boyfriend in Wetherspoons and had a few drinks, during which he arranged with my friend to come to her birthday weekend in a different city to surprise me while I was outside smoking- they both ended up telling me so it wasn't a surprise in the end. I'd arranged with him to come back to mine after this weekend and spend a day or two with me and then I'd go back to his with him. The night out came and he started being really weird, getting me to kiss one of my other friends in-front of him and continually trying to do things in attempts to arouse me while we were out saying I was doing the same to him-I'd done nothing but dance with my friends, drink and kiss him once or twice. On the walk home we ended up being left by the others, during this time he told me I'd 'blue ballsed' him that evening and I would have to have sex with him in the bathroom of my friends flat when we got back to make up for it, in a rather aggressive and forceful manner. I got a friend to phone me for the remainder of the walk and went straight to bed as I no longer felt safe walking alone with him.

The next morning I chalked this up to having one too many to drink and it all seemed fine so he came back to mine with me. We went straight to sleep as we were both understandably tired from the night before and I was admittedly still a little irritated with him from his behaviour. He didn't try anything and all was good. The next morning one thing led to another and we did end up having sex however the way he'd made me feel so unsafe kept playing in my head so I asked him to stop and said no I don't want to continue. Of course he did not stop. I shoved him, he didn't stop. Eventually I did manage to push him off me and when confronted he tried telling me it was a 'misunderstand' and he thought I'd meant I didn't want him to kiss me. I kicked him out of my house.

At 20 I was dating a guy I met at the pub. He was a bit older than me but we clicked instantly. A few dates and one evening at the pub with some of my friends later he decides to go to the club with me as I didn't want to go home yet. The next thing I remember is waking up in my bed surrounded by my clothes from the previous evening, the heel on my shoe broken, a massive hole in the crotch of my tights and my hoodie nowhere to be found. I could not remember anything but not the I drank too much what happened? that slowly starts to come back, nope; he roofied me. So how do I know what happened if I can't remember anything? He fucking told me and tried to downplay it as if he'd done nothing wrong. Well he told me he'd torn my tights and that he'd had sex with me but tried to say that somebody else must have drugged me because a friend of mine gave me a shot at the bar, as if raping me while I'd been drugged by somebody else was better than him drugging me too? (I watched the drink get poured and passed directly to me, unless the entire bottle was drugged there's no way it was that and the only other person who went anywhere near my drinks that evening was him.)

To this day I feel like each and every one of the experiences were my fault and that my experiences are not valid enough to be part of the #MeToo movement. In every single case I've been violated or disrespected by somebody I thought I could trust, somebody close to me. I am openly a very sexual person (Which recently therapy has taught me stems from the trauma caused by these experiences, thanks brain!) and it makes me sick to think that people think that gives them a right to my body regardless of if I've given consent or if I've changed my mind or what my previous actions seem to have suggested.