By Anonymous Contributor 

I trusted you. You broke me even though I felt completely broken already. I blamed myself for months for what you did and I have now come to the conclusion that I did nothing wrong – it was all you. I shouldn’t be the only one to suffer from this and I will make you pay. No more hurting people like you hurt me. You need to learn what it means when a girl says ‘no’ or ‘stop’. You are a rapist and a monster and deserve to be behind bars.

By Anonymous Contributor

I am not the same anymore. I am not comfortable in my own body. What you did to me was disgusting, and somehow you seemed to think that it’s ok to touch someone without asking them? You have wrecked my relationship with my partner. I don’t feel like myself anymore. I am annoyed that I just froze. I wish that I’d got up and started beating you up. I feel sick everyday, I barely eat. I want to be able to be intimate with my partner and I can’t because I have flashbacks. The police said there wasn’t enough evidence and you claimed that I consented. You obviously have no clue what consent is or what it means. I said no to you, but you ignored me. I can’t cope.

Anonymous Contributor

Dear my current self,

Firstly, it was not your fault and he was 100% to blame for what happened. Stop blaming yourself for trusting him, you had a right to trust him. Secondly, remember that you are very strong. You have got through previous traumas with the help of therapy, and no matter how hard it has been you have battled bipolar disorder. You can get through the aftermath of rape and get your life back. You will be more confident again, be happy and alive again. The days are already much better in general but just keep on going even when sometimes something knocks you back and you despair that you will never be okay again. You will be okay again.

Anonymous Contributor

I know it wasn’t my fault and that the perpetrator is always to blame and yet I feel guilty about what happened.

I feel like I should have seen it coming. Looking back it seems obvious he was going to rape me and I could have stopped it. I don’t blame myself for undressing, or dating the man as others have, but I feel I blame myself for trusting him and going back to his house on the first date instead of being more cautious.

I know that it wasn’t my fault, and it was 100% his fault, but after being blamed by so many people and living in a society where victims are constantly blamed I find myself subconsciously feeling guilty.

By Han W. 

I am not the one to blame for my rape in 2009 and I need to remember that. The stranger was clever in the way he made me think it was my fault and the texts afterwards, and a year later, made it seem like he was not in the wrong. He was powerful and that attack has stayed with me. I wonder if it affects him?! I blocked it out, did not dare tell many people. Then years later I develop seizures from the trauma, my body and brain telling me I cannot be in control of this. I need to deal with it. I have had to quit my teaching job, get therapy and tell people close to me. I am mentally ill and pysically exhausted from the non-epileptic seizures. This is effecting not only me but my family. I am angry. I have understood a lot more about assault and the effects of it over the last year and it is never the victims fault. I blamed myself for going to his room but I never wanted sex, I was crying and screaming and he never stopped or was concerned. He knew what he was doing that October night. Luckily I did not catch an STI and had to take the morning after pill to prevent pregnancy. I have told the police six years on. They have been so supportive and helpful. Victim support have been great in providing me with an alarm and helping me apply for compensation due to loss of earnings. I hope we catch you, but I am not alone with this anymore and you are not going to make me suffer.

By Beatrix Mortimer

This is letter written to you. I didn’t know anything about you until 2 days ago when someone flippantly told me your surname, like I should’ve known it. In the same way you probably don’t see me as a real person, I hadn’t seen you as a real person. You were a darkness to me. A darkness with eyes is all I see. It was easier to imagine you like that because I want to have faith in men. I want to believe that they are not capable of taking such advantage of a woman in possibly the most vulnerable position they can be. I did not want you there, I told you to leave, to go away. But all you saw was an object and that object happened to be a real person with a life, with a boyfriend, with a family and with a lot more to give. So I am writing this to make you understand that I am a person.

All women are people with decisions and thoughts and objectives. You took advantage of that and used your strength to overpower me. I thought I was strong, physically and mentally. You have made me stronger, physically and mentally. I know that I can fight now and survive. Yet at the same time I’m not strong. You have taken over my life. I may still be fighting but you have chipped something away which I may never get back. I want to be able to breathe again, I don’t want to wallow in self pity anymore, I don’t want to feel different from my friends anymore, like the distance I feel because they can never understand fully what I went through.

I guess then strength isn’t always the best. I want people to understand, I want them to see my pain, to create awareness. I don’t want people to hear my story and immediately say ‘well you should not have gone to the toilet then’ and ‘why didn’t you fight back’. But then I feel empowered. Those people that are quick to judge empower me because then I feel strong and I feel like a woman. I feel like a woman who can do anything because I survived and all I want is to tell others that they can survive too. I am allowed to walk down the street alone, hell if I want to go to the toilet I can. I did fight back. I used my instinct and I fought back. But then I didn’t. I can’t. I can only fight in my mind. In my mind I can go anywhere and do anything and no one can stop me because I’m fearless.

This is not reality. My reality is not fearless; you took that away. I cannot go anywhere by myself. I have a constant fear if I’m alone at night, a constant fear. No one can really experience that fear. You made me want to succumb, to get it over with. What would have happened then? Would I feel worse than I do now? Would I feel less guilty about my feelings and anxiety because something actually happened? There’s another male view of it – ‘Nothing actually happened’. Another ignorant person who can never understand what happened. Yes nothing actually happened but what’s worse is that sometimes I wish it did, because my feelings feel inferior. But how can one measure feelings or experiences. Sexual assault is exactly that; sexual assault. It is using power and violence to force women to do something against their will, and that has no scale.

You affected me, did I affect you? Did I make you feel like the weight of the whole world is crushing down on your chest every time you think or talk about that night? Did I make you form a thick shell around you when new people come and talk to you? Did I make your body tense up and remember what it felt like to have another’s weight crushing down on you whilst you are struggling? The marks may have gone but the body never forgets. The mind never forgets. You have affected my body, my mind, my relationships. Maybe I have affected yours. I hope I have. I hope that you think about your actions from that night while you spend time waiting in prison. Was it worth it? For just an iPhone and a bit of prey. What did you think whilst walking down that road? What went through your mind as you saw me crouching there? ‘Oh I know I’ll just quickly have sex with that’ Did you see me as a person or did you just see a body? You tried to kiss me. Did you think if you pushed me to the ground hard enough or suffocate my screams enough I would reciprocate? Did you think I wanted that? Did you think I was asking for it? I really hope that now you understand the meaning of consent. It has affected your life too, let this be a lesson but it’s disgusting that it took affecting my life so dramatically for you to be taught that women are not objects made for men. Seriously though what was going through your mind? Did you brag about it to your friends afterwards or were you ashamed? Did you tell them how you got this brand new iPhone 6? Was that just it for you; a missed opportunity and a brand new phone. Look where that has got you. You are not brave, you are not a fighter, you are an ignorant boy.

While you are waiting in prison, hopefully forced to contemplate your actions. I am here, outside free in the basic sense of the word. I am free to walk around at night, I am free to have fun with my friends, I am free to have fun with my boyfriend. You may have destroyed my nerves but you have not destroyed my love. I love. I love my friends, I love my family and I love my boyfriend. You have not rid that of me. I love and it is the best feeling in the world. Do you know how that feels? I love and I am loved. I am loved for me and I guess you have added to that. You have made me capable, you have made me realise that love is the most important thing to me. Happiness and love above all. To love now means so much more because I can feel this even though you showed me the opposite of love. You showed me hate and menace and the abuse of power.

I am safe in love and I know that you cannot have that. I am safe with my boyfriend, with my friends, my family. They make me safe. They make me happy. They empower me. I empower them. I show them my strength. I show them that I can succeed. Although they may never understand I show them that I can survive this unimaginable ordeal and that empowers me.

I am empowered. I am safe and I am loved.

By Catherine 

TW: Suicide, PTSD

To the man whom I trusted with my body, heart and soul,

I want you to know what a state I was in after I accepted what you did to me. I have never wanted to die more than I did then and if I hadn’t asked for help I might not still be here today. For two weeks in hospital I cried about three times a day or more about the rape. I painted lots of very dark paintings which all express what a dark place I was in because of what you did. I hardly smiled and lost the life within me- I wasn’t myself anymore. But you didn’t win because I didn’t kill myself even though I came so close and even wrote a suicide note which I later got rid of. I am smiling more again and more of my lively self once more.

I want you to know that you have no more place in my life. The two times I texted you expressing feelings about my rape are the last messages you will ever receive from me. I have unblocked your number and teared up and thrown away the piece of paper with your number written on it.

It is important that you are aware that in my very last message to you I partly lied. I wanted to believe that you have no power over me whatsoever but you do because I am still deeply hurt because of what you did to me. I may not be suicidal anymore but that doesn’t mean I don’t struggle to get through life knowing I was raped. Also, I may have gained back some power from you by pushing you off me halfway through but that doesn’t change the fact you raped me.

If I am honest, I am incredibly astonished that you, someone I trusted and who was my friend ‘before anything else’ as you yourself said, raped me.

I want to know why! Why did you decide to damage another human being so much?

You had no right to take away my virginity against my will, take away my choice, not use a condom and rape me especially as you knew I was vulnerable as I had already been assaulted before and had bipolar disorder and PTSD.

I hope that if you don’t feel it now that one day you will feel very guilty for the rest of your life for what you have done as you rightly should.

I no longer have any romantic feelings towards you and I am learning to trust men again including a new male friend.

I refuse to let what you did to me defeat me and stop me from moving on with my life but it will take time to heal the hurt and get my confidence back.

One thing is for certain, you may have taken away my choice and violated my body but you never took away my voice. I said to you in person and over text message what you did to me and I told your close friend what you did to me even if she took your side. I will keep on speaking up about sexual violence whenever I can through the power of words and sharing my experience so I can raise awareness and make others feel less alone. It is through using my voice that I am getting back the power you took from me. You will never take my voice away from me.

Electra Rose

I refuse to let you have power over me

Like a boulder you crushed me mentally, emotionally, sexually.

You left a negative imprint upon me.

Now my scar from rape is healing-

I cannot erase the wonderful memories with you from my mind,

I still wear the dresses I wore with you

And the underwear.

I refuse to let you have any power over me-

I am strong and I now feel absolutely nothing towards you

Except my locked up anger.

It was dark out and pretty late and I was waiting for the bus. I don’t remember where I was going. The street was empty and I waited alone. Three men walked up, I thought they needed to take the bus too. But they came over to me and screamed at me in a language I didn’t understand. Two of the guys started to touch me and they held me by my throat so I couldn’t breathe. Hands were everywhere on my naked body and my hands touched body parts I didn’t want to touch. Everything happend so fast that I couldn’t even think of what to do, or how to get out. I don’t know how long I’d been standing there, it might have been seconds. The bus came and the driver saw what happened and put up the big light and started honking. I got out, fixed my clothes and got in the bus. The driver asked if I was okay and gave me his card. I don’t remember where I went with the bus. I don’t remember how I got out.

I do remember how I tried to tell my (now ex-)boyfriend what happened, but before I had a chance to say anything he just asked me why I hadn’t punched them.