Ive been at college for 2 weeks. About 3 or 4 days into it, I had a random "eureka" sort of moment. Just sitting in bed and reading about organizations that raise awareness about sexual assault n all that, and then it hit me. It was like an egg cracked on my head. A sharp pain and then an eerie trickling feeling all down my body.

I've been sexually assaulted before, by 2 different guys, one of whom was my boyfriend.

This time last year, I lost my virginity to an older guy who became my boyfriend for about two months, and then he dumped me kinda out of nowhere. All we did was have sex. He told me he didn't know any other way to express his feelings toward me. His mother died when he was very young, making him VERY guarded with his emotions and terrified of abandonment. It occurred to me upon my realization last week that the first time we had sex, the first time I ever had sex, I never gave him my consent. He kept asking me "what do you wanna do?" and "how far do you wanna go?" but I would only answer with "I dont know" every time. I was terrified and I couldn't really even move or speak. That first time was so painful for me and I bled afterwards. It never occurred to me that this was not okay. It never occurred to me that "I don't know" did not equal "yes". Sex after that wasn't forced on me, but it was all we ever did and I felt so used. He did confess to me a few days before he broke up with me that he had rape fantasies about me a lot and wanted to act on them.

The second occasion was January of this year. So like 8/9 months ago. I was in an extremely emotionally vulnerable place at the time for a multitude of reasons, but the main one was that I had been dumped even when I did everything that he had wanted and that I wasn't even good enough in bed for him to stay. I was on tinder and matched with this guy who laid it on real thick all about how sexy and beautiful he thought I was. It was the attention I had been missing. I had been talking to him via text and Snapchat for 2 days when he started coercing me into driving 35 miles to see him alone in his apartment. He threatened that if I didn't meet him on that day that he would never talk to me again. That wouldn't have been a huge loss for me but at the time it felt like it was. I was craving affection and got it from the worst place. He told me that I was being unfair and a cold hearted bitch for having sexted him but then not agreed to have sex with him that day. And at the time I believed him, so I drove to meet him. He was not very nice to me tbh but he was attractive. He kissed me and touched me and I felt good again. He kept asking me for sex and I kept saying no. I wouldn't budge on that because neither of us had condoms. He then asked for anal and I again said no. He wanted to take my pants off but I pushed him away every time his hand got there. He still kept trying. It was like every time i said "no" he thought I would change my mind 2 seconds later. When he realized I really wasn't going to have sex with him, he got angry. I was fucking terrified. Far from home and my parents didn't know where I really was, plus my phone had no service there so I couldn't have called for help. I didn't want him to hurt me. I knew I could get out if I got him to finish. So I gave him a blow job. He finished fast and then went into his bathroom for 20 minutes. When he came out, he told me I had to leave and that it had been a mistake for me to come there. I had an awful panic attack and that might have been the worst moment of my life.

Both of these situations don't sound like cut and dry sexual assault. I never looked back on them fondly but it took me up until last week to realize that they were not okay. I've been feeling pretty weird since my realization and I don't know what to do. I still can't help but feel like both of these situations were my fault. I know that "I don't know" is not consent and that coerced consent is not consent, but idk. I have pretty severe depression and anxiety, along with horrible self esteem and a history of suicidal thoughts/attempts.

The only person I've told about this is my boyfriend. I love him to pieces and I dont know how I got so lucky as to find him. He's worried about me getting assaulted in college, since it's (sadly) such a common occurrence, and he was so supportive and comforting when i told him all of this.

I just really needed to let this off my chest.