I am scared. This is my story.

A month or so ago, I saw the trending hashtag #metoo for women to speak up and share their stories, and to raise awareness about sexual assault. I was thinking about posting this on Facebook as well, because I have never told anybody else that I was raped at a young age. I have a wonderful boyfriend that is very compassionate, but more often than not, he gets very bothered, hurt and worried about my past. He hates that something so bad has happened to me. As I was thinking about posting the hashtag, another thought came into my mind... “there are starving children in Africa. There are women who cannot even vote. There are people who are being forced into marriage.” I thought posting #metoo would be silly considering all the bigger issues in our world. My boyfriend is the one who told me this. However he himself doesn’t have anything against the hashtag.

Because I simply cannot bring myself to post #metoo to all of the people I know, I will share it here..

I was 12 when I was raped. I was very young. At that time I was going through emotional trauma and stress, because a boy had treated me very badly. I felt bad about myself, so I started seeking male attention. Keep in mind I was very innocent and my intentions were pure. All I wanted was to feel good about myself. I went online, looking for some male friends. At that time I was unaware that the internet was basically a means for hooking up in many cases, but again, I was completely unaware. I met a guy. He was 18. He himself was also a virgin. But unlike him, I was not looking for sex to “be cool” among my friends or anything like that.

So I ended up chatting and meeting up with him. I was in an underground parking lot, and I was sitting with him in his car. All of a sudden, he started kissing me. I felt very uncomfortable but did not know how to say stop, as I was terrified he was going to hurt me if I restrained. I was not ready. I was young, and did not know then that it was rape. I did not know about consent. I knew absolutely nothing.

And just like that, one of the “most important experience of a girl’s life”...

Gone.

This has affected many of my decisions in the future.. and I regret each one that was tainted with my horrific past.

I love my boyfriend with all of my heart. He is so very kind and beautiful and just a loving, caring, wonderful good soul.

And I hate that my past has affected my present.

And like me, he is learning to accept it right now.

But yeah.

I don’t care if this post gets ignored, or overlooked as another one of those attention-seeking stories. It is not. All I want to do is speak up anonymously.

This is my story.

This is #metoo.

Please spread awareness.