So when I was younger, one of my brother’s friends sexually... assaulted me? I’ll explain it, I think it’s a mixture of rape and sexual assault but I’m not entirely sure. I hate remembering this and my brain blocks it out as much as it can because every time I think of it, I get paranoid and feel violated all over again. Let’s call my brother’s friend C. C, like my brother, was 2 years older than me. We were in my basement and my brother was doing something so C and I went into the storage room. All I can remember is C telling me to take off my clothes. I was confused. Mind you, I was only like 6 or 7 at the time. But me, being the oblivious young child did what he said, because he said otherwise we couldn’t be friends. Which at that time, I had no close friends and I was a little kid so, of course I would have done pretty much anything to have a friend. So then I remember him making me suck on his penis and it tasted like nothing. Then he started to lick my vaginal area. I didn’t really do much, nor did I know what to feel other than confusion. Then he wanted to try sticking his penis in my vagina, but I didn’t want to. He used the same excuse that we wouldn’t be friends otherwise. So I let him and he started to kiss me. Later on, once I got older, I figured out that he didn’t stick his penis in the right hole... he tried putting it in my urethra but it didn’t really work so it was just between my labia’s lips. Eventually, he stopped and told me to put my clothes back on. I felt that we did something we shouldn’t have. But I didn’t think much of it, so we went back out into the regular part of the basement and continued to hang out with my brother. But later that night, when my mom asked me what I did, I broke down crying and told her what happened. This led to me switching busses (C lived 3 houses down from us and went to the same bus stop) and being forced to go to therapy. The therapy person was horrible because they had a girl and a boy doll. They’d ask me things like, “if this boy asks the girl to take off her clothes, that’s not okay” and just overall made me feel worse. Anyways, after that happened, I became a lot more self conscious and became even more of a tomboy than I already was to cover up my body. I began to hate being touched and I would never give my parents hugs voluntarily anymore. I never really like to talk about what happened, nor do I like to remember it. But I know it will help me to get my story out somehow other than telling my close friends. It took me a while to tell people outside of my family and they were my close friends after I had started to actually get friends. I’ve never really gone into this much detail about it to them though, I just tell them that one of my brother’s friends raped me. Sometimes I get flashbacks and I get very anxious and upset. Usually I’ll get flashbacks at least once every few months although it used to be worse. I’ve been trying to move on, but I just haven’t been able to. Like most human beings, I want to have a physical intimacy with someone, preferably a male because I’m not attracted to other genders, but thinking about actually being intimate scares me. I like the idea of it, but when I think about it actually happening, it just makes me upset that I’m so afraid of someone taking advantage of me again. I feel like I should be moved on from it now, considering it’s been almost 10 years. But I still grow very hyper aware of myself whenever a guy, who’s not one of my family members, is around me, especially if they’re behind me. I just don’t know what to do. I also feel guilty since I only said no once and I was passive about it. I kind of feel like I brought it upon myself. Also, C moved to a different state shortly after, but I pass through that state whenever I go on spring break and I always panic because I don’t ever want to see him again. So I feel like I just can’t really trust guys anymore no matter how badly I want to be in a relationship and want to trust them. Also thank you for reading all of this if you’ve made it to this. What do I do?