Sexual Predator Abuse: I would like some support and would like to hear if anyone else has a shared experience.

Dear East,

I'm sorry you had this happen to you. I too was an adult victim of a sexual predator. There was grooming, trauma bonding involved and past childhood abuse that made me vulnerable.

After almost hurting myself permanently I reached out to a professional therapist. I was in the darkest pit of depression and PTSD, I couldn't function - wasn't eating, unable to interact with anyone. Everything suffered .

After a few years of therapy not missing any sessions and dedication to healing myself I am doing much better. I started removing toxic people and activities from my life and it wasn't easy , almost like an addict I had to Steele myself against my abusers.

I started making myself a priority. I started working on my conditioned thoughts and taking good care of myself in all ways.

It's been an incredibly difficult road and I am still a work in progress because I have so much trauma. Old and new . Therapy has been like an education for me and I have learned a lot about my own behavior. I've learned how to set boundaries and recognize the people who are not good for me and keep away from them.

When you have a traumatic childhood you tend to gravitate to traumatic situations/ people because they look familiar. Remember familiar is not always a good thing.

What happened to you @passionateEast518 was never your fault. This is something I keep trying to ingrain into my thoughts. It was not my fault.

Your a good person who deserves the best life has to offer. Take action and do what you love and know is good for you.

7 cups is a good place to share. So many supportive people here who understand. It's helped me a lot.

Best

ABB 💜

Thank you so so much for sharing that with me!! I am so sorry you had to go through that as well!

@passionateEast518

I hope you are Ok. I am afraid my experience was very different from yours. My half brother (13years older than me) used to rape me when I was like five or six. Regardless I am happy to talk about it if you would like me to :)

Oh my goodness! I am so sorry you had to go through that! Yes, I can definitely talk with you if you would like. Maybe you can give me some tips on how to recover from the mental abuse? Yes, our situations are different since mine is actually ten years younger than me. I am married also. I will admit that I do not have much sexual attraction for my husband and don’t really think I ever did. I was young when I got married and tried to not think about that since he did treat me well and take care of me. It’s just started to wear at me after ten years. I’m not sure what I can do to help with this. I met this young man and see him about once per week. He was so nice to me in person and was a fun person to be around. He did flirt with me some. I do find him highly attractive. He added me on social media and started messaging me a lot. I tried to just be friendly with him and avoided his fishing for compliments. He messaged me one night to tell me how good I looked. I did tell him we needed to stay appropriate since I’m married. Then he started ignoring me in public. I did message him and started talking to him like a friend after that. I felt bad and didn’t want him to feel stupid. He eventually started flirting again. He really helped with my low self esteem about how I look. I liked when he said nice things about me and I did start complimenting him back. I felt very bad about it due to being married. He would still just drop out of conversation for no reason or when I wouldn’t talk sexual with him. At one point, I avoided sexual talk and he deleted me from all social media but didn’t block me. I tried to talk to him about it and he ignored me. But then he saw me again one night and thought I looked good and added me back. I don’t know why I kept talking to him other than my self esteem and actually feeling sexual feelings for someone was nice. I had never felt like that before. He did ask me one night if I was attracted to him sexually and I told him I was. He sent me a lot of provocative pictures and a video. He asked me what we would do if I was there with him and told me what he wanted to do to me sexually. He said I’m very innocent and now I know how dirty he is. Then he ignored me for a whole month. He did talk to me a little bit here and there and it was just friendly. He never really would let me get to know him though. He wouldn’t share much personal stuff after we started talking online. I learned the most about him when we only spoke in person. He did flirt a little a few times but I didn’t even trust him anymore and didn’t really say much back. Just the other day, he messaged me and when I sent him back asking how he was he said “he was doing much better now that he got to see what he wanted to see” meaning my legs. I tried to be friendly with him and tried to tell him a funny story from work. I avoided talking about what I was wearing like he wanted to. He just started ignoring me. I messaged him the next day to show him an animal I had found and saved. He read it and ignored it also. He doesn’t want to be my friend and just uses me but for some reason I still want to be his friend really bad. I know that he has played mind games with me and I feel really stupid for how I’m acting. I just need help figuring out how to forget about him. I don’t want to be shallow and only care about looks. I just never really dated before my husband and no one this attractive ever paid me any attention. No other men ever paid me attention for that fact. I never dated anyone else so I don’t have much experience with men treating me poorly. If you or anyone else reading this has any suggestions or even just wants to tell me about similar experiences, please feel free to share with me. It will be greatly appreciated. Thank you so much

@passionateEast518. How do you feel when he treats you in the way that you have described? It does sound like he is playing mind games like you said. I have found that when people play these type of mind games with me that they are not looking for friendship with me , but to use me for their purpose.

It makes me feel like I was weird for trying to talk to him like a normal person. He acts like I’m weird for doing that. I really don’t know why I keep wanting to be his friend. I guess I just wanted things to be back like they used to be before he pushed things further. He was really fun when he was just being friendly. I can’t believe it was all fake. It also makes me feel kind of gross and used when he wants to talk about how I look. I already have guilt from what he’s talked me into and just don’t want that to happen again. I also don’t really want to cut him off completely. I still see him a lot and he doesn’t handle things like that well. I also almost feel mean for doing that. I doubt he will ever apologize or anything. It almost seems like he’s a narcissist

@passionateEast518

Dear East,

I see my self in your posts here. Please be careful to protect your heart . I see that your very vulnerable and yes narcissistic predators can see that too and will take advantage of you.

The interaction with him might be a boost but it's temporary and from my experience I got my soul crushed and it's taken years for me to heal. I was addicted to the idea my abuser was instilling in me. It wasnt real I just didn't see it at that time.

Please consider therapy to find out why you need adoration to boost your esteem. ( No disrespect is meant I'm just concerned for you).

Please take care, your a beautiful person and deserve all good things in your life. 💜

ABB

Thank you so much for pointing that out to me. I really appreciate it. I do think maybe therapy would be a good idea. I really want to help my marriage since I know that some of this stemmed from the problems in it. It is good to know I’m not alone and I have you to talk to about this. I am glad to know that you’ve been able to heal. I am just sorry it took so long.

@adventurousBranch3786 Reading about boundaries may be helpful for you. I’ve been learning about boundaries and it’s hard to do but it is worthwhile. You can google articles about boundaries and here’s a link about it from 7cups.

https://www.7cups.com/boundaries/

Thank you so much! Yes, I will definitely check this out. I appreciate you helping me!

@passionateEast518

Im 14 and this happened to me recently, which is why I'm on here.

I was on Omegle (rookie mistake) and this guy asked for snap. He was cute so like I was willing to do what he asked. He asked me for *** and even though I said I was nervous I did it anyways (peer pressure sucksss). It's really brought down my mood and im feeling really depressed. Throwing up and not eating are the worst. Hope this helps. Stay safe

Oh my I am so sorry! Yes, I had the same issue after I did what I did. I threw up immediately and didn’t feel like eating for a long time. Especially since he completely ignored me afterward for a long time. It sounds like whoever that guy was is very much alike with this one. Be very careful, because he will probably try to talk to you again. I hope you get to feeling better soon. I would report him on the app you were using also. You can report that they have inappropriate pictures of you. That was very wrong of him to pressure you into that. Guys like the ones we dealt with are very good at manipulation. Thank you so much for sharing your story with me and I hope knowing you aren’t alone helps you feel better also.