u/ThatPoem_Girl1509

For context, I’m 16f in high school and this guy is 17m, we’ve been friends since beginning of high school and he’s always been pretty chill. TBH we haven’t rlly talked about serious topics before, usually just about academic things and similar classes we take and drama within our respective groups.

Yesterday, he brought up something I’d posted on my story on Snapchat (I posted a ss of Matt Walsh’s Facebook post saying that since the guys were also intoxicated in the Cornell 7 case that it meant technically she raped them, and I basically just wrote how insane that was to say) and I basically told him like, “yeah, insane right?” And he was like, “well, I mean, I agree with him.” Already I was like… what? As a survivor of abuse myself, I dissociated during the conversation bc it really triggered me and angered me, but these are the points he made: most women who report rape are lying, most men who are put in jail for assault most of the time are innocent, because Jane Doe did dr*gs and consented to a threesome at the beginning that meant she was asking for it, because she changed her story a couple weeks after the fact it meant she was lying, he needs evidence and proof before he believes anyone who tells him they experienced assault (and I clarified with him that he meant this on both the legal and emotional level - I can understand the legal side bc it can damage the accused, but on a strictly emotional, friendship, partner level, he still said he wouldn’t believe them unless he had proof and evidence, even tho I tried to explain that so many cases have no evidence or very little bc of how awful it can be and he still held firm to that), and he said that most men aren’t rapists. I think the worst part was that two of our mutual friends joined into the conversation (both also 16f) and one of them agreed with him on the factual side (such as that she thinks the Cornell 7 case is going to be hard to prove in court which I don’t disagree with but she just have no empathy ig) but the other girl said, and I quote, “if that happened to me, I’d report it immediately.” And then laughed. I tried to explain that she doesn’t know what she would do unless she’s experienced it (and I wasn’t insensitive ofc idk if she has or not but the way she was talking abt it and even after I said that idk if she had experienced something like that, my assumption would be that she hasn’t, so she was just victim blaming essentially. And they were all saying that bc Jane Doe went to the frat house willingly while intoxicated it meant that she knew what was going to happen. I even told my guy friend that I’d experienced a form of sexual abuse and he said “well I’m not talking about that I’m talking about rape” which felt like he was minimizing my trauma which I have diagnosed PTSD over that I need to be medicated for.

I was utterly disgusted but I felt and still feel crazy bc it felt like they all agreed and I was the outsider. I told some of my other friends about it after and they were all appalled so I feel better in that regard but I’m still worried that I’m wrong for not wanting to be friends with them anymore. With my guy friend, it’s the only bad thing he’s rlly done in our friendship, but it was so bad and so triggering for me that I just don’t know if it’s worth my energy, but I don’t want to be rude. And with one of the girls, she’s already been so awful to me lately so I’m just using it as the final reason I’m done being friends with her. Am I overreacting?

TL;DR - my (16f) guy friend (17m) made some really insensitive comments about sexual assault and the Cornell 7 and I feel wrong for not being able to look at him the same way and for being so upset over it, as a survivor of sexual abuse myself.

I was groomed when I was 9 by a teacher at my elementary school, he was 30. It lasted for 4 months until he massaged my shoulders and tickled the back of my neck and I told my counselor and she told the principal and she decided not to involve anyone, kept it in-house. I never got justice, I was told I was exaggerating and that he was just being nice, I was told harshly that it wasn’t my story to tell. My parents didn’t fight for me. My dad doesn’t even know the details of what happened. At the time of it all, I was being severely bullied and my parents were going through a messy divorce.. I began to suffer from SH and SI and nobody cared until I was so bad everyone noticed. It lasted til I was 12, then i finally got better. But I’m depressed again, just like I was then (I’ve always been depressed but it’s been high functioning, now I can barely breathe) and, I don’t want to die but I’ve been worried I’ll go back to that.

The biggest thing that’s tugging at me is that I am dramatic. That I wasn’t raped (to my knowledge) and that I have no right to feel this way. That my diagnosed ptsd isn’t as valid. That I shouldn’t be having night terrors, that I should be checking my backseat and under my car worried he’ll be there, worried he’ll be in the car next to me on the road. That I shouldn’t be worried I’ll see him at work or, worse, at school. The list goes on and on of the ways he rules my life. And yet… it doesn’t feel valid enough. Thank you for listening..