In a vacuum, I could easily see it maybe being nothing to worry about.
I do something similar. In my case it’s “Melkerson, you’re fucking killing me”. It’s different, but I could imagine someone saying what you say in that spirit.
Thanks for everyone’s concern. I am doing great.
I won’t get into the details, but I had a rough childhood that convinced me men are dangerous sexual predators. I decided that if I never wanted them to hurt me again, I had to pretend to be one.
But my family and those people are far in the past and never going to hurt me again. That was almost twenty years ago. Now I have a good life and a good support network. I feel safe enough to stop running. I can stop pretending. I’m pursuing medical care to treat some of the decisions I made to live as one and that’s a struggle, but I mean we’re all facing those sorts of opportunities in our own way, so I’m trying not to be too hard on myself.
It’s not been as big a shock to anyone as I expected. Even some people here PMd me now and then to tell me they saw through the disguise. No one said so with malice. They were encouraging me to stop pretending.
I’m not sure if I’m so much apologizing for the deception as I am just acknowledging it. I’m not going to assume I hurt anyone here but myself, but I will say that while I have compassion for what motivated me to live like that, I’m also coming into awareness of the impact of using deception and manipulation to get my needs met from others. Maybe it’s necessary when surrounded by unsafe people, but these days it hurts the people with whom I could have healthy friendships.
I just wanted to say something for the people here I consider concerned internet friends. And to post this here as a way to confirm for myself that despite how often I might feel triggered here, this is a safe space. No one is coming after me the moment I give them an opening.
Thanks for listening and for your support. I’m sure I’ll see some of you around.
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Just here to say you’re a real life badass.
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So @RiskyFlush kind of inspired me to tell my own story.
I haven’t told anyone this at all. First time I’m sharing this experience to literally anyone. Not even my current girlfriend at the time, longterm together for like 3 years,
My best friend sexually assaulted me. We were SUPER fucked up and I passed out. I woke up to him playing with my penis. He was super fucked up on molly/cocaine/drunk
He apologized profusely. He cried. He keeps apologizing. He told his new girlfriend about it and how it haunts him and how it fucks him up.
I forgave him. He’s been one of the nicest, most generous, most positive people in my life.
I just kind of put it out of my mind. I don’t deal with it at all. We still hang out, but he doesn’t get that fucked up anymore.
Is that weird? That I just kinda forgave him and don’t really care?
I mean for sure it has some kind of effect on me but I’m not sure what. I just kinda suppressed it. But when I do think about it, it makes me super uncomfortable and gives me the willies lol.
Dunno, just thought I’d throw it out there. Might delete later.
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I should note he isn’t just nice to me. He’s nice and generous to everyone. Shares a TON. Helps people out. Just a good person overall.
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I don’t think it’s weird you forgave him. Thanks for sharing.
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His girl who he talked said it was he confused his intense love for me with love with me.
I guess he’s talked to her about it in the context of feeling deep shame.
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Everybody responds differently I suppose.
This must be quite a common experience because it happened to me at a party. It felt good so I let it happen but felt a lot of shame afterwards. I was nearly blackout drunk when it happened. I’m not bicurious or into men at all and if I was sober I don’t think I would’ve let it happen at all.
So i told my therapist and he was like “it’s very very common, you’d be surprised at how many stories like this I hear.”
So then I didn’t worry about it. I feel like sexual assault on men is a topic that isn’t much talked about or understood. For men I think it’s a little bit different - it didn’t fuck me up or anything and I rarely think about it.
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I slept over at one of my best friend’s in college. I slept of the floor. Woke up to him touching me, I pretended it wasn’t happening for about 30 seconds and he stopped and went back to bed. We never mentioned it. I never mentioned it to anyone ever until now.
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Interesting to hear how common this sort of thing is. Mine happened in college, drinking then passed out, and wake up to a hand job in progress. I just groggily stood up, zipped up and stumbled back to my dorm room. It was a friend of a friend who’s family had just kicked him out after he came out of the closet, so he was crashing in our dorm for a bit. Never saw him again.
I feel like the event really didn’t negatively impact me long term. I don’t have flashbacks or fears or anxieties that stem from it. By definition it is sexual assault, but I’d feel really odd identifying myself as a sexual assault survivor.
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Experienced unwanted groping. Happened when I was 16/17. Don’t consider myself a molestation victim though because I shrugged it off and went on with life. Didn’t even feel abused. Just thought about for the first time in forever because of your experiences.
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Coincidentally, my experience took place in MN.
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Yeah really surprised see how common it is with men. I agree it didn’t give me trauma either, but it was weird and occasionally I’ll think about it and cringe. But yeah I can still hang out with the guy and be fine.
I talk to a girl from the south and she says its super prevalent down there too, and its kind of apart of the culture that obviously you can’t say anything about it. She think its baked into the whole bigotry thing going on down there because its so repressed and hated.
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All winter long I did early morning walks with a friend once a week. We chatted about the pandemic, our jobs, relationships, emotional state, our internal work and issues … two weeks ago we had a conversation where we both got triggered … She was upset and we started to talk about something. It triggered me. … I felt the thing she was talking about was wrong, and I did judge her and reacted in a way where she could tell.
since then, we have not walked. and yesterday she basically said she wants to stop our walks. she said she has other things going on, but when I asked of it was related to our conversation she messaged me this:
“I did feel pretty judged when I shared openly with you about my complicated feelings regarding my experience with XYZ. But I have learned that I can’t share with everyone about that.”
I owe her an apology, yes?
Does it matter, what the topic was?
How much does it swing the results or my approach–if at all–if this is topic included her considering an action that could impact other people and be illegal? … When she suggested an action, my reaction was, “I’m sure you’re kidding and will soon see that’s an awful idea,” to which she responded, “I don’t know if I am kidding.”
I still have a hard time believing this is something she would do. And I can see why posing this possibility did trigger my judgement and reaction. And, I still think it felt shitty to judge her, particularly because I iust can’t believe she’d do it.
ETA: In some ways, my question for folks is to what extent is this addressed in multiple parts. Yes, I judged her and was not kind in the moment. And, many people would probably find my reaction understandable. And, that doesn’t change the harm done. How do I separate those out, or should I, and how do I think about the situation if this was, say, the end of the friendship?
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There’s a lot going on here, and in those types of situations I try to to prioritize: face-to-face>>phone>>>>>>>>text, in terms of how to communicate. That’s not always possible, and sometimes it’s a mix, and you do have to respect if the other person needs space at this time.
Rather than framing it as the end of a friendship or even thinking about it in that respect, consider it more that the way the two of you interact and relate to each other has been altered, without attaching permanence to the current status.
I’ll preface this next part by saying that in general I steer away from trying to “argue against feelings”…meaning if someone feels something, no amount of battling against that is likely to get them to change how they felt in that moment. It’s OK to validate their feelings in that context. I believe you are right to apologize to her. She must have felt very secure to confide in you about something like this, and the way you reacted seems to have hurt her. I’m sure that wasn’t your intent, but it still is an accurate description of what happened.
Acknowledging that your reaction hurt her, speaks a lot to your awareness of what was happening in the moment. The flip side to not arguing against her feelings, is that your feelings in that moment also have validity. Someone you care about, who you are friends with, who you are tight enough with to share these types of personal thoughts…that person shared with you that they were considering doing something illegal(and from the sounds of it unethical/immoral??). You reacted in a normal way to that. Your feelings in the moment were valid too.
It’s probably easier, and better, to apologize/acknowledge/validate, and then just let that marinate, rather than jumping directly from that into “well, I have feelings too, and you should apologize/acknowledge and validate me right now as well.” Sometimes that will allow the other person the psychological and emotional space to self-reflect/introspect and come to the realization themselves that you were just being human as well.
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Thanks for this response.
In some ways this all seems clear to me. Apologize for my reaction. … for not listening more, seeing, understanding the pain she was in, the hurt she was dealing with. As I’ve thought about this, I’ve imagined scenarios of what she might be feeling or going through, the WHY of her idea, and they’ve helped me have compassion for her.
It’s also clear to me how triggered I was, and the extent to which I’ve absorbed certain messaging around the topic. … But also, I stand firmly by the idea that what she proposed is immoral, and dangerous to others, and possibly illegal.
Where I struggle, is … that while she is spot-on accurate that I did judge her, I didn’t experience this the same way. We didn’t argue, no one raised their voice. I did say I hoped she was joking, or assumed she was, and would see that it was a bad idea when she calmed down. … perhaps that was dismissive, but … I wonder how much of my judgement really reeked of judgement, and how much was a sudden understanding on her part that I wasn’t the safe space to reveal this idea. It is quite possible she has faced negative reaction or even fallout previously.
Maybe it doesn’t matter. I don’t think I could be friends with someone who would execute her plan, anyway.
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Words cannot describe how envious I am of your doctor situation right now. I am literally green and trembling.
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Everyone I know who has gotten a cpap said it changed their life.
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Thanks for reminding me to talk to my doctor about that.
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