Trigger warning

If you would rather read something light hearted I reccomend Killer Babies or How to love a Gamer. You've been warned.*************************************************

I've been stewing over a nightmare that I had the other night. It was graphic, and frightening, and based on the true story of my life.
I am a sexual assault survivor. It sticks in my throat when I say that.
I was fourteen the first time, and he was one of my friends. We had been friends for two years when we went out on a couple of dates and one night things went to hell in a hand basket. I won't say what he did exactly. He did not rape me. But he did do just about everything else. The only reason that I was not raped is that in the middle of it I froze with his hand clenched in mine and he couldn't get to the zipper of my pants.
There are a lot of things about that night that I regret. I regret not screaming, but the truth is that I had been trained not to scream by childhood physical abuse. I regret not telling anyone, but the attitude of my family towards my physical abuse gave me no hope that telling anyone would actually accomplish something, so I didn't. I regret willingly participating in sexual acts with this person afterwards because I was afraid that he would tell people what "we" had done. I finally got a backbone after about three months and told him off. That was the night that he walked another friend of ours home from my house and raped her. I had thought that he was obsessed with me; it never occured to me that she might be in danger. I am partially responsible for her rape. I never told her, but there were elements of what he did that were meant as a message to me. He raped her to get back at me. I made myself sick after that; I couldn't even look at me.
During my entire childhood I was saved in part by my faith. But my faith was of a devoutly Christian flavor, and by strict religious reckoning I was now used goods and had nothing to offer anyone. I eventually stopped talking to God. I have not spoken to he/she/it since.
When my next boyfriend came along I was just happy that somebody wanted me. Three months in he demanded sexual favors. I felt like I couldn't say no, that I had nothing left to hold back. I hated every minute of it, but a combination of force and coercian led to some of the most bizarre experiences of my life. As it turns out he was into things that I can only describe as sexual torture. I remember them all like they happened to somebody else; I spent most of that time dissasociating. He was also controlling and violent. I told no one; no one had listened to me before and I had no reason to believe that they would suddenly start. I was finally able to shake him just before my seventeenth birthday. He called me two years later, just to keep tabs. He asked if I was still a virgin, and then laughed. I had been with him for two years, maybe waiting another two was some kind of ritual for him.
I went to college. I never looked back. I can talk about all the beatings I got as a kid without batting an eyelash. This I cannot talk about except in spare prose on an anonymous blog. Maybe my dreams are telling me that its time to try.