I want to go where the birds fly free

I was talking to a male friend about meeting up for a smoke. It was all fun and games until he "playfully" said he was going to drug me. I cannot go into specifics about this because it is illegal in my country, but he said something that was a joke to him maybe, but it deeply triggered me.

I was sexually abused by two pastors in the curch where my family attended when I was 14. One of them sexually groomed me, and the other took advantage of me by offering help to my family when we were down and out financially. These were incidences that I processed very differently.

As An adult woman in her early twenties, I struggle so much with human connection. From ages five to date, I have had to fight off 16 men to avoid being forcefully penetrated. These men were family friends, personal friends, neighbors, a teacher, men. Having to always be on guard and ready because I could be laughing with one of my own friends one minute, and be struggling to not get raped because they did not for the life of me understand the concept of consent was exhausting for a teenage girl.

I feel so afraid and insecure. My "friend" in the opening paragraph claims he was just joking after I canceled on him and asked for space. I should probably attach screenshots of our conversations where he completely invalidates my feelings and my trauma because "his intentions are pure".

He used all the words that I have heard so many times when I as being lured to this friend's house or out of my own safety zones. He makes it seem like I am a problematic woman, who just wants so much attention when in fact, I have run from attention out of fear of the opposite sex for as long as I can remember.

I love miniskirts, but I am too afraid to wear them because I don't want to attract teh wrong attention to myself. Every time I am outside where I live, I am constantly on the lookout for predators. Is he following me or merely going my way? Is this dress too revealing or men will just stare at anything for whatever reason? Am I enough? Does anyone see me as anything more than a walking vagina? Am I too much, too shiny, too provocative even when I am dressed "decently"? Was any of it my fault?

I would love to talk to a therapist.. A female therapist, because I wouldn't want to be lured at while trying to unbox all this pain that comes back to haunt me year after year.

I have always wanted to be an actor. Always wanted to sharpen and share my ability to express and navigate emotional ranges at such alarming speed on screen, but I am afraid. I feel this fear when I am sleeping and when I am awake. I have dreams where I am constantly fighting and running away from multitudes of men that I don't even know. I am always hiding, trying to not shine too brightly or at all, so that I would not be responsible for attracting the wrong kind of attention to myself...

I am tired of fighting and running and fearing. After someone who was supposed to be my friend joked about giving me substances that I clearly explained to him that I was not interested in taking, I have been a nervous wreck. I always am anyways, but moreso in the past 48 hours. When I spoke up expressing how I was unable to sleep because in this shared apartment where I live, I feel unsafe because I keep waiting for the neighbor to break into my room and assault me. I keep expecting it, obsessively fearing it and trying to always fall asleep with something sharp with which to defend myself when it happens. Not if it happens, but when it does because I am convinced that I am always going to have to run and fight and struggle to just be a freaking living woman.

Well, he gaslighted me heavily. Insisted that he was joking, and proceeded to point out that a sticker I sent after he said it repeatedly, was me acquiescing to the fact that it was a joke before I switched into my feminist mood. Not his exact words, but I read between the lines of his texts. He proceeded to lecture me on how to exist in order to not be so expressive around him. He gave me a lecture after I had gone sleepless all night panicking. After I spent all day having frequent and sudden bursts of panic attacks. He knew better about how I should be in order to be more likable and agreeable to him.

Sadly, he is one in a world full of men who indulge mindlessly in genderbased violence against women. Men who come out to say that women should cover up and be home be five pm or out late only with a male companion. He is one of men who catcall women and then get pissed and haul insults when women ignore them. Men who are comfortable raping sex workers because tehy feel entitled to women's bodies. Men who will never understand the concept of consent.

Studies show that every 11 minute, a woman is murdered most likely by a romantic partner than a complete stranger, but they too cannot of course he trusted around women. It is a never-ending debate and I am exhausted. I want a community of only feminist warrior women because even misogynistic women are a trigger for me too.

I just want to be able to live my life freely without fear. I want to be able to take midnight walks because tehy calm and soothe me and because I don't like the sun. Will I really always be afraid as a woman?