Nowhere to say this and Nothing to hide

A True Story

Trigger warnings: Grooming, Pedophiles, abuse, suicide

This story isn’t just true. It also happens to be mine and today I chose to share it because this period in my life has impacted the course of my life in ways I am still trying to comprehend. 

I hope that whoever reads this will be more aware than I was and stay away from the types of people that I encountered. That’s what I hope for anyway.

Since a very early age, I got very comfortable talking to adults rather than people my age.

It was very innocent and the people in my life thought it was endearing. But it wasn’t.

At least not once I got my first laptop.

I was 12/13 years-old and had no friends. 

I was lonely often and I had trouble socializing. 

It was then that I made my first Facebook profile and eventually joined a “Beatles Fan Club” sort of group online. 

It was innocent at first. 

I just wanted to talk to people about The Beatles, their music, their history, and related artists/composers of classic rock because classic rock felt like my life. 

But things took a turn for the worst. 

Everything was all fun and games until a 32-year-old man messaged me. 

He asked me how old I was and wanted to talk “dirty” with me.

I had never received a male’s attention before. 

I considered myself ugly and unattractive, so I went with it. 

He told me really gross things and showed me his penis.

At the time, I thought it was normal for older adults to like children. I didn’t put it together that this was illegal for him to be doing. 

I wanted to feel pretty so bad that this continued with other strangers online. 

All older men and all trying to interact with me in a really messed up way. 

I got so used to it that I began being groomed by a man named Leo that I had met at a 50th wedding anniversary that my family was invited to. 

He was 57-years-old and had a Rickenbacker, they type John Lennon had and I knew that the second I saw it.

After the party he let us take pictures with his guitar and he introduced himself to us.

He said he played as an Elvis impersonator for the elderly as well as playing with his band.

I thought that was really cool and he and I became friends.

My parents thought it was an innocent kind of friendship. 

Perhaps seeing him as a mentor of sorts… but it wasn’t like that at all. 

He would buy me presents and talk to me as if we were old friends. 

Nobody thought anything weird of it and so we stayed friends for a couple of months. 

I had still been talking to strangers online at night though. 

One night in September, I spent all night talking to a “boy” named Manuel Garcia who claimed to be 16 years old and from Uruguay. He introduced me to Sui Generis, Seru Giran, Luis Alberto Spinetta, Charly Garcia and many other South American Rock Bands and artists of the 1960s. 

He also liked to read like I did and he introduced me to “The Way of The Wizard : 20 Lessons for Living A Magical Life” by Deepak Chopra.

I felt like for once, someone understood me on a deeper level. 

He would dedicate songs to me and told me he would paint paintings of me when he missed me. 

We started to date online but in January 2013, he decided that this was never going to work out, so he blocked me. 

He was most likely a creepy old man lying but I didn’t know so I was heartbroken and began to feel suicidal. 

Back then I identified as Catholic and feeling overwhelmed and depressed, I prayed to God and asked him to end my life. 

A week later, I was in a medically induced coma because I had fallen ill with Toxic Shock syndrome.

I was in the coma for a week and once I awoke from the coma, everything returned to it’s status quo and I continued to be groomed.

Leo came to visit me and played his guitar for me and when my mom stepped out of the room for a second, Leo kissed me.

My first kiss was with him and I felt violated and disgusted.

I felt paralyzed and didn’t tell my mom until years after it happened. 

I wish I had told them that same day but I didn’t know how.

The grooming online kept happening too and I didn’t want to be alone- 

I desperately wanted some form of attention. 

Whether it be negative attention or positive. 

So, that’s what I continued to allow and what I got used to.

It got so bad that I became a webcam girl. 

Then it got so bad that I started going to swinger and sex parties at hotels and houses. 

This went on for longer than I would like to admit that it did. 

But that’s the way things happened.

I got STDs from strangers and thankfully have my health now again but it was a very hard time for me.

I eventually stayed in a very unhealthy relationship for 5 years that made things spiral even harder and even worse than I’d like to remember.

Thankfully, though this chapter of my life ended and I thank the heavens for this because I don’t know how much longer I could have lasted surviving that way. 

I am safe now. 

I have a loving partner. 

I have a strong support system and I’m receiving the mental health treatment I needed all along. 

And thankfully, I can look back at all of this and sigh heavily and go “heww”. 

Thank you for taking the time to read about my life.