Daniel Howell Imagines

My Story (update)

A/N: so for a solid 4-5 years now, I've been writing stories about other people, celebrities and all the kind of stuff, but I've never written or told my own story. Now, this one is very personal and I don't want to pressure anyone into reading it. You don't have to. Feel free to skip it. This is my #metoo story

My #metoo Story

My story begins as a kid. As a kid I was always taught to look out for predators instead of learning how to defend myself. It started when I was three years old and my dad went to jail for indecent assault on a minor, and that minor was my sister, his stepdaughter.

But even though I had been taught everything I had to know about how not to get raped, and the fact that it could happen to anyone, I thought I was untouchable, and that no one would dare do that to me.

My first experience was when I was thirteen years old and I was walking to school, and this man followed me to school, shouting derogatory things, saying how I should skip school and go with him. Luckily as I started nearing my school, more students came into view and he left me alone. After that I never walked to school alone.

My next experience was when I was with my first boyfriend. I was fifteen years old. He was seventeen, so I was classed as a minor while he wasn't. He would send me unsolicited dick pics and make me send him pics. I got so tired of saying no because he would just give me excuses on how I should, because he was my boyfriend and that's what couples do, so I did; putting him in possession of child pornography, but I was fifteen and he was my boyfriend and I didn't think it counted.

I had a few minor experiences after that, like being catcalled when I was sixteen by a whole bunch of twenty-somethings in a car, being followed from club to club when I was eighteen and nineteen, getting my ass grabbed as I was leaving a club, having my hand held by a fifty-something year old as I was walking to a club with a friend. Being groped on the dance floor, all those kinds of things, and even though they may be "minor" they're still a vital part of my story.

My next, and my most recent experience also took part in a club. I'm nineteen years old and at a club with my friend who I hadn't hung out with in over a year. We were pretty drunk, in fact this was the drunkest I had ever been at a club, I had had a bottle and a half of wine, two shots and countless vodka sodas. A French guy came up to my friend and started hitting on/hooking up with her, I stayed close to her because I was scared something was going to happen to her, she was drunker than I was after all, but little did I know at the time I shouldn't be worried about her, I should be worried about me.

So my friends French dude that she was hooking up with, called his friend over and made him dance with me, I was quite apprehensive but I told her that I would be fine and that she could go outside and have a cigarette, I couldn't have been further from fine.

As soon as they left to go outside, this dudes friend was grabbing my boobs, touching me in places I didn't want to be touched and forcing his mouth onto mine.

I said no

I tried stepping away

I was furiously trying to find my friend

But despite my greatest efforts, despite my no's I couldn't do anything with his arms wrapped around me so tightly and with his lips on my neck.

So I gave up.

I let him kiss me, heck I even started to slightly kiss back, I let him grab me, I let him touch me, and I let him do this until my friend got back. What was probably only ten minutes, felt like a bloody lifetime.

I told her I wanted to go the bathroom, which I didn't. I told her I was way too uncomfortable and that I was going to leave with or without her, so 30 minutes later we left.

And for days after it happened, I just kept thinking "it was just two drunk people doing what drunk people do" but that's not true.

Just because you're drunk and you're going along with someone, does not equal consent.

I did everything I could, but it still happened. But it doesn't make me feel better knowing that I did everything I could, because like I said; from a young age I was taught how to look out for predators and what to do, but sometimes it doesn't always work. No matter how much you try and what you try, it doesn't always work.

I am just so lucky it didn't go further.

I am not untouchable, no one is untouchable.

I have friends with a story like mine.

This is my #metoo story.

(Update: I wanna thank everyone who has been super supportive about this. I know it's not easy to read or go through so thank you so much. There was something that I had left out in this, and it was how my best friend had reacted. Now she didn't react well in the best of ways. My best friend has always been a problem solver, which has usually been good, but this time she was trying to give me a solution to a problem that couldn't be fixed. But while doing this, she was making me feel like it was my fault that this happened because I hadn't done what she was saying I should've done (which I did do most of what she said I should've done, but there's only so much you can do) and today I told her everything about how I felt about what she said, how she reacted and how I really needed her support and she wasn't there for me when I needed her the most. When I first told her about 'that night' she had no idea what to say due to not being in this position.

I guess what I'm really trying to get at, if this happens to you, and someone you're close with reacts like how my best friend did, don't get mad at them, and I know how hard that is, but sometimes all they need is to be told straight how you feel about the situation and that you just need their support.

If any of you need to talk to someone, my inbox is always open. My inbox will be a safe zone and you can talk about everything that's bothering you. I don't want any of you feeling that your experiences and feelings are invalid and that everything is your fault, because it's not. I love each and every one of you guys so much, remember that)