Sexual violence

Having your choices about pregnancy or birth control taken away

Someone controlling whether you could become pregnant, stay pregnant, or end a pregnancy. Birth control being hidden, tampered with, or forbidden. Being pressured or forced into pregnancy, into ending one, or into sterilization. Being lied to about protection. Being told a pregnancy was the way to keep you.

Decisions about your own body being made by somebody else is a violation whether or not anyone else recognised it as one at the time. This one often goes unnamed for years because it does not look like the things people picture. It has a name, it happened to you, and it belongs on this list.

What can follow an experience like this

No two people carry the same experience the same way. These are some of the effects that people with this experience often describe. Having some of them, all of them, or none of them says nothing about how real what happened to you was.

Complex or ongoing trauma and its effects When trauma happened repeatedly, over a long time, or at the hands of people who were supposed to care for you, the effects go deeper than a single event. Depression Not just sadness. Making yourself small or invisible Anticipating what others need before they ask. Feeling disconnected from your body Not feeling at home in your own body. Ending up in the same harmful situations again The relationship that looks different at the start but ends up in the same place. Grief that is stuck and will not let you move Grief that did not follow the expected path. Emotions that feel out of control Reactions that feel disproportionate to the situation. Fear of being abandoned Not just not wanting people to leave.

Nothing on this page is a diagnosis, and nothing here decides what is wrong with you, because nothing is wrong with you. Something happened to you. This page exists so that when you are ready, you can find people who understand it from the inside.

You do not have to carry this alone.

Bridge of Hope Recovery is a free, anonymous, peer-led fellowship for trauma survivors. Meetings run throughout the week by phone, by video, and in person. No cost, no waitlist, no one asking for your real name.

Find a meeting Join the fellowship

Need support right now?

Related experiences we cover

See everything we cover