Ellie’s Hang out

August last year I was out enjoying a night. Later that night I was approached by three middle aged men that came and sat beside me at my local pub. The night went on and they started speaking to me, they started off nice and then got straight into making inappropriate jokes about me and how they quite blankly wanted me to have sex with them, it made me extremely uncomfortable. It finally stopped but then something else happened. After a while one of the guys decided to put their hands on my legs and started to feel me up, he did not stop. I told him no, over and over again. I didn’t know what to do, I had never been in a situation like that before. I felt afraid, weak and disgusting.

The rest of that night I was anxious to see them again, especially him. I wanted to forget about it all, so I carried on with the rest of the night and went to another pub. Unfortunately, I saw them again and the same vile comments started all over again. It set me off, I started to panic. I felt so unsafe. I remember crying and telling my ‘friends’ how I felt and how disgusting it made me feel. They did not do anything to help me, they carried on with their night and left me. I was left alone, scared and upset. I then walked home.

It took me ages to fall asleep that night and calm myself down, I just sat thinking to myself “I shouldn’t have worn that”, “I should have gone home straight away”, “I should of-“. Notice how many times I said “should”. I shouldn’t have gotten touched and talked about like that. I really was my own biggest enemy when it came to this and blamed myself and sometimes still do. What made this feeling stick more with me was how speaking up about my experience to people I trusted was handled. I was made to feel like it didn’t happen because they didn’t remember, well I did. Forgetting it was difficult. Remembering it was worse. This ruined our friendship, I felt so little, betrayed and so shit.

Next time someone reaches out to you for support don’t tell them that it didn’t happen, don’t tell them that it was their fault. Tell them “I believe you” , “It’s not your fault” and most importantly “You’re not alone”.

If you’ve ever experienced a situation, just remember you have absolutely nothing to blame yourself for.This person did a crime and who you are, what you did or what you wore had nothing to do with his/hers actions.