I can't remember the first time I experienced the cognitive dissonance of looking at my body and knowing logically it was mine yet feeling like it was a completely separate entity from my inner world, but I remember the first time I tried to talk about it with someone. I couldn't have been more than seven or eight. This was before the impending deaths of my father and grandfather, and my grandparents were driving me back home after a weekend spent staring at the opium weights they had purchased on a trip somewhere in South Asia. My gaze remained steady as I listened to my grandfather's stories about his time in a camp in WWII, his voice trembling as he vacillated between dark jokes and terrorized tears. My grandmother always said he never left. It was as sunny as always as we turned down the street in San Diego where I spent most of my childhood, claustrophobically so. I peered out the window at a plastic green lawn then down to my hands and thighs, a familiar dissociation overwhelming me as I flexed my tiny fingers, examining the peeling skin around nails I bit so short that they bled. My wrists were always bleeding too, along with the back of my knees and the tender skin around my chapped lips, symptoms of my eczema. Even with medical creams underneath layers of bandages, I still scratched while I slept, ripping myself open over and over. I wonder now if I was trying to penetrate this flesh in an attempt to find some connection to this mind underneath. I'm reading a book about trauma called The Body Keeps the Score. One scientific study found a correlation between autoimmune disorders and significant past traumatic events. These events set off a fight or flight response, and the body can overcompensate so greatly that it begins attacking itself. Eczema is an autoimmune disorder. My recollections of my childhood are shrouded, vague shapes, but mostly obscured. This memory in the car is one of the few I have. Maybe this can be attributed to it being a key exemplifying moment of the disconnection I always felt between both pieces of myself and between myself and others. As I gazed at my tiny thighs- how strange it was that they were so slight! Microscopic in the scope of this planet- I asked my grandparents if they too looked in the mirror and saw foreign beings staring back. I assumed it must be universal, and I wanted to understand why it happened and how to cope with it. My grandmother said she had no idea what I was talking about. I now understand that this fracture was made sometime during the course of my life and is not an intrinsic state, but it's still hard to fathom the idea that most people have never experienced this sensation. I don't remember a time where it wasn't always occurring to some extent at any given moment whether I'm thinking about it- naming it- or not. Even when I do not give it attention or words, it scuttles around in the background of my consciousness. I've found ways to alleviate some of the most distressing aspects of this reality. Tiny needles filled with ink have penetrated my skin, depicting visions congruent with my inner world, reminders that this body is mine. As they increase, so does the reassurance that I'm connected to these limbs. Still, there have been times when the chasm between here and there have felt deeper, even recently. Last spring I spent exactly seventy days alone. Towards the end of this period I was tormented by a delusion I knew to be intellectually impossible, yet some part of me still felt it was real, like experiencing fear while watching a horror movie. You know it isn't happening, but it doesn't stop the nightmares. It consisted of the idea that if I was to look in the mirror I would see nothing there. If I looked at my limbs, they'd disappear before my eyes. The only thing confirming my existence was the heaving inhalation and exhalation of the walls of my apartment. Weeks of words unspoken can make you wonder if you're real. What is the difference between me alive and me dead if there is no evidence that I'm still here besides my own perception? I've come to the conclusion that seeking this sort of reassurance that I'm real from others is futile. When I think of that moment in the car, I am most struck by how much more isolated I felt when there was no solidarity, even lonelier than the seventy days I spent alone. Now I'm trying to connect the veins that pump blood through my body to the veins where intangible, hidden, ancient parts of my being reside. Just as my body is mine and mine alone, so too are the chasms. I'm the only one who can navigate them. I'm hoping someday that this archeological dig through my consciousness that I've embarked on might make me feel present in this corporeal form. It hasn't happened yet, but I'm starting to become the understanding adult the seven year old inside me still aches for. This body might still feel like a complete stranger sometimes, but she doesn't.

*trigger warning rape & cancer* I want you to take a second and think about one thing about yourself that -if you had the ability to go back in time and change your life- you would not change for the world. There is an 19th century philosophy, made famous by the movie The Butterfly Effect, that claims that if there is one thing about yourself, one trait or characteristic that you would want to keep if you found yourself suddenly able to go back in time, you would need to re-live the same experiences and make all the same decisions in order to guarantee that in the future you would retain that one quality. And it is this I want you to remember as I share my story. As a child, I did not get into trouble. In fact, the worst infraction I ever made was that I did not spend enough time in the sun, and so my parents would take my books away to force me to go outside. Naturally, I worked out a system to hid them in ziplock bags under the hedge. As I grew older, I also learned that breaking the rules held greater consequences for me than for my friends. While my affluent teenage peers were able to break curfew and notoriously climbed onto the top of the city capital to drink beer, my parents could not afford expensive lawyers to get me out of trouble. There was also a question of my legal residency. When it came time to learn how to drive, my parents taught me that I could not afford to speed or break the speed limit because it could result in my deportation. And while this lesson may have been exaggerated to keep a teenager safe, it became my truth. The key here is that I followed the letter of the law and did nothing wrong. When I was raped, I expected the legal system to protect me. In my darkest hour, when the campus police showed up, I thought that they would be on my side. While no woman should ever have to know how to report a rape, this was certainly not something I was equipped to handle alone. The campus police not only bullied me and warned against ruining the career and future of my rapist, they threatened my legal status and suggested that I might be deported if I wanted to make a formal claim. But MY story is not about my rape. It is about learning to live and remold myself after trauma and after being let down by the system meant to protect me. Two years later, I was diagnosed with skin cancer so severe that if I had not booked a visit to the dermatologist on a whim, I would have lost my eye in less than a year. I drove myself to the surgery and watched as my face was carved from my eyelid to my cheek. But once again MY story is not about getting skin cancer, or the additional two melanoma diagnoses three years later that suggest that I will likely continue to present with skin cancer the rest of my life. It is not even about the fact that I had done nothing wrong, that I had always worn copious amounts of sunscreen, that as a child I had to be forced outside and seldom spent time in the sun. It is not about the fact that the doctors did not believe me when I told them that I had never tanned in my life, because I was slim, blonde-haired and blue-eyed. In 2018 I had my first panic attack. I was attending a conference for work, sitting in a room of over 10 thousand people, and suddenly I felt powerless, lost and like I was sinking. My colleague with me at the time was a Marine veteran and instantly recognized the signs, but I had lived a sheltered and protected life, so it did not occur to me that I had PTSD, for my experience did not seem as valid as that of veterans and survivors of horrific disasters. For although I had never realized it, I fell into the habit of comparing my experience to that of others, to comparing my pain, my stress, my fear and my recovery, and finding it less worthy. But let me tell you that any PTSD is worthy of attention and every experience is valid. I started my tattoos in 2019. One on each shoulder as a reminder that I am not alone. My 'strong women' and 'warrior' tattoos are as much a testament to the resilient woman I have grown to be, as a symbol of the indelible presence of trauma. For although it is not inked into our skins, trauma can present and trigger in unexpected ways, even after years of self-work. I share my story because trauma and PTSD does not make you weak. It doesn't make you incapable of recovery or incapable of working through the episodes. It makes you human. I strongly believe in normalizing mental health for, if nothing else, we are brought together by the similarities of surviving: COVID, quarantine, the injustices and unpredictable illnesses that life throws at us. But we are stronger together. And each of us has that one thing that makes it all worthwhile.

The intensity of the war in Manzi was better experienced than explained. We knew what we signed up for when we enlisted in the Elite Rebel Forces, we had to fight for our country and free it from tyrants who had taken over the reins of government. The Black Movement weren't just random people or some motley crew with guns – they were regimented, sponsored and systematic in their fighting approach. We had lost a lot of our men in the crucible of combat but giving up was never an option, we vowed to die fighting than to surrender to the marauding army of the Black Movement. We fought for our children, those still alive and those that were yet unborn. We fought for our women, some who had been kidnapped, others raped and for those who had been killed. We fought for our farmlands, the farmlands our own fathers left for us which were the only source of livelihood we knew. Our communities were decimated and degraded, what remained was a shadow of a once prosperous land laid waste by terror – a fitting parallel to the ruins of the ancient city, Rome. There was a Manzi. We were outnumbered in the fight and putting up any kind of opposition looked more and more like a suicide mission but we had come too far to walk back. Some days were particularly deadly, we brought back more men in body bags than other days. The Black Movement were known for striking at odd hours, when we seemed to have let down our guard. So we hardly slept at night because of these devils. The war took a sinister turn when most of our top Elite commanders started dying in a mysterious but familiar manner. After any famous blow dealt by a commander to the Black Movement, they would regroup and infiltrate a well-fortified camp led by that particular commander who would later be reported to have been killed under strange circumstances. Many of our men had run away because they didn't see any light at the end of the tunnel. Others had committed suicide because they just couldn't cope with the trauma and torture of losing their loved ones who were slain in the most gruesome manner. Even those of us who fought on were becoming weary, it seemed the more we looked at the rope, the more it looked like a snake. All hell broke loose when a junior Elite came to us in the dead of the night. We had started shooting at him instinctively and almost killed him thinking he was an emissary of the Black Movement. What gave us second thoughts was when he lay flat on the floor in a way only an Elite would – it was then we held back our gunfire. Behold, it was Wakabi, son of Juto. He share the gut-wrenching account of how he found his father's body riddled with bullets. Just before his father passed, he confided in Juto that he was killed because he uncovered that most of the commanders of the Elite Rebel Forces had been compromised. In fact, they gave out the classified details of our missions to these infidels who successfully ambushed us with ease. He alleged that they did this in exchange for protection and also a part of the ransom payments that came in from kidnapping. I looked at Wakabi straight in the eyes and told him never to insult our collective intelligence by lying against our commanders. I checked his body for communication devices and rigged bombs in case he was being tele-guided by the Black Movement who usually deploy this tactic as condition for releasing a family member in captivity. He swore on his late father's honour that he wasn't doing this under duress neither is he trying to stoke the embers of discord amongst the ranks. Wakabi was a man with many faults but lying wasn't one of them. Our camp was thrown into chaos; many fighters believed Wakabi while others claimed he was on the payroll of unpatriotic elements. Wakabi had run for dear life because he also alleged that the Black Movement had rogue fighters within us working for them and it was hard to tell who was on our side and who wasn't. I almost slumped. All I could think of was how I had become a pawn in a very dishonest chess game. I couldn't join those who headed to the central command to challenge the top Elites with the veracity of these claims. I became suicidal and at some point, almost pulled the trigger on myself. Providence had other plans for me. My bosom friend, whom we called the “Sniper” intervened just at the right time and smuggled me out of the camp and checked me into a medical facility on the outskirt of town. The doctor diagnosed me of acute PTSD – Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. He told me that suicide didn't solve anything, rather it left my loved ones in more severe pain that I could imagine. He was blunt enough to call it selfishness because I was only thinking about myself and not how my death would hurt my family who were praying day and night for my safe return. I was told to find a reason to live; that reason was my family – I vowed to live for them!

In January 2018, my housing provider referred me to a new surf therapy program which was being piloted. I was sceptical; how on earth could surfing be therapeutic? Wouldn't I drown? At that point I was willing to try anything to help my ever-worsening PTSD. I turned up with no expectations. I didn't really speak to anyone, just showed up, put the wetsuit on and listened. As soon as I caught that first wave that was it. I was hooked. The feeling of riding the wave was something else completely. Even before I tried to stand up on the board, the sense of freedom was unreal. I didn't attempt to stand up until the second session, and before I knew it I was surfing twice a week and then nearly every day over the summer. Even on days when the sea was flat I would paddle out just to get that sense of calm that the sea brought with it. I knew that whenever I was in the water, all my problems would disappear ; the flash backs, nightmares, anxiety and fear. For those few hours I could be a different, worry-free person. The hours I spent in the water were my form of mindfulness. When you're surfing you cannot afford to think about anything else. If you lose focus for even a few minutes you can end up swept out in a rip, colliding with another surfer or on top of a reef. Even when you have a ‘'bad surf'' it's still a complete distraction. It gave me a focus, something to aim towards. When you're up against something as powerful as the sea, it's a huge challenge but even when getting absolutely pummeled by the waves it makes you feel like you're really achieving something. In July I started volunteering with The Wave Project, a surf based charity which helps children with emotional and behavioural problems through surf therapy, It meant I could get in the water on both Saturdays and Sundays and pass on my skills to children who really needed that escape. It was great that I could use some of my experiences to help others. I could tell when they first turned up how anxious they were, and I knew from starting surfing myself how scary that was. The Wave Project also meant I got to meet loads of like minded people; positive people who constantly building each other up. I turned up one Saturday morning after having hardly any sleep due to noisy neighbours and was in the worst possible mood. Instantly they knew. I was inundated with hugs, offers of brews and practical support. The Wave Project is like a big family, no one gets left behind and even on your worst days they can make you feel like you have really achieved something. I always made a point of telling the children who seemed especially anxious that I had been through a similar surf therapy program myself, with the hope of easing their nerves. It was great to have some of them open up to me and trust me with some of their worries and fears. At the beginning of November I did my surf instructor course which was an amazing experience. I passed everything apart from the timed swim. So that's what I'm aiming towards now, passing my timed swim so I can spend the summer teaching kids how to surf and passing on my enthusiasm for the sport. When I speak to the instructors who led that first session I went to, they mention how I wouldn't even make eye contact with them at the beginning , let alone speak to them. It's amazing to look back and see how far I have come and the things I am now able to do, mainly because of surfing.

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The Right Buzz publication and live Friday podcast interviews give authors shine.
A smaller feature of mine is at the end of their latest publication, and they will interview me in May.

You have a story I want to tell. It could be 7 or it could be 20 stories. I am not putting any limitations on it. Take a chance with me as a skilled and educated professional writer and interviewer and as someone who has been there in one way or another.
 I blog about my mental illness of PTSD--its experience and treatments--and sometime ago about my Recurrent, Severe, Major Depression (yes, that is something you can look up in the psychologist's reference DSM-5 along with PTSD that doesn't quite fill my shoes because Complex PTSD, which I have, I don't think is yet included in the DSM, though it is established in scientific communities).
 Just the night before last, I had the most weighty of dreams in which I was back on that solitary, isolated, parent-regimed, and, most importantly, depressing, hopeless, infinite home experience. It seemed such a long dream and full of that old emotion memory that I awoke with the feeling heavy on me, lasting all day. I'm not sure I'm quite over it today, though I have been amazingly productive compared to yesterday when I couldn't care enough about anything to really put my heart into it.
 I'm not telling a lot of you anything unusual, because in one form or another you have been there--those old neural pathways I am working to overcome with EMDR therapy in counseling and with ketamine treatments and other psych meds with my psychiatrist, popping up here and there when you don't expect it. In On PTSD: A Personal Experience I took you down the rabbit hole of scary emotional first person incident and thought life. In others, such as Experiencing Complex PTSD I talk more distantly of symptoms and such.
 I could tell you more and I certainly would love to hear what you want to know about my life with these things. However, I want your voices to ring out from my pages. You have a voice. You own no shame. I want you to Say Something like I did in my 9-part series I am working on turning into a full length memoir.
 I want to hear and report your stories using the writing gift and education and platforms that God has given me. The whole point of my speaking up, whatever the form, about my experiences is so that you may feel free to speak up about yours.
 I propose this.
 If you are interested, named or unnamed, in sharing your story, via phone, email, or however you are most comfortable, so that I may use my skills to write a story with your prior-approval or, even, may decide not to share publicly at all, I want to hear from you. Please comment or email me at yhosborn@gmail.com with serious inquiries, by which I mean I am not interested in starting any romantic relationships, for instance.
 Try me out. You can trust me as a professional writer with interview experience that even stood the test of a journalist grad student and professional without change that I will do you justice. I want honesty, but I do not require any details you don't want to share. I share no details, including your name, if you want, that you don't want me to share. I can listen to a a lot and only share a little. You decide what questions of mine you answer. You decide. You get to Say Something if you want.
 You have a story to tell, and I want to tell it. More than that, many, many others need or want to hear it. You can believe me for all my years reading your posts, talking with you in groups or as individuals, and being in therapy.
 Serious, if hesitant, inquiries via Comments or my email yhosborn@gmail.com please.
 Caveat: I AM NOT A THERAPIST, SO I CANNOT COUNSEL YOU OR BE A REPLACEMENT FOR COUNSELING. Please seek professional help if you know what I am talking about but haven't talked to a psychiatric professional before.
 https://thehopechronicles.wordpress.com/2020/01/28/7-mental-illness-stories-wanted-and-admired/

My body says, "No," to have the voice, to say something now when I couldn't say anything before. https://link.medium.com/664bhPALf3

My favorite color was yellow. It had always been and would continue to be yellow. It was one of the only things about me that remained unaffected without opposition. When I decided that yellow was my favorite color, I said that it was because yellow was ‘the color of happiness'. To me, it represented positivity, brightness, and energy. The color yellow was my color. I was about 15 years old, so he had been hurting me for about 7 or 8 years. I was living in hidden fear, but I never stopped being a positive person. Yellow was still my color. He worked at night, so he was usually asleep during the day. Today was different- he was asleep, as usual, but, today, my mom was home. We were in the kitchen, making pineapple cupcakes together. I was frosting a cupcake while standing by the stove, and my mom laughed, “You're pushing too much icing. A little goes a long way - yea, like that.” I giggled and suddenly felt icing being smeared on my face. I was startled for a second, but then I grinned. “Oh my God, you did not! You asked for-” I stopped mid-sentence. My stomach dropped the second I heard the dreadful sound of the bedroom door being wrenched open. My unsuspecting mom still had a smile on her face as she turned around. Suddenly, everything changed. I felt all of the happiness in the room drain and turn into fear. “Why the f*** are you so f***ing loud?! You're f***ing useless! Fat f***ing pig!” The sound of his voice filled the room, and everything happened in flashes and blurs. He flipped one of the cupcake trays and threw the other across the room. With every step he took, I stepped back, until I was cornered. As my tears blurred my vision, I felt my heart pound. I could feel my chest move with each breath, but I felt like I was suffocating. I blinked, and, suddenly, he was right in front of me, looking down at me. He grabbed my arms and shook me as he screamed, “What are you crying for, you pathetic little sh*t? I haven't even touched you yet.” Every word he shrieked sent spit flying at my face, mixing with the seemingly endless stream of tears. My hyperventilating made my throat catch, and I coughed as my tears continued to flow. I instinctively turned my head away, and the sudden movement made me lose my balance. I tried to pull my hands up to prevent myself from falling, and I jerked my shoulders away. He didn't like that. He immediately grabbed my arms again and slammed me into the counter. My head hit the open cabinet door behind me, and pain seared through my entire body. I could feel myself getting dizzy, and my vision became even more blurred than before. I could faintly hear my mom shouting, but the sound of her voice seemed far away, as if it were merely a figment of my imagination. But, then, he was pulled off of me and shoved away. It seemed to take all of her strength, and when he sprung back, he began to walk towards her. She continued to yell, attempting to hide her fear, but she inched backwards until she was right up against the fridge. He towered over her, and everything went silent. Time froze. I could see that there was nothing good left in his soul, if he had one. His presence was more terrifying than ever. He clenched his jaw and his nose twitched, and, in a sudden movement, his fist smashed into the fridge door right by my mom's head. “STOP!” I heard myself scream. This caught him by surprise, and he turned his head towards me. My mom ducked under him, and he tried to grab her as she was getting away from him. I ran forward and tried to push him away from her, but he grabbed my arm and threw me to the ground. My vision went black, and I still couldn't hear past the ringing, but, once I felt my mom's warm hand on my back, and she helped me up, everything came rushing back in. I could hear every sound and see everything clearly. Chairs were knocked over, and there was icing on the walls and floor. His voice was still booming in my ears, but he was speaking slowly and clearly, with a horrifying grin on his face. “Call the cops, I dare you. Clarksville's fastest response time is not fast enough, I promise.” My mom grabbed my hand and ran out of the house as fast as she could. We got in the car and drove to the police station. The car ride was silent. At least, I remember it that way. I couldn't speak. I caught a glance of my reflection in the side mirror. There was icing in my hair and streaks of mascara on my cheeks. My lip was swollen and bleeding, but the only marks on my arms were cuts from his fingernails. Perhaps the bruises couldn't be seen because the devil could hide them. The police didn't seem to be too worried, and we didn't go home for a couple of days. He was never punished. Even though he is physically gone, he is still always with me. I fight his voice in my mind every day, and almost all of me has changed. Except for my favorite color, my favorite color is still yellow.

In the summer of 2002 the neighbour hood kids ( brither and sister, ana and nils,) includeing my self (we were the only kids in the neighbour hood at the time) would go to my living room after a trip to the video store and a swim to watch a marathon of the x files. We wiuld spend all day watching the x files. This is were my interest of forensics, forensic pathology and law enforcement. I did not know i want ti be an fbi agent or a coroner then soon languages got into the mix particularily russian and japanese. That was before high school when my big mouth father opened his mouth and said that i was ugyer, tibetan and himalayan. Now i am looking to learn tibetan. To this day because of events on the internet i have awoken the forensic pathologist so i can speak for the women who where not as lucky to avoid creeps and died because of them.

I want to go to never land..... an no I am not suicidal; just very tired and sleepy. I slept like a log but it's one of those days where I just want to fucking sleep. Like in Stephen King's sleeping beauties but in reality. This is what the fucking winter does to you when you hate the cold and have to take meds for CPTSD. I hate the meds. It's not that I hate the cold but there is nothing to take pictures of fucking flowers, which is a trigger to me. I say I don't hate the cold because a few years ago I , fed up with how people with PTSD were looked at decided to climb Everest. This has beeen fermenting since my diagnosis in grade 11 (high school). And when my mother found out she had lung cancer I want to climb K2 for cancer research and another mountain for survivors of sex crimes (lets just say if you are a female you need to take extra care on the Internet. ) the mountaineering bug bit me in high school.... now I have reasons. But for now I shall nap.

I feel confused... I am trying think of how to approach an adiobiolography for the simple fact that I want to show that people with ptsd or not bad people. I don't want to talk about my childhood before age 13 because my child hood god bless my parents my child hood was ass. From the time I was born to the time I was 13. Why do you before my thirteenth birth was ass because one I have tibetan genes and the catholic school system hated that especially after 9/11. That I had ptsd. When I was 13 I realized that I might be a genius and found my true interests, mountaineering, art, photography, writing, languages and mental health. This biography will flip flop to the present, dream and past.

When I picked up the book 13 reasons why at a book store many years ago I had no clue it would change my life. I didn't know that I was fixing to read my story written by a stranger. A noticeable difference is that I am 31 and still alive. I lived Hannah's life but I made it. When I was 15 years old a friend called me one Friday night. She was intoxicated at a party with all males. She wasn't comfortable and asked if I could walk across the street to where the party was and stay with her. I thought nothing of it and told my parents I was sleeping over with the neighbor (just not the neighbor they thought). I cared for my friend and got her to bed with no issues. I locked her in the room and made sure none of the males present went near the room. We had all been friends for years with the exception of an older guy there. He was very attractive, rich and popular. As the early morning hours approached the friends all started to pass out. I was given my own room and soon found myself fast asleep. I woke up to the guy I didn't know asking if he could crash in there with me because the rest of the beds were taken. I remember hearing the door lock and even telling him that was a fire safety issue. I wasn't nervous because I was in a house full of people I had known for several years. I must have fallen back to sleep quickly but that wouldn't last. I was awoken to him on top of me, forcing himself inside me. I was a virgin and scared truly to make a noise. I think I may have whimpered but that only made it worse. I don't know how long it lasted. I remember he left the room and didn't come back in. I was scared to leave the room. When morning came I practically ran home. I can remember my friends calling me the next 2 days asking what had happened because the male was saying things about me that were not nice. I realized later that he immediately started saying things about my character so people would believe him when he said he never touched me. I had no intentions of telling anyone but made sure no one would believe me if I did. Something I didn't realize was that he was already 18 which made what he did statutory rape. I can remember that first day back at school how all my friends shunned me. People I had known since elementary school treated me like I did something wrong. I never told my parents. I quit cheerleading and the school newspaper. I didn't talk about it with my childhood best friends. They knew something was wrong but I shut down anytime I was asked. Things moved on and I finished the year barely passing after having been an straight a student. I thought for sure the next year would be better as junior but I was shocked the first day of school to find that my attacker had been held from graduation and would be back at the school for another year. Not only was he back at school but would be in some of my classes. I told myself that I could handle this by just pretending he didn't exist but he seemed that he needed to make my life hard. He would say things under his breath when I talked, he would loudly make comments about my reputation and would try to turn my few peers in the class against me. After a few weeks of this abuse I started taking sleeping medicine to get past the nightmares. One day he seemed particularly nasty towards me and called me to his table during lunch. He had some of his female friends call me some names and tell me how he would never have touched me. I took enough sleeping pills that night to never face him again. People wondered how I got the pills. I asked an older neighbor friend to get them for me. That moment of survival changed my life. I still didn't speak out of the attacker mostly out of fear. I felt like I was having a heart attack when I saw in the local paper that he been arrested with trying to pick up a 14 year old girl in a sting when he was 30. My first thought was he may have hurt other girls. I was so scared to tell and that may have left him able to harm others. I have dealt with the ptsd of the attack for years. Sometimes are better than others. Everyday I am glad that I didn't die when I wanted to so bad. I I am so happy that I got to meet a great man who understands my cold days. I am so thankful I got to be a mommy. When I hear people say that Hannah Baker from 13 reasons wanted attention I want to scream that she is real. She is me. I never asked for his bullying. I never asked for the whispers. I never wanted the sympathy. I just wanted to make the choice of my first time being with someone I loved not a stranger who prayed on virgins.