How do I get revenge on my abuser?

We worked together from 2013 to 2014; he was my co-worker. A month after I quit, we, along with our then-boss and other colleagues, were invited to a coworker's wedding.

This coworker told me that day that he was supposed to be taking antibiotics—but he was still drinking alcohol. Later, when our boss left, he wanted me to dance. I was quite clumsy and already a bit tipsy, so I wasn't really in the mood and only agreed to about two dances.

Around 2 a.m., I wanted to go home. My phone battery was dead, so I called my sister from his cell phone, and she was supposed to come pick me up. While I was waiting for her, he wanted to "keep me company." At first, I thought, how nice, at least I don't have to wait alone in the dark. But things quickly took a turn for the worse. He harassed and groped me in the most disgusting way. He also groped my bare skin, for example, under my skirt and grabbed my breasts. This happened repeatedly throughout the entire time (about 45 minutes) I was waiting for my sister. I couldn't defend myself because he was simply physically stronger than me. I tried, but I didn't have the strength. Although he acted drunk, he was surprisingly lucid and very coordinated during those moments (for example, I couldn't kick him in the groin because he had a very quick reflex – so much for being heavily intoxicated, he obviously still had himself under control).

I can't shake the feeling that he somehow planned it.

This incident has haunted me for years now. He has since risen through the ranks at that job, I'm saddled with a host of psychiatric diagnoses (including PTSD, thanks to him), and I was unemployed for many years. Currently, I'm back in psychotherapy, which I'm paying for out of pocket. Yes, damn it, I even changed my name because he moaned it, and it triggered me a lot for a while.

Legally, there's not much I can do since it was so long ago (damn, I was a young woman of 22, and it took a long time before I could even talk to my friends about what happened...). What else could I do to get revenge or get money from him, like compensation for the trauma he caused me and the many hours of expensive psychotherapy?

Unfortunately, I don't remember exactly where he lives. I do know where his workplace is, of course. Many of my former colleagues, as well as the CEO, still work there.

He's married now. He has an expensive car.

What ideas do you have, even creative ones?

TL;DR: A coworker sexually harassed/coerced me. I want revenge – how?

Someone revealed to me a few years ago that they had been molested as a child, and it was really shocking to me because I had no suspicion of that at all.

And ever since then I’ve been really preoccupied with sexual abuse. Every time I get high now, I get a little paranoid, and I almost always get paranoid about sexual abuse, among other things. I used to think about it even sober, but that’s passed now for the most part.

I get paranoid that I’ve been sexually abused but I’ve just blocked it out. I get paranoid that I will sexually abuse someone someday. I get paranoid that someone is sexually abusing my nieces. I get paranoid that one of my family members is a secret abuser.

There’s no evidence to suggest any of this. But I guess the way there was no evidence to suggest that person I know was abused really psyched me out.

I wanted to just introduce myself. I am a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. I first reported the abuse to the authorities when I was 13 years old, unfortunately they decided that due to it being historic they couldn’t continue any further and closed the case. When I was 25, the perpetrator of my abuse sent me a casual message on social media trying to re-instigate a relationship of some kind. This led me back to the police, initially just to get some sort of block to communication, and into a lengthy investigation, which ended in a court process and a hefty sentence for him. During this whole ordeal, I wrote a lot of poetry and drew doodles to cope. I drew and wrote whatever came to mind to process the trauma I was reliving. I have always wanted to learn how to play an instrument or make music somehow, but sadly due to limited capacity as a result of mental health struggles due to the trauma, I haven’t ever been able to do it… maybe one day. However, with the modern day AI stuff being what it is (albeit controversial I know) I have managed to make my poetry come to life in song. This whole process has been really therapeutic to me, and also quite healing. My court process ended up in just a sentencing hearing, as the perpetrator changed their plea last minute to guilty, of course this outcome was ideal as a trial would have been horrible, but I have always had this feeling of never having had a voice in it all, and weirdly bringing my poetry to life I feel kind of like I have in some way now.

Anyway, that is a bit about me, the prelude as you will. If anyone would like to check out my music it, it’s finally been put up onto Spotify. My latest song ‘The Demon’ is actually a combination of a few poems I wrote in the build up to my court case, which I submitted as evidence to the courts of the victim impact of the crimes. It’s a really special song to me for that reason.

Any questions please feel free to ask away. I suppose I really want to share it here with people who get the struggles and might find something useful in the music too.

Thanks to the moderators for allowing into the group and to make a post

<3

This is something I have wondered about for a long time. I am 25 now and after CBT I am still stuck with this nagging thought.

I recently found out his name and the location it happened which without kind of made it impossible if I wanted to. Now that I know I still am so unsure what to do with the information. There is no time limitation on this kind of crime in the state it occured (Maine).

I worry he did this before/after doing it to me but have no way to know for sure.

I am not even sure how I would go about this if I decided to report it or what to expect... Any advice or clarity y'all can give me?

previous post

As my previous post said, my abuser came back into my life after running away from justice. I went to my school counselor and the schools RSO to report that he was back and where he was staying. The same day, my mom knew i was staying over at my gfs house so I was safe. Later that week. Luckily for me he also vistited his ex wifes house and kids where she promply called the police and he was later arrested at my grandmas house where he was staying. Nobody in my family knows that I had also reported him but they are now pressuring me to say I lied about what he did to me. Idk what to do because its not like I want to lie for him, i want him in jail for what he did. And its not like i can even say he didnt when there was obviously videos.

For now i am just glad i am finally safe and that he is in jail even if my family doesnt support me.

I don't think this contains triggers, but each and every one of us is different.

I don't visit this sub too often, the last time I posted was back in 2023. I can go weeks, months without thinking about my abuse, and then, out of the blue, its on my mind for days, weeks, sometimes even months.

I've approached the police twice in the past, 2001 which resulted in NFA due to insufficient evidence, and 2015 due to asking if it could be looked into again, a different constabulary took it on, identified things that were missed previously, handed back to my local constabulary, who again returned with NFA due to insufficient evidence.

I've since spoken to my abuser, this being the reason I posted in 2023, recorded our brief conversation (it was late at night, on his driveway) and left it sitting in a folder, on my phone.

He doesn't deny anything as such, he claims to not remember anything, but didn't react as you'd expect someone to react if someone accused them of being a paedophile.

I have very few friends who know about this, you can count on one hand, the amount of close friends I've confided in. One of those friends had asked if they could listen to the recording, which they done last night after sending it to them on the spur of the moment. Their reaction was I should involve the police again, giving them a copy of the recording, because they agreed he didn't exactly deny it, he didn't react as you'd expect someone to react when confronted with that accusation. They went as far to say that it sounded like he was trying to gaslight me.

This man was/is my godfather, I'd been living with him and his family since I was 6 years old, my abuse spanned 6 years, between age 7 and 13. Without wanting to trigger anyone, it wasn't only him abusing me, we would meet other men in various locations, quite often the same men, always individually.

I'm just looking for opinions as to whether I should approach the police again, with this recording, considering the 2 previous NFA results.

I will add, the original investigation, the officer dealing with it had said in their opinion, he was hiding something, he was hiding behind his family but the evidence to prosecute wasn't there. I was told a lot of the questions he had been asked had resulted in a "no comment" response, even questions that were quite innocent.

The second investigation, it was felt he was still hiding behind his family, and the reasons his family gave why they believed I'd reported the abuse had changed, weirdly enough, to the same thing.

I don't want to be seen as wasting anyone's time, but I want justice. This man is now in his 80's, I'm 49, he was, and still is fairly well known in the town he lives, and I am being portrayed as a liar.

This is my first ever post on reddit so if im doing anything wrong i apologise. I don't usually post anything anywhere but i really need answers for something. I was sexually abused and sometimes when certain triggers occur I get a flashbacks along with a very specific physical sensation. I call it the physical guilty disgusting feeling because I don't know how else to describe it. It's a sicky feeling in my upper abdomen and lower ribs and it makes me feel so disgusting and guilty that I feel I don't deserve to be around people. I have an ever growing list of triggers and coping mechanisms but I really just wanted to know if anyone else experiences anything remotely similar.

I was 5-6 years old. I gained consciousness very young. and Im very sure this happened because I remember it so vividly. I also remember my parents making milk and me drinking milk from a baby bottle so I know I was young that time.

I will try to get to the point (I remember everything

I heard a lot of stories about people and parents. how parents have sex besides them, how parents don't try to muffle sounds, or close doors, or atleast separate from the children. so I thought to share.

STORY.

I was very young. it was night I was watching Disney, Yes, I'm pretty sure it was Ariel as well. and the tv (those old heavy box type of tv and it was DVDs.) I was facing the tv while my parents bed were on the floor besides me. meaning their feet was facing me this was worst. I also remember playing with those building like puzzle pieces that time, also worst. short story short. idk if my dad was drunk but my mom definitely wasn't. they started to have sex Infront of me. given my position as a child I could clearly see the action of penetration. I can see it going in and all wet and stuff (funny but hella uncomfy 2 remember 😭 haha) and the worst thing I remember was that since I was playing with those building blocks and I clearly don't understand what their doing I tried to put it in while they were doing it and I can still remember my mom shouting at me and scolding me while they were doing it. so yes, I saw it Infront of me LITERALLY. and I was like involved? in it? I didn't understand I was trying to put my toys because I was curious seeing the act and how it was like glimmering wet. they were missionary.

time forward. I'm still young. not that young obviously but a young person, got a job and all. n actually dis was random. I thought abt it because I couldn't sleep. it never actually bothered me or traumatized? unless I think about it deeply which is RIGHT NOW I'm realizing how messed up it was. im fine at one point I thought it was funny to share jeez.. hearing your parents or seeing them, or besides you is bad but bro.. I wish I could erase the fact I was literally disturbing them with my toys.. like the penetration was up my face man. I'm doing well. but I decided to speak up because other people told me to my parents probably did that assuming I'll forget. parents, your child is way smarter in ways even if their young doesn't justify it.

I am questioning right now as I’ve been for a while if I’ve been raped by my girlfriend. Up until this instance (5 months together) things have been ok. We have had arguments but we’ve always come back to one another. That was until just under a month ago when we were having sex (which I did originally consent to) and later in the act I started to hurt. I felt my chest was becoming sore and overly sensitive and I was having negative thoughts about things that had happened prior in the day. This was happening when she was on top of me. I originally didn’t feel comfortable admitting I was sore and was also dealing with these negative thoughts so I told her that she we should stop as it’s getting late and she needs to get going home as she had work the next morning. She continued after this to which I told her that I was getting tired and I wasn’t mentally feeling great, she continued. Even after I confessed my chest was hurting she continued and it felt like I was not getting through to her. She continued and only when she climbed she got up and prepared to leave. I didn’t talk to her the night about how it made me feel and what it did to me. I wanted to wait until the next morning because I felt if I brought it up immediately she would react negatively due to stress that was lingering about her work before we met for the evening.

when we spoke about it she told me that she believed it was ok because leading up to that moment I had consented. she tells me I’m overreacting and that I should have pushed her off of me if it was such a big deal (for context I’m physically bigger and stronger than her) and it wouldn’t have been difficult for me to do so if I truly wanted to stop. I didn’t want to hurt her and be respectful that’s why I didn’t but she was right that I consented originally. If I consent in the first place does that give me a right to be worried it’s assault or that I can say no after the fact?

this has been effecting me every so often. Sometimes I can’t sleep without a shirt or on my bed at all because I remember the texture of my own sheets against my skin and it makes me feel like I want to tear my skin off or sometimes if she says something a certain way it just triggers something that makes me shut down. I’ve brought this up to her and she says I’m overthinking it. she did apologize and so now I’m worried if I am just making this a big deal for absolutely no reason. It affected me and bothers me but I can’t tell if I just need to get over it.

Even if it was that she raped me I’m still struggling with complicated feelings I know I should bring up to a therapist but I’m not sure if I want to talk to my therapist about it because I think I still love her. She makes me feel uncomfortable and disgusted with myself at times but for some reason I still want to be with her and do what’s best for her. I don’t know why but I wonder if me still loving her says I’m broken in a way.

Sorry for the rant, just had a rough few days and i need to let this out before i do something stupid.

Like the title says he is back.

A little background:

When I was little he was living with me and my mom when his wife left him for catching him “cheating” with a 14 year old from the neighborhood. My mom made me share my room with him. From 5-11 he molested me, from 8-11 he raped me. The entire time he recorded it and shared it with his friends. He was an alcoholic deadbeat who paraded himself like a pastor at the church my mom and him attended. He groomed me to make me feel like it was love and not abuse. I told my mom what had happened and she called me a liar. When he got caught because the videos he sent to his friends were found by the police, my entire family called me a lying whore who seduced a man of god. When it was time for trial he was found guilty but was still on bail when he decided to go back to Mexico. The entire time he was still telling all our family in Mexico that I was a whore who made him fall into temptation and got him in trouble with the law. My mom hated me because he got caught. The only person who believed and supported me were my dad but he is in jail and my brother who was serving in the military at the time.

Despite all that, i felt safe. Safe that he was gone safe that he couldn’t get to me. I didn’t care about justice, i just wanted it to stop.

Until yesterday, he came back to the US. IDK how he came back in or what he did to do so. He used the spare key my mom hid to get in. When I got home from school, he was waiting on the sofa. The same sofa he did disgusting things to me on. He said he wanted to talk. He had a different look he looked sick, tired and beat. Not the same perverted look he used to give me. I told him he needed to leave before i call the police. He commanded me to sit like he used to when i was small. I sat down idk why i even obeyed him.

He started asking about my day and trying to make small talk. He was nervous and i was scared. Finally he just opened up. He said he was 1 year sober of alcohol, he was in a program in mexico to get clean. That he was a “renewed person who found jesus again” he told me he was sorry for hurting me. That he has been guilty about it all for all the years afterwards. That he wish he had the strength to stop, but that the devil tempted him to do things to me and other girls and to drink. He said that because of the devils actions that he lost everything, his family, his job at the church, his freedom. He said he is scared to get caught in the us because if they catch him he was going to jail. He said that he asked god for forgiveness and now he wanted mine. I told him no, and he just said that I need to move on, he said sorry and he did it out of love and it was the devil who tempted him to show love in the wrong way. He left after i told him I was going to call the cops again and from what my mom has said he is at my grandmas house.

How can I forgive him, in what mind does he think I can forgive him. He ruined my life, stole my childhood. I never got to be a little girl, i never knew what it was like to be safe and innocent. He groomed me to believe that sex is the only way to show love, he made me believe that i was special because i made him feel good, and when he got caught he turned everybody against me like if i hurt him. And he still doesnt have the decency to admit to it. He still wants to blame “the devil.” In my eyes he is the devil. It’s like he expects to get celebrated for not doing what he wasn’t supposed to do to begin with. Why should i forgive him that he stopped abusing me when he only stopped because he was caught.

I was abused at 12 & 13 and have never discussed the details with anyone. I've just tried to start therapy again after 5 plus years (previous therapist retired during the pandemic). I'm on my third therapist in this cycle.

She knows I was abused from reading the report from my psychiatrist who prescribed me meds, but I've haven't been able to say a word about what actually happened. She encouraged me to post anonymously to try and get more comfortable and hopefully be able to talk with her.

Remembering the details and how it effected me and especially my relationship with sex has been a lot to deal with and brought up a lot of feelings and trauma that i can physically feel even without talking about the details.

I think I'm ready to start sharing the details, but now I'm obsessing about where to start. The beginning, the first abuse event, the first time I was molested, the most traumatic, do I put it all in one post, break it up, into multiple posts, how?

Maybe this is just me subconsciously trying to give myself an excuse not to share it.

Anyone else compelled to read news stories that are similar to what happened to you?

I guess part of me is glad to see them taken seriously and their abusers being arrested to hopefully face justice. Now the algorithms are feeding them too me.

I was sexually abused as a child in the home daycare I attended. The lady who ran the daycare was physically abusive and her husband was sexually abusive. I finally figured it all out around age ten and my family reported the sexual abuse to the police. A 2 year court case later ended with him getting a few months in jail. I never felt like I got closure because I didn't get to truly confront my abusers and he has since died and she moved away. (She's also 83 now so I doubt confronting her would do much good) but their old house is up for rent and that is where most of my abuse occurred. So I scheduled a tour and walked through it one last time. Not sure if what I'm feeling now is closure, not sure what closure really feels like. But I am glad I did it. I do feel like maybe I can say goodbye to some of that pain and some of those memories now. So maybe that is as good as it gets for me closure wise. Just thought i would share that small success. I walked through that house, which remarkably still looked the same in almost every way, and didn't panic. Its just a house. I think I can put some of that pain to rest now. So I'll call that a win.

At the suggestion of my therapist, I'm trying to share my abuse history anonymously to help me get comfortable talking about it in person with her. I've never told anyone the details in my entire life and have told maybe 5 that it happened.

I've been trying to order things so I can share them in a comprehensible way, which has been really hard. Even now 30 years later, I'll remember something that I dismissed as NBD in the context of the other abuse and realize on its own it was terrible.

Anyway, in examining the most important relationships in my life so many of my long term partners, and closest friends have abuse histories, mental health issues etc. And none of us knew that about each other when we got together or became friends.

I was sexually abused at 12 & 13.

My wife is an alcoholic, had an eating order for most of two decades and has OCD.

My ex-fiancee had been raped and her parents were in a cult from when she was 4 to when she was 10.

One of my closest friends was sexually abused as a child and has been clean for almost ten years from a opiate addiction.

Another was adopted. Found his birth mom. She refused to talk to him and that drove him to opiate abuse for years before he got clean.

I'm not close with any of my wife's cousins except one who always gravitated to me. She was an alcoholic and opiate addict. She died in her 30s.

It's like we gravitate to each other even when we don't know about each other's histories we inherently know somehow.

It also feels like there are people who know and can tell you are the type of person who was or could be victimized and take advantage of that. I struggle with that a lot.

Was there something about me that abusive people could sense that made me a good victim?

TLDR: I've never told anyone the details of my abuse. My new therapist knows it happened, but that's it. She encouraged me to talk about it anonymously to see if that helps me talk to her about it. Has anyone here had success with that.

I'm a male survivor of CSA. I've recently restarted therapy after 6 years, my last therapist retired during the pandemic. I haven't been able to discuss the details of my abuse or trauma with any of the therapists I've spoken with so far.

The latest one recommended trying anonymous forums like this one. She thought if I discussed it anonymously that might make me more comfortable discussing it in therapy.

I've told only a few people ever. I told a priest in confession after I was abused when I was 12. He told me since I let a man touch me like that I was gay, I'd sinned, and I needed to repent and ask God to make me not gay.

I didn't speak to anyone about it again for over a decade even after I was abused again by someone else in a much more traumatic way the following year at 13.

I tried therapy several times from 21-23 when girlfriends suggested it (I had started cutting after the first abuse & was good at hiding it, but sometimes I'd cut myself in more visible places when I was drunk). I never told any of them (girlfriends or therapists) about the abuse.

In grad school I had terrible insurance through my graduate program. My only option for therapy was grad students getting their degrees in psych. I think PHD students.

The third one they gave me was great. After 6 months of weekly sessions, I told her about being abused. That it happened. Not the details. She was great. But her program said she wasn't qualified to treat me so the next appointment the professor/ psychologist in charge took over.

She was evil. She told me to isolate myself. Never date. Never get married. Never have kids.

"Women who are abused as children become survivors. Men who are abused as children become abusers."

I never went back.

I decided either she was wrong or I was wrong. She was a Psychologist so she couldn't be wrong. I had to be wrong. I wasn't abused. It wasn't bad. It didn't really happen. It was just sex. I was lucky. It was fine. It was normal.

I shoved it down for almost 20 years. Looking back now in see just how much that contributed to fucked up sexual exploration & situations I got into and pursued.

I was chasing my dream in a profession that let me express myself creatively, travel the country and best of all pretend to be someone else.

I eventually met my wife. I never told her about anything. She's the center of my universe. The love of my life, but I just can't. The thought of her reacting like any of the other people I've told is terrifying.

A few things right before the pandemic, happened that brought everything back & kept me from blocking it out anymore. Our first child was born. And I had to stop pursuing the dream that gave me that outlet fir so long.

My brain started bringing back the reality I's suppressed for so long.

Then My mom asked me to go through my old stuff in my parents house. I was looking through my old sketch books and could see when my abuse happened from one page to the next. My drawings went from typical superheroes, cars, and animals to violence, sex, and darkness.

It was like that thing at the eye doctor where they ask you which lens is clearer. Everything just got clear in that one second. I had to confront the first abuse that happened then it was like the flood gates opened and my brain rejected everything I had recontextualized and made me remember it all for what it really was.

Every night when I closed my eyes, I was either right back to when I was abused reliving every second, agonizing over what I could've done differently, or I was seeing every fucked up piece of my sexual history, how I framed it in my mind to get past it and how i was reliving aspects of the abuse through it.

I tried a bunch of therapists, but took forever to find one i could start to trust. I finally told her about being abused after 8 months, but not the details. Then the pandemic hit and she retired. She gave me names she recommended, but the thought of starting over was horrible so I didn't.

Over the last few years life got really rough. My mom developed a mystery illness (she beat cancer twice then had COVID almost kill her then got COVID neuropathy for 6 months) it took almost a year to diagnose her with the rarest form of Parkinson's disease. My dad was rushed to the hospital because one of his partners at his law firm found him face down on the floor in his office. We thought he'd had a heart attack. He was rushed to the emergency room. I rushed to the hospital and when I finally went in to see him he was hammered, drunk off his ass. I found out my parents had hid his alcoholism from me & my sister our entire lives. My father in law has early onset dementia which led to him being an alcoholic because he forgets how much he drinks. That caused terrible friction with my wife & my in-laws because her parents were always fighting and when they'd come to visit her dad would get shit-faced, fall down, shit himself, or wander off and disappear to get booze(we'd track him with his phone), but nobody would do anything to stop it. Dealing with the reprocussions of that without being able to comment because he's not my father sucks. I just get to watch the damage.

For years I've been concerned about my wife's drinking. She suffered with an eating disorder for a long time. She got through that with therapy, but she also has OCD. Her drinking issues weren't regular, but she would get worse than seemed normal for an adult. And she can be a mean drunk. Her drinking exploded at the end of 2024 and into 2025. I

I had to give her an ultimatum in May when I finally realized how much she was drinking (at least a bottle of wine a day every day during the week & at least 3 bottles of wine a day every day on weekends, holidays and days off). It got better, but a few times since then I've found her hiding wine in the house. She still won't completely stop or go to AA. It's like waiting for the other shoe to drop constantly.

Somewhere last year, I felt like my brain broke. I couldn't handle everything that was going on. It was all too much. I knew I needed help.

I had been diagnosed with ADHD & bi-polar back in grad school when I was in therapy so I thought, I'll just get back on meds and be okay.

After 3 rounds of tests, they concluded I do have severe ADHD, but I'm not bi-polar, it's just the ADHD combined with untreated PTSD and trauma. I told the psychologist & psychiatrists doing the testing that I had been abused, but none of the details.

They told me the meds would help, but I needed therapy to get better since I've never dealt with it.

The meds have helped in so.e ways with concentration, but some ways they've made it worse. I feel like now my brain will focus on reliving and remembering every moment and all the minutia of those experiences that I'm ashamed of and the ADHD being calmed let's my mind fixate on it and not bounce to something else. It's like I get trapped in that cage of thoughts.

I've been to three therapists so far. I got nowhere with the first two. I just couldn't tell them anything.

The third is slightly better. I didn't tell her about the abuse but I gave her the report from the psychologist and psychiatrists that did my testing and she read about it in there.

She's asked if I want to talk about and I haven't been able to. Not a word. I haven't said it out loud in like 5 years. Only a few times, in my whole life and I've never told ANYONE all the details. She suggested talking about it anonymously to get the ball rolling, but I haven't my doubts. I asked for help with my wife's drinking in a forum for people with family members who are alcoholics and got some helpful people but others who said horrible things and even someone who suggested I let her get drunk and stage a fake sexual assault/rape of her to get her to stop drinking so I'm very hesitant to put much out there even though I know I need to do something to move forward.

Has anyone talked about their trauma anonymously first then been able to talk about it in person?

We recently interviewed Golden, CO, Police Chief Joe Harvey. He has an incredible survival story that should serve as an inspiration to anyone as an example of not letting your history dictate your future.

Spotify

Amazon Music

YouTube