Think of a time when you had a seemingly good relationship that quickly went sour, how you felt during and after what happened, happened. This is one of those stories. A friend, someone whom I cared about, did something I never thought he would do. I trusted him, and he destroyed our friendship, manipulating and betraying me and my feelings. He completely disrespected me, my friends, and my family and always blamed me for everything. He never respected my privacy or considered whether I was comfortable with something he was doing.

One day he took things too far outside of my comfort zone: he didn’t respect my boundaries as a female. He tried to force me and pressure me to do things with him that I made clear I didn’t want to do. He made me feel so uncomfortable with what he said and did and made it seem like it was my fault because I stood up for myself and stopped him from violating me even more than he already had. For weeks I didn’t tell anyone or say anything, not even to my parents. It got to the point where I just couldn’t hold it in anymore and I had to tell someone, so I finally caved in and told my counselor. I wish I had told my parents first, but I wasn’t sure if what happened to me was important enough to even mention.

Eventually, my parents noticed that something was off about me, so I told them, and they were rightfully infuriated. Since my parents did not think anyone was taking care of the problem, they filed a police report and officially got him on record, but that’s all that ever happened, even when more girls came forward about what he also had done to them. Their truths were sometimes even worse than what had happened to me, but the school tried to sweep it under the rug, even though the events happened on campus. This made my parents even more mad that the school wasn’t taking enough action to give him a consequence; I was glad to know that my family cared about it and they continued to support me through it.

Slowly but surely, I moved on, not only for me but for my family. I realized that what had happened wasn't my fault: it was his. All of this was his fault. He had manipulated me and had overstepped my boundaries, and my parents knew that and supported me through the whole thing. Eventually, I started to heal. I focused on healthier relationships, made new friends, started eating better, changed my style, and most importantly gained better judgment of people. I learned whom to cut off and whom to keep as friends. If I notice something off about a person—for example if they ignore serious issues, say or do inappropriate things that make me uncomfortable, or just straight don’t address when something is their fault—I simply end that friendship. Now I am better at determining who will be a true and long-lasting friend. Part of my healing has meant completely forgetting everything about him as much as I can. I forget that he ever existed and keep telling myself that even though it was a horrible thing that happened, it happened for a reason. I've worked on myself and how I choose to respond to certain situations that make me uncomfortable or that don’t feel right. I speak up for myself, which I think is one of the most important lessons I learned from this. If you feel uncomfortable with someone, you should always speak up and tell someone you trust. Know that when someone manipulates and repeatedly disrespects you, it's not your fault.

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