Woman Says She Was Called a Liar After Reporting Assault at 17: “A Lot of People Didn’t Believe Me”

There is a TikTok post written by a woman with the username @morgzzzzilla in which she talks about the experiences of childhood sexual abuse and the diagnosis of PTSD that followed afterward.

She wanted to share this information with other survivors of abuse so they would feel supported.

“Let’s talk about sexual assault,” she starts off the video.

She states that the abuse started when she was a kid, and her family moved to another place.

“So when I was 8 years old I moved to a new house and I had a neighbor who was similar to the age of me and this neighbor would show me, mind you I didn’t know what sex was and I was a young child obviously, and this neighbor would basically groom me and would show me very violent porn, like porn that I don’t even know where they found,” she said. “It was extremely, extremely violent and vulgar, and they also sexually assaulted me for years until I was about 11.”

She stated that it affected her perception of sexuality.

“And that really messed up a lot of my development and understanding of sex because my first ever introduction to it was very violent and non-consensual,” she says.

She states that she spent years trying to heal from the trauma before entering her first relationship in high school.

“Fast forward to junior year of high school, I got my first boyfriend, and up until this point I had never really done very much consensually. I had only ever been assaulted in my childhood,” she said. “So I was very new to it, and I had done a lot, a lot of work to heal through the stuff that happened to me as a young child.”

Then she states that another incident of sexual assault occurred shortly after she turned 17.

“I got my first boyfriend. I was really excited and about a week I think after my 17th birthday, we were laying on the couch and I was asleep and I woke up to him on top of me,” she says. “He told me to put my face down and stuff happened.”

This trauma was complicated even further by how people around her reacted to it.

“This made high school really hard for me because a lot of people didn’t believe me. He said it was fake. I falsely accused him,” she says.

She stated that she received the diagnosis the following summer.

“I was diagnosed with PTSD the summer after from sexual assault, including the stuff from my childhood and the stuff that happened to me junior year,” she says.

She decided to make the video to show how the disease manifests.

“PTSD from sexual assault can look so different and in so many different ways. And I just want to advocate for people who have PTSD from that because it really is debilitating,” she said. “Like you go outside and you see someone that looks like your [assaulter] and you can’t function.”

She explains certain symptoms.

“So let’s go over some symptoms of PTSD from sexual assault that you might have. Number one is dissociating,” she said. “If I’m out in public and I see someone that I think might be him, I freeze. I get very tense. I don’t really talk. I kind of lose my personality. I’m no longer me.”

She describes a specific instance when it happened.

“And if you do actually see them, which did happen to me once, I think, I don’t know, it could have been someone that just looked like him. But I was at the gym, and I was trying to work out, work on myself. I look over, see someone, I freeze. I start panicking,” she says.

She describes how she reacted.

“Part of PTSD is panic attacks. I went to the bathroom, and I hid in the stall. I called my mom panicking. I was like, ‘Mom, I don’t know what to do and she came and got me,” she said. “She came, she tried to calm me down. I was like, I don’t know if he’s still out there. I can’t go out there.”

She said the two waited together before leaving.

“And so we’re in there, I don’t know how long, 10, 20 minutes. Eventually I calm down, and she’s like, okay, let’s walk out together, go out, and he’s standing there staring at me, and I run. I run,” she said.

She discusses the uncertainty of her recovery.

“It was just like, will I ever be able to not have that happen? I really hope so. I just, I hate PTSD, and I don’t really know much about it even though I have it,” she said. “But I really hope that I’m able to work through it and not have these kinds of responses anymore.”

She concludes the video by addressing viewers.

“Thank you all for listening. If you’re still listening, this was just a fucking rant that was triggered. Love you guys,” she said.

“And if you are a victim of sexual assault, no, you’re not alone. And if at the very least I support you. I believe you. You don’t need to have evidence. I believe you. I believe you,” she said.

@morgzzzzilla

Sharing my story for those who can’t #sexualassultawareness #ptsd #sa

♬ original sound – morgzzzzilla