[Hi :)]

Welcome Daya  we're so glad to have you here, this is a wonderful online community, and I hope you get all the support you need. Wishing you love and healing ❤️ 

[Hello]

It's nice to meet you, sweeney. I'm glad you are seeking out helpful resources, and I am sending you love, peace, and blessings. ❤️ -Su

[This is much better than Reddit]

Hi everyone. I'm Su, and I'm really happy to be here. I heard about After Silence through a Reddit forum for survivors called r/rape (Reddit is a popular site for all different kinds of forums, ranging from pop culture and news to anonymous chatroom therapy - that's what r/rape was). Although r/rape was somewhat helpful in the beginning - I felt validated and comforted by the other survivors there - we were often bullied and tormented by trolls and perverts who would take our venting/ranting posts and turn them into sick jokes and sexual fantasies. Reddit is a very loose website so it was easy for anyone to make an account, enter the rape counseling forums, and wreck havoc. I received two verbally abusive messages from two different perverts on Reddit. They were unfortunately very graphic and they sent me into a terrible panic attack, I was screaming and crying. I posted the details about the messages from the Reddit perverts onto The Aftermath thread.

Anyways, I'm really glad I signed up for AS. The Reddit forums were like fortresses constantly under attack by perverts who wanted to harass me and other survivors. AS is like a safe haven. I feel much better already.

I'm from Istanbul, Turkey, but now I live in the United States. My assault happened back in 2017 by someone I thought was my friend. I've made a lot of progress in the past year - my nightmares and panic attacks are not as frequent as they used to be - but, like I said, sometimes there are setbacks, like when those perverts bullied me. But I'm blessed to have people around me who support me, and I'm again very happy to be here.

I am studying law and I want to help women and children all around the world, especially in Turkey and the rest of the Middle East. International politics is very important to me. I want to protect young girls from going through what I did, and to change my country's patriarchal culture. There is lots of abuse against women in Turkey and the Middle East but we are fighting back! 💕