Scarleteen

I am a 5'8, blond haired, slim, pale-skinned FTM. 14 years old. Most who know me describe as "cute/sweet." I have a habit of unintentionally attracting older men into my life, like the type who smokes marlboros and wears muscle tanks and trucker caps and listens to Eminem. They usually don't bother me too much, and I can tolerate them without getting too close.

But when summer comes, everything flips. My mind is constantly fucked by booze and drugs, and I will wander the town for hours on end to numb my boredom. While doing this, I usually meet men, who with my state of mind, try to take advantage of me. I was in possible a rape/non con situation with a father of 1 last year, but he never showed up for our little hangout. This year, I've unwillingly stopped giving a damn. I just don't have the willpower anymore. I'm scared that I could actually get raped. In fact, my desperate, lonely ass probably will. I could be so wasted and careless that I wouldn't know what was happening, much less care.

So, say I'm in the park restroom. I'm finishing up when this dude I've known for a little bit walks in and starts feeling me up and shit. He takes off my pants and things go from there. What do I do? He's gonna do what he's gonna do, I'm so wasted I can't do shit about it. Do I just wait it out? How much does it hurt? Try to run? Beat him up? Do rapists wear condoms or pull out? I just need to be prepared for the inevitable. Be honest.

I think the simple truth is that if you're going to get wasted all the time and wander, something bad is likely to happen to you eventually. You're making yourself unsafe, so yeah, chances are good that that's going to result in some kind of (additional) trauma or violence coming your way, especially given all the ways you're vulnerable.

I'm not going to advise you about how to get through being sexually assaulted, for a whole bunch if reasons, the biggest one being that telling you how to do that instead of asking if I can help you seek out help and support so you stop using drugs and booze to cope, and help you stop the other kinds of self-harm (like wandering around alone and picking up strangers in this state) you're engaging in. Nobody does all that stuff who isn't dealing with trauma and/or a lot of pain, and nobody's life is improved by those ways of (not) coping.

It's not inevitable for you to wind up in the situation you're asking about, and it's probably ultimately in your control to prevent that. Can we talk about finding you some help and also giving you some support here?

Yeah. I've been dealing with mental health problems my whole life, and no matter how many people tell me to get help or tell me they care, I can't bring myself to stop being self-destructive. I lie about almost everything because I have a reputation to keep up. That intelligent, artistic, gentle young man has to keep his place as frontman. The guy who drinks and smokes and has his head in outer space has to remain silent. I just don't want people to know I'm bad. I wasn't supposed to be like this. I was supposed to be a normal teenager.

The good news is that 13 or 14 years of whole life may feel like a lot, especially if that life has been very challenging already, but in the grand scheme of things, it's a very short time. So, any "can't" of so far doesn't mean you won't be able to turn things around. It just means that -- I'm guessing for a small handful of years -- so far you haven't had success.

People telling you to get help or saying they care isn't, in and of itself, help. Those things aren't substance abuse treatment of any kind, for instance, nor therapeutic help with trauma.

I don't know what a normal teenager is (truly, I don't, because so far as I can tell, there is no such thing), but what I do know is that a lot of adolescents struggle and find it a very hard time of life, and that's massively amplified for anyone marginalized in other ways as well, like by being trans, queer or of color, for instance.

You didn't really answer my question up there, so I hope you won't mind if I ask again: are you open to myself or other staff working to find you some actual, in-person help with some or all of what you're grappling with right now?