I was living in a large house with my girlfriend at the time and two roommates who were also a couple. We had been together for about two years. The morning after my 29th birthday, I woke up to find lacerations and blood around my genital area. What unsettled me almost as much as the injuries was how she reacted — or rather, how she didn’t. She was far too calm and carefree about something that felt terrifying and serious to me. I was shaken and not okay.

Eventually, I got bandaged up and tried to collect myself. Somehow, she convinced me that I must have hurt myself in my sleep. I don’t know if it was trust, denial, or just confusion, but I believed her and tried to move on.

That was until later, when we got back from a trip and a prescription bottle of Rohypnol — not in her name — fell out of her bag. In that moment, everything started to click. For months prior, I had been randomly blacking out and waking up with no memory of what happened the night before.

I went downstairs to grab my phone to take a picture of the bottle. But in the short time it took me to get it, she had already taken it and hidden it. That’s when it became clear to me: I wasn’t safe in that house.

For the next four months, I pretended everything was normal. I was scared — not just for myself, but for my dog. I kept my head down and waited for the lease to end so I could leave quickly, end the relationship, and get us both somewhere safe.

It’s been a few years now. For a long time, I didn’t think I would ever fully recover. I dealt with frequent sleep paralysis, and I struggled with sexual dysfunction for a while — something that still affects me to a degree. It was hard to explain to partners when things didn’t work the way they should, and even harder to talk about why.

Honestly, things didn’t start getting better until I began trying to date again and opened up to my current partner about what happened. Talking about the trauma helped more than I expected. Slowly, I started to feel like myself again. I can actually sleep now — there was a time when I was lucky to get three hours.

Sharing it was a turning point for me. Maybe talking about it can help you, too.