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I’ve been contemplating about this a lot over the past few days; and so many brave women have come forward about their story.
I was sexually assaulted and almost raped;
I was sexually assaulted and almost raped;
Please don’t send hate to this person, however although I’m still dealing with the trauma of what he did to me and I’m going to go to therapy for it soon;
It is wrong what he did to me, but sending him hate wont affect the situation because the damage has been done. I’m not a violent or a hateful person and I do not wish harm even to those who have done me wrong.
This story is familiar within my close circle of friends and with heavy contemplation and their support; I’m ready to speak my story out.
During the end of the summer of 2019, I met Yousef Simsema, if I remember correctly he was 14 and he was 17 at the time.
For those who do not remember him, there was a video of where he was lip syncing to a song and someone threw the phone away in disgust.
This is a separate story but Yousef ended up finding out who the girl was (she’s a close friend of mine) and photoshopped her face onto unsolicited pictures of minors and threatened her saying that he’d spread them if she ever pulls anything like this again
Anyways, over the summer we started talking and we made plans to meet, tbh I can’t remember why I did; when I had told my friends my plans they quickly told me to dip on him.
My guy bestfriend dmed him and said that I can’t come and I remained with my friends the rest of the day. This angered yousef and he started threatening me into meeting up with him.
I have strict parents and I need to plan out my plans wisely because I can’t go out much. Yousef refused to understand that I’d rather see my friends than him who was a stranger to me. He started threatening me saying he’d do things such as:
Tell people that I was a whore a slut, and that he’d spread nudes of me of which he did not have to other people if I did not meet up with him. I still refused and stood my ground. He later apologized, said he was testing me if I could handle him and he wanted to see my reaction
He started guilt tripping me, victimizing himself of how he was impressed that I stood up to him and how usually everyone cowered before him. He said he had genuine feelings for me but because of what he did, he understood if I didn’t want to talk to him anymore.
Truth be told I didn’t, but I was foolish and gullible and I figured it wouldn’t hurt if I made plans with him. I have a toxic trait where I have a knack of beliving theres good in everyone. And so I gave my soon to be assaulter a chance :(
All my friends adviced against it. We compromised and we decided to meet at a mall where I’d spend half of the day with him and afterwards I’d meet up with my friends. We chose a public space so that if anything happened I’d be in safe hands.
I ended up having a great time, Yousef put up a persona where he showed me he cared, paid for movie tickets and bought me my favorite flower, sunflowers. He made it seem like he was genuine about me. And I fell for the act.
I had dinner with my friends and I left; the next couple of days everything fell apart due to personal reasons. I wasnt okay, Yousef wasn’t okay either. He had openly told one of my friends hed rape her if she didn’t warning other girls about him.
There was exposing done and other victims by Yousef came forward. They were also threatened into acts they did not want to commit, and countless of other things, some of them being my own best friends.
But a part of me believed Yousef and had hope when he said he had changed, my emotions were manipulated and he would bring up the things he’d done for me, bought me flowers, taken me out. And foolishly.... i believed him
At some point Yousef snapped and I offered him to come over to talk, I was genuinely concerned and I wanted to know if he was okay, and he did. I thought talking was all we were gonna do but... I was wrong....
He pushed me against the wall and he put his hands in my pants. I thought I was strong enough to push him away because he was quite lean and thin. But.. he was so strong.. too strong...
I started to beg him to stop, I told him multiple times and he wouldn’t. His hands just went deeper into my pants and the alarms started going off in my head. I wanted to be anywhere just away from him.
I struggled against him and all he would say was “Its okay, come on you want this. Let’s make the most out of our time”
I felt helpless and I felt like I had lost, no matter how much I struggled to break free from his hold, he fought back and pushed me more onto the wall.
All I could do was cry while I continued to beg him to stop.
When he saw the tears he stopped, and hugged me and kissed me. Saying that it was okay. But he never apologized. i was confused and scared. Wasn’t what almost had happened rape? Why was he comforting me? Maybe I’m just imagining things. He wouldn’t hurt me.
Over the course of the next few days I told my friends what had happened. They told me of what it was and I was in a state of shock. I was terrified and I couldn’t slee for nights on end.
I opened up and soon his other victims confided with me and we all shared our stories together. We made a groupcaht and Yousef apologized yet still denying the things he had done.
“For x im sorry I did this, even though I’ve never done it, I’m still sorry” he said so sarcastically and my blood boiled. And I can recall correctly he never apologized to me.
He blamed me for other girls wanting nothing to do with him after I started warning other girls to stay away from him. He blamed me and said that everything that had happened was my fault. And then told me if I ever opened my mouth again—
He would spread fake edited screenshots of me saying sexual things and make it seem like I was someone who I’m not. He said he would spread rumors about me and hed do everything in his will to destroy me.
I stood my ground and I told him I didn’t care. But I never gained closure of how he had sexually assaulted me that night and how he manipulated me to think that I was the bad guy that brought damnation in his life.
Over the next few months I would see him occasionally at places where I would usually hang out with my friends. My heart would drop whenever I saw him and I pretended that he wasn’t there.
It terrified me that my guy friends were unfortunately friends with him as well, and I felt alone during those days where I would see my friends hang out and laugh along the guy who sexually harassed me.
Slowly I started telling my friends my story, and they were mortified. They apologized to me and told me that they were there for me. They slowly distanced themselves from Yousef and showed me support. Whenever Yousef showed up uninvited and I was there with them—
They would tell me “Toni stay with x and go someplace else, I’ll talk to Yousef while you guys go hide. “
My story is just one of many that Yousef had done to other girls. As young as 13. All I ever wanted was an apology, and to this day I have not received one.
If you are his friends, shame you for knowing that other women not just me, had gone through this and you still kept ties with him. Shame you for not standing up to the women who were his victims who you still call friends.
