< Translator’s note: The original formatting of the stories has been preserved. The translations aim to remain as close as possible to each author's original wording and expression.
I was 18, he was 29. We met when I was in Kyiv for a journalism school — we walked all night, kissed and froze in the cold, and in the morning I went back to Kharkiv. We agreed he'd come to visit in a few weeks. He came. He stayed somewhere with couchsurfing hosts, and during the day, we came to my room in the dormitory. He offered to give me a massage. "It'll be more comfortable if you take off your shirt." Ok, I was fine with that. After a while, he asked me to take off my skirt. I refused and said directly that I didn't want to have sex right then. After that, everything was fine, and two days later, he went back to Kyiv. And then he called — he said that my refusal to have sex had made him "go back to masturbating and looking for sex with other women." I felt uncomfortable and suggested we part ways.
A month later, I was passing through Kyiv. He tracked me down in the city centre — asked to talk. Now I understand where and how he manipulated me — but at the time I agreed. More than that, I spent a week living at his place. We had sex without a condom — because "the feeling isn't the same with one." Did this man, ten years older than me, offer any safe alternative for me? No. Later, I had a two-month delay in my period, and I wanted to kill myself, because I thought I was pregnant by him. One time, he was scrolling through my Instagram and said that in most photos, he didn't like how I looked at all — because I had chubby cheeks and should generally lose a few kilos. At the time, I weighed 45 kg.
He often mentioned his ex-partner and sighed, saying that with her he'd had real love, and he regretted their break-up. That week was hell for me. I cut my arms with hair clips. One morning, I ran home to Kharkiv, despite his pleas to stay. He wrote to me on every social network. I asked him to stop, but my refusal was ignored again. I blocked him, he created new accounts, and wrote again. The stalking lasted about two years. I was 18, he was 29, and everything that happened in this story is not my fault.
Darya; story told in 2021 as part of the "16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence" campaign