Dear Lily:

Thank you for the warning regarding wearing warm clothes when walking, and I hope what feels like a bladder infection is not that.

Your idea of want-to-be parents attending (competent/ quality) psychotherapy is excellent, I wish it could be implemented. Good to read once again that you learned to empathize with yourself instead of shaming yourself, and that you attend therapy with a competent therapist.

You wrote that the dormitory man told you that he was treating you so well, that he wanted to make you happy by having sex with you, that women in Afghanistan are treated well.. and your conclusion is that “he was a very confused man”. But Lily, his objective was to have sex with you and he accomplished his objective successfully by what he said and did- this indicates clarity of thinking, not confusion.

“I could see that.. he was suffering in some way”- we all do, all humans suffer in some way. Hold people responsible when they selfishly cause others to suffer. Don’t excuse people’s behavior by saying.. oh, he/ she is suffering too, he was confused, even when the person is partly confused.

You wrote that you want to read more about “how victims of sexual assault are treated“;  Regarding the man who sexually assaulted you, aka the dormitory man, you wrote: “I should have just given him a kick in the ass (not literally) and left him and never opened my doors for him again!”- I agree except that you should have given him a kick in the ass literally, and with all the force you can muster; this is how a perpetrator of sexual assault should be treated.

anita