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When you know how to do something, it's often very easy to do it. Of course, there's this thing called "the learning curve" that must be experienced. I finally, after maybe a dozen different attempts, found a way to make the transcript quickly and easily. The hard part was learning to do it easily... Hmm... How come nobody else made this transcript? It is essential if anyone wants to discuss this man's experiences intelligently to get his words down on paper, isn't it? I have NOT compared it with the original recording, so there are sure to slight errors where the transcription software divided sentences incorrectly, or got a word wrong. No, I do NOT have the time to make it perfect! In my experience, it takes at least two or three times longer to fix a transcript than to play/listen to the original audio. There's lot's of pausing, fixing, backspacing, scrolling, pausing, fixing... But having this available will, I hope, stop people from posting things like, "I think he said..." "If I remember correctly..." etc. Now if someone wants to discuss this, they can do it in a more intelligent way, IMHO... So when I was 12 years old, he performed oral sex on me for the first time, and after I had ejaculated and had an orgasm, he was proud of himself, and he asked me if I enjoyed it, and I said yes. And then he says to me, before I die, I'm going to fuck you. I was born and raised in Lima, Ohio, which is on 75 Northwest Ohio. I guess it's a small town, maybe 30,000, 40,000 people. To me, it felt like a big city as a kid, until I've kind of grown older and gone to big cities. But I was born to a mother of three, so I was the middle child. Me and my two sisters, we're all one year apart. And my mom had all three of us by the time she was 19 or 20. She had us very early, very quick. And when I was around two years old, my father and my mom get into a fight. And it's a he said, she said between the two of them. They get into an argument, and my mom supposedly had a knife. My dad was trying to maybe defend himself and ends up stabbing her behind the ear. So he went to prison for, and I don't know how long he went to prison. I just never had a father growing up, and that felt, I guess, normal to me. I don't know that I realized I didn't have a father, growing up. I was kind of just like, I had mom. It was like me, mom, and the sisters, and that was it. My earliest memories are being like five years old, being in kindergarten. I just remember being big enough to stand on a chair, reach the sink to do the dishes, to put food in the microwave, maybe cook noodles on the stove. Those are my earliest memories. I remember coming home from kindergarten. We had this, my mom would always, she would always write in a notebook, like three paragraphs, one for each one of us, of chores to do before we could go outside and play. Because she was working all the time. She's a single mother of three kids, so she had to work. And she would be working during the day, so she could be with us at night. So we'd come home and do our chores and get everything ready and go outside and play. And then we did a bunch of dumb shit that kids always do. We were running around fighting with each other, just doing stupid things. And part of that was we ended up finding my mom's porn collection. She had a pretty big porn collection. And at five years old, I found like these VHS tapes that I would basically plug them in, watch them, look at the covers, and we watch these things. And it's captivating as a child to watch porn. You don't know what the hell's going on, so you're trying to figure it all out. And because of that exposure, I unfortunately would end up doing that behavior to another young girl in my community. So in this apartment complex we lived in, she was my age. I was five. She was five or six maybe. And I was trying to have like full-blown sex with this girl. And we had our clothes on. We were in our closet. We're laying there. And I can remember, I remember she had sweatpants on. And I just remember like kissing her and touching her. And she really wasn't doing anything. So I can imagine she had probably not been exposed or had no idea what the hell's going on. And then my mom like rips the door open and looks down at us. And she's like, you know, what the hell are you guys doing? And I look up and, you know, she's like, are you trying to have sex? And I said, no. She asked a girl. The girl said yes. And so my mom like yanks me out of the closet and beats my ass. Maybe rightfully so. Those are like my earliest, earliest memories though. You know, I remember my mom was, she drank a lot. She had friends over a lot. She had different, she had boyfriends all the time. Bunch of different boyfriends. She was always drinking and smoking. There was always a bunch of friends at the house. And we were always going to different babysitters homes too. So I had so many different babysitters growing up. And it was, it was just normal for us, I guess, to go to a babysitter's house. And unfortunately, because of the lack of stability at home with my mom always gone, no father in the picture, going to different babysitters homes all the time. One of the babysitters that I lived with or that we were staying with, we would stay with them for a week or two at a time. And they had a bunch of kids. They had like four or five boys. One of the older boys who was a teenager, I remember being in his bunk with him at night. He took me up to the top bunk and he would expose himself to me. And he would also look at me as well. He, I think he would touch me and, but he, I for sure remember seeing him. The reason why I can remember this so well now is because I remember he looked like a grown man. I was five years old. And so he just looked so much different than me, which is kind of what stood out. I was kind of like puzzled or confused that, you know, I don't know. I just didn't know what the hell was going on. And so he would touch me and I would, he'd make me touch him and he was well into his teen years. And so that happened a few times. I was five and, and I remember reporting that too. I remember reporting and telling my grandparents, we would go and visit them on the weekends. And I ended up reporting, telling them they went and went to my mom and went to that kid's parents and kind of tried to fix the situation. And I don't know what, what was done, but we kept going back to that house. In fact, my mom, there was times where she, we didn't, she didn't have a place to live or she wouldn't have a place for us to live. So she would have like a very small, like one bedroom apartment and we would go visit her on the weekends. And we were living with these people during the week and going to school with them and being raised with them and eating dinner with them while their, you know, their teenage son had, had, had molested me multiple times. So, and even at five years old, I don't think I realized the impact that it had on me at that time. You're kind of just in survival mode. When you're a child going through that kind of stuff, your brain kind of goes into like this, like almost reptilian mindset of you're just trying to survive. So you don't even process the emotional damage of what's happening to you in the neglect. So even without child abuse, the neglect alone damages a child and it kind of prevents them from growing emotionally. So over the next few years, like five, six, seven, eight years old, my mom continues to drink and smoke, dating a bunch of boy, boyfriends. There was always like fights. She was always getting in fights. I remember seeing a hole in the wall and one of the apartments we lived in, I remember coming home and there was a hole in the wall and there was a broken glass on the, on the ground. And my mom had bragged about the man had like thrown a punch at her and he missed and he punched a hole in the wall and she threw a glass at him. So at this very young age, my mom was like talking about these things vividly and openly and almost like bragging to her children about what was going on. And she just wasn't in the right mindset. She shouldn't have been saying those things and it kind of affected us. So there was a lot of boyfriends, a lot of violence and drinking, stuff like that, partying at the house. And, you know, maybe seven, eight years old, it starts to get worse. Her temper starts to get worse and she's smoking weed and drinking a lot. And her temper starts to get worse to where she's, she's basically starts to become physically abusive. She starts to close hand punch us. She's, instead of whooping us, it was a lot of like, she would, she had these long nails and she had rings. She had a bunch of rings on her fingers and she would grab us by our face and she would like grab you by the face with her nails and slam your head into the wall. She would slam my head into the wall and like she'd get real close to me and get real close to my face and yell at me. And I can remember, I have these like vivid memories of like seeing the spit between her teeth, seeing, smelling her breath as it's like hitting me in the face and, and just being pushed up against the wall as she's like yelling and screaming at me about whatever we had done wrong. And she became, she started to become more and more violent. There was times where she was drunk, driving. Her boyfriend was in the passenger seat and she's flying down this like 25 mile an hour road and she was doing probably 45 or 50, 55 and she's screaming at everybody in the car, I'm going to fucking kill everybody. I'm going to fucking kill us all. And she's like flying down this road and me and my sisters in the back yelling and screaming. And she turns around and is telling us to shut the fuck up because we're yelling and screaming. And she was in a drunken rage, you know, and maybe high. And I don't think she was doing anything hard at this point other than just smoking weed and drinking. But these moments, we call them adverse childhood experiences. They just continue to stack up. And the more they stack up, the more life is going to be kind of against you in the long run, I guess is a way to put it. I remember coming home at nine, 10 years old and coming home from school. And this was the day that I knew that I would do something different with my life and that I wouldn't be a statistic. I remember going upstairs in this house and I look into the living room, look off to the right in the living room. And my mom is in there, her boyfriend, there's like six, seven other men. And both of my sisters are in there. And at least my older sister, I know for a fact, was smoking weed with them. So all of these adults are in this living room passing a blunt to a little girl who's, she would have been 10 years old at the oldest at that moment, smoking weed with a 10, 11 year old girl. And at that moment, I looked over at them and I just knew to myself, I wasn't going to do anything like that. I knew that I was going to rise above it. I thought that drugs and alcohol were bad. I thought that weed was really bad. I mean, this was 20 years ago when weed was considered like a really bad drug, I guess. So I just had this opinion that I was never going to mess with any of that shit. And I was like, I'm going to move on with my life and I'm not ever going to do any of this. And so I knew it that, I remember that day, just, I knew I'd write a book or something because I knew that's when my life was starting to go down this path that was not common to other kids. And during that time, I ended up meeting this kid down, he lived, you know, he lived around the corner from me. For the sake of the story, I'll say his name's Jacob, but I meet him. He's a little bit older than me. And I had a tendency to hang out with older kids. I had a tendency to hang out with older kids or bigger kids so that they could protect me. Because I was always getting in fights. I was always getting in trouble at night. I was always running around until two, three in the morning, throwing eggs at cars, throwing rocks at cars, breaking into cars, stealing shit, just doing a bunch of dumb shit. And I never got caught. Fortunately enough, I never got caught with anything stupid that I did as a very young boy. But I hung out with these other, these older kids because they would always protect me. I was very small, a very small kid. And I ended up meeting this kid, Jacob. He was, he's about 15. I was 10 years old. And I started hanging out with him. And Jacob kind of knows that my life is going south. At this point, he kind of took me in as like a, almost like a little brother. And he was like, letting me come over to his house all the time, letting me hang out, play video games and eat with him and stuff like that. Spend the night with a lot. And he knew I was telling him about these other things that were happening. And, you know, for example, I walked home from school one day. I wasn't supposed to walk home from school. I walked home from school and it took us longer than we should have. Me and my cousins were kind of messing around. And when I got home, my mom wasn't mad or scared or upset that I possibly was missing. She was just like pissed off, like, where the fuck have you been? And I kind of walked up and I was like, caught off guard. I didn't think it was a big deal. And she, she takes me upstairs to give me a whooping. And this was, this was the first time she had really hit me to a point where I knew something was wrong. And I, she takes me upstairs and she bends me over the bed. I'm bent over the bed and I'm grabbing the blankets because when we were getting whooped, if you turn and try to protect your butt, she's just going to keep swinging. So you just hang on to the blankets until she's done and then you're done. And it's not as bad. So I was hanging on the blankets and she grabs this, she had this, um, it was like a two by six paddle. It was like a two by six with a handle carved into it, had a bunch of holes drilled in one end of it. And she takes it and she, the first time she cracks me on across my ass, I processed it so quickly that like this was, this was wrong. This is bad. I could, because I had bounced off the bed so hard that I fell down to my knees and she kept swinging and she swings maybe four or five, six more times and just hits me across my back multiple times. And I don't remember the pain of that today, but I do, I remember everything about that room. I remember about the bed. I remember feeling the wood kind of hitting me across the back. And there was this like sense of rage and anger in the room. And as she like struck me down, I fall to the floor and I looked up at my mom and I don't have a father. And so I'm, I'm thinking to myself, like looking at her, why are you doing this to me? Like why you're supposed to protect me and love me. And I don't have that in my life. And now you just beat the shit out of me with like no remorse, like no remorse. And I'm screaming and crying. And the next thing she says to me verbatim was get the fuck out of here, go to your fucking room. And so I crawled in my room around the corner and I laid on my room on the floor in my room and I was crying and I laid there for hours. And I think mostly that was just the emotional response of, I just, I wanted my mom to come and take care of me and to love me and to protect me. And she never did. She never came up to check on me. She never, never, never said anything. And just, she just left me there. You know, no remorse, no apologies, no, I love yous, nothing. So I think at that point I started to, I think that's when I probably started to fantasize about suicide because, because of the abuse, the drugs and the violence in my house, but also we didn't have a lot of money. So there was, you know, wearing the same clothes as school, uh, the school shoes that had holes in them. I was wetting the bed every night because I was so stressed out and scared. I, we oftentimes, we didn't have utilities. So like we would have to heat up our bath water. And, you know, sometimes we didn't have power or, or, you know, there was just like random times. We just didn't have utilities for some extended amount of time, or we'd have to go to somebody's house to take a bath. And so there was just this lack of, once again, stability in the home. And, uh, I would, I would think about jumping out of my window a lot when I was, when I was 10 years old, I didn't know how to kill myself. So I would always think about suicide. And I was, I would thought about cutting myself. I thought about hanging myself, shooting myself, stabbing myself, or jumping out of my window. Like just, I would always sit outside my window and look out there at night. And I would just think like, if I just land just right, I'll break my neck and die at 10 years old. But I told myself like, if I don't, it's going to hurt like hell. And I'm going to be walking around like an asshole for the rest of my life. So I was always scared. I was scared of the pain. I was scared to commit to it. So I never did obviously, but, um, you know, a few weeks after that happened, I was sitting in my room and playing video games and my older sister was in there with me. She had just come into the room. She had just gotten into a fight with my little sister. And so my older sister came in and she's venting to me and I'm kind of listening to her. I'm playing the video game, listening to her. And there's, I'm sitting on my bed and off to my left, there's a wall. And my sister's sitting on my bed with her back against that wall. And right next to her is the door. And out of nowhere, my mom, boom, door kicks open. My mom looks to her right, which my sister's right there. My mom takes her hand like hammer fist style and just swings on my sister. Boom, punches her in the face, hits her maybe two or three more times. I mean, just like repeatedly striking her, bouncing her. I remember seeing her head smack against the wall. And within a half a second, I had jumped on the other side of my bed and I'm like crouched, hiding down behind my bed, looking up. And I was immediately hysterical. I was crying, just screaming. And my mom looks at me and says, what are you crying about? Stop being a bitch before I give you something to cry about. And that was it. Like she like walks out of the room, slams the door. And those are like, unfortunately, those are like the very few memories that I have of growing up. A lot of them are just these like violent, rage induced moments of abuse and yelling and screaming. And because of the situation, I've, you know, like I said a minute ago, started hanging out with Jacob. And Jacob, I had told him about these things that were happening. So he's trying to protect me and I'm hanging out with him and his friends and his friends are all in high school. And one day I'm over there and this man walks in the front door and this guy's 6'5", 380 pounds. He's massive. And he looks very pale, but you can tell he's Hispanic. He's got this long black slick back hair. He's got these big aviator, like wire frame glasses on. He walks in. He looks like a left tackle. Like he just looks, he's massive. He doesn't look sloppy though. He like, he looks like he could throw a hard punch. He looks very just like thick. And he walks in and I'm kind of looking at this guy, like who the hell is this? And, and he says, Hey, what's your name? And I'm Seth. He's like, Oh, do you like video games? I'm like, yeah, I love video games. Like, do you like pizza? Yeah, I fucking love pizza. So, okay. He's like, well, well, why don't you, or he asked me, you know, why don't, why don't you come up to the house with, with me and Jacob this weekend and we'll play video games. And so I, I'm like, yeah, well, let me go home and ask my mom. So I go home and ask my mom, mom, Hey, this, this guy, his name is Mondo. We, we want to go up to his house and play video games. And my mom at this point had known Jacob for a while. And so she said, well, as long as you're with Jacob, you can go. So I go back and I go with Jacob and boom, we're going up to Mondo's house. And I remember getting into his car. He drove a, he had a, he had a white Honda civic and I get into the backseat and there's trash everywhere. There's trash all over the floor board, trash all over the seat. And I'm thinking, I mean, I was only 10 years old. So I didn't really give a shit. I was like, whatever. Like we're getting in the fucking car. Like not a big deal. Like we're, we're going to go fucking play video games. Like this is gonna be fucking awesome. So we get into the car and I remember too, there was AC which was, it was hot as hell. And this was the first car that I'd ever gotten into where the AC was on. And I was just like, dude, this is fucking awesome, man. I'm like fucking AC's blasting, you know? So we go to this chicken place in my hometown and we get a bunch of food off the chicken, off the menu. I get a pop, I get fries, chicken. And I'm once again, this is like nothing I've ever had before. But like whenever we go to the restaurants or anything, we couldn't get shit. So I go to this restaurant and we got all this food and we're going up. Now we're driving like 30 minutes up to Bluffton, Ohio. And we get on the, we get on 75 and we're listening to AC, DC, Metallica. And I'm in the back seat and I'm just looking at these two in the front seat. I've got Jacob, who's like my, basically like an older brother to me now. And Mondo, my new friend who's, who's got a fucking car and he can drive and buy me shit. And I'm like, dude, like this is fucking awesome. Like, man, like my life is finally going to turn around, you know? I was so excited to have these good friends. And, you know, we're, I could cuss, I could do whatever the hell I wanted. It was awesome. And so we get to his house, we pull up and it's this, it's this, it's a studio apartment. So it's just one building. I walk in the front door. And the first thing I notice is it's dark and it's cold, dark and very cold. And there's just like a shit ton of trash piled up right there in front of the door, just like his car. Like there was like trash bags and just like random shit just piled up right in front of the, right in the front door. And I turned to my right and I see an entertainment center, two, three TVs, and a few game systems, like Xboxes, PlayStations. I look to the back right corner, there's two desktop computers. In the middle of the room, there's a big round table with like Dungeons and Dragons stuff on there. And in the back left corner, there's this black curtain that's hanging from the ceiling and it kind of forms blocks off the corner. That's where his bed was. You know, and there's a couch and chair and stuff in front of the TVs. And my first thought immediately was, all right, this is fucking sick, because there's multiple TVs, there's multiple game systems, like we don't have to take turns. I'm like, dude, this is fucking awesome. And in the back right corner, on the other side of the desktop computers, there's like a kitchenette. So there's like, you got your stove and your fridge, and there's a little bathroom in there as well. It's just like a typical studio apartment. And I'm like, man, this is awesome. I go back there, go to the bathroom, check the fridge. It's loaded up with like pop and whatever energy drinks. And so we start playing video games. And it was just fucking awesome, man. It was like, it's like going to your friend's house. But every time you go to your friend's house as a kid, they have parents. And they have fucking rules. And you can't eat the fucking potato chips, you can't eat the snacks, you can't drink the pop, you can't do this. And it was like, no fucking rules. I'm like, dude, this is fucking awesome, man. So we're playing video games, boom, having a great fucking time. You know, that night, I slept, I started, I would either sleep on the couch, or he had this like rollout mat that was behind the couch, and I would sleep on that. And I remember seeing Jacob go back and get in his bed with him. I remember like him going back to his bedroom, you know, and I didn't think anything of it. I was just like, if me and another boy were having a sleepover, we sleep in the same bed, too. Like, it never dawned on me that anything might have been happening. So whatever, wake up, Sunday comes around, we start watching football. You know, we're all like Buckeye and Browns and Packers fans. And so we're watching football. And on Sundays, you know, we'd watch football, get tacos, and then he would take us home. And so he takes us home and when we're going home, he asks, you know, like, well, hey, when do you want to come back? And I was like, dude, I'll fucking come back like next weekend. Like, let's do this again. So it basically becomes a ritual or routine that I would go to his house every single weekend from this point forward. If there's 52 weekends in a year, I was at his house 45 to 50 of them every fucking weekend. And within about a month or two, I start to disclose to Mondo that, you know, my mom is real mean. My mom is abusive. And I started telling him about my personal life a little bit more in more detail. And I tell him my mom is mean, and she's an alcoholic, and she smokes a lot, and she's abusive. And I was also a really smart kid. I was a perfect student. I was a straight A student in school. So telling him all these things, I was telling him about the bullies that I had at school, the issues that I had at school. And everything that I told him, he would reiterate to me about his own life. He would tell me, oh, well, you know, my mom was real mean when I was growing up too. And I also had two sisters, and my mom loved my sisters, but she didn't like me. She would abuse me and beat me. And, you know, he didn't have a father in his life. I didn't have a father. He loved video games. I loved video games. He loved football. I loved football. We all loved, we loved the same things. And he was the only person in my entire life at this point that I could talk to that could relate to me 100%. And so we just started bonding and bonding and became very close. And, you know, within a month or two, and I was going up to his house alone now. If Jacob couldn't go, I would just go by myself. And I don't remember if my mom was asking or if I just started lying or what. I just was going to his house regardless, every weekend. And I would end up meeting his mom, end up meeting his sisters. I would end up going to his Thanksgivings, Fourth of Julys, Christmases, met his whole family. And so this man who's in his 30s is showing up to holidays, family holidays, with this little boy who's 10 years old, 11 years old. And at the time I had real long hair. I had real long brown hair down to my shoulders. And truthfully, I did look like a little girl. And when I first met his mom, his mom actually told me I was too pretty to be a boy. And, you know, we kind of laughed about it and laughed it off. And I keep hanging out with him. And, you know, maybe three, four months in, I'm up at his house. And Jacob's actually with us this weekend. And on a Sunday, Jacob goes to get tacos before we go home. And we're watching football. And his apartment was so cold that I was always cold in there. So one day, you know, prior to this moment, Mondo had said, well, if you're cold, why don't you sit in my lap with me? And he's, you know, like I said, he's this big ass guy. So I get in his lap. I'm sitting on his left knee. And I'm under the blanket with him. And it was just, it was so nice. It was so warm. He was so big. He was like a big pillow, like a big teddy bear. And he cared about me and he loved me. I could feel it, you know. When you're a little boy, like your father's love and affection is something that is just so special. And I never had that. And so like when I was like snuggled up with him, I was like, man, like this is like really like I just love this. Like this is so comforting and I'm safe. I can relax. And so I'm laying there on his chest and he's got the blanket over us and his hands on my, his left hands on my left hip. And he had these massive hands, like just, his hands were so big. And his knuckles, he had these, his knuckles were huge and they were calloused. They were so calloused he would take his knuckles and rub them together. And it sounded like if you were taking rocks and rubbing two rocks together, that's, that's, he would always do that with his knuckles. And he had these long nails. And I remember even like his palms were calloused and he had his, he had his left hand on my left hip and, you know, we're kind of watching football and his hand drops off my hip and it hits my butt. And he said, I'm sorry. And I was like, that's not a big deal. Like we just, not a big deal. He just bumped my butt. Not a big deal. You know, I'm thinking to myself, like if you and me bump each other in the hallway, not a big deal. And so he brings his hand back up and grabs my butt and he says, so this is okay. And at that moment, I knew that something wasn't right. Like I knew what was happening and I froze, which basically gives them consent. Because if I did not fight it off right away, he knows that he got me. So he's holding me by, like just on my butt. And we hear the gravel outside. And so Jacob had just gotten back from the tacos. And so we hear the gravel and he moves his hand real quick. And so at that point I had acknowledged like, okay, he knows that this was wrong and that what he's doing to me is wrong. I know it's wrong. And I just sit there in silence and Jacob comes in and we eat our tacos and we go home. And I didn't think anything of it after that. I was just kind of like, there's, you know, not a big deal. Like I'm sure it wasn't anything. So keep going back to his house, keep going back to his house. And every weekend I would go there from this point forward. It was, he was just kind of rounding the bases basically. And I would go up and he would, I would immediately sit in his lap at this point. I'd go up there, climb in his lap and sit there. And, you know, he would, he'd put his hand on me and then he would start to work his hand into my shorts. And it went from, you know, he would put his thumb into my waistband. He'd put his thumb in my waistband. He'd put his thumb in my waistband so he could just hang his hand there. Then it would slowly—he'd work his index finger in there, and then he would slowly, you know, get three fingers into my waistband. Then he would have his whole hand in my waistband. And I just, to this day, I can remember the cozy feeling of his skin rubbing against my hip and my leg, and his nails just like touching your skin—these sensory feelings. And, um, you know, he slowly starts to work his hand into my pants to where he's just got his hand on my butt, on my bare skin, on my butt. And I'm sitting there, and I'm just—you don't know what to do, you're terrified. And you're getting all these other things like video games, pizza, pop, and entertainment, and attention, so you don't, you don't do anything. You just sit there. And so it progressively gets worse and worse every weekend. And during this time, you know, after knowing him for about three or four months, my mom had a new boyfriend. So not only was this happening on the weekends, but during the week we had moved into a new home during the winter in Ohio. And I remember getting to this house and we didn't have utilities on the house yet. We couldn't afford it. So we're moving in and there's no power. We were actually running a extension cord from our basement to the neighbor's basement. We were stealing their power and we had it hooked up in our house to try to get some space heaters going. So we're walking around the house trying to move in. And it was so cold that you could see your breath in the house. And so I remember going upstairs, walking upstairs. This is like hardwood stairs. It's all like rickety and cracking and popping. And I go to turn into my bedroom. My bedroom is right at the top of the stairs and the hardwoods are completely buckled and ripped apart. They're buckled and cracked and split. And they do that when they're exposed to weather, hardwoods will. And so I look up and there's this hole in my ceiling. It's maybe three, four feet wide and two, three feet deep. And it's exposed attic straight above. So I could see straight into the attic above. And I'm thinking to myself like, this is my room. I'm like, what the fuck is going on? And I was about 10 years old at this point. And so I'm thinking like, my room smelled like piss and shit. Apparently the people that had lived there before had several dogs just locked up in that room. And so I've got this shithole of a room that I'm living in. My, I slept on a little thin little mattress. It was like three, four inches thick on the floor. Had a thin little blanket, wet the bed every night. It was freezing cold. And that was my sanctuary. Like that was the place I could go to get away from the rest of my house if I needed to. My sister slept in the hall down the, slept in a bedroom down the room or down the hallway. And their room was relatively normal. My mom slept downstairs in the living room. And this was the point where I like started to question my mom's, my mom's like decision-making because she had put me up in this room and she was down in the living room where it was nice and warm sleeping. And she had like no issues with me sleeping up in my room where I was exposed to the elements and the weather and stuff. So that's when I started to question like what the fuck is going on. And I really was, you know, going down that deep suicidal ideation kind of thing, thinking about it all day, every day. And it was getting really bad. When she, because we were in this new house and she's with this new boyfriend, he started selling her on like pipe dreams. You know, they'd get, he gets her addicted to crack and cocaine. And this guy was actually, he's like the head of a church. He's like a pastor or whoever the fuck gets in front of the church and speaks, whatever that title is. He was that guy. And he gets my mom addicted to crack and cocaine. And I remember going to the church and, you know, my mom was like infatuated with this guy because he was a man of God. And, and all these people are in the fucking crowd yelling and screaming, speaking tongues. And I had never seen that shit before. So I was like, what the fuck is going on? Me and my sisters are like, what the hell is going on? And, you know, we go back home and we start to see more drugs coming into the house. We start to see like 10, 15, 20 people a day would come in and they would go to the bathroom in the back of the house. There was this tiny little bathroom and they'd get high. They'd be back there for hours, eight, nine, 10 hours. And they'd just get high all day at night, you know, 10, 11, 12 o'clock at night, they would, they would be sitting on my couch or the chair. And I remember just like walking in and seeing them. And this was the first time I had been exposed to, I guess, hard drugs, but they would sit there and like, I remember they would, they would like sit back and they would have their hands on their legs. And they would just like, kind of like shake. They were just like, like convulsing almost. And, and, or their heads would be like tilted back and they would just be like a fucking zombie. And I was like, I remember seeing being there like 10 years old, like looking at him, like, what the fuck is going on? And I'm just like staring at these guys, like, Jesus Christ. And, um, you know, that I had a pregnant aunt at the time. She was very visibly pregnant. And she was, uh, she was one of those people that I'd seen getting high. And, you know, one day we had a maintenance guy show up at the house and, and, um, I opened the front door and he, he needed to go in the basement. So I go check on the basement. I go open the door and my mom was down there. And I, I almost always knocked whenever I went into the bathroom because I, for, for two reasons, kind of to protect her, but also to protect me. Like I didn't want to see it. I didn't, I didn't want to know that it was actually happening. And I also wanted to give my mom an opportunity to protect herself, you know, from like her own kids, seeing her do these things. And so this day though, I didn't, I didn't think to knock and I would just open the door. And I remember seeing like a bottle, like a water bottle and some like clear smoke and a couple people down there. And when I opened the door, they kind of jumped and turned almost like that innocent or the guilty, like conscience kind of thing. And, you know, she's like, what do you want? You know? And I said, well, you know, somebody here. And so I was really starting to like confirm with myself that she was indeed doing hard drugs. And so Monday through Friday, like this was a life I was living, going home, sleeping in that, you know, room and, and seeing all the drugs and the addicts coming in and out of my house. My mom was selling our, our food stamps for drugs. So we really didn't have a lot of food. We were eating, you know, like egg noodles and butter for a lot of meals. I remember, yeah, it was just bad. We didn't have a lot of money, a lot of food, a lot of clothes. And my only escape once again, was going back to Mondo's house. So every weekend, Friday night, he'd come pick me up. I'd go up there Friday night, Saturday night, come home Sunday. And, you know, things at Mondo's house get worse. It went from going up there and probably 90% of it was like video games and fun to, and 10% of it, it was like him kind of touching me to slowly the ratio just kind of flipped. It was like 80, 20, and then, you know, 70, 30, and then it's like half and half. And then within a year, you know, he had gotten to the point where I would go to his house. And as soon as we got there, he would go back and lay in his bed. And he would talk about how depressed he was and how he wanted to kill himself and how if, if I didn't go back there with him, or if I wasn't seeing him, or if I wasn't visiting him, he was going to kill himself. And so he would lay back there and he would punch the wall behind his bed. And he would just punch it, punch it with his big ass hands. And I'd be out there playing video games and I would hear like the boom, boom, boom. And like the first few times it happened, I'm like, you know, what the hell's going on? And so I go back there and check on him. I'm like, Hey, like, are you okay? Like what's wrong? And, you know, he would just say, I'm just so angry, or I'm so depressed or, you know, whatever, whatever it was to get my attention. And after a few times of that happening, cause he would say that, and then I would get in bed with him. He would basically, you know, he wanted me to love him and get in bed with him. So I would get into bed with him and then, you know, he would be touching me and he would put his hands on my shorts and he would, you know, he's just trying to make progress sexually. And so after a few times of that happening, when I was out there playing video games and I would hear that, that banging on the wall, I, it was almost like being called to hell or like the dinner bell ringing. It was just like, I knew my time was coming. Like I knew like, that's what that was. And so I would be playing, you know, when I, when I heard that I, my stomach would just drop and I'm just thinking like, you got to like, go pay your dues. You got to go like pay the taxes or whatever. Like you got to go do the, do the deed. And he wouldn't stop until I did. So he wouldn't, he wouldn't stop until I did it. And so at some point it became easier for me to just feed the beast than to, than to hold them off and try to try to fend them off. And, you know, 11 years old, 12 years old, he starts to touch me more. He starts to touch my penis more. He's grabbing me, you know, by my penis and, and I'm getting aroused. My, my body does the natural thing and, and, you know, I get aroused. And I remember, you know, I remember the first times like his, he had very rough hands, like I said, and he was just touching me and it hurt. And so I remember the first times of him spitting into his hand and going down on my 11 year old body and he's touching me and like masturbating me and laying there and just like his room was dark as hell and there was no clock back there. So there was like no frame of reference for time. I would just be back there for what seemed like hours and hours and hours. And it kind of felt like it was just like a black bed. It just kind of felt like you're lost at sea and you're just trying to stay above water. And these waves just keep coming and coming. And you're just like wondering like, when's this going to end? And it just gets worse and worse and worse. And he goes down and, you know, I was like 12 years old the first time he performs oral sex on me. I remember him kind of working. He's like laying his head on my chest and he starts to work down and I'm laying there and I'm kind of just like, I don't know what's going on. And then he goes down and he starts to perform oral sex on me. And I remember laying there looking down and this whole thing's happening and I'm, you know, going through this like range of emotions and I end up having my first orgasm. And when I was done or I had an orgasm, he looks up at me like proud and he looks up at me and he says, did you enjoy that? And what am I going to say? Like I just had an orgasm. So I, yes. And he was real proud of that. And, you know, over the course of time, he convinces me or manipulates me. I don't know the right word for it, but he gets me to perform oral sex on him. And, you know, at first it was just like my hand. I was just using my hand. And I remember the first time, like reaching down, he's like, you know, he would do, he would grab my hand and pull my hand over and he'd put it, you know, down on his waistband. And then he would kind of, and I just, I wouldn't move. Like I did not like partake in any of this. I did not enjoy it. I didn't, I fucking, it just made my skin crawl. But he would take my hand and he would just kind of push it down a little bit further. And I would just freeze. I just was frozen. I just didn't want to move. And I remember he pushes my hand down, like onto his penis, over his underwear. And his, it was soaked, like his underwear was soaked. And I was like, thinking to myself, like, oh my God, like I pulled my hand back because it was wet. I'm like, this guy's like pissing himself. Come to find out he was so, so stimulated, so aroused by my 10, 11, 12 year old body that he was almost ejaculating before I was even touching him. And that's what that was. And eventually, you know, he gets me to put my hand in his underwear and then I'm, I've got my, I'm touching his penis and I'm like masturbating him. And then he pushes my head down and he's kind of like inching my body. And I'm just like, it's like being drugged across like nails on a chalkboard. It's just like, just like visceral feeling. And I'm getting pushed down there. And I remember being down there and looking at him and doing the deed and performing the act. And he's pushing on my head and he ejaculates. And it actually, the first time it shot up and it hit me in the face and it hit me in the eye. And I, you know, I like jerked my head back and I'm like, you know, I'm just thinking to myself, like, this is fucking disgusting. And, um, I, you know, he, he hands me a towel, but the first thing he does is he looks at me and he laughs at me and he says, oh, that was crucial. And I've got his ejaculate on my face. And he says, that was crucial. And, uh, I cleaned myself up and we laughed about it. You know, he laughed and I, and I had to laugh. I don't know what else to do. So I laugh. And from that point forward, whenever something would happen in public or something crazy would happen, he would just tell me like, oh, that's crucial. You know, that's crucial. And he would like, that was like his fucking jab at me anytime we were ever doing anything. And so we had known each other for about two years at this point. And, um, we had friends too. We had like other adult groups, uh, friends that we'd hang out with and play video games with and watch football with. And whenever we were over there with those people, he would actually tell these other adults that, um, Hey, you know, we got to go. Seth's going to blow me tonight, or I'm gonna go back and fuck Seth tonight. And everybody would just laugh it off. And I was like, ha ha ha. You know, I'm laughing it off too, but I knew like what was actually coming and he was just hiding in plain sight. Like Mondo was like funny. He was charismatic. He was very smart, strategic, calculated. He actually ran a haunted house in his hometown of Bluffton, Ohio, out of his mom's front porch where like thousands of kids would come every year, two, three, 4,000 kids. And he was always the one giving them candy at the end of the, at the end of the, at the end of the house, you know, and I participated in that haunted house, like several times, uh, scaring kids. And so he was like, he was good at what he was doing. He knew, you know, he was like the typical guy, just everybody loved him. He was in the community and he was a good friend. He was funny, all of the things. And then behind closed doors, he's doing this horrendous things to me. Um, you know, and so he would, uh, I kept going back to his house and I remember showing up one time and he, he had bought me a thong, like a woman's like panties or thong or whatever. It was leopard print. And I remember him making me wear it and he, I would like parade around his apartment in this thong. And that was like one of the more, for some reason that just like really disgusts me. I that thing in particular just bothers me so much, but it does. It's just really weird. And you know, he, the oral sex starts to become almost every, every weekend where I, like I said, I'd go back to his bed and he would either perform it on me or I would do it to him. Um, you know, there was, there was a time where I was performing on him and I, I kind of like gag and I'm, I'm like, he's like, Hey, what's, you know, are you okay? He's like checking on me. And, and I said, you know, yeah, I'm fine. And it wasn't anything other than the fact that he just smelled like shit. He was 380 pounds. He just stunk. And so when I went to do the formal oral sex on him, I just couldn't, like, I was like, it was just disgusting. And, um, you know, so it was, it was really bad. And, and this starts to happen every weekend. And then he starts to, he wants to use his fingers on me. There's this jar of Vaseline that was next to his bed. And so he was always trying to use his fingers on me, penetrate me with his fingers. And I just was so hesitant. I just did not want to do that. And it hurt. And, and one time he's trying it and he says, you know, um, well, what's wrong? And I said, well, that hurts. And he said, what do you mean? I said, you're, you, he's got these long nails. I said, I can feel your nails. It hurts really bad. So the next weekend I went back, you know, we'd go back to his bed and, uh, his nail was gone. And, um, so that's like the kind of gentleman that he was right to get rid of his nails so that he could, uh, use them on this little boy, use his fingers on this little boy. And so, yeah, he started to, and he starts to basically rape and penetrate me with his fingers. And that starts to become a frequent thing where like, that's what he does. Every time I hang out with him now, we go back to the bed and he, I can remember once again, his massive hands. I can remember he would do it all with one hand. He would, he would spread my butt and then do the act. And, um, it was fucking miserable. And I would just fucking cry inside. Not like I wouldn't actually cry. Um, it was just like this, like internal, like painful moment of just disgust. And, um, you know, dealing with that Friday, Saturday, every weekend, once again, going home. And then when I was about 12 years old, my mom, I was like 12, 12 and a half or so. And I was come, I was home on a Sunday or, or it might've been during the summer. I can't really remember, but I just remember my sisters were at my neighbor's house and that was really odd. They were never over there. So I walk in and I'm like, Hey, you know, what's going on? And I walk in and they're watching a TV show called intervention. So that was a show about people that are addicted to drugs and they do a surprise intervention to try and rescue them. And so I walk in and I see them watching the show. We're all watching it. And it's the first time I'd seen it. And I was like, Oh shit. You know? And at the end of the episode, they say, if you know anybody, reach out to us and we can see if we can help you. And so I'm like me and my sisters, like look at each other. We're like, Hey, like we know somebody, like mom, let's get mom on the fucking show and see if they'll fucking help her. And no shit that day. We walk outside. It must've been like around noon, one, two o'clock as someone was out, walk outside and there's a fire in the front yard. And immediately we're all me and my two sisters are hysterical. Next thing I see is my mom's boyfriend walk out of the front, front door. He's got a wife beater on. He's got blood all over his shirt. My mom walks out of the house. She's yelling and screaming and storming around her leg from like her knee down is like green and veiny. She had a broken ankle or a broken foot. She was walking around on and it was all infected. And so she was just like storming around in a rage and cop car pulls up and I'm just broken apart. I was 12 years old and I'm screaming and crying. And I don't know what the fuck is going on, but I know my mom's about to be taken away. And so she goes, the cops grab her, put her in the back of the car and I'm standing in the middle of the street. And I just remember it was so hot that day and I was sweating profusely, but I was also crying hard and I was just like freezing cold. And I'm looking at my mom in the back of this police car out of nowhere and she's about to be taken away from me. And I knew that my life was about to change dramatically. Like I just didn't know what the fuck was going on. And so she's like talking to me through the window and she's telling me she loves me and she's going to be back and she's going to come and get me back and all of these things. And I can almost like during that moment, it was like there was a third person camera behind me watching this whole thing happen. And I was like terrified. I was scared and screaming and crying and the cop takes her away and we go back in the house and there's a cop in there and he kind of says, you know, what are we going to do with the kids? And out of nowhere, like my dad shows up in the picture and we ended up going to my dad's house. I go to my dad's house and we're living there and we really have no idea what happened to my mom. But anyways, we get to my dad's house and we get enrolled into another school and I'm at this new school getting in a bunch of trouble because of all the shit that I was going through at the time. And I was, you know, I went to alternative school for a couple weeks. I got a couple like, you know, suspended a few times and I was told that if I got in trouble again, I was gonna go to juvie. So I told my dad, I was like, oh, I gotta leave. I can't stay here. I gotta go back to the city where I'm used to these other people. So I leave my dad's house. I go to my cousins back in the city where I was from Lima. And my aunt is about to have a baby. And so she says, well, we're about to have a baby. Like you can't live with us. You need to find somewhere else to go. So I call up some other random people and I'm like, Hey, can I come live with you? I need some, I need someplace to live. And so I'm living with these other random people. I was living there for a month or two. And then I was scared and alone and taking care of myself. I was, I had no parents or no friends. My sisters weren't with me anymore. I was just like running around by myself at 12 years old, trying to survive and live. And so I called these other people to ask them if I could live with them because my, my friend that I had met earlier and a few years earlier, Jacob, he was living with these people. And so I called Jacob and that family and I said, Hey, like, can I come and live with you guys too? And they were like a middle class family. It was like a mom and a dad and a couple of kids. And they're like a normal middle class family. And so they said yes, without hesitation. So I move in with them. And I thought like life was finally, once again, I'm like, okay, life is kind of turning around now. Like I have a family and these people are taking care of me. And this feels good. And I'm with Jacob and Jacob's protecting me. And this was the first time in a couple years that I had gone probably two or three weeks without going to Mondo's house. And on a Saturday, I was talking on the phone with Mondo. And he says, he says, you know, well, why aren't you coming to my house anymore? And I told him, I said, well, I don't need you. I have a family now. Like I have a mom and a dad and brothers and sisters. Like I have a reason to be home. Like I don't, I don't need to escape anymore. And when I said that he, you know, went into this very like pathetic, depressed state and discussion about like, what am I supposed to do without you? Like, what do you mean you don't need me? You know, if you don't come here, like I'm going to kill myself. I'm going to, you know, end my life. And you're the only thing that matters to me. And I'm 12 years old. I'm like talking to this guy on the fucking phone. I'm like, like, dude, like, what the fuck is wrong with you, man? Like, I'm fucking a little fucking kid, bro. Like, leave me alone. Like, I'm trying to, I was fed up with what was going on at this point, you know. And, but I didn't say any of that. I said, okay. And I said, okay, I'll come up there next week and I'm sorry. And I apologize. And the psychological torture that people have on others and the power, the manipulation that they have is, is incredible. And so I'd go back to his house the next weekend and keep going. And once again, the molestation and the abuse continues. While I was living with these people, I get a phone call one day and I didn't get phone calls. So it was kind of weird. And I answered the phone and it's my mom. And I haven't talked to my mom in four or five months. And I have no idea where she's at. Didn't know if she was out of jail or what. Apparently she was out of jail. And she, she says, you know, where are you at? I said, well, I'm living with these people. She said, well, I'm going to come and get you. And I paused for a minute and I'm on the phone and I say, I don't want to live with you anymore. Like, I don't want to go back and live with you. I'm, you know, I don't want to do this. And she, instead of loving and understanding or trying to explain herself, she says, fuck you. You're my fucking son. I'm going to fucking come and get you. You're my fucking responsibility. Like, don't tell me that fucking bullshit. And I just go into a deep like sob and crying and just broken apart because I want nothing more than to live with my mom and to have a mom and a dad and to have this like normal life. And I miss my sisters. I want nothing more than that at this point in my life. And, and I, and I couldn't have it because the way my mom was acting and, and I fortunately enough was brave enough to, to address the situation that way. And so that family, they offered to adopt me. And I said, yes, I said, please. Yes. I want you to adopt me. And they weren't related to me in any form or fashion. So somehow my grandparents were contacted and my grandparents show up and they take me in. And when I get to my grandparents' house, my sisters were already there. And I was like, oh shit. I was like, you know, I get to my grandparents and my, my grandparents are well off. They're, you know, they own a home and grandpa worked for Ford and my grandma ran her own business. And so we, and I knew my grandparents, I'd known him, you know, my whole life. And so I was excited. I get to their house and like, we got the whole finished basement to ourselves, a backyard pool, like all the shit, nice cars, clothes, food on the fucking table. Could, could eat food whenever the fuck I wanted. So I was like, dude, like, fuck yeah. I was like, yes. You know, I get there and I'm like, see my sisters. And I'm like, dude, like, this is awesome. Like we finally made it out, you know, like we're going to be okay now. And within a couple of weeks, my mom had been talking to my sisters and convince them to go back and live with her. So she was able to take my sisters out of this house, out of the stability, take them back and live in the city in a house that had no utilities in this fucking little shit hole town. And I stayed with my grandparents and I told them, like, I want you to adopt me. And so they start the adoption process. And after a couple of weeks of being there, my, well, I'm like, Hey, you know, I want to go hang out with my friend Mondo. And my grandma's like, who's Mondo? Well, he's this guy. And like, well, how old is he? He's like 36. And she's like, no. And I'm like, well, no, like, he's not like that. He's not weird. He's not, you know, he's not crazy. And I tell her, you know, Jacob knows him. Like, like, trust me, like Jacob knows him. He's cool. And so they're cautious because they know I'd been molested at five, you know? And so I'm like, no, he's not weird. And so they're like, well, we want to meet him. So I tell Mondo, I'm like, Hey, you know, they want to meet you before I can go to your house. And so he shows up, he gets out of the car, like it's fucking prom night. He, I think he took a shower that day. And he gets out and he's got, you know, his best sweatpants on his, his best plain red, like 5XL t-shirt, walks up to the front door, you know, rings the doorbell. Hey, I'm Mondo. Walks in, big fucking guy, teddy bear. Everybody loves him. Cracks some jokes, smiles, laughs. And my grandparents love him, you know? And he's like, yeah, you know, I know Seth's got a hard time and he's come from some hard times. And, and I grew up like that too. And, you know, we've just been friends for a few years now. And, and, you know, we hang out, we play video games and that's it. So he's back in the saddle. I go back to his house. And from this point forward, from like about 12 and a half, 13 years old forward, he starts to actually attend my family events at this point. He had never met my mom, never met my dad. But when I was with my grandparents, he starts to come to my birthday parties, my Christmases, my Thanksgivings. And now Seth is the friend with this old man, you know, it's kind of like this like real twisted fucking situation. And so he's showing up to my house and my grandparents love him. And, and they're like, they would buy him random shit or like gift cards or like whatever the fuck, you know, he was like part of the family now. And I remember the adoption paperwork goes through around my 13th birthday, because we had a birthday, we had a, they had a surprise birthday party for me. And I'd never had that before. And I remember getting off the bus and seeing a bunch of people in the driveway. And Mondo was there. All my friends and family are there. And around that time, I'm up at Mondo's house. I think I was 13. And he finally convinced me to let him rape me for the first time. And that was a pretty horrific moment. I remember like, I remember going back to the bed. He was pounding on the wall, I go back there, open the curtain, I know it's coming. I know it's going to happen. We're going to do something, you know. And he, this time, though, he was sitting up, which was he was never sitting up, he was always laying down. So he's sitting up there at the end of the bed. And I walk in, he kind of grabs me and he kind of pulls me towards him. And I'm kind of standing between his legs. And he's got his hands on me and, you know, he pulls my shorts down and he's grabbing me by my butt. And he kind of pulls me towards him, and I'm kind of standing between his legs. And he's got his hands on me, and he pulls my shorts down, and he's grabbing me by my butt. And I'm kind of like confused, once again, because he's never sitting on the end of the bed. It's usually he's laying down. And so he stands up, and he kind of moves me over, and he kind of gets behind me, and he pushes me into the bed. And my knees hit the mattress, you know, like right there at my kneecaps. And so he kind of nudges me, and I go to my knees. And as soon as that happens, I'm just like, I just like, I'm like, motherfucker. Like, this is it. Like, this is just going to happen. And so I go to my knees, and I'm on my hands and knees on the end of his bed. And I feel his legs kind of go towards my feet. And he's like kind of opening up my legs. He grabs the Vaseline. It's right next to the bed. And the Vaseline had all these like deep scoops in them, like these like, you could see where he had scooped his fingers through so many times to use the Vaseline on me. So I kind of like look over, and I see him grab the jar. And I feel his finger kind of swipe down my butt. And he basically lubes me up. And I feel his massive hands grab me by my hips. And he starts to like kind of push into me. And I'm just sitting there like shaking, and just stiff as a board and scared. And he starts to rape me. And he's going through the process. He's raping me. I can feel like his grip on my hips. And then I can feel him tense up. And then I hear like a sigh of relief from him. And it almost felt like the tension was just gone. Like there was like no more tension in the air. It was just like that he like took a big breath. He backs away from me. I can feel the Vaseline basically like dripping from me. Like it's warm and just like dripping And I'm just standing there. And he takes a towel and wipes me up. He cleans me up with this towel. I stand up. And I go to the bathroom. And I sit on his toilet. And I'm sitting on the toilet getting everything out of my body that he had just done to me. And I was sitting there, 13 years old, just been raped. And thinking to myself like why did my fucking life have to be like this? Like why don't I have a mom and a dad? I'm getting bullied at school. I don't have any friends. Do I have, I was scared I had AIDS or HIV. I was scared I had some sort of disease. I couldn't tell anybody this at this point because now people are going to think I'm gay. They're going to think I'm having sex with this man. They're going to think all these like weird fucking things about me. So I couldn't tell anybody anything. I was just fucking terrified. And I got up and I took a shower. And that was the first time I'd ever taken a shower at his house. And I walk out of the bathroom and I put a smile on and I keep playing the fucking game. And that goes on for another about two and a half years. And I was up at his house one weekend with a younger friend of mine. This kid was maybe two or three years younger than me. And I was playing video games. And this was like a Friday night, I think, or Friday, Saturday night. And my friend was having a bad day. And Mondo makes a comment towards him and says, you know, he's like, well, if you're having a bad day, I could take you back there and blow you. And he says it right in front of me. And we all laugh it off. And I know what he's doing, though. Like, I know the game he's playing because this is the shit that he would say to me. So I'm like, what the fuck? And I actually thought to myself, like, the audacity. Like, you think I don't know what you're about to do to him because you did it to me. And so it kind of threw me off that he said that right in front of me because I always thought that I was like the only one. There's no way this happened to anybody else. And so when he made that comment, I was like, oh, shit. So that night, I messaged. When that happens, Mondo goes back to his bed. My younger friend goes back there with him. And that was the first time I'd ever seen any. We'd hung out with other kids before. But that was the first time I'd ever seen another kid go back in that bed with him, other than Jacob, when we first started hanging out. And so I'm thinking to myself, like, OK, I can't let this happen. So I'm playing the video game online. And Jacob was actually online. He was up at college at this point. He was like 21, 22 years old. And I messaged him. And I said, hey, man, I need you to come over to my house tomorrow. So Jacob says, got it. That's all he says. He says, OK, got it. And as I said that, it was kind of weird. Mondo suddenly comes out of the bedroom. And he walks over to the video game that I'm playing on the computer. And he says, well, who are you playing with? Which wasn't uncommon. That wasn't a weird question to ask for him to say who you're playing with. And I said, oh, nobody. Because when Mondo came out, I scrolled up in the chat on the game to try to hide the chat between me and Jacob. Because I knew that if he saw that I had said something to Jacob, I knew that he would know something was up. Because he's fucking smart. These people are really, really smart. And they would suspect something. So I tried to hide it. And I think he saw it. Because the whole mood shifted that night. The whole mood was real off. He was real quiet and mad. And so I think he saw it. And truthfully, I thought he was going to murder us. I was like, the whole night, I was just watching the door, watching him. And I was trying to just make sure that if I needed to, I could escape if he started acting kind of weird. I was so close to running out of his apartment that night and just running to the police department or running to the next person that I could find. I just couldn't leave my friend. And I was scared he was going to murder me. So we go through the rest of that night. And it was either that night or the next. He ends up raping me that weekend again. And over the last three years or so, since the first time he had done it, he raped me several times. I don't remember how many. I don't know, maybe five or 10 times. And so Sunday rolls around, and Mondo takes us home. He drops me off first. He goes and drops off my other friend in the city. And when he drops me off, Jacob shows up like an hour later. And we're walking around the house. And me and Jacob are talking. And we go back to my room. And my grandparents are like, they're having a great day. They're laughing and joking, don't think anything of it. And we go back to my room, Jacob and I. And I'm pacing in my room. I'm walking back and forth. And I'm just like, hey, man, I got to tell you something. And I don't know what to tell you. I don't know how to say this. And I've been wanting to say this for a long time. But I'm just fucking scared. I'm scared that nobody's going to believe me. Or I'm scared that I don't want you to be upset with me. And I couldn't say the words. I could not physically fucking say it. I just kept saying, I got to tell you something. I got to tell you something. I got to tell you something. And Jacob breaks the silence. And he says, Mondo touched you, didn't he? And when he said that, I turned and looked at him. And I just fall to the floor. And I just started crying. And I kind of felt the same emotions and pain that I did the day that my mom was taken away from me and the night that I was raped. And all of these emotions of the last 16 years have kind of just hit me in the fucking stomach. And I fall to the floor. And I'm crying. And I'm screaming. And I'm just, I can't control myself. I can't breathe. And I'm just bawling my eyes out. And after maybe two or three minutes, the next thing he says is, well, he did it to me, too. And I turn and look at him. And my heart is so broken, no longer really for myself. But I just couldn't believe that it had happened to him. Because Jacob was like my older brother. If you've got a father or a big brother in your life, that shit didn't happen to them. There's no way in hell that would have happened to your brother or your father or this man. Whoever you admire, the most manly guy, it wouldn't have happened to him. And he said that. And that fucking hurt. And I just, I felt so fucking bad. And so I get up. And we kind of hug it out for a minute. And he's like, well, what do you want to do? And I said, fuck this guy. I said, we've got to fucking report him. I said, I'm not letting him get away with this shit. Because he's about to do it to my younger friend, who Jacob also knew this kid. And so I was like, I'm not letting him get away with it. And so he says, OK, well, he's like, let's go. Let's go tell grandma and grandpa. So we go outside. Or we go out to the other room. And we sit down. And I can't say it again. I can't say the words. And I'm crying. And my face is flushed. And my grandma's like, what the fuck's going on? She's kind of puzzled. And Jacob says, it's Mondo. And when he says that, my grandma, I can hear her say, like my baby. And she starts crying. And she's just the gasp and the trembling voice that she had of just like, my baby, my baby. And I get up. And I go give her a hug. And I felt fucking horrible. And I just started apologizing. I knew it wasn't my fault. But I felt so fucking bad for letting this man into our house and defending him and bringing him in. He was part of the family and all of these things. And so I apologize. And my grandparents are pissed off. And my grandpa's more mad than he is, I think, emotional or sad about it. And we call the cops. And they tell us to go down to the police station. And we get down there. And I meet this cop, Chad Couples from Bluffton, Ohio. He walks in. And I had to tell this cop all these horrible details that just happened to me over the last few years. And he tells me, the more you tell me now, the better off we are to get this guy. And so I said, OK. So I said, let's do it. So I start pouring all these fucking horrible details out. And part of people ask a lot, like, why didn't you report? Why didn't you say something? Why did it take you six years? Why did you keep going back? And a lot of the shame that is attached is, by not reporting him, I would never have to admit that these things ever happened to me. And I would never have to admit that I ever was a part of that. I'd never have to admit that I did these things with another man. I'd never have to admit any of this shit if I don't fucking report him, right? So by not reporting him, I'm protecting him out of the manipulative situation relationship that we had. But I'm also protecting myself and my own dignity. Nobody has to know about this shit. I can just hide this for fucking ever. Nobody has to know. And that took me 15 years to find out of processing this, of why I never said anything. Because people ask that all the time. And I don't know the answer. And I just found that out recently through processing all of this. Because that day, I had to tell this cop all of these things. And so I did. And we go back in the room. And he was real proud of me. We go back into the nurse's room. And there's like eight people in this fucking room. There's like eight or nine people. And I'm pretty shaken up. I was crying a lot. And the nurse kind of walks over to me. And she gets down on her knee. And she puts her hand on my leg. And she says, Seth, you're brave, and all these things. But she says, do you have any clothes, or do you have anything that you've worn to his house recently? And I said, well, he just raped me about 15 hours ago. And I have not taken a shower. I have not changed my clothes. I still have everything on that I left his house with. And the silence in the room was deafening. I could just hear everybody's jaws drop. And they're just like, holy shit. They're like, oh my god, take your clothes off. Let's test you. Let's get all this shit. And I'm sitting there. Yeah, and I'm sitting there. And they do the test. They swab me. And they get his DNA. And they were blown away that this 15-year-old kid was able to do this, and maintain his composure, and handle it the way that I did, I guess. And they go up, and they arrested him that night. They go up, and they get him a couple hours later. And that whole story is a whole other long story. I've since gotten to find Chad couples and go back. And I got to go back to Ohio earlier this year and see Chad. And I called him, and I said, hey, man, I don't know if you know who I am. And he said, I told him, I said, my name's Seth Gale. I was like, I don't know if you remember who I am. And he said, fuck yeah, I remember you. And I was so scared to call him again because I was scared he's going to be upset with me for trying to reach out. But Chad was, he was just like, yeah, man, how are you doing? And I just told him, I was like, man, you have no fucking idea how much you mean to me. Because he was so fucking nice, and he was calm, and he was just, I don't know, the way he handled himself. And he fucking went up there, and he got the guy to confess to a little bit. And I just told Chad, like earlier this year, I just told him, I said, man, I want to meet you, and I want to shake your hand. And I told him, I told him, I said, I said, man, I said, Chad, I'm married now. I said, Chad, I said, I'm married now. I don't ever cry when I talk about this. I said, Chad, I'm married now. And I said, man, I said, I said, I have a beautiful wife. And I said, I said, I have two fucking kids, man. I said, I got a son who's got just fucking beautiful little like blue eyes, and I got blonde hair, and I got this little girl, this little girl who's so fucking proud of me, and she loves me to death. And I said, I said, man, you have no fucking idea how much you mean to me. And I told him, I said, I've been thinking about you for 15 fucking years, man, and I've wanted to fucking call you so fucking bad. And I've just been so scared to talk to you because I didn't want to upset him. So yeah, a few months after that, I got to go up to Ohio, and I got to meet him again. And I got to talk to him about his side of that day and what he did and how he handled that whole situation. But I just wanted to meet him and then tell him I was so thankful for him because so many people that go through what I went through, they don't come out on the other end. So for me to have a wife and have kids and have a fucking family is, it's incredible. And about a month after I reported him, maybe a month or two, I hear that he accepted a plea deal. They offered him a plea deal. They offered Mondo a plea deal. He was charged with 11 counts, felony counts, of sexual misconduct with a minor because when I reported him, my friend Jacob, like I said, he had also been molested and abused by him. And so it happened to both of us over the course of 10 years about between the two of us. For me, it was about 5 and 1 half years, maybe 300, 400 occasions of abuse, maybe probably more than that, probably 400 to 500 occasions. And the guy was offered a plea deal. And so he accepted it. And he took four counts of the 11, was sentenced to 10 years back in 2019. And he'd be free today. Fortunately enough, he died in prison in 2019. How did he die? Supposedly, he died from a staph infection in prison. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know the details of that. Later this year, I'm going up to Ohio to speak at a conference. And I'm actually speaking with Chad, the officer. He's speaking at a conference. And I'm speaking in my hometown with him. And when I go up there, I'm going to get the recorded interviews and interrogations that they had with Mondo. So I'll have that footage for myself. I have all the police reports. I have all of the pictures. I have all of the handwritten notes from the days that I reported him and all the things that Chad reported and took notes of during the investigation. I have all that. So I'm trying to get as much detail as I can, because it's actually really brought me a lot of closure. But I really want to see the interrogations and see his final moments of freedom. And I want to see what he had to say in that room, because that was 15 years ago. And I just want other people to heal and get over this shit, because it happens to so many people in the world. And these adverse childhood experiences that we have, it's the leading public health costs in America. The effects of childhood trauma, abuse, and neglect, the effects of those things are the leading public health cost. IV drug use, alcoholism, all the mental health, depression, suicide, all those things combined, when you add them all up, and a mass majority of that stems from childhood trauma and abuse and neglect. If we could just get rid of that, we would save literally trillions of dollars. I think the government spends $14 trillion or has spent treating the effects of an adverse childhood. And I am trying to help people overcome that trauma and adversity, because it's fucking hard. And you don't realize how painful it is. For years, with my wife, she couldn't touch me. She couldn't grab me. She couldn't kiss me. I couldn't touch her, hold her, or kiss her. Because what do you think about? You think about all these fucking things. You taste the person that had molested you and raped you. You smell them. I can smell the old spice that he fucking wore. I can feel his hands all the time. So these things, they fuck up your life. And then now you have kids, and then you're raising kids. And then how am I supposed to be a father to two children when I never had a father? And all these bad things happen to me. What am I supposed to tell my kids when they ask, where's your mom and where's your dad? And my daughter asked me, why are you writing a book, daddy? And I tell her, well, daddy had a hard life. And I want to help other people not have a hard life and understand that they're not alone and that there's a way out. For me to have what I have, it's incredible. And on the flip side of that, there's so many days, even yesterday, I was thinking about sometimes I just want to struggle and feel pain. And sometimes I just want to quit my job and I want to sell my house. And I just want to live in a one-bedroom apartment and have nothing just so I can feel it again. I just want to feel that pain again. I just want to feel that uncertainty in life. And so I can imagine the people that do go down the drug using routes and the abusive routes is chasing that high again or chasing that feeling that they're so familiar with. And when you get something positive in your life, it doesn't make any fucking sense. And I've got a wife who's, God, I've tried to divorce her so many times. I've tried to leave her. I've literally told her, I said, I don't want to be with you anymore, multiple times. And she's got a family. She's got a father and a mother and brothers and sisters and a grandma who's the fucking sweetest lady in the world. And I've told my wife several times, like, I don't want to do this. And I'm tired of this. And I can't do this. And she didn't walk out. She just basically said, fuck you. Like, I'm staying. Like, I'm not leaving you. And you're not leaving me. And I don't know why she did that, because I don't know what I have to offer her. I don't have anything. And even when we started dating, I told her, I said, if you want to marry me, I said, I'm fucked up. And like, you're going to have to be on a hell of a fucking journey with me. And she told me, without even questioning it, she said, what does that mean? I don't care. Like, I don't care that you have problems. And she didn't know the extent of my problems. But she didn't give a fuck. She's just like, I don't care. And we got married within knowing each other for six months. I was in the Army. I was 21. I was 21 or 22. We got married within knowing each other for six months. And we've been together for, I think, eight years now. We have a six-year-old and a four-year-old. I own a home. I own two cars. I've won national construction awards. I've gone to Las Vegas and spoke on stages to a room full of people who make too much fucking money. And they probably looked at me up on that stage like I was like this average man who just happened to work hard and found a good job. And when I was on that stage in Las Vegas speaking to receive this award, I wanted to tell all those people in that room, like you have no fucking idea the path that I've taken to get where I'm at. Because when you go through these kind of experiences in life, when you walk into a room, you don't belong anywhere. You don't belong. I walked into this corporate job after being in the Army for eight years. I've got tattoos. I've been to combat. I've seen all kinds of different places of the world. And when I walked into this corporate job, I see people with moms and dads and families and husbands and wives and kids, and they're fucking happy. And you just have this resentment, this deep resentment for the world. And you just think like, you motherfuckers have no fucking idea what it's like. And you fucking assholes are mad because your fucking coffee's like three minutes fucking late. And you just have this deep hate. And so when I was on that stage in Las Vegas, I just wanted to let all these people know how much that award meant to me. Because if I could go back and tell that kid at 13 years old who's getting fucking raped, just fucking hang on, man. You're going to fucking make it. I know you don't fucking believe it now, but you're going to fucking make it and you're going to do incredible things in this world. And now I'm writing a fucking book about it all. Now I'm like a fucking published author soon. I've served my country for eight years. I've been all around the world. I've seen all kinds of different places. Had a combat tour in 2019 to Afghanistan. Spent nine months away from my basically newborn daughter and wife and came home, got out, got into the construction industry. I've done very well. Started writing a book, started speaking, started telling my story. And I'm just getting started. I'm only 30 years old. And I want to just be a light for the world and for the people that are watching this happen. I've gone and done things and I'm going to continue to push myself. I'm going to continue to push into the fire. There's no sense in going through this fire and sticking that raw piece of iron into the heat, into the flame, and it gets hot and it gets red. When you take it out, you've got to strike it and you've got to make a difference. You've got to change what's been damaged. Otherwise it's going to get cold and it's going to remain the same that it was when it went in. So if you don't work on yourself and test yourself and push yourself, it's very hard to get out of that. And so that's what I'm trying to do now. And like I said, that's why I'm writing a book. That's why I tell my story. And talking about it is helpful. It is. It's incredibly helpful. The things that you do in life are impressive. But when people find out, there's a fucking backstory to all this shit. I recently ran a 100 mile race a couple months ago. And when I ran that race, I crossed that finish line and the last 30 fucking miles was fucking miserable. But I kept fucking telling myself, I went through 16 years of absolute hell and misery as a child. I can just keep going another mile. And so that's what I tell myself now as an adult. It's just like another fucking day, another fucking week, another month. And now I've gotten to the point where I'm the happiest I've ever been in my life. And I'm just real proud of myself and real proud of the life that I have. You should be. Thank you. Seth, thank you so much. Yeah. You're incredibly strong. Thank you. Ah, motherfucker. You're sweating. Yeah. I am too. Fucking A. God, I don't ever cry. There's your transcript, folks! Enjoy! M. We need more smart people around these parts, don't we? Sometimes I feel so lonely... ;-) |