Response to Firesale

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Please keep in mind Firesale goes by she/her

tw: sexual abuse, rape, manipulation, suicide baiting

Originally, I was going to make a video with a voice response to this situation but I've broken down multiple times from stress. As much as I wanted to verbally speak on this topic instead of making a TwitLonger response, I've had to come down to this decision instead for the sake of my own mental health.

I'll try to be as clear as I can about this situation, as much as it sucks to speak up on it, I feel like it is important to truly understand how minimized her initial post was. But on top of this, I didn't want this to be public at all & it was never once ran through me, nor my boyfriend. I'm not upset at the people who spread this information to the point it had to get public, but this is extremely humiliating.

According to her: multiple people were telling her "If you don't speak up on this, someone else will" placing her under emotional duress & confessing out of guilt vs speaking up on what was really true. I'm here to speak on behalf of what actually happened instead of just accepting a one-sided confession post being online & blowing up.

She tried to minimize it in such a way where her parents wouldn't recognize who I was, switching gender roles and shortening the duration of stay.. They still found out so it didn't make a difference anyways. I'd suggest reading the entire thing before making any comments

It was almost insulting on how minimized she made it out to be.
I also wanted to forget about it, so I'm not really feeling too great having to remember this, but I also know it's probably best to speak up for myself.

I have too much of a guilty conscious to stay silent, and I'm also very disgusted—revolted even—by the way she worded things & I want to clarify things on my own behalf.

—————————— FIRESALE'S PARAGRAPH
Around 6 months ago me and one of my close friends who was staying with me at the time for a couple days got sexual and at the time I thought (I) understood boundaries but I was wrong, I was very pushy for sexual acts and that made them very clearly uncomfortable and I still pushed onwards, I did use some manipulation tactics to get sexual favors out of them. However, I will make it clear on what happened without going too into detail.
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In June 2021, I moved in with Firesale as a potential roommate for a few months to get me back onto my feet. The place I lived prior (west coast) was dense in population and extremely competitive to get jobs, even for small ones like being a cashier at the dollar store. I was struggling with getting a job and on top of that wanting to move out because my parents didn't really want me there anymore and kept bringing up the idea of going to the military. After moving, I was suffering jetlag of a +3 hour difference and a 5 hour flight.

Originally, I was supposed to move in July, but she told her parents "next week". She told me if I wasn't able to, her parents would grow skeptical of me and won't let me move in, so I just went with it being kind of pissed off but also happy knowing I'm finally moving out. Later on, I ask her parents why they were skeptical and they responded confused. They never mentioned anything about being skeptical, and told me directly if I had to wait another month they'd be very more than glad.

I wasn't able to transfer medical records or get dental fixtures done in time, and now once-free things are costing me hundreds per visit, sometimes thousands. I cannot afford to get health insurance anymore, and I was supposed to have a root canal done prior to going that was gonna be free, but it's now around $4-6k depending on where I go.

At the end of May (multiple people can vouch) she makes a statement on her private twitter account saying she's killing herself. Everybody's freaking the hell out, and I manage to get in-call alongside 2 others (another friend, alongside my boyfriend) and she has her rear-camera on, showing her walking across back and forth a bridge saying she's gonna jump. Prior to this, she sent me a very disturbing message about how when she dies her parents are just gonna replace her with me, and I can have her cat Stormy. I've never been so uncomfortable being told something in my life before, in all honesty. We all 3 manage to calm her down, and my boyfriend personally drove down to pick her up and let her spend the night at his house for precautionary purposes.

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The landing time was around 1 AM, and the drive to her home was roughly an hour. Around 2-3 AM I put my stuff down and express great tiredness & wanting to sleep, and she asks specifically if I could cuddle and sleep with her (I was assuming platonically, as I believe platonic cuddling is alright). Currently at this timeframe, I was her best friend and also knew she was going through shit & wanted to make her feel emotionally better.

I start getting sleepy, and she starts touching me and asking if it's okay to escalate. I was thrown off by this a little bit, and asked what she meant by that. She started asking for me to touch her, constantly apologizing saying she's sorry if it's too soon & she's just feeling sad. I felt a little obligated; she went out of her way to get me out of a household I necessarily didn't want to be in, and even got her parents to drive down and pick me up despite it being so late. My friend (boyfriend now) at the beginning offered to pick me up, but she was oddly VERY, VERY persistent on wanting to instead. Since we all respected each other and knew we were going to meet up at one point, it was just dropped like nothing alarming. I wish I viewed this red flag sooner in hindsight.

But this is my problem, in her post she mentions "for a couple days" and doesn't bother mentioning the fact that she enabled it. This didn't happen for just a few days either, this lasted for 2 months, each time getting progressively more and more obsessive. She would resort to very frequent suicide baiting tactics and emotional manipulation in order to get "favors" out of me, nothing intercourse-related until about a month in. At one point, she was starting to grow "unsatisfied" and wanted to pleasure me as well (I never received until then), insisting to buy condoms soon if it were to escalate to that point. Eventually, we get around to the store to get some and she "forgets her wallet". Condoms were not used more than once, I'd know because I was the one paying for them. I didn't want to catch anything and wanted to take precaution instead of doing something I might possibly regret, it was nothing more than that to me.

My boyfriend would also like to add that she would suddenly always talk about "being happy with me being there", and he noticed how strangely worded it was. He pointed out to her that she couldn't rely off of me for her happiness, and she kind of just brushed it off like it was whatever.

I'd like to clarify I said no at first, as I was demisexual during the time (gray ace now) and reserved things like that for relationships. I just wanted to chill out for a few months before doing anything stupid, as I was not mentally the best during this time period. She'd constantly mention she's sad, or starts crying and it'd always make me feel really bad because I hated seeing her like that and knew it was literally one of the only things making her happy. I should've never thought this was okay to do, but over time I'm starting to realize more and more how mentally debilitating it all was.

Few days after meeting my other friend, we started developing feelings towards each other and I confessed it to Firesale hoping I'd receive a positive "omg!" type response, but that wasn't what I got at all. She told me relationships were overrated, and we should keep what we had going instead. At this point, I grew strongly uncomfortable and started rejecting "favors" more frequently, watching her mentally spiral more and more over the span of just a few days not knowing what to do anymore. We ended up getting together anyways (Koneko), and "favors" were cut off from there. I asked for some time to hang out with him at his house, and she was oddly persistent on either wanting to come, or asking to let me stay. We end up getting alone, and I immediately just broke down on his couch and I felt miserable. I thought what I was doing was right, but didn't realize I was only contributing to the problem and confessed everything to him.

Immediately upon hearing this, he contacted Firesale and asked if this was true. She never denied anything, in fact, she confirmed everything that had happened. At this point, my boyfriend took initiative on getting me out of her house and I have been in a safe place ever since and I'm thankful for that & everything he's done for me in regards of recovering.

We made private amends in October, but I immediately sought therapy and got off the internet to do so around December. I come back hearing that this situation became public, and not gonna lie, it's insanely embarrassing as I had no say on whether this was going to be public.. I only found out about her post because of my younger sibling contacting me about it asking if it was me since I moved in at the same timeframe... Which Sucked.

I'm currently in massive medical debt, as I've been unable to work and dealing with PTSD over this situation which I'm now on medication for. I would appreciate if you could possibly help me out a little bit and donate here: https://www.gofundme.com/f/zhr9ge

Thank you for reading this if you did, and thank you for your patience.

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