Doubt. I heard that in the first words of a girl I spoke to on the phone last week. “My problem is not very big or anything”, she immediately indicated, “certainly not compared to others”. I said she could discuss anything with me, no matter how big or small. She had had to deal with sexually abusive behavior in the past. Everything in the media made her think about it again. And today she was on our website for the second time and she thought, “I'll just try it”.

Since the episode of BOOS (January 2022), more young adults have been thinking about this topic. It often brings back memories of the past, I told her that too. Sometimes memories from years ago, because that can suddenly bother you again. Even if you haven't really thought about it for a long time.

She had that too, she indicated. She struggled with what had happened then. Someone had crossed her boundaries and it still felt wrong. She was brooding at night. She didn't want to talk to others about it, "it was too long ago," she added. She was a little embarrassed that she hadn't talked about it then. And she might have completely forgotten about it by now, she suspected.

“What do you want with this conversation, what is important to you now?” I asked her. Most of all, she wanted to vent, tell someone once that she was okay with it. She'd never talked about this before, so she'd always kept it in her own head.

The special thing about this conversation is that I don't know exactly what happened to her at the time. I'm not asking about that either, I just said she could tell. I'll keep asking, but I'm not asking for details. They are not always necessary to be able to carry on the conversation. Perhaps that is precisely the advantage of such an anonymous conversation: you tell exactly as much as you want.

At the end of the conversation, she said she found it quite exciting. "But I'm glad I told someone now." I indicated that I thought it brave that she had dared to do this. It was a nice conversation and I felt the relief on the other end of the line.