He Was Obsessed With Me And I Couldn�t Escape

Unfiltered Stories

Welcome to Unfiltered Stories! Today our guest Talia Gamble shares her life story with us. When she was 14, she met a 19-year-old junior, who slowly became obsessed with her. His obsession with her became dangerous and unbearable as he kept following and cornering her. Her childhood and innocence were taken by this man.  She had flashbacks and specific triggers about her experience even after years. She now has a daughter and gives advice to parents to give their kids a safe space to speak freely   #Survivor #LifeStory #Interview   Follow Talia on Instagram:  http://www.instagram.com/ali_porcelain  http://www.instagram.com/zisis_esoterica   Thank you for watching Unfiltered Stories! We offer a platform for our guests to speak openly about their life stories and journeys, shedding light on the challenges they faced and the resilience they've shown.   Our mission is to raise awareness about survivors by delving into their stories, exploring the impact of their experiences, and how they've managed to heal and rebuild their lives.  By sharing these stories, we aim to break the silence surrounding those challenging memories and create a compassionate environment.   🌅 FOLLOW US 🌅  Facebook ➮ https://tinyurl.com/UnfilteredFB  Tiktok ➮ https://tinyurl.com/UnfilteredTT  Snapchat ➮ https://tinyurl.com/UnfilteredSN

Transcript

00:00My name is Talia. I am a sexual assault survivor and a survivor of grooming.

00:06So I met when I was 14. I was a freshman in high school.

00:12It was lunchtime. I was hanging out with my two best friends at the time.

00:15I'm just going to call them D and F.

00:17D said something I think mildly perverted, which, you know, as you do with the H.

00:24And I think at that time walked up.

00:26He was 19, still in high school.

00:30I think he'd been held back maybe a year or two.

00:33I don't really know why. I don't think he ever told me the particulars.

00:36And D makes that comment.

00:38And I looked at her and keep in mind, I'm very innocent.

00:42Obviously, I had the whole purity culture, you know, save yourself for marriage, virginity.

00:49I was just, I was very innocent.

00:51And as soon as she said that, I don't know why it popped out.

00:56I looked at her and I'm like, well, you know I'm still a virgin.

00:58I mean, I told you this.

00:59And suddenly lights up like a Christmas tree, I don't know, and looks at me like I'm something to eat,

01:07maybe.

01:08From that day forward, though, kind of would follow me around the school and he would try to talk to

01:14me.

01:14And I wasn't really interested.

01:16I told him where I lived.

01:17And unfortunately for me, it turns out he lived like three blocks from me.

01:22So he started showing up at my house, would come to my door, come and talk to me.

01:27And then he started trying to make it, and I'm not going to say romantic because that's not the right

01:33word, more like just sexual.

01:35I told him no a lot.

01:37I stayed away from him as much as I could.

01:39I didn't really know what to do.

01:41I mean, at that age, you don't really have the wherewithal to be like, you know, go away, leave me

01:46alone, whatever.

01:47He was also friends with my best friend, Dee, her brother.

01:51So unfortunately, he was at their house a lot, too.

01:55One night, I'm spending the night at her house, and it was a night that her parents happened to be

02:01out of town.

02:02And he showed up over there, and I was just like, oh, okay.

02:06At some point, he managed to corner me in her brother's room.

02:11And mind you, this is after months of him following me around, showing up at my house, constantly pushing me,

02:16pushing me, trying to kiss me, trying to touch me, continuously telling me he wanted to take my virginity.

02:21It seemed almost like that was age for him, like something that he was just really, really into.

02:27It was just he and I.

02:29And he started kissing me, and then he somehow worked me back on the bed.

02:36And I was like, I don't want to do this.

02:38I'm like, I'm not ready.

02:39I don't want to do this.

02:40And he's like, no, no, we're going to do this.

02:43Like, you really need to do this.

02:44I think you need to do this.

02:45I told him no, and I told him I didn't want to, but I just gave in.

02:49I froze.

02:50I was just like, whatever, get it over with.

02:52So I remember I leaned back on the bed, and I was just like, okay, that's enough.

02:57Enough.

02:57I'm tired.

02:58Whatever.

02:58Maybe if I let him, he'll leave me alone.

03:00He'll go away.

03:00This won't happen anymore.

03:02I did let him have sex with me.

03:05Your first time should be something that you choose to do willingly with somebody that you want to do that

03:10with.

03:11And he kind of just took that away from me.

03:13So shortly after that, you know, I got up.

03:16I left the room.

03:17I was crying.

03:17And Dee just kind of looked at me like I think she knew at that point that it wasn't okay.

03:25And so she pulled me to the bathroom.

03:26She got me a towel.

03:27I took a shower or whatever.

03:28He and her brother left.

03:31So they left the house.

03:31They were gone.

03:32He kept coming to my house.

03:35He made school for me a living hell because he told everyone that I was like some kind of, I

03:44guess, and at that age, that's like the worst word that you could ever brand a little girl with.

03:50The people in my group, along with the people who had heard the story, like how can you cheat on

03:57his cousin with him?

03:58How could you sleep with him?

04:00My ninth grade year and most of my tenth after that were not easy for me.

04:03I got a reputation that was very undeserved.

04:06Dee actually was really defensive of me for a long time.

04:11Dee looked after me.

04:14She kind of saw people to shut up and leave me alone.

04:17And so did Eth, but it was really kind of the males in our friend group, you know, that made

04:25my life kind of hell after that.

04:27A 19-year-old man, what are you doing with a 14-year-old little girl?

04:30Why are you chasing a 14-year-old little girl?

04:32The next like real incident, and I think I've blocked out a lot of it.

04:36I think in between this, there was a lot of like him coming to my house and groping me on

04:40my front porch and that type of thing.

04:43But the next one I really remember, we were in my guy best friend's pickup.

04:49So we've been out and I don't know how he had wound up in the group of people we were

04:53in that day or how he had joined us, but he was there that day.

04:58He pulled me aside and he goes, we're going to get in the back of the truck and we're going

05:01to have some fun.

05:02And I'm like, what do you mean?

05:04And he's like, no, we're going to ride in the back.

05:06We're going to get in the back of the truck, you and I, and we're going to have some fun.

05:09And so we're driving down the road while he's pulling my shorts down and proceeds to, yeah, again.

05:22And I was, by this point, I was 15.

05:24This was the summer, next summer, I was 15 and he was 20.

05:27There were several more incidences like that over the summer.

05:31I mean, he'd find a dark corner or he'd find a room that, you know, that nobody was in when

05:37we were at their house.

05:37And he'd pull me in and I would, like, I was just letting it happen at that point because I

05:42was exhausted of fighting him.

05:43And I'm just like, okay, get what you want and leave me alone.

05:47It stopped about the time I met my husband, Josh.

05:52The summer I was 15, it was that summer I met him.

05:55And then we started dating the next winter and showed up to my house one day while Josh was there.

06:03And Josh just looked at him and he straight up walks up to him and he says,

06:07if you come near her again, I'm going to make sure they never find your body.

06:12That's not a threat.

06:13That's a promise.

06:14Yeah, after that, you know, he left me alone.

06:17I learned, my husband and I got married in 2002 and we left East Texas, left to go overseas.

06:23He was in the Air Force and we came back.

06:26And when we came back, shortly after we came back, I found out that he had been arrested for assaulting

06:31another 15-year-old girl.

06:33He was 30 at the time, 30 at the time when that happened.

06:36What finally brought me forward was in 2019, another girl who actually was married to him.

06:44She was 15 when he found her and they wound up married.

06:49She has his kids.

06:50She's got a daughter with him.

06:53And she was telling me that his daughter, when he handed her his, I think she was 12 at the

06:59time,

06:59her, you know, her, or his phone to use or something.

07:02He handed it to her with something appropriate on it.

07:05Like, you know, because they were in his, uh, in his gallery or whatever.

07:08And she, he knew she would be scrolling through his gallery is what she told me.

07:11And her mother was like, knowing his pension and his age was like, okay, this doesn't feel right.

07:16And then I'm like, okay, let's do this.

07:19So she actually reported, you know, what happened to her.

07:23He actually coaxed her, groomed her, conditioned her when she was 14.

07:28Another one this happened to, she was 16 at the time.

07:31One who was, I think, 17.

07:33Another who was 14.

07:34And I know that there are at least two more that, that aren't ready to come forward.

07:39Altogether, there are five of us.

07:41The report was given, I believe, in 2019.

07:44He was arrested last year.

07:46He is still in jail.

07:48He has decided to take a plea deal.

07:50Um, none of us know the particulars of it just yet.

07:53But I do know that the particulars of the plea require him to take a deal for every one of

07:59us.

08:07Most of my parents also worked a lot.

08:09So, really, it was just my grandmother home a lot of the time.

08:12And she wasn't, you know, terribly vigilant about, she wasn't paying a lot of attention to where I was either.

08:19She was quite a bit older and she had, she was legally blind.

08:23But most of the time when he was there, it was my parents weren't there.

08:26Or, um, it was super late.

08:28Like, he would tap on my window when it would be, you know, two o'clock in the morning.

08:32We're sitting on the front porch in the dark.

08:34And there's, you know, nobody there.

08:36Later on, yes, my, um, my dad did, I think, kind of start to get a, an idea of what

08:45was going on.

08:46Um, my dad has a, he's got anger issues.

08:51He has a temper.

08:51So, I, I didn't think to, to tell him I was scared of what would happen if I did.

08:56Not what would happen to me, but, you know, like, what would happen to him.

08:59What would happen to my family if I, I did.

09:02If I tell my parents, I tell my dad this is going on.

09:05My dad's going to kill him and my dad's going to go to prison and I'm going to lose my

09:07dad.

09:08I did have the word with all to tell my mom.

09:11My mom is a nurse.

09:12Like, hey mom, I'm thinking about being sexually active.

09:16Uh, can you, can you get me on some kind of birth control?

09:19And after what happened in the truck that day, I just, I was scared I was going to get pregnant.

09:24That's actually did happen to one of my good friends that another of his victims, she was 16.

09:30She was very, very at a party and, uh, he kind of had his way with her while she was

09:36half conscious.

09:36They had a son who is almost, I think, 22 now, uh, from that party.

09:43She was 16.

09:44She got pregnant our sophomore year and that was him again.

09:48He, you know, he would make threats every now and then.

09:51He was, I think he's very much a narcissist.

09:54He's still to this day, it's just, he did nothing wrong.

09:56Like, being 14 year old little girls, I don't know what he thinks our fault was.

10:01But he, um, he's very much a narcissist.

10:04I didn't come from a bad home, I, but my childhood was very tumultuous.

10:08I had a lot of things going on.

10:10Uh, there was a lot of things going on in my family.

10:12And I think he preyed on those of us who had that, um, not necessarily bad, but tumultuous home life.

10:20Because, you know, we're not, not that our parents don't intend to give us that self-esteem,

10:26but they're busy with other things.

10:28I mean, survival and, um, you know, keeping a roof over our heads.

10:33I had really low self-esteem at that age.

10:36Like, really low self-esteem.

10:37Like, I had the worst body dysmorphia you can imagine.

10:41He, I think, knew how to walk the line of violence versus, like, love bombing.

10:50Um, like, you're so pretty, you're, you're beautiful, you know, you're so perfect for your age,

10:55you're so smart for your age, you're so, you know, you caught my eye, which, yeah, like,

10:59that's really something, like a predator, right?

11:01He's just, he, he, he's a terrible human.

11:05He is.

11:0619-year-old, 20-year-old, 20, you know, 24-year-old men who were, you know, telling a high

11:11school

11:12girl that she's, you know, she's beautiful, or, hey, I like you, or, hey, I, I mean, no,

11:19that, that's absolutely just, no, it's predatory.

11:22It's predatory.

11:23They're predators.

11:24They're looking for somebody that age because women their own age know they're predators.

11:30It kind of continued on probably until in about late 2000, like I said, so it would have been

11:36my, like, the summer I was 16, then it stopped, so started when I was 14, uh, ended, you know,

11:42shortly after I turned 16.

11:44I cannot put a number on how many times it happened.

11:47I would say over 50, probably more.

11:50Uh, like I said, I blocked a lot of it out.

11:54After that happened, I never let anybody else touch me, um, like really, you know, until

12:00I met my husband.

12:02It took me about a year before I could, you know, really have any kind of, you know, like

12:08real intimacy with him, which is actually one of the ways I knew he was the right one,

12:13you know, horny teenage boy and still patiently, faithfully waited for me, uh, told me it was

12:19never going to be an issue with us because he loved me and he would wait.

12:22And, uh, like there is still, now I have touched flashbacks.

12:26It made me very cautious.

12:29I could not, I didn't tell my parents about any of this until I was 25.

12:33As far as having a daughter, uh, having my daughter and then having had this happen to

12:39me at such a young age, it's almost like a panicky feeling as she gets older.

12:42She's nine now.

12:43And we do, we have this saying with her at bedtime, which is, you know, tell me, tell me the

12:48things.

12:49And she says, my body, my rules are things I'm trying to do with her.

12:52I'm trying to teach her how amazing she is and how powerful she is and how beautiful she

13:00is.

13:00And I just, I want to imbue her with these things that I did not have as a kid.

13:06She's getting older.

13:07And I sometimes have like just these crying fits where I'm like, I don't know how I can

13:12protect her.

13:12And I know it's completely unreasonable, but I think it's like a trauma response.

13:17The, the touch memories are, are difficult and there's, they're very fleeting now, but

13:24there's a smell of a certain alcohol that'll do it.

13:28Um, like really cheap, um, cheap will do it.

13:33You know, anything else that came along, like I said, for a long time, I wouldn't let anybody,

13:37you know, touch me.

13:39It's maybe like for, for somebody else, it could be somebody putting your, putting their

13:45hand on your face and it makes you recoil because it will throw you back to a really

13:49bad memory that you have.

13:51Uh, for me, sometimes, you know, being intimate with my husband, it'll just be like an unexpected

13:57move, like his hand, you know, just on a certain part of my body or, or something that I remember

14:03really vividly from that year, uh, that he, you know, that he touched me and now it's

14:09just like, Oh, you know, and I'm just kind of moved to avoid it.

14:12And they were really, you know, of course, upset about it.

14:16I mean, you find out your daughter's been assaulted.

14:17How are you going to feel?

14:19So my dad just kind of, he shook his head and he was like, I knew there was something.

14:24I just didn't know what it was.

14:25And my mom was kind of the same way.

14:27She said, you know, we saw the changes in you.

14:29We knew there was something going on.

14:31We knew they were really, you know, of course, upset about it.

14:35I mean, you find out your daughter's been assaulted.

14:37How are you going to feel?

14:38I, you know, I remember her asking me questions like, Hey, are you okay?

14:42Um, is there anything you want to talk to me about?

14:45You know, you seem kind of weird today.

14:46Are you okay?

14:47You know, and of course they're like any other parents.

14:50They're wondering why a grown man is, is trying to hang around with their, you know, their

14:55teenage daughter.

14:56I kind of wish somebody had noticed like just how much time I was spending on the phone with

15:03this guy or, um, why he just started showing up to my house kind of unannounced one day,

15:11you know, out of the blue when he hadn't at that point been like really a part of the

15:16friend group that I'd already established.

15:18I don't know.

15:19Maybe ask my friends, you know, Hey, is this, is this something, you know, that she's, is

15:26she seeing him?

15:27Is she, uh, is, is, is there something going on that we need to know about?

15:31Ask him when they come home crying?

15:32Like, you know, why, why are you crying?

15:34Or, you know, when they seem upset, why are you upset?

15:36Which is, you know, are there things my parents did?

15:38But, you know, where we get to be good liars, talk to your kids, make yourself a safe space

15:44for your kids.

15:45You should be the first safe space, the first place that they go with their problems.

15:49There is nothing wrong with you.

15:52You are strong.

15:53You are beautiful.

15:54You are perfect.

15:55And you have done nothing wrong.

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