Dear DreamBook, Entry #17: My IM Exploded

Trigger Warning: This entry includes themes of online harassment and sexual exploitation. Please take care of yourself while reading. If this is too much today, that’s okay — you can come back when you’re ready.

📓 DreamBook Entry #17 — The Day My Instant Messenger Exploded

Dear DreamBook,

I don’t even know how it happened. One day I was just chatting like normal — icons blinking, cursors dancing, playlists autoplaying in the background — and then suddenly… my inbox caught fire.

Ping.
Ping.
Pingpingpingpingping.

Hundreds of messages. All from people I didn’t know. Or bots. Or something worse: people pretending to be people.

Most of them were just… gross. Too old. Too direct. All of them talking like I had invited them in.

I was maybe 14. Still thinking glitter profile borders made me powerful. Still too young to understand what those messages really were. I just knew they made me want to crawl out of my body.

Some of them were clearly fake — random links, broken grammar, repeat senders. But others felt real. Too real. Like someone was watching my profile and choosing the perfect words to make me feel scared or guilty or small.

One of them said: “Would you c*m for me x3?”
And then said it again. And again. Like I owed them a yes. Like I wasn’t a person, just a box they could open.

Then came another: “Let me see your p*ssy.”
I had to look up some words. I didn’t understand. But my body did. It flinched.

I didn’t understand what all the words meant. I just knew they were wrong. I knew they made me feel broken, dirty, frozen.

Then came the worst one. Someone said they would leave me alone… if I showed them pictures of my p*ssy
That was the words they used. I didn’t even have the language for what they meant. But I knew enough to be scared.

Even my email was flooded. I kept telling them what they were doing was downright illegal, and they should be ashamed of themselves, and arrested. It felt like there was no door I could close.

I didn’t send anything. But I didn’t sleep for months. I kept hearing the pings in my head. I kept seeing new messages that weren’t there. I kept checking the locks. I didn’t feel safe in my own room.

Thankfully they didn’t get my address. But they still took something from me. Something that’s hard to name. Something I’m still trying to get back.

If this happened to you too… I’m sorry. You didn’t deserve it. It’s not your fault for being online. It’s not your fault for being young. It’s not your fault, period.

Still protecting my heart as if it’s sacred,

– Me xoxo 🕯️