Hello all, I'm new to the group. I was groomed by my best friend's 35 year old uncle when I was 14. It took me a long time to realize that what happened was wrong. To be honest I thought I was in love with him. =/ My life after that didn't get any better. I started drinking/doing drugs and self harming in my teenage years. As I went into my 20's all I did was drink and go through horrific things. In the last couple of years (now 29) I have really come around and bettered my life. I graduated from college with a 3.9 GPA, got a scholarship and went on to continue my education. Everything was going pretty well. I met a guy in 2012 who went on to become the best friend I had always dreamed of. He was the only male friend who never hit on me, tried to take advantage or confessed his love to me. He moved away for a couple of years and recently moved back to the neighborhood when I graduated. Everything was great. He was really the only guy I truly trusted. 

Then one night we got drunk and he slept over. (Sometimes he would sleep over because I didn't want him to travel home intoxicated). We never had a problem before. Usually I would sleep on my air mattress and give him the bed. That night it was too late to blow up the air mattress so I said screw it, we have slept in the same bed once or twice so it's not a big deal. We went to sleep. Then I woke up a couple hours later to his hand down my pants and his mouth on my nipple. I literally froze. I moved really quick and pretended I was still asleep. He stopped. I have been haunted ever since. I have completely lost trust in him but more importantly I am disappointed in myself. I always said that if this happened to me again I would flip out and do something about it, but I didn't. I laid there in silence. Then I made excuses for what he did. I said oh, he was probably really drunk and didn't know what he was doing. I mean, he woke up and acted like nothing happened. I have since cut him out of my life without any explanation. But here's the thing:

I came clean about what happened to my friend and they have told me that I should press charges on him. We had a pretty heated discussion and I told him that it would never stand up in court. I've heard and read too many stories about women pressing charges after sexual assault and it was traumatizing and embarassing to go through the process and then end up not getting justice. My friend told me that after everything I have been through I have never gone about punishing the people who have hurt me. I have never been comfortable coming clean about my experiences and I was embarassed by it. For a long time I blamed myself for the things that happened to me as wrong as they were. So I don't know.. 

I guess the advice I am looking for is what is the right thing to do? I know that I won't press charges, so that is out of the question. I just want to know if anyone has ever had the same experiences and what happened (if) when you pressed charges? 

More than anything I am devastated that I was taken advantage by the one person I thought would never hurt me...

-C