On February 19, 2016, a Manhattan Supreme Court judge refused to let Kesha end a six-album contract with Sony. Why did she want to abandon this deal? Because she worked with a man who raped, harassed, and assaulted her.

Pictures of Kesha sobbing in the courtroom are circulating around the Internet; and to be frank and concise, I am nauseated by this.

Reading about this horrific and shameful decision by our own country took my mind back to a place it doesn't like to visit. I went through something extremely similar.

From 8th grade until my sophomore year at high school, I worked with a married man with children who was my manager at a pizza restaurant. What started as small comments about my butt and breasts when I was 13 evolved into physical actions by the time I was 15. I remember one day I was speaking to a customer behind the register and the manager came over and groped my butt while I was trying to speak to them. Internally, I shuddered and went and cried in the bathroom. He'd always tell me "Call me when you're 18." But he didn't wait until then.

At first, when I started working there, there were family issues in my home so I'd retreat to the pizza place down the street and I'd tell him about the things that hurt me, to which he sunk his teeth right into my vulnerable, adolescent mind. He manipulated me so much that I didn't even realize the "special" treatment he gave me. I assumed it was the way he spoke to the other girls. He bought me alcohol and cigarettes and never made me pay. For Christmas, he even gave me an engraved Zippo lighter, with the name he always called me, "Peanut". Later, this lighter proved to be the only physical shred of evidence I had against him.

The final day that I worked at the restaurant, it was only him and I in the morning preparing for the day. It was as normal as any other day, him telling me how beautiful I was, how the boys in high school that didn't like me didn't see the potential I had as a woman, that I was such a "catch." He'd informed that with the New Year coming he was making cuts in the staff and that we all had a lot to prove if we still wanted to be working. Of course, I wanted to keep my job and he understood the power he held over me. I was smoking a cigarette in the back when I noticed he was staring at my chest intently, and almost angrily. I asked him if everything was okay, and he urged me to take my shirt off, that he couldn't wait until I was 18 anymore, that he needed to see my breasts at that very moment. I started laughing because at first, I thought he was joking. He kept pressing and pressing for me to take my shirt off, and then I became extremely scared and started sweating and shaking. He yelled at me, telling me it was unfair to him that I "waltzed" around all day with my body and didn't share it's secrets with him, after "all he did for me." I started crying, and he lunged forward at me and grabbed my shirt and tried to rip it down the middle. I ran away and out the door, and never returned. I remember sitting on a beach not too far from the restaurant crying and waited until my shift time would have ended before I walked home.

I couldn't tell my parents solely because I didn't know how, and I didn't understand what happened to me. I thought it was my fault.

I lied to them about working for the next month and would run off to random locations while they thought I was at work. I couldn't bring myself to admit or relive what happened because it hurt too much to remember. Instead, I hurt myself and internalized everything I was experiencing. I couldn't drive past the restaurant without having flashbacks of what happened, similar to PTSD. One day, I reached a breaking point after a long month of internalizing my pain. I broke down to my parents in the parking lot of our local mall, and I didn't want to go to the police. My parents urged me to, even though it would be an extremely painful experience to relive and share my story with older male officers.

After a long period of contemplation, I finally decided to come forward to the authorities about what happened to me. Not because I wanted him to get in trouble or lose his job or ruin his marriage or his children's views of their father; I didn't want it to happen to any other girl, vulnerable and frightened, retreating to him for comfort.

It took about two weeks for the police to gather my statements, and to my shock and horror, they determined that they had no case, because of no physical evidence. I remembered I still had the lighter he gave me for Christmas, and I thought that it would be enough to prove the events were to be true. There were no cameras in the restaurant, so all I had were my words, my pain, and the lighter.

When he came to be interviewed about the allegations all he had to do was simply deny everything that happened. He was so confident he would not get in trouble he did not even hire a lawyer. The case was never brought to court, and I doubt his family is even aware of these events.

I stand with Kesha and I stand with all women and men who have faced or will face the lack of delicacy and the extreme injustice our judicial system displays in handling these cases. Often times there is no physical evidence, but should the story end there? We live with this pain and bear it on our souls these tragic events that unfortunately many victims think is their faults and hurt themselves, some actually killing themselves over. And the denial of justice by our judicial system only furthers our pain by proving it doesn't matter, and that these things are okay to happen. It took me years to come to terms with what happened to me and how it was handled, and, to be honest, I still fully haven't recovered. I couldn't put to my mind that these events were real and really happened, and our judicial system proved me they weren't. Even with the Bill Cosby cases, it took years for Cosby to even see his day in court. Sexual harassment, sexual assault, rape, and child predation are by far the most personal and traumatizing crimes someone can be subject to. To my dismay and disgust, our country still fails to protect us from these messed up people and bring them to justice.