The toughest subject I´ll ever write about

And that topic is child abuse, child molestation, you can call it anything is the same. I was a victim of this from the age of 9 to 15, yes six long years of feeling sick and disgusted about anything that happened to me, I remember perfectly well how it started and how it tended, but really can´t remember what happened in between. This is the first and probably last time I´ll talk about this in public, I´ll come out of the closet as a survivor of this horrible thing.

My abuser was a family member, not by blood even do that doesn´t make any difference, and he was someone charming, reliable, adorable and smart, he had a good job, a family and degree and he made me feel like his family too, always saying I was his little sister, playing with me, joking, I loved him of course he was really cool.

It started by him wanting to teach me things and asking me to do things for him, he was an adult I could not say no, I was alone most of the time since both my parents worked and he was living there by some strange circumstance of destiny, then it escalated and he wanted more but I was getting this feeling of repulse about me and try to made it stop, made sure that I was not alone, avoided him at any cost, and that’s how I survived during 6 years, hiding, going to friends houses, taking activities in the afternoon etc.

I had problems with school and the school psychologist could not explain why, he would say “There´s got to be something that is troubling you” and I could not even begin to imagine that this happened to other people to, I thought I was the only one in the world, I was so ashamed of me, of allowing it to happen, I didn’t think it could ever be messing my life.

So one day I just said “José there is something that might be making me feel weird” and that was the first time I spoke about it, it was so surreal on the outside I was this joyful girl, in lots of activities, with lots of friends, but inside I felt like dying. He told me I had to tell my mom or my dad and I told him that never, ever would I say this to them, so since he could not convince me to do this, he told me ways to avoid it, to deal with it, to stop it.

One month I arrived with a really bad report card and my mom got so mad she started hitting me asking me why was I doing so poorly in school, what was wrong with me and I shouted to her what was happening. She started listening to me and wanted to talk to him and I didn´t wanted I knew it was going to be chaos in the family, that it was going to be horrible and it was. Even do I begged to not say it to anyone, she told my aunts, my grandmother, just to “alert them” she said.

So on the outside we were this really happy family with a deep dark secret, we all knew but no one really knew, my dad never found out thank God cause it would have kill him sooner, I started therapy and that somewhat helped, overcome this feeling of being useless, damaged goods.

Fast forward to now things are exactly the same in my house, nothing has changed he is still the golden boy and I have absolutely no contact with them because of other issues but also because of all of this.

I´ve survived and moved on and learn to deal with it in my own terms, hardly ever talk about it, not many people knew until now and whenever I can avoid the topic I do it, because it hurts, and brings back memories and gets me down, the reason to write this is alerting all the people out there that this happens, that it shouldn´t that no one should suffer a minute of it.

This event in my life changed me, it made a girl that thought life was all pink and happy realize that life was cruel and unfair at the age of 9, made me not wanting to have kids out of fear this could happen to them, and it also created someone very afraid of many things in life.

If you know a survivor and he/she wants to talk about it let them, don´t tell them is over, or that it happens to a lot other people, or that she will be fine, sometimes talking is a great therapy, if we see something on T.V. that upset us try to calm us down but don´t tell us to stop many times we have no control over this, when it comes back it hurts just like it did back then, even if you have your adult weapons to deal with it.

If you think of someone this is happening to, talk to this person, ask how can you help, tell her you are there for anything she might need is so difficult to detect this, so many different ways this can happen keep your eyes, your ears and your heart open, you never know if this could happen in your family.

I don´t feel like a victim, not anymore life is too short to allow my abuser to think he won, yes my abuse scar me, but it also made me aware of the nice people out there, of the really nice things in life, of how important it is to feel good about you and be happy, and try to find reasons to truly enjoy life, no matter what, no matter who, no matter when.