Sexual abuse

E

My granddad recently died, and I’m extremely conflicted. On one hand, I really loved him, and miss him a lot. On the other, I used to wish he was dead when I was younger. He used to kiss me whenever I saw him, but it was weird. It must have started when I was about 10, but I don’t remember exactly. I must have blocked it out. He used to ask “do you love me?”, and I started off by saying nope, in a mischievous sense, until one day I said yes, and he kissed me. Fully on the lips. I really didn’t like it, as it felt very wrong, and I tried to tell him at the start, but he didn’t listen, so I just tried to ignore it. I think he must have felt he was entitled to it. It progressed the older I got, and so I used to pretend I was asleep or try to avoid him whenever I was in the same house as him. Once, he pushed me against the wall, and basically started to grind against me in this weird sexual way, and all that I could think to say was “Please, I’m thirteen!”, and his reply was something like “I’m not going to do anything.” He’d always want a kiss, and always maintained it was full of passion, and I just couldn’t bring myself to tell anyone, especially when he started to give me money as I was his “favourite”. I just felt incredibly guilty. He used to squeeze my thigh whilst giving me a lift home, and as a result I always react badly whenever anyone touches my thighs now. I suspect my nan had a suspicion of what was going on, but neither of us have ever mentioned it. At this point, I can’t bring myself to mention it to my parents, as I don’t think they’d believe me. Even if they did, I don’t want them to blame themselves. I’m eighteen years old.

Madison T

I imagine I was around 7 or 8 years old. 1st or 2nd grade perhaps. Probably second for some reason I can’t remember much (any) of grade 2 even though I remember all of grade 1 and grade 3 so it would make sense if it happened then and I just blocked out the entire year. I liked to play make believe in the yard (front or back it was all forest). I would be a warrior of some sort fighting forest creatures (much like those in the Spiderwick Chronicles). The yard had always been a magical fairy land that lurked with monsters needing to be defeated. I imagined the fairies lived in the soft green bushes that grew tiny yellow flowers. I haven’t a clue what kind of plant it was but the stems were also soft and green and pliable so I could walk through them and find tiny little empty spaces as my fort. On day two older neighborhood boys wanted to “play” with me. They were much taller than I and five or six years older. I thought they wanted to play make believe and visit the fairies with me. The next thing I remember is them telling me to take my clothes off. I was a small child and they were much bigger and they outnumbered me. I thought it was just a game, at first. I did what they asked then they asked me to spin around real slow. So I did. I can’t remember if they touched me or just looked at me but I remember not telling a soul. When they told me I could, I put my clothes back on and went inside like nothing happened. The back yard was no longer a magical place with fairies. I didn’t tell anyone, I knew what they did was wrong but my parents were never there for me, they never protected me. Even as a child I understood that girls who were molested were broken and somewhere in me I knew that was what had happened and I didn’t want to be seen as broken. Out of shame and hopelessness I burried it. For the next 11-12 years I walked by those bushes everyday when I left the house. Fast Forward. A little after this event (perhaps a year or two) I was had fallen asleep on the armchair in the living room. It was the wee hours of the morning still dark but just enough light to see. Something woke me up. It was footsteps so quiet as if they were trying to be sneaky. I peaked through my eyes to see who it was and saw my two older step brothers (one four years older, the other 7 years older) So I did what I always did: pretended to be asleep. That was how I got away from my stepdad and stepbrothers mood swings at night, I would fake sleeping. The two pairs of footsteps got closer and stopped by the armchair. I was terrified I couldn’t move, I couldnt open my eyes. They always tormented me like brothers do but parents always intervened when it got rowdy, but there were no parents in the room now. I felt then reach into my bottoms and touch me. They took turns and all I could do was pretend to be asleep, paralyzed by fear. Eventually they left. I never told anyone. My parents always sided with my stepbrothers I thought if I told then somehow I would get in trouble like always. If they did get in trouble, I knew they would be even meaner to me when parents weren’t around to get back at me. I thought if I told they would hurt me, bad. I did what I always did I suked it up and I burried it. That’s what my mother taught me suck it up, be complacent, cater to those who are more powerful than you to protect yourself.

Mina

I worked for a London company with a lot of older sales guys, some would drink in the lunchtime, they called me a lesbian as I didnt have a boyfriend and one called me a prostitute for no reason I can fathom except that he was always drunk in the lunchtimes and he was abusive and toxic, they made sexual jokes all the time and I didnt leave as I was scared and had to pay my rent which was high and I was quite new to the corporate world, so vunerable, looking back I wish I had left years ago when the comments started, although I would now never put myself in that situation, they also didnt pay me for new client accounts that I brought into the company.

Janine

When I was 19, I earned the role of assistant manager at a local community pool for the summer because I was remarkably responsible for my age. The manager to whom I was assigned, a middle aged, male gym teacher, didn’t like that I had gotten the job. On my first day, in front of the other assistant manager, a male that was 2 years older than me, he told me that I shouldn’t be there and that he could bend me over his desk and violate me with a baseball bat that was leaning next to the desk. The other assistant manager laughed. I stayed for several weeks anyway and tried to do the job but the staff was encouraged to haze me. My friends participated in messing with my food and damaging my car and personal items. I ended up quitting the job. I had no one to report it to. I had a very messed up home life where things weren’t much better. It didn’t even seem like that big a deal to me because I had so many other violations before that and since. I am 43 years old now and I’m grateful that we have come far enough for me to protect other women and confront offenders loudly and openly. I am damn proud to say that although it is unfortunate that my 17-year old daughter has had a run-in or two with sexist or violative behavior, she handled it like a BOSS and didn’t ever consider shrinking away in fear, shame, or acceptance that that’s just how it is. She asked for help and justice because she knew I had guns blazing to protect her and I prepared her for how to handle it.

I

Throughout my early childhood – from before I can remember to the age of about 10 – I was sexually abused by my father. I’m over it at this point, I’ve recovered from the damage and honestly I think it strengthened me as a person to endure that and get through it alone. But anyway, the way that it ended was pretty simple – one day he came in to my room while my mother was out of the house and I knew his intent so I just said ‘no’ and looked at him with a newfound independence [I have no idea where it came from, but I think it made him see that if it continued, I would’ve told someone.] I hate my father – not just for this, but we have never gotten along and I honestly cannot wait to leave this house and never see him again – but I don’t feel the need to put him in prison. Mainly because none of what happened matters all that much to me in the grand scheme of things – I’ve faced worse before and I probably will again – but what really makes me angry is that I can’t talk about it. Not with other people, because frankly I don’t feel the need to burden those around me with problems of the past, but with him. I want to be able to tell him that it was wrong and it angers me and that I don’t forgive him but ever since that day he walked in to my room, and straight back out again? We haven’t spoken a word on it, neither of us have even acknowledged to the other that it ever happened.

Laura

My stepdad sexually abused me when I was 12 – 13 years old. I tried to tell my mum a couple of years later and she thought I was lying and told me not to repeat it to anyone incase social services took my little brother away, all because of my lie. I’m 32 now and she finally realised the truth after I repeatedly refused to let my daughter have contact with him. Turns out she was sexually abused by her father for years and is now struggling to live with the fact that she didn’t help me when I needed it. My reaction to my abuse was so different from hers she thought it wasn’t real. Because people didn’t talk about stuff like that. It took her until her 50’s before she began to speak about her experiences to anyone. Thankyou for helping to bring these subjects out into the open and show women across the world how they might begin to come to terms with their experiences, understand eachother’s and, I hope, change the culture in which they can go unnoticed and unchallenged. We stand together.