trauma

Erika

I grew up in the Philippines, a country colonized for hundreds of years. When I was younger, I was taught self limiting beliefs by those that love me the most. I loved playing– I loved running, biking and just being active. That was aggressively discouraged by the women in my family. One occasion, I fell down and scraped my legs and my grandmother got so upset with me. I didn’t understand why it elicited so much anger from her. Then, she said “no one is going to want to marry you anymore”. I was taught to always lather lotion on my skin meanwhile my brother didn’t need to do this. I saw my mother spend so much money on her appearance. I recently learned she spent thousands of dollars on laser hair removal when it first came out, the very same year I was struggling to pay for college. It’s her money, I understand but she has shared so much remorse for not being able to help with my education. When conversations about the future will come up and I am excitedly sharing my passions, someone will always remind me to marry someone rich. These beliefs have been passed down to women in my family for generations. I am working on freeing myself from it.

Pseudonym

I was raped and half of the trauma of the rape has been its aftermath. It’s the stuff you don’t expect that’s the worst….my feminist roommate moving out a week later because she couldn’t deal with my trauma, my secret fear that people are tired of my need to talk about it or emote…how in reality I’m expected to have recovered already (just a year later). Ppl just want me to “get over it.”

Jana W

When I was abou 13-14 years old, I remember, a friend of our family and actually my sister’s godfather, started “coming over” quite a lot. It was just like him visiting us and chatting drinking coffee with my mim and myself, who were usually at home (after school). He himself had a daughter and a son, quite closed to my age. So, He started coming over for nearly everyday and was everytime very interested in what I was doing. So interested that my Moment was Wanderung why eh came over so much and why eh was so interested in me. He wouldnt stop asking me questions like “Do you have a boyfriend yet?” or “i would Understand why the boys Must like you” or would comment about my apperance, my eye-liner or something else. One time he even commented about my tits (“oh you have big tits for your age, good for you, I’ve Heard men/boys Must like that.”) next to my mum (she Said nothing in response). I also Never knew how to respond to that. Also, when i was Reading a magazine for teenagers (called “BRAVO”), which everybody read at my age, he Flickend through it and showed me the Pages of a naked Boy and girl (“Dr. Sommer” would answer to questions about the body) and making commented about them. It made me Feel very uncomfortable and i didn’t want him to come over and be always at our home anymore, but on the other side i couldn’t go anywhere else, which made me feel trapped and I didn’t say anything because I felt ashamed and didn’t Know if that behaviour was right or wrong. So in the end my mum Asked him about it and he confessed he had crush on me (or something like that) and wouldn’t come over anymore. My sister was very sad, because he was very nice (like you are actually to a child) to her and I felt very guilty about it. I felt like i destroyed a family’s friendship. I can say after that I was seriously scared about men and didn’t want anything to do with them for a long time. I didn’t Tell my sister anything, until she was 18.