Dedication: cild sexual abuse survivors
Trigger warning: Before reading this post, please be aware that it contains descriptions of childhood sexual assault.
I’m 16 in 2024. I had been visiting my aunt routinely ever since I could remember up until everyone found out about my sexual abuse. My abuser was my uncle, my moms brother. He had schizophrenia and had been in and out of various psychiatric hospitals. Still, my aunt had too much love for him so she would immedietely let him into her house at the time. (Which wasnt really hers, she was living with her father; my grandfather). So she’d let him in, knowing what he was capable of because she trusted him and had a siblings bond with him. Everything with him was normal until the age of 9, the verbal abuse started. He started talking to me about sexual acts like if I ever wondered why grown ups had sex in the nighttime instead of the daytime, asking me if I wanted to see his privates and touch him. (I always refused). He started telling me stories about he used to change me all the time and remebered me having a birthmark on my private part and asking if we could just go to the bathroom and I pull down my pants so he could see if it had faded away or was still there. I said no and at first he would be annoyed but then say “thats good, dont ever let anyone see your private part thats for you and you only” pretending to act like the wonderful advice giving, cool uncle. I think it had been a few months when he started caressing my inner thighs, trying to kiss me. I didn’t know what making out was at the time but he was definitely trying to make out because i’d remember him kissing me for a long time and me just sitting there with my eyes open. At this point he’d start saying more comments about seeing my private part and me seeing his and me declining, so, I told my twin sister that he was just being a little weird but didn’t give her all the details, just to call me over if she saw him with me alone. (He’d send my sister and cousin to go play while he “talked” to me). And yes, this all happened in my aunts house while my grandfather was at work and I stood with my aunt, cousin, and sister. My aunt would be studying for college (she was a young mom in college at the time) and my cousin and sister would be playing with something or watching TV. He would always tell me that out of the three of us he could tell I was strong and special and to make sure not to tell anyone how he touched my thighs or said what he did because some bad people would try to separate us forever and ensured me that we both loved each other too much to be separated for something stupid. This went on for a long time until I started thinking of all the stories my mom used to tell me about staying away from strangers because they rape little girls like me and started thinking that even though he was my family, he could do that to me too. I got scared and started telling my dad that I didn’t want to go my aunts house anymore without telling him what was happening. I Dont remember what reasons I gave him but he bought it and we had some time away, until. My mother and father are divorced and so I live with my dad and used to go to my moms apartment in North Carolina and one day we were supposed to get on a bus to North Carolina. I remember we took a train to New York City and the posters on the train around me. I remember seeing a poster ad about stray dogs and it was a puppy that had only a little fur left and looked skinny and overall bad. Me and my sister pointed it out saying awwwww look at the poor dogs and I remember my uncle telling me not to point out sad things like that because he got “bad”. I remeber thinking I didnt know what that meant but I guess I wouldn’t mention those things anymore. I also remember feeling particularly out of place. There we were in the train; my mom, my twin sister, my little sister, and my uncle/abuser and I since it started, I hadn’t been alone with my MOM and my uncle TOGETHER. I thought he’d act the same way since he had no shame in kissing me and asking to show each other our privates in front of my aunt, but he didn’t. I remember he didn’t look at me once except when he told me to not to talk about sensitive things like the dog ad poster. Like I was saying, I remember feeling for the first time like this is actually worse than I think it is; he’s completely trying to see my privates all the time and acting innocent in front of my mom. Later on, we were waiting for the bus in NYC, so it could finally take us to NC and we realized we forgot the bus snacks for all us little kids on the way, I had to desperately use the bathroom and my uncle said he did too so we went alone together running off to find food and a bathroom. We found a place that had a bathroom and I attempted to wait outside the bathroom while he used the bathroom first and he insisted he didn’t want to just leave me out there all alone, to just come in and close my eyes, so I did. I stood at the door, eyes closed while he was doing his business. He was still using the bathroom when he told me to just open my eyes that I was going to use the bathroom next anyways and I laughed an awkward laugh and said no. He finished, and washed his hands and I waited for him to leave. He didn’t. He stood there next to the sink looking at my private part. I asked if he was gonna stand my the door and close his eyes and he said that he was in a sec when he was done washing his hands. So I js put toilet paper on the sheet and started doing my business. I was using the bathroom when he said wow that im getting so big im already growing hair im my private part and asked me who shaved it and said “B?” (that’s what I call my aunt). I nodded and kept using the bathroom while he just kept going on about how im probably going to get my period then and that it was crazy that I was already growing pubic hair. I grabbed the toilet paper to finally be done but he told me he’d clean me instead. I said no very weirdly sturn, and he said what? I just washed my hands, they’re clean and I just kept saying no and he grabbed it anyways and came to wipe me. I pushed back on the chair while he wiped me slowly back and fourth. I still remember feeling his cold hands, shaking slowly, on me. He was giggling I guess he thought it was funny I was pushing back on the chair until he took one more wipe and through the paper in the toilet. I got up and washed my hands in silence and waited for him to wash his, and we left the restaurant to go get food. He asked me what I wanted, I answered quietly and we ran back to the bus stop with the food. I remember re-feeling his hands on me and feeling like throwing up because I was so nervous about what I’d say to anyone about it. The bus came, he helped us put our things on the bus and find a seat and hugged everyone goodbye and kissed me goodbye while my mom wasn’t looking. I remember sitting on the bus and watching him with a big smile waving my mom away as the bus pulled off and wanting to vomit even more. I knew I had to tell my twin sister at least. My adrenaline went down and my heart started racing even more I remember shoving down like five limonsillo fruits (this was a lot for me) and thinking. I thought A LOT. In fact, I thought the whole bus ride. Almost nine hours I spent thinking on that bus about it. Replaying the last year and a half in my head and asking myself if I was just being crazy, if he was just being that uncle who wasn’t scared to talk about uncomfortable stuff being he wanted me to be open about my life, thinking that maybe he was just wiping me as an uncle and it wasn’t more than that. I was trying to convince myself it wasn’t weird because he wasn’t a stranger. I didn’t go out and trust a random man, I trusted my uncle. My moms best friend, my aunts best friend, one of the most important parts of my grandma and grandpas lives, my cousins favorite guy in the whole world who used to teach us to defend ourselves, what places to hit someone if we ever got into a fight and how to do “capuera”. The guy who everyone tried to support and trusted around their kids. I thought, maybe it wasnt bad because he was all those things to my family, and I couldn’t compete against that, I couldn’t incrimincate him like that, take that away from my beautiful family. I felt like throwing up and the only thing that kept me from throwing up on myself, were the lights from the city. I tried to remind myself that there were still beautiful things, even if that meant one of those things wasn’t me anymore. I felt dirty, ashamed, guilty. I felt weak. When we got to NC I think I knocked out for at least 14 hours when we got to my moms apartment. When I woke up I felt horrible for weeks until I told my sister. We were home alone taking care of my little sister and my mom was at work when I used the bathroom and broke out in tears for the first time since everything started in my aunts house. When I finally stopped I sat by the front door with my sister while she was on my little sisters tablet as my mom didnt yet have a couch yet (she had just moved in). I told my twin sister and she was furious. She wanted to tell my mom but I begged her not to because I knew exactly what happened,would happen. She told my mom only about what happened in the bathroom that day and my mom came home immediately. And then exactly what I knew would happen, happened. She came home, called my uncle, dropped him for life, and screamed at me saying things making it believe it was my fault, and my whole family broke up. I think she could have said things SO differently, but I Dont blame her; shed just found out that she didn’t protect her DAUGHTER from the one thing she was always talking to me about. The problem was, she was worrying about protecting me from the outside world, and forgot the most dangerous people are the ones closest to you. For years, everyone knew only about what happened in that bathroom but not the whole story, until I told them in December of 2022. We involveled authorities, tried a sting operation and it didn’t work because my aunt and grandmother worked hard in protecting my uncle. That’s the last of my story. Every single detail living rent free in my head forever while the world around me forgets anything ever happened. How would I ever forget the feeling of him touching my most intimate part, His voice when asking to see me intimate parts, The smirk on his face while talking to me all those times in my aunts house, The sounds of the train station while I was looking at that dog ad, the smell of cigarettes on his hands as he caressed my face, the feeling of being dirty and guilty all the time? How could someone ask me to forget when I remember every. Last. Detail? I believe it would be easier to forget my own name. Memory is a perfect possession in a perfect world, but a curse in the real world where you’re the loudest in a room where no one wants to hear what you have to say. What does one do when they were robbed of their first intimate time by their grown uncle? What does one do when everyone has forgotten and stopped caring and moved on with their lives? What does one do when they know they’ll be the only one to remember in one year and that their abuser is running around hurting people around them because they themselves, couldn’t put him in jail? What does one do as a survivor? Stay alive. So many urges to do the opposite. If you’ve had something similar happen, stay alive. Whoever u pray to put you on this earth and challenges in front of you because you were strong enough. Stay alive