TRIGGER WARNING: SEXUAL ASSAULT, SUICIDAL THOUGHTS, DEPRESSION
Have you ever been through something so horrible in your childhood that forgetting it is the only way for you to be okay? Those memory losses usually happen when we are children because our brains simply cannot handle them. In my experience, I would like to say thank you and fuck you to my brain. Thank you because it has helped me live relatively normal, minus the other traumas that I’ll talk about some other time, childhood. Fuck you because it made me have so many panic attacks that I did not understand or the huge panic attack I got when I suddenly remembered everything. Overall I am thankful though because my brain made me develop defense mechanisms I did not even realize I had.
Well let’s get started, shall we? It all started a couple of months ago, well years but I had forgotten and remembered it a couple of months ago, I received a text on messenger coming from this guy Glenn ( I don’t give a fuck about him so this is his actual name), I knew him when we were young and the only thing I remembered is that I was very uncomfortable around him and I didn’t like him. I did not know why I felt that way but I decided to ignore it because I thought it was probably trivial and if I didn’t remember it probably was not important. My mom tells me that all the time so I guess it stuck. Anyways, he texts me and he’s like: “Do you still like me?”. In my head, I’m like what is he talking about? So I just say no and move on with my life.
About a month or so later, I was minding my business in my room watching feminist TikToks while eating nuggets. In most of those compilations of said TikToks, there were many about sexual assault, rape, and basically a bunch of survivors sharing their experiences and how they’ve moved on with their lives. At that moment I felt a little pang in my chest but to me, it was just because I felt sorry for those women and hate for the men who put them through something so horrible. I started thinking, and said to myself “ Damn I wonder if I would be able to move if something even remotely similar ever happen to me”. That’s where I fucked up. I thought. About a few minutes later, I pick up my towel and head to the bathroom to shower, still thinking about what I had just watched. While I was showering, it hit me, hard. I was reliving everything, I felt as though I was there like I had never left. Everything I was feeling when those things happened was resurfacing so fast it was overwhelming. I started seeing those things in my head like it was a movie. My life quite literally flashed before my eyes. I just crumbled and cried because what else could I do? I had no idea.
It all started when I was five, ended when I was eight. I don’t quite remember how old he was but he was older than me, not by a lot but he was bigger, stronger, taller while I was smaller, weaker, and shorter. I remember my mom would drop me off at his house, he lived with his mom, dad, older brother, and his two sisters. We would hang out and chill together play games. When one day he wanted to play mom and dad. At first, I was like yeah okay I guess I’ll be the mom. Everything was fine until he tried to kiss me. Reminder I was five at the time. I did not want him to kiss him at all, but he kept asking and asking and asking, never stopping. I stood my ground and told him I was not interested in kissing and we should continue to play like before. Needless to say, he did not like that at all. So he grabbed me, carried me to his room, and basically forced himself on me. I was terrified but that moment was when I realized I cannot say no to him, because if I do. It’ll hurt, a lot. So every time my mom would drop me off at his house, every time he would come to my house, every time we saw each other at church, at every birthday party we were ever both invited to, the same thing he would force himself on me without any remorse. Always without fail. I tried to get out of it by telling him I did not want to do this anymore but he threatened to tell not only my mom but all of his friends, and my friends. That day was when it got even worse than before. He knew he had something over me and he was not going to let it go no matter what. He started making requests and pushing my bo9undaries even more, every time I tried to refuse, he would make a threat. If he was mad at somebody, I couldn’t talk to them, it didn’t matter if they were my friend or not, If he didn’t like them I couldn’t either. I lost so many friends because of him. I felt so dirty and used that I wanted to die, I wanted to disappear, I wanted him to disappear. You have no idea how many times I considered pushing him in the lake that was close to our church because I just wanted him gone. I wanted to be able to breathe again. I hated leaving my house because I would probably see him. Every time my mom dropped me off at his house I wanted to scream and beg her to take me with her and not leave me with him.
There was another in the church that liked me and Glen did not care for it. So he asked his brother to marry us so I would his, and his alone. At that point, his brother knew what was going on because he had seen what he had done to me many times, but did not care. In fact, he was jealous and he tried to do the same to me but Glen protected me? Like at that time I thought it was so nice of him to do that but now I realize it’s not any better at all. Anyways his brother “married” us in his room and kissed me against my will once again, then he left to get some water and his brother decided to force a kiss on me and then told me to shut up. My life at six years old was a complete shitshow.
On my seventh birthday, I got a diary from someone I think maybe a church member. I wrote one sentence in that diary, “ I did gross stuff with Glen”. That little sentence was so liberating because frankly, it had the first and only time I had expressed any of it. I felt joy. That joy did not last though because then I was back at his house and he was back at mine. Couple of days later, the pastor came to my mom’s house and he was asking me what I had gotten for my birthday. I got excited and gave him my diary forgetting what I had written inside. When he was about to open it, I tried to get it back but I couldn’t. He read it. Just like that, my secret was out in the open. My mom was furious and she called Glen’s mom. We went to his house and we were confronted about the whole thing and he blamed me. He said I came onto him and I was forcing him, that all of this was my fault and my idea. They believed him. Just like that. No one even tried to hear me out. No one tried to hear my sde of the story. All he said was that it was my fault and boom there it was. When my mom and I got home. I got beat. I got beat hard. For hours. The next day, I had bruises all over my body, I could barely walk and my mom was not talking to me, not looking at me and somehow the whole church found out. My friends looked at me in disgust, the parents were telling their children to stay away from me. I wanted to jump in that lake. I wanted to just be gone. I had no one, not even my mom.
After that whole thing I just shut down, he tried to force himself on me again but I wasn’t the same person anymore, and I was defending myself and I never let myself be alone with him. I distanced myself, I hated myself, I felt dirty and then I forgot.
As I am writing right now, I have a few tears but damn am I proud. I lived through that at such a young age. I’m proud of myself. I never like him ever, I was just scared. I am a lot stronger now and I love that for me.
