The Experience of Sexual Abuse

In deciding to write this, I had to go into careful consideration of why I was doing this. Firstly, let me say, anyone who has been through an experience of abuse of any sort, suffers though mental scars for a long time afterwards. Some people do not even face what has happened to them as it can be too painful to handle, therefore they choose to be outcasts holding their guilt throughout their whole lives. It’s true. It’s never easy to speak or try to sort out problems, especially if you feel no one will hear you out. Yet again, problems unsolved tend to become an unknown secret fear whereby one’s life will always be in some sort of inner, if not outer, turmoil and there can never be a release or any hope in life if you should feel like that and try not to sort things out.

Trying to enjoy a normal relationship is hard as many barriers get in the way. One doesn’t know how to react or to be normal. Living in a home where sex was the main object, yet also a taboo, was never easy. I can remember from a very young age having very perverted and screwed-up thoughts because of what was happening around me, it seemed the only way to grow up. I hated the way my dad tried to sexually interfere with us girls. It confused me, upset me, and made me angry. I began to think that all men were the same. I hated my brother who at a young age tried to interfere with me, but only now do I realise he too felt as lost as I did. What he (my brother) did was justified for he knew no better. That became my fear and a point I’d never talk about. I grew up being scared of my brother and always trying to avoid him. I missed being loved and held by my dad as normal fathers would do.

The whole sexual interference throughout my life made me hate what I’d become – a girl who was in constant fear of men and sex, always suspecting the worst and always knowing. Yes, the knowing of life from when I could think, destroyed me! I valued innocence and envied those who had it. Even now, I sometimes wish I could be this virginal figure, yet I can’t, and it’s hard to accept because I’ve never been given the chance. I know too much to become what I’m not. The mental scars of never being at peace, and always in constant fear of when I would become the next victim after my sisters eventually took their toll. I hated, and was revulsed by men, and started to sexually fantasise about women. I was confused and my mind was becoming a time bomb. I never told my mother about my brother, but I tried to explain what my father had tried. Not only had he told me not to tell anyone, which made me feel like a partner to whatever perverse act he tried, but my mother rejected me, and made me go deeper into the black hole of guilt. I began to hate my life and even if there could have been ways out, my mother never followed them.

My older sister, following in my mother’s footsteps, did the same. I hated and hurt and the fury built up. Yet, I felt if I sought help, I would destroy my folks. This was a family thing – NO ONE was to know. I slowly, through help of God and constant counselling, saw a way out and left home. It was hard, yet through life, in the long run, I couldn’t have decided on a better road. I could finally question, voice my opinion, stand up for myself and begin to live a life of right and wrong moral standards, all because I didn’t accept, but fought for what was right.

There’s a lot of people who have gone through so much. I got out, but it’s hard to live in a normal world. I started by taking overdoses, drugs, lesbianism, but to no avail did it work till I’d sorted out how I wanted my life. I realise now as like never before and it can happen in so many other lives, if they begin to wake up and look life straight in the eye, sort it out and make this world a better place to live in for themselves and others around them, who will have to grow up from how we one day teach them.