This picture above is around the age I was maybe a year after, my step brother started to molest me. My brother is who I am pictured with. He is 4 years younger than me. As a 30 year old woman, he is by far my best friend.
I only brought out what they call allegations of the molestation last year. For 28 years, I didn't feel like a victim. It just didn't hit me the way I thought it should. Although, I thoroughly enjoy watching SVU detectives catch the bad guys and I have always been an advocate against child molestation, rape, or any sexual assault.
It wasn't until I had my daughter, who will turn 3 in 2 months, that changed my whole outlook on the situation. I didn't want to ever see her go through the life I did. My son was 7 at the time and I am not sure why in my mind I thought he was exempt from the same fate. I felt like he had better odds I guess. But I know now that it happens to boys as much as girls. But she was only 5 months old, and it hit me hard. I knew in my heart what he did was wrong, but I never told a soul until I was in my 20's.
I had to still live with this man as my so called brother. I called his son my nephew.
People ALWAYS wonder..... "Why now? Why bring this up now? Are you lying ? Are you trying to hurt him?"
Let me give you a little background that brought this castle crumbling down. My stepmother, who hadn't legally been my stepmother in 10 years, but she was like a mom to me and raised me with an iron fist. She was who I called MOM. After her random mental breakdown, she told me via text that I was TRASH and that I was trying to get back at her for my horrible childhood. (none of the molestation allegations had been told to her at this point.) She felt that I was trying to get people on "my side" which was not the case at all. But at this point in my life, it was tearing me up to keep it to myself.
I called and blurted out "You want to know about my 'horrible' childhood, you let your son touch me, you let him. YOU FUCKING BITCH.
I hated her in that moment. Looking back now, she made him the monster he had become. He was 13, but a large, taller than my dad teenager. I was a petite 8 year old. He hated me from the beginning because somehow he blamed me for his mother leaving him. I know a thing or 2 about that. But that is for another day.
The things he did started out minor, over the clothes, playful wrestling. Then, it became more aggressive. He would spread my legs until they hurt. I would feel his penis through my clothes. He was simulating SEX. Obviously I didn't know that at the time. I would scream. My stepmother told me to stop screaming and for her son to leave me alone. If she would have just walked into my room, just once. She would have seen it for her own eyes.
I was at home with him alone a lot. That is when the stripping started, the fingers in places. and where we would sit alone in my room as I sat on his face. His nose barrier in my vagina.
It is so much easier now to talk about it, than it was when it first happened or when i first came out with the information. My husband, it was the hardest on him. My Dad as well.
But my goal is to give children, and adults a voice, a beacon of hope to speak out. Tell the truth and free yourself. It was not your fault no matter how much your abuser guilted you. It is never too late to free yourself from your own demons.
I only brought out what they call allegations of the molestation last year. For 28 years, I didn't feel like a victim. It just didn't hit me the way I thought it should. Although, I thoroughly enjoy watching SVU detectives catch the bad guys and I have always been an advocate against child molestation, rape, or any sexual assault.
It wasn't until I had my daughter, who will turn 3 in 2 months, that changed my whole outlook on the situation. I didn't want to ever see her go through the life I did. My son was 7 at the time and I am not sure why in my mind I thought he was exempt from the same fate. I felt like he had better odds I guess. But I know now that it happens to boys as much as girls. But she was only 5 months old, and it hit me hard. I knew in my heart what he did was wrong, but I never told a soul until I was in my 20's.
I had to still live with this man as my so called brother. I called his son my nephew.
People ALWAYS wonder..... "Why now? Why bring this up now? Are you lying ? Are you trying to hurt him?"
Let me give you a little background that brought this castle crumbling down. My stepmother, who hadn't legally been my stepmother in 10 years, but she was like a mom to me and raised me with an iron fist. She was who I called MOM. After her random mental breakdown, she told me via text that I was TRASH and that I was trying to get back at her for my horrible childhood. (none of the molestation allegations had been told to her at this point.) She felt that I was trying to get people on "my side" which was not the case at all. But at this point in my life, it was tearing me up to keep it to myself.
I called and blurted out "You want to know about my 'horrible' childhood, you let your son touch me, you let him. YOU FUCKING BITCH.
I hated her in that moment. Looking back now, she made him the monster he had become. He was 13, but a large, taller than my dad teenager. I was a petite 8 year old. He hated me from the beginning because somehow he blamed me for his mother leaving him. I know a thing or 2 about that. But that is for another day.
The things he did started out minor, over the clothes, playful wrestling. Then, it became more aggressive. He would spread my legs until they hurt. I would feel his penis through my clothes. He was simulating SEX. Obviously I didn't know that at the time. I would scream. My stepmother told me to stop screaming and for her son to leave me alone. If she would have just walked into my room, just once. She would have seen it for her own eyes.
I was at home with him alone a lot. That is when the stripping started, the fingers in places. and where we would sit alone in my room as I sat on his face. His nose barrier in my vagina.
It is so much easier now to talk about it, than it was when it first happened or when i first came out with the information. My husband, it was the hardest on him. My Dad as well.
But my goal is to give children, and adults a voice, a beacon of hope to speak out. Tell the truth and free yourself. It was not your fault no matter how much your abuser guilted you. It is never too late to free yourself from your own demons.