Child Abuse Story From
Ashley

Ashley is from Delmar, Maryland, USA

The following child abuse story from Ashley depicts: sexual abuse at the hands of her father and her father’s friend, as well as physical abuse and emotional abuse

The child abuse effects on Ahsley: self-blame, feelings that she deserved to be sexually assaulted, anxiety attacks

The abuse started when I was around 5 years old. When my mom left my dad and me, my dad was given custody of me.

A few months after my mom left, my dad started to touch me. I didn’t like it and told him to stop. He said that he did it because he loved me and that I was beautiful. He would kiss me and touch me, and force me to touch him. He told me that I could never tell, because if I told he would do something really bad to me. He would force me to do numerous things on him. I would always resist him, but it would never work. This continued for several years.

When I was about 8 or 9 he raped me. When he penetrated me I cried out in pain, pleading with him to stop. He didn’t say anything, and continued on with what he was doing.

One night, when he had a friend of his over to the house and both were drinking, my dad and his friend started touching me. By the end of the night I had been raped by both of them.

My dad’s friend would come over to the house several times a month and would always end up raping me. My dad would hit me if I resisted. He started telling me that it was being done as a punishment, so I have always felt that I deserved what happened. I still feel like that now. It’s very hard to deal with.

When I was 15, my dad was killed in a car accident. I live with family now. They don’t understand what I went through.

I have never really been able to tell anyone what happened because I felt like I did something to cause what happened. I wish I had told someone sooner. I deal with a lot of emotional problems now. I get anxiety attacks. I don’t understand why people could hurt their own kids.