Child Abuse Story From Deborah

by Deborah
(USA)

When I was in the 5th grade I had a best friend that I would visit on a regular basis. Her mom and my mom had been friends for years so it was nothing for me to go over and spend the nights, even days at a time. After a while her father started showing an interest in me. He would pull me close to him and eventually he would show me his special movies and touch me. This went on for a while, until I started writing about it in my diary and my mother read it. She confronted him and the abuse stopped. However, she never thought to involve the police. I continued being friends with his daughter and he never touched me again.

When I was in the 9th grade, my 24-year-old cousin came to live with us. He was always very nice and claimed to be into church and a man of God. After he had been living with us for about a month he started to make passes at me. At first I didn't really pay him any attention. I thought he was playing. Then one day he kissed me. He then started telling me he would kill himself if we didn't go farther. The situation ended up being sexual, with him explaining everything to me, even when he took my virginity. This went on for about a month, when my mother came in and caught us having sex on my birthday. She put him out and called me a whore. She did press charges; however, he did not serve any jail time. He just had to pay for my counseling. He still comes to family functions. The rest of the family has forgiven him, but I cannot find it in my heart to do so. That broke up my relationship with the only real mother I had known until that time. She ended up shipping me back with my birth mother, someone who I had only seen on holidays or summer vacation.

My birth mother worked. My brother and I had to go over to an aunt's house after school during the week. Soon my brother started playing after school sports, and I was going to my aunt's house by myself. When I would get there the only one that would be there was my aunt's husband. Most of the time I would go into my cousin's room and watch TV until my mother came. Soon my aunt's husband would start coming into the room and touching me. This went on for about a month, when I finally got up the courage to tell him to stop. He responded that he thought that I liked it. I can still smell him sometimes, and it makes me sick. My mother found out about it and basically nothing was done. He took her shopping and bought her new tires for her car, so she never said anything to anyone about it.

After that I said I would never let anyone take advantage of me again. But when you are abused you take things with you and don't realize it until you sit back and think about it.

I am now 30 and have three children, all boys. My two oldest boys have the same father and he abused me in ways that I can't explain. When I was with him I felt like next to nothing. He abuses alcohol and would fight me when he got drunk. It took him busting my door down and almost hitting my infant for me to leave. Even then I went back.

I went through years of abuse before I finally found the strength to leave. Now I am happy, but there are still times when I feel like the world is coming to an end. The only thing that keeps me going is my children. Thank you for hearing my story.

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