Child Abuse Story From Gabby
by Gabby
(Washington, DC, USA)
When I was around 5 years old, I was first being molested by teenagers at my afterschool babysitter's house. THere were other small children who were also being affected and the teens were teaching the children to do things to each other as well. So, because all of us were children (including the teens), I did not know it was wrong, persay, I did not know I should report it. The teens would tell us not to tell adults. So I would go home and I had a playmate at home who I would show what I had learned.
Well one day we were caught by my friend's father. Instead of him calling my parents and telling them what he had seen, he decided to wait until I came back to his home and teach me a lesson. So I was molested maybe 3-4 times by a grown adult man whom my parents trusted as a family friend and neighbor. He told me not to tell.
I did not feel right about the encounters so I simply stopped going over there. I kept the secret to myself until one day a girlfriend (when I was about 7 and she was nine) told me that I had to tell my Dad. So I did and I felt so awful as though I was going to get in trouble. But instead my father cried, embraced me, called the cops and reassured me I had done nothing wrong. Looking back and seeing other people's stories, I realize I was lucky that my father responded in this way. He had also been abused as a child and was made to feel ashamed and wrong instead of supported and loved. He did not want me to feel that way.
I am now a grown, married woman getting ready to have my first child and already feel very protective of the baby I will soon have. If there is a way for me to keep predators away from her, I will spend my entire life figuring that out.
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