Child Abuse Story From Grace2

by Grace
(Canada)

From Hell and....Back? 
Hello! I've been surfing on this website, which I found accidentally. God or the Universe surely brought it to me.... I was sexually abused by my half-brother (the oldest son of my father by a first marriage) and by my mother's best friend.

The abuse happened back-to-back when I was around 5 years old. I don't know which came first, but I do distinctly remember my mother inviting her friend, Fatima, for some tea. I was on the balcony. I was wearing pink and white striped shorts. She came also outside on the balcony, opened my zipper and stuck her finger in my vagina. I was dumbstruck, and as if this had been the most natural thing for her to do. She closed back my zipper and went back in to sip her tea. I felt wronged, but I didn't say anything. I was too shocked. I thought to myself that since my biological mother trusted this woman, then she could not have done something wrong to me; so I put it away.

Shortly after, my half-brother abused me. He took me one day into his room. He was much older than me (he was in his 20's - my father remarried my mom when he was in his 40's and she was 21). I was used to listening to what he told me to do. My parents raised me that way, some dumb cultural thing.... He put me on his bed, he told me to lift my skirt. Next thing I knew, my undies were down and he used his tongue on me. After that, I just left the room.

After these episodes, I had recurring nightmares. We used to live in the same town in the same apartment building as the whole family: my father's 4 children from his first marriage and his 2 children from his second marriage, and me and my little brother. We used to go hang out at the second apartment of the 4 eldest children a lot. For some reason we moved to Vancouver, and I discovered when I confronted my parents at the age of 20 that I had told them that both the half-brother and her best friend had sexually abused me, and they did nothing about it. They did not believe me.

I suffered from nightmares where I would relive minute by minute the ordeal with excruciating precision and pain. I became extremely withdrawn. I never went outside, nor did I have friends outside of those I saw at school. I became reclusive and extremely good in school. I developed depression and tried to commit suicide when I was 13 and 14. The social worker from school came with me home to discuss my problem, and I'm sure had she been given the opportunity to dig deeper she would have found out all, but my mother ran around the apartment claiming I had been possessed by the devil and that had I gone to church more none of this would have happened. They fired the social worker a week later, saying we did not need her.

Now in the meantime, Fatima, my mom's so-called best friend, had vanished. She will never go to jail. The half-brother however continued to visit us (his father, stepmom—who is my mom—and me) continuously for at least a decade. All while they knew what had happened to me. Because of culture, I was forced to cater to every need like a servant. If he wanted breakfast, I had to make it. If he wanted a cup of tea, I had to make it and bring it to him. Not only that, but being the only computer literate person in the house, if there were computer issues, I was forced to sit next to him so I could fix the issue once he was gone. I felt uncomfortable, but I could not bear the thought that my parents would let him come home had he really abused me. This forced me into developing two personalities: one which could cope with the fact that he showed up and forced me to cater to his every need. I also became obsessed with school and performing well because it was the only place I was valued as an individual. It was the only place I got praised, and the only place I felt safe.

I saw Oprah one day accidentally. Two brave young girls had confessed to their mother that the neighbour from a "good background" that she had trusted as their babysitter had been abusing both of them sexually. It was my wake-up call. I confronted my mother about it, and she broke down in tears and confessed I had told my parents when I was 7 and we had moved away from him. I was so angry. Words failed to express how angry I was, but I was also relived that I had not been the crazy one for 15 some years. I was 20 then. I am now 21. They still did not believe me. Sick thing is, my half-brother showed up some time soon after, and my mom tried to forced me to go say hi to him. I realized the only person who gave a hoot about myself was obviously my own self. I said no, and I stayed in my room that entire weekend. The half-brother likes to stay over during whole weekends from Friday to Sunday night.

My parents never really came to it. My father's first words once I had told him what his son had done to me (which he had known about since I was 7) was that he could now consider the page was turned. He was amazingly hurtful and insensitive. He did not even say he was sorry for what happened, and most importantly, that it wasn't my fault. Even worse, the day after he asked me to contact his eldest son because he wanted his Outlook Express computer issue fixed ASAP. I stared at him, shocked. When I saw he did not understand, I stood up said no and walked away from him.

My mother's first reply about Fatima's abuse was: "Well, if you had been smarter, you would have told me" and then she added "I don't want to see the family name dirtied in the newspapers" about the half-brother abusing me. I was so hurt and had not enough strength to fight what they said. I trusted them, but soon after again, my abuser paedophile half-brother came back home and received all the warmth his father and my mother could give him. I was shut in my room that entire weekend. I could not go outside because he was there. I did not want to see his face. I literally starved for an entire long weekend in my room. I had to call from my cellphone my own home so my mother could bring me food. She found it funny I had resorted to calling the home phone from my cellphone to ask for food.

A year later, my father apparently suffered amnesia and had forgotten everything, because he invited his eldest son over again. Even my mother was shocked. I pulled a fit and he apparently said he did not hear me the first time around. I felt sick. Very sick. He promised his son would never step in his house again, nor would he have contact with him. That was last year. His eldest son came back again; and more recently two weeks ago. I found out because I overheard their phone conversation.

I don't know how I have made it so far without doing drugs, prostitution, self-mutilating. I had very low self esteem, especially about my body. I hated my body, because in my mind, it had been the cause of the abuse. I know better now. I console myself through writing stories and drawing, otherwise I don't think I would be alive today. Honest to God. I go to school. I am attending one of the best Universities in Canada, which I pay for with government loans. I'm majoring in a subject I adore. I don't think I can forgive my parents for the hell they put me through, nor can I ever forgive the half-brother for the horrors he put me through intentionally. He does not deserve mercy. Don't get me wrong. He doesn't have any power on me. I'm going straight with my life, not focusing all my energies on this b*****d (excuse the language) he doesn't deserve even a second of my thoughts. I'm learning to love myself again, to trust others, to accept and to interact socially with people and all the rest he wanted to take away from me.

Darlene's comments to this "Child Abuse Story From Grace2" can be found below. If you do not see the comments I've written, please be patient, as there continues to be a system glitch—in spite of being posted and approved, some comments are not appearing live on my site. Grace, I replied to your story June 10, 2008, comments titled "Forgiveness is NOT what you think it is..." Keep checking back to this page if you don't see those comments yet. I thank you Grace and my other visitors for your understanding while I work diligently at getting this malfunction resolved.

Email addresses, phone numbers, home addresses AND website/blog URLs in visitor comments are STRICTLY prohibited, and could result in being banned from making further comments on this site.