I am not a writer by any means, in fact I am incredibly dyslexic and I don't believe verbal writing or speaking is the best form of communication for me. My eyes? Yes. They could speak for hours on end. Anyway I am not here to pretend I am something I am not, or that I am even qualified to provide help...but one thing I do know is that I can share my own experience with sexual abuse in hopes it can help someone.
A little back story. I have two older siblings, I am the baby of 3 however my eldest sibling and I are not even 3 years apart..we are all very close in age and my parents were very young when they had us, 3 little children being raised by children...it doesn't really scream positive. Now add poverty into the mix and you have some added stress to sprinkle on top.
Going forward to about 5 years of age. I was a shy, introverted little girl and it didn't help that English was my second language (I am Guatemalan) communication in kindergarten was difficult for many reasons on top of my language barrier. I was so scared of my first day of kindergarten, my mom walked me into the room which was filled with children and very few adults, the teacher called us over onto a large circular carpet, all did as they were told except me. I looked at my mom who reassured me she would be behind me the whole time, I sat down and looked forward, I am not sure how long it was before I looked back and realized my mom had left me alone with a bunch of strangers who I couldn't even communicate with. I cried and ran to the door, I literally stayed by the door that whole day without lunch or using the restroom.
I only remember bits and pieces of my childhood, and I often remember the most emotional experiences the most..especially the ones filled with fear. There was a little girl who really liked me, she asked her mom for a play date with me, it was arranged and one after school day I found myself in the car with her, her baby sister and mother heading to their home. I am incredibly visual, in fact I remember faces, places and everything I see and feel. Weird, I know. At one point we were running around and I quickly stopped and noticed a picture frame with a very large Asian man on it, looking back now he reminds me of fu manchu, he scared me so much I began to cry. It was her father who was not home, I am sure her mom didn't know what to do with me so she took me back home where I quickly felt safe again and I vividly remember jumping on the couch laughing.
I was a pretty depressed kid, I constantly was day dreaming of being outside of my body far away in space or even some other dimension. I tried drowning myself too many times to count, and I obviously failed every single time. I have a vivid memory of seeing a commercial on television for anti-depressants and I asked my mom if I could have them...because well life fucking sucked for little me. My mother told me I didn't need them, and I am forever grateful she did...however I wish that had raised a red flag for her. She has had her own traumas and she essentially was a child raising children, I don't blame my mother in anyway.
Hopefully that gave you a feel for the little ana maria. Getting older was very hard for me, I didn't trust people and I never wanted to be around kids. Every now and then I would get these disgusting sexual thoughts in my head, ones that made me feel ashamed and repulsed that they could even be thought of. I would always throw them back farther from where I had previously.
At 18 year's old I changed my life, my mind and my body. I began exercising, running miles a day and lost the bit of extra fat I held onto. I took mushrooms, smoked cannabis and read mind expanding books like 'Freedom from the known'. I had grown so much and I truly thought all the shittyness was behind me, after all feeling "oneness" on mushrooms could never allow me to back track my steps, right? I was fucking wrong
At around 21 I was living in an RV topped with solar panels with my best friend and our two dogs traveling around mostly Nor Cal, eating a raw vegan diet thinking I was much more ready for things then I truly was. Shit started to shift internally and I began to have uncomfortable thoughts, flash backs...ones where I would feels sick after and tell myself why on fucking earth was I even thinking these things, how sick could I be?
It took about a year and a half of these experiences building up, gaining about 20lbs, isolating myself from everyone and stopping everything I once loved to realize I was having flash backs of being sexually abused by my father when I was a very little girl, probably 6 years old.
My story didn't stop here, I left California to visit my father's little sister, my aunt who I had always felt was a second mother to me in Kentucky. She had her own healing journey she was on and she was able to finally tell it to me. She had been abused for year's by my father, from the time she was about 5 until she was a preteen. She gave me the courage to open up about my own experiences and urged me to tell my sister...which I could only do via text message, saying it with my voice was too hard at that time and I was still ashamed and embarrassed.
The hardest part of my healing journey then followed those text messages which felt like forever in between the sending and receiving. She had been sexually abused by our father at the age of 14, years after I had been abused. My heart sank and I knew then had I stopped as a child and told my mom those disgusting thoughts maybe I could have prevented my sisters pain. I fell into a deeper state of depression and even more self loathing then I had already been in. I literally was creating a victim out of myself and wallowed in my own self pity. I really was a toxic mess.
I had one internet friend who was about 10 years older than me, and very expressive..she did not hold back the tough love she felt for me, she told me things I needed to hear even though they were harsh and at the time I felt betrayed, they were the right things said in the wrong manner. She actually stopped being my friend over this.
Fast forwarding a bit, her harsh words snapped me back to reality and I read everything I could get my grubby little hands on about sexual abuse, trauma, self healing, acceptance etc. I worked on myself hard, I began to eat clean and exercise again. I did so many emotional exercises, writing notes and burning them...you name it I probably did it.
I told my brother and my mother and that helped me heal pieces as well. As it turned out, my family on both sides had a long line of abuse that wasn't being discussed let alone healed. I found out my uncle who was very close to my father was having his first child and it was a little girl. Once again all those horrible feelings began to emerge but this time it was more anger then anything, and I knew then and there I had to confront my father and let the rest of my family know..for my unborn cousins sake.
I confronted him, he denied it but admitted to hurting my sister and aunt...who he then tried to justify by saying they had spoken about this before. I was not the broken little girl he had hurt at this point, I was a fucking lion protecting a cub. I called him out, and mind you I did this all with grace and respect, I told him I forgive him but I just hope he forgives himself, I then proceeded to let him know our family now knows everything and I never want to see him again. And just like that I pushed my father out of my life and have never heard from him since. Let me make this very clear though, I didn't forgive him for him, I did it for ME.
Now i am in the middle of my 26th year and can see pain and trauma in others pretty easily and faster then they can in themselves more often than not. Most of my adult life I have spent working with children and I have been able to see changes in them quickly. One little girl I worked with changed in ways only I noticed that I felt obligated to mention to her mother, who broke down into tears explaining she had just been molested by an older cousin. I also have a way with seeing through people in a manner I truly cannot explain. I have helped 3 friends who had also been living in denial and repression, heal through their own sexual trauma. Two of which were men, and that is a subject I could go off onto its own.
I still have not told a single person exactly what my father did to me, and I am unsure if I ever truly will feel comfortable saying it, but I am strong enough to say I was sexually abused by my father, I didn't deserve it, attract it, want it and it doesn't define me.
My own experiences will be completely different than anyone else's experiences and I am not suggesting doing what I did but I do know that its comforting knowing you are not alone, you are loved and accepted. Having a support system is incredibly crucial for healing, people who will listen to you and not push you to open up if you don't want to. I urge anyone who needs help to seek it in a friend, and if you don't have anyone I am more then happy to be there for you. I will be your shoulder to lean on.
Thank you for reading my story and please excuse my grammatical errors.
I leave you with this.
My name is Ana, I'm nothing special but I sure enjoy helping people, spreading information and truth.
Wanna connect? Here you go: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100002248553319