Thread by @TheFemBat, TW: Sexual Abuse (and shitty responses)I abused for years by a family [...]

TW: Sexual Abuse (and shitty responses)

I abused for years by a family member. The people I told and who were supposed to help me failed me, and now I struggle to call it abuse because “it wasn’t that bad”

Hard and honest thread about what happened and the responses to it.

I was in middle school when it began. I knew my abuser and loved him very much. He is family. It started out with him saying that he would teach me to defend myself from men. He’s strong so I thought it was a good idea. I felt safe at his house and trusted him completely.

He only wanted to do these lessons at night when everyone else was asleep. The focus, of course, was how to hurt men by using their testicles and penis. Hitting, kicking, twisting. Over the clothes at first, but then, so I could see what I was doing, he insisted he take his off.

I was a kid. I didn’t really understand what was happening. So it continued to happen for a while and I didn’t think anything of it. Then things changed.

The pretense of learning to protect myself changed. We would be hanging out like normal, then he’d start talking about relationships. He would tell me that he didn’t think a woman could enjoy messing around with him because he had a small dick. Would ask for my opinion.

I was like I don’t know I’m like 12. And he would insist he was insignificant and just kept asking for my opinion on his dick. When I finally told him I had always heard it was what you did with it, not the size that mattered, just trying to be supportive and get him to shut up,

He saw it as an opening. “Oh you think my dick is small” “you agree it probably wouldn’t feel good” etc. He would just keep asking about it and pestering me about it. That continued for a while. Then it changed again.

We would be hanging out, again, only after everyone is asleep would he come around. It would be back to normal, and then he’d put on porn and start watching it beside me. He made sure it was dudes with small dicks, and would start talking about his own again.

At some point during all this, I told my parents about it, because something felt weird and off about how he was treating me. My dad said it wasn’t a big deal. My mom told me not to tell anyone.

I told the therapist I saw at school about it anyway. And he told the counselor. Who then called the police. Both detectives that talked to me were men. My counselor was a man. My therapist was a man. When I told them all about it, there wasn’t another woman in sight.

The detectives asked me if my abuser had ever ejaculated on me, around me, or in me. I said no. At that point he hadn’t. One said there was nothing they could do and that I just needed to stop going to his house. The other said he would talk to him.

Staying away wasn’t an option for me. My home life was toxic and abusive in a different way, but it was constant and to me felt so much worse than the occasion that my abuser was at his house and made me make fun of his dick just so I could get some sleep.

The detectives did talk to him. I don’t know what was said. I just know that my abuser said that they showed up at his college, yanked him out of class, and talked to him. He stayed away for a while after that. When I would come over he would leave. I relaxed again. Didn’t last.

When he started up again, he started asking about the guys at school. Had I seen any of their dicks? One. Were they bigger than his? I had only seen pictures. Had I done anything with anyone? No.

The transition from him asking inappropriate questions to actually pressuring me in to touching him is still fuzzy to me. I felt weird about it, I knew it wasn’t okay. I don’t know why I went with it.

Because I was still overall safer at his house? Because I didn’t know if I could safely say no? I don’t know. I didn’t enjoy it, but because I just went with it I started thinking “oh my god you’re incest, he’s family” and shouldered the shame quietly.

That’s the part I still struggle with to this day, and this is the first time I’ve voiced it. I knew it was wrong but I went with it. Why did I do that? Did some part of me secretly enjoy the attention? Did I actually want it? Those thoughts make me sick, but they sneak in.

Off and on until I moved in 2014 it continued. If I was at his house, it became impossible to avoid him. He would seek me out. If I was asleep he would wake me up.

When I started to pull back he said “I think your sister saw me naked the other day” and I stopped pulling away.

I told my (now exes) boyfriend(s) over that time. The first said “that sucks, but I’m still going to hang out with him”
The second was angry and ready to fight until I told him who it was, and he said “he’d definitely kick my ass. Good luck.”

My parents, by the way, when I told them that I told the school, got PISSED at me. My dad screamed at me about how I was going to ruin my abuser’s life. I needed to tell the detectives I was making it all up. Who did I think I was?

My mom didn’t say much except “I told you not to tell anyone”... I know she had trauma in her childhood too. I wonder now if part of that response came from no one helping her, either.

There are only two people I told that actually cared. The first was a girl friend I told after I told the school. We were kids so she couldn’t help either, but she hugged me and cried with me and said she loved me and if I needed her, she was there.

The second was Mr. Bat. He said, “I’m not strong. He probably would kick my ass in a fight. But if he ever tries to make you do anything again, tell me. What he did to you isn’t okay. I’ll be hospitalized before he can hurt you again.”

After I moved, he messaged me once on Facebook and apologized to me. He said he was sorry and that he shouldn’t have done any of that stuff. I said thank you for apologizing.

His reply was to ask me about his dick size again.

I haven’t spoken to him since, and if I’m in the same room as him when we visit family back home, Mr. Bat makes sure he’s between us and if my abuser talks to me, he finds an excuse for us to leave.

I haven’t told the family closest to him. I’ve done my best to make sure they don’t know, actually. He’s bad, but they’re good people. It’s really hard to act normal when they bring him up in conversation, but I try.

I feel guilty and hypocritical because I know he deserves the shame, but I can’t find it in me to tell them. I’m afraid of how they’ll react. His profession puts him around minors a lot. I pray he hasn’t hurt anyone else.

I shared all that because dealing with abuse is complicated. Even though I know I did nothing wrong, I felt like I did. As much as we tell others they shouldn’t feel shame or like they did something wrong, that doesn’t make those feelings just go away.

If you’re reading this and you’re a survivor and you have conflicting feelings too, then know without a doubt now that you’re not alone. I am with you. We’ll get through it, together.

And if you’re a survivor and you’re reading this and you were failed too... Read this statement again. You were failed. You didn’t fail. You were failed.

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