TRIGGER WARNING.
Everyone has a past. A past which is extremely dark, a past which is haunting, a past which makes them cry every night, a past which gives them the chills.
I’m from Bokaro Steel City, Jharkhand, a small insignificant town somewhere in India but I have a very important incident to share with you. I was sexually abused as a child.
I was just seven or eight years old when my cousin shifted to my town to study in Class 12. It was fun to have him around but slowly he started showing his true colours. My brother used to go out and play with the other guys in the society. I was only girl there so they always uses to ignore me. Mostly, I used to stay at home. My mother used to go on evening walks leaving me alone at home while my father used to come back home pretty late at night. Every day for a couple of hours I used to be alone with him, like an opportunity during which he used to do all the mean things to me.
It started off with him kissing me on my lips. He asked me to open my mouth wider while kissing. He used to make me take off my clothes and he used to play with my breasts. I remember giving him handjobs and blowjobs and everything he ever asked me. Why? Because he convinced me into believing that it was a game. A game which we were supposed to play whenever parents were not around or once my brother went to bed. It lasted for almost a year or two.
One day, my mother saw semen on our bed and ignored it. She asked me to take off all my clothes for a bubble bath. When she saw my body, she broke down crying. There were marks everywhere. I told her that it was part of a game. She immediately informed my father. We shifted my brother to a PG.
The story does not end here. A couple of years later when I started watching adult films, I realised that I was raped. I went into depression. I think I still am in depression. I scream a lot sometimes. I don’t like it when someone touches me. I don’t like interacting. I have trust issues. It’s hard for me to sleep sometimes. I wake up crying at times. It’s hard. Trust me.
A couple of years ago, I opened about it to my friends. 9 out of 12 friends of mine mentioned going through similar things – by a cousin, uncle, daily wage worker or a family friend. I realised that lot of people are going through it but just because their parents never wanted to talk about it, they buried their pain inside.
Child sexual abuse is wrong. Not talking about it is worse. Every time you open up about it, one encourages a lot of people to come out and talk about it. The more you talk about it, the more you’ll be able to create vigilance.