#i just wanted you to know
personal stuff cw. for the longest time i battled with telling vs. not telling you my story about recovery, but given the latest events in my life, i really wanted to share it - not as a way to explain or justify my existence, but in order to give someone some hope. some comfort. many of you may have also experienced it, or maybe you still are. i’m going to tag all triggers below the read more, so you can choose whether or not to read it.
ps: i might open my askbox for a bit, but i can’t guarantee i’ll answer everything. ♡
- trigger warning: child s / a, all sorts of ab*se, s / c attempt & mention, ed mention, death, grief, panic, anxiety.
the hardest part about all of what has happened to me is that only a few friends and my closest family members know. i don’t talk about it, i never share it outside of therapy and even in this blog, i resisted for the longest time because it’s heavy and difficult and.. all sorts of triggering.
i wish there was some sort of.. way around saying it? but i can’t think of a way to say it smoothly. i was s*xually and em*tionally abused by my mother’s ex boyfriend for ten years. nearly eleven. i’m not gonna get into the specific details, but that’s what happened.
even when it ended.. it didn’t. i was eighteen when i told my family and luckily, they believed me. i really never saw him again, but the repercussions were the worst to say the least. i lost so so so much of myself. i know some survivors experience guilt, shame or anger, but i was frozen. just numb as hell.
i was about to enter college at that time, but i kept dropping in and out for the upcoming years because part of my trauma involved a situation regarding the uni campus as well. from 2014 to 2020, i survived three attempts against my life and i think the lowest point was when i was dropped off at a psych ward in a wheelchair straight from the hospital, because my physical health was so damaged that i couldn’t walk. i remember thinking i was going home and then when they opened the doors of the ambulance, they dropped me off there.
i was hospitalized twice, for over a month. i remember wanting to go back, but our health insurance didn’t cover it and at that point i was left with really really heavy sleeping meds so i wouldn’t hurt myself.
my dad only found out when i quit the psych ward, i think he was struck with so so much guilt, but we were never close and at the point we were mending our relationship, he passed away - a little over a year ago, in 2021. before that, he had advised me to go into a different major, something that i was completely afraid of but was also very fond.
back in 2019, my mom and i had kind of accepted i wasn’t gonna live a full, “normal” life. i had dropped out of college about four times and she had also lost her job. i even worked for about three months, but it made my health even worse.
i can’t say allof my family members were supportive, though. some of them questioned my mother if i was really telling the truth, others thought i needed a “reality check”, so and so. it’s easy to judge a kid when it’s not your own kid, but alas… jerks are jerks.
i also struggled with an ed for the longest time. i still do, but everything happened all at the same time after i got out of his grip because i was breaking down and there was no doctor at the time who was able to diagnose me properly so i’d be given the right meds. apart from that, i also had severe social phobia and panic syndrome. like i said - it was all at once.
when 2020 came and i didn’t need to get out of the house, it was sort of a relief. quarantine was a weird period of living in my comfort zone whilst also wondering if the whole world was gonna end.
i enrolled back into college, to study at home full time. no campuses needed, no crowds or loud noises or ubers or anything. just me, at home, writing and studying. if i needed to go grocery shopping or take the trash out, no one would be on the streets. the reason behind it was not at all happy, of course. but being able to exist in silence did help.
of course, at that time i was also friendless. back in 2018, during my last attempt, a childhood best friend dropped me off at the hospital and well, that’s the last i saw her. she messaged me a few weeks earlier saying she needed space and i desperately apologized for any sort of toxic or unhelpful behaviour, but she said it wasn’t needed. she just.. needed space. needless to say, we never spoke again even though i tried reaching out. we’d have completed 10 years of friendship in 2019. i lost my entire circle of friends, since they were also hers and they never really contacted me or asked about me. it was just.. complete silence.
i don’t wanna say it was anyone’s fault or put myself in a position of “woe is me.” i don’t harbor any sort of resentment. i miss them so so much and i always dream of them, but unfortunately, things turned out that way.
anyway, in late 2020 i decided to create a blog that’d help me keep going. i still had zero offline friends, but i was getting back to therapy after a thousand failed sessions with other professionals, so i put myself out of my comfort zone bit by bit. luckily, i still had important friendships online, one in particular which i really, really am thankful for and will always be.
but offline, it was difficult to meet people, not gonna lie. my current friends mentioned they thought i hated them at first because i was so, so quiet and afraid, but from late 2020 to now, we’ve really grown tighter.
yesterday, i got the news about the charges i pressed against my abuser in 2017. the whole process has been excruciatingly long and painful. i had to testify about every little experience i had, from the most explicit to the worst details about those ten years. not only was he facing the possibility of going to jail, but he would also have to pay for all of my medical bills since 2014, apart from other expenses we had with health insurance, food, etc etc.
the judge decided he cannot be found guilty nor innocent because since turning 70 this year, his earlier crimes can no longer be taken into court. the later evidence wasn’t considered strong enough to condemn him either, so he’s free, for now. our lawyers have decided to appeal to the case and i have some sort of hope he’ll be punished for those ten years, but even if he is, nothing could take all that damage back.
throughout all these years, from 2014 up until now, a lot has changed. i don’t think my pain had any sort of magical or special meaning, but in the past week i was able to look back without feeling defined by those moments. i took such small steps that it has taken me this long to realize how far i came. i always say that the things that make me cry the most are the happy things, because i remember the first time i felt something akin to joy and i broke down because i was alive and still here and still worthy. he didn’t take that.
the main point is: things got better. i can safely say that. things turned around weirdly and fastly and unexpectedly. i was selected for an internship related to my major, i met people, i fell in and out of love, i started exploring my tastes, my sense of fashion, what i did or didn’t believe in. i dyed my hair pink. i had people plan my first surprise birthday party. i got my first boyfriend. i got back to writing. i learned about the things i love. about the things i didn’t. i got this blog. i got my life back and i really can’t tell you how freaking emotional that makes me feel.
i don’t know what i’d do, should i see my abuser again. but i know that i wouldn’t be scared. i wouldn’t freeze or run. and that’s been such an immense relief to realize - despite what does or doesn’t happen to him, whether he goes or stays or not, there’s more to my life than some sort of shitty, manipulative, creepy man who tried taking ten years away from me. there’s no “moral of the story,” but there’s still hope after this and there’s the pride of knowing my heart is here and good and pure.
