This is it

**** Trigger Warning ****

 

While I had been hurt before what this “story” will be about, 80% of my nightmares involve the events pertaining to what I’ll be explaining below. Probably because blood is blood. But if I didn’t have my mother, I more than likely wouldn’t be here writing this.

—

My uncle molested me from about 18 to 20 years old.

The grooming began slowly, almost unnoticeably. I was an adult, yes, but what he did to me the night below rendered me a scared little child; his darkness seemed to burst forth like a ravenous creature, and with soulless eyes, he analyzed me.

We were in his cabin about two hours from my house. It was late, we surrounded by trees and snow. I laid beside him as we watched 28 Days Later. His arm around me, my head resting on his chest. I remember how dark the room was.

He placed his hand on my hip.

I continued to watch the movie, particularly focused on the beginning soundtrack. It was called, ironically enough, “The Beginning.”

I mentioned how I strangely enjoyed its creepy ambience. I also noticed my shirt had slightly ridden up my torso.

His fingers grazed my exposed skin.

The movie continued, and I began to focus on his touch. I didn’t think much of it at first; perhaps he just placed it there without thinking.

The movie continued, and it felt as the room was getting darker. The kind of dark that no light can puncture.

His hand crept up my shirt.

I couldn’t pay attention to the movie anymore. My eyes watched the screen, but my mind began to rattle with uneasiness; something was wrong. I hadn’t the courage to move, or say anything. So he continued to feel the exposed skin on my hip.

I don’t remember much after the movie had ended. But I remember him coming to bed with me. I knew this abnormal. I wasn’t his wife, why did he want to sleep in the same bed as me? But again, I said nothing.

It was too dark. Inside and out. And when morning came, it still felt dark. I felt alone. I was in the middle of nowhere with a man I should feel safe with. 

What happened between the time we woke up to the time I sat on the edge of the bed is unclear. But, he was beside me, and I can recall his touch. His wretched touch. We had been talking a while, and some of the things he would ask me were just so weird I gave fake lies so I didn’t have to entertain him and his sick thoughts.

But then he asked if I wanted to take my shirt off. I said no.

I said no.

No.

“Why?”

“Because you’re my uncle.”

He lifted my shirt up anyway. I remember how stiff I was, how wide my eyes were. And all I could think was, “You too?”

His eyes were blank, like he had no soul; instead his hands being guided by a darkness that would gradually chip away at my sanity and my will to live.

His touch made my skin crawl. When his lips touched my breasts, I could feel myself dying. The sensation of my whole breast in his disgusting, warm mouth made me freeze. I couldn’t speak, I couldn’t move, I could only feel as he touched me. 

Help me.

Where was God?

But suddenly he pulled away, a look of regret across his face.

He apologized. “I don’t know what happened.”

And how stupid was I, to accept.

The car ride home, we agreed we’d never tell anyone, because it wouldn’t happen again.

But it did.

Skip ahead, again at his house. 

My cousin had fallen asleep on the couch next to us, but that didn’t stop him. It didn’t stop his hand from wandering up my leg, and his slimy fingers feeling my intimate parts. The next day when he brought me home, he came into the house with me and kissed my breasts like he did at the cabin. He became a stranger in my uncle’s body.

There were other times it happened in between, but I cannot recall details. But after some time had passed, I was admitted to the hospital. A plan to kill myself that weekend, my suicide notes prepared, and cuts littering my body, I was forced to go, or have the cops drag me.

5 long, dead days. All I could think as I paced the halls of that bland, stale ward, was how I was going to hang myself when I got out. I’m going to hang myself. I’m going to hang myself. I’m going to hang myself.

I’m going to always regret not taking the chance to press charges against my uncle when the nurse asked me. I mean, hell, he was there for the whole thing as I was being processed. I even let him come to visit me. Seriously, something was really wrong with me at that time.

Eventually I was released, and I think sometime after my 20th birthday, there was a day I let my uncle come over to visit. I was home alone.

We went to my room. Next thing I remember, we were both naked. I felt so vulnerable and exposed. But, something in me snapped, and I just, I felt dead. Dead and on autopilot. He put the gun he always carried on top of the bookshelf next to my bed, and had his way with me.

I laid on my back, and he was on top of me. I decided to just let my brain shut off, while my uncle did what he wanted. His head found its way between my legs, and the feeling of his tongue in and on me was revolting. He placed his member on my intimate parts, and for a moment I thought he’d enter me.

Someone please help.

After he was finished, we dressed, and he went downstairs to clean himself up. He left his gun on my dresser bookshelf though, and in that moment, a moment I sometimes regret not taking, I seriously considered shooting him when he came back up the stairs, and then myself. But I think, truly, God held me back. So instead I just sat there on the edge of my bed completely disgusted with myself.

All I wanted to do was splatter what was left of my mind on the wall behind me.

Fucking do it!

But I didn’t. And time went on, and he continued to do what he did. I eventually became so numb, so broken, I just went along with it. I started to kiss back, touch back. I didn’t enjoy it, but I had come to believe this was the normal way to interact with my uncle. This was the only way.

There was a time he and I had gone shopping for the day, and after he dropped me home, he visited for a while. He had a terrible headache, so my mother offered to let him spend the night. 

He did.

And how stupid was I, to offer my bed should the couch become too uncomfortable. He said he’d be fine though.

But at some point in the night, his touch woke me from slumber. The room was pitch black, but I could see his outline. He had snuck up to my room in the middle of the night. I sat up, and said I’ll go sleep downstairs so he could have my bed.

But that’s not what he wanted.

He pulled down my pants, and again I felt his tongue in me, on me. I sat there, staring into the darkness of my room while his mouth stayed between my legs. I just wanted to sleep. I just wanted to sleep. How come no one could hear the screaming in my head, and come stop him?

Please help me. Someone. God please help me. Christ help me.

What about the time he pulled his member out, and I said that I didn’t want to preform oral on him. So he wiped the filth that dripped from him onto my mouth. I felt like a rag. A filthy, dirty rag.

I don’t remember many details after that. But eventually, he and I went to a park, and I just felt so… different. I was not myself. I couldn’t talk to him. I couldn’t look at him. We sat on a rock down near the water, and every time he placed a hand in my shoulder I shied away. Later that night I texted him and said that we shouldn’t see each other until things got figured out; whatever those “things” were.

But after that I never did willingly see him again. I never talked to him again, though my memories are occasionally hijacked; places, times, smells, sights, sounds… all bringing me back to him.

As time went on, he’d be rubbed in my face every family event. I could no longer be a part of the family, as he was. I also learned years later that he tried to go after a young girl. I told the police when I went to them eventually, that he would do something again if he wasn’t taken care of. They did nothing. So a young girl was victim. Part of me wondered that maybe I shouldn’t have stopped seeing him, so that way no one else would be hurt. It didn’t matter. He was a saint to everyone, still being allowed to work around children at his church. Even after eventually being arrested and getting out on bail. He even tried to kill himself. That was my escape, not his. What right did he have?

I got to hear how much he “turned himself around” and how “good” he became. Yet not once, was I ever commended for surviving this. Maybe my dad was right when he said, “So this is why you’re so fucked up.”

Yet, despite the knowledge of what he did, my grandparents would side with him, my grandfather telling me that I was partially responsible. My grandmother asking why I never said anything.

Fear.

Years later… my grandpa’s health started to decline, and in the last week he was in hospital, I had to put everything aside to be with him in his last days. And that meant being in the same room as my uncle. But the last day my grandpa was alive, it was just him, my mom, and me in the room when he passed. It was a quiet exit from the world. To see someone’s spirit dissipate from their eyes is surreal.

But what my family doesn’t seem to understand though, is I watched my grandfather die. I watched him die, then after he was dead, I laid with his body while the man I have nightmares about was across from me; so close that I could reach out and strangle him.

At the wake I couldn’t hide from his voice, or his stare. I had no one to stand with me and shield me from it. At the funeral he sat behind me, and then in front of me during the military honors, he saluted and handed the flag to my grandmother like a hypocrite and I just wanted to put him in the casket with my grandpa. I had to look away. He was right there, and I just wanted someone to hold me. I was alone. I stood there with everyone around me, but I was alone. I had to be my own shield.

How can I be normal like my family wants to pretend everything is?

Fear can strangle you. But now it’s just anger. Anger and blackness. Who would ever love someone as unstable as me?