I opened up about being abused as a child for the first time on the internet.
By: Eric Daniels
Tags: Metoo, Life, Mental Health, Survivor, Self Love

Person observing a calm sea. From Unsplash.com

I’ve more recently started writing online and I’ve found a lot of comfort in using platforms such as medium for my articles. I haven’t done them in a while because it’s been such a chaotic year I decided to take some time off. When I did come back to write online just yesterday for the first time I decided to write about something that’s weighed heavy on me since childhood.

The sexual abuse I went through, starting at age 4.

I’ve fought a lot with myself when deciding if I should even talk to certain people about this, so the idea of writing it online never seemed to be an option for me. Recently though I’ve felt a strange disconnect from everything that normally makes me happy. Where I’m from there’s more rainy, cold days than there are sunny days, so it’s to happen some years when fall and winter come around. This year it’s taking more of a toll. As I get older I feel it’s harder to hold onto to something so tormenting. And I think writing online had become my only option to let some of this go now.

‘I’m don’t want to worry about things that aren’t important anymore.’

I’ve struggled with alcohol for about a decade. It was during my late middle school and all throughout high school years that the weight of this started building up. It became more apparent to me what had happened. It was harder and harder to take in. I grew up in the same city only a few blocks away from where it all happened. I still drive by the area and find myself ignoring it on purpose. I don’t even know if it’s still there anymore.

My aunt and uncle wanted to be very close to me as a kid, and I took that as loving because I was made fun of a lot and called ugly, even at a very young age. My family was very mean and unloving. The attention shown from my aunt and uncle was very appreciated. It was’t long after my mom let me go over with them to their ‘house’ (which was really a terribly built wooden shack on their family’s property) that everything started happening.

It’s still very hard to talk about, and I’m still very much conflicted about if it is normal for me to express this ugliness on the internet to strangers. I don’t want any images put in their heads of the thins that were done to me. It is very comforting though. I first went to my mother about it because I knew that she was aware that the years following my aunt and uncle were accused of abusing their own children as well. Her response though hurt me down to the core. She said, “I don’t want to worry about things that aren’t important anymore.”

My mother of all people saying that was almost worse than what those people had done. I had wanted for so long to talk to her about it and ask if she ever thought that it was happening. I guess it’s not important anymore. Regardless, I’m trying to work on letting it go and it is getting easier to do with each passing year. I can finally understand that at that age, 4 and 5 years of age, those things that were done were not my fault. For a long time I thought that it was my own fault that it happened. Sometimes I still feel that way deep down.

‘You and I have always had this connection. Since you were young. :)’

Growing up in the same city that it all happened in has had it’s toll. Fortunately the aunt that did all this has moved out of state. The uncle, who was entirely worse than she was, still lives in the same city as well, and is in and out of jail. I remember reading an article once in middle school about a man who tried kidnapping a young child from a homeless shelter. His mugshot was in the paper.

There’s been some run in’s that made me fall into a spiral of pity. I was walking around the city one night and a stranger happened to ask me how I was. I looked up and saw him staring daggers into me. I felt like a coward I couldn’t even gather the courage to let out my anger at him right there. I know it wouldn’t do anything but get me in trouble not, but for a long time I wanted to hurt him. At least I thought that would help me move on.

I know now that it wouldn’t do a damn thing.

As for the aunt, she lives happily in Kentucky from what I hear. Last time I heard from her was through Facebook. I got a hidden message sent to me, and when I read the name I thought it had to be a mistake. Sure enough though it was her. Asking me how I was and telling me that she missed me. I asked her why she felt the need to reach out to me after not seeing me for years. “You and I have always had this connection. Since you were young. :)”

I didn’t respond after that.

And now I’m here. It’s 2020. I don’t need to tell you about how it’s been going.

Scenic and quiet time in the mountains. Photo credit to myself.

Throughout this long decade I’ve lived in a past that had haunted me since a young age. I’ve fought long and hard to breakthrough, and I still think that’ll be the case of the next few decades, but for now I’ve found a little bit of piece in writing a little about my experience, no matter how bad it was. I try and get out more, I spend time with my family, and in 2016 my world came into this world. I have a beautiful daughter who I could not imagine my life without.

I hope that if you do read this (and I don’t expect a lot of people will), if you’ve been through something similar, or you’re just going through a hard time in general, then I hope you know you are loved. You are strong. You are worthy.