Journal entry: I’m 28 years old and a male survivor of sexual abuse.

I’ve read story’s and seen in movie’s how traumatic events can be suppressed to a part of the mind that isn’t as easily accessible as a memory of someting like - say - a sunny day picnic had with family when at a young age. I can say that this is my experience as well, although there are parts of the suppressed abuse that I remember. Sadly, it’s the hardest moments of that abuse.

Without really understanding at first why I was this way, I had this horrible understanding of what sex was. I was only 4 or 5 when it started happening, so I grew up for years after that believing it to be completely normal. I knew it wasn’t, but when it was happening I didn’t find it because my aunt and uncle had talked me into believing it was normal things that were done. They were very, very horrible people. My aunt is living a normal life in Tennesse, and uncle is a homeless transient that always finds his pitiful self back here where it all happened.

Growing up the only thing I could remember at first was this red shack that the uncle stayed in. My mother lived very close by, so when he would ask to have me over to watch shows with wasn’t anything she’d thought anything weird of. Where I grew up, drugs were normal and very used, so I think my mom being on those a lot caused her to not think anything of a 30 year old man wanting to have his nephew over all hours of the night. I couldn’t remember everything at first. Just that red shack and the worn grey blanket curtain that kept the world from seeing the horrors that happened behind it.

I won’t go into detail. I‘m not trying to put that type of image into a readers head. Some examples though of the normalization of what they did were things like my aunt would always tell me to look at her. To describe how I saw certain parts of her. To look at the parts a child shouldn’t look at and explain what I liked about them... and then I became the tool for their disgusting desire’s. For a long time I stared out of windows and thought about the things that happened to me. Lots of long nights looking out raindrop soaked windows.

My uncle was worse. He didn’t care for me to describe the parts of his I saw. He did what he did and then after however long of doing it, he was done. I was no human to these people. They did see a child. They saw an object. They did the same things to their own children. Maybe at the same, but I’m not really sure. I believe they were taken away from them fairly young and not log after everything stopped happening to me.

One of the hardest parts of this story for me to write is that I was used as a scapegoat for them...

I remember sitting in my mothers living room. The topic very serious, but I could not speak. I couldn’t say what was done and what was being lied about because the culprits were standing there right in front of me, telling my mother that it was me who was doing those things to their kids. I was the sick twisted being that hurt their children. Imagine that; being a 5 year old kid having those people who did so much wrong to you also add insult to injury. By lying and blaming me for what happened. They just didn’t want to get caught. They did though.

My uncle ended up taking the hit for everything that happened to their kids (I never told my mom this happened until a few years back, so my story wasn’t known by my mother at the time they accused me), and my aunt and him separated and eventually divorced. That’s when she moved out of state. He got worse and continued down his path of evil. I read an article about him in middle school about how he tried to kidnap a child at a homeless shelter.

I’ve had the unfortunate luck of running into him on the street. I felt like a coward not screaming at him for the things that he did. Asking me about my life.. but I did tell him to leave me alone after asking if I had kids. It’s only happened a few times luckily. The last time I heard from my aunt was on facebook when I was in high school. She asked how I was doing and said that she missed me. I asked why that was, and her words were, “You and I have always had this connection. Since you were young. :)”

I didn’t respond after that.

Now it’s 2020. Lots of things, good and bad, have happened this year. And there’s been a lot that’s happened in the years leading up to a year full of Political drama and the most deadly outbreak in American history with the COVID-19 virus. I’ve moved forward about as much as I can. Most of my family and friends have told me to move on. My mother told me that she didn’t want to worry about things that aren‘t important anymore. So I’ve tried closing the book on this one.. but it still hurts.

in an era where people are coming forward with their story about surviving and living through sexual assault, and abuse, the #MeToo movement has created a lot of accountability for those people who believe they can get away with this, and it’s helped numerous people get their story out there to be heard, and to help them feel validated with what happened. I’m proud to live in a time that we can finally get these people out in the open and get them to admit the wrong’s they did.

Being that not only was I abused as a child sexually but was also accused of being the abuser, I feel like I had a weird spot in this time of #MeToo. I almost feel like I couldn’t talk about my story because I’m forever tainted with the idea that what happened to me, and what happened to my cousins, I feel responsible. Even though I did nothing but get passed around like a sex toy.

My perspective is that we need to focus and listen. Listen to those who were abused and assaulted, because their ability to feel like they can let go will depend on how they are looked at after talking about these terrible things they experienced. We spend so much of our time talking about the things that happened, but it seems that people have yet to really just sit back and truly allow us as surivors to tell our story in full. We don’t need interrupted. We need a spotlight that shines brightly on the truth. Our truth. Ask with concern and care, listen with intent to learn and understand, and empathize. Because there’s nothing more horrible for myself than feeling like I told my story, and it was unimportant. It almost hurts more than the abuse I survived.

I hope if you’re reading this and you survived that you will feel the strength to tell your story.

Stay strong, survivors. You are loved.