I hate it with all my strength when someone calls me a cry baby after I tell them that I was sexually abused as a child by a man and now I am adamant that I will stay physically as far away as I can from any male I don't know or trust.
They say I need therapy. What I needed was to hold this abuser accountable for his acts. He got away with it bc no adult supported the abused children. We were dismissed and discredited. I was personally told that I provoked this man by sitting next to me. So I promised myself
That I would never give another man the chance to abuse me again. A lesson I learned when I was 8yo. I managed to never be around this man for the rest of his life. I crossed the street if he was on the same side. I wouldn't be in the same room with him not even with other ppl.
My despise for his acts are eternal. I have flashbacks. I mark that day as the day I found out what it was to be a female in a patriarchal system, even though I didn't have yet the words to name it like that. Older women who I turned to all gave me support to avoid him, while
His accomplices really tried to shame me for being rude to him. They said I should pay respect to him for being a man. And ppl turn to me and say "grow up, all he did was making you touch his penis. You didn't even get hurt. And you managed to avoid further abuse. Quit crying"
In 2016, a 16yo teen girl was drugged then raped by 33 men. A video of her ordeal was posted on @Twitter. When I heard about it, I had flashbacks for weeks and got a deep depression. I'm still battling it. Wanna know what kept me alive? Radical Feminism. Bc I finally understood
Why that happened to us. I'm not even the worst case in this story, the other survivors didn't manage to avoid further abuse like me. They got much worse and I felt worse for not preventing it. Radical feminism also helped me to finally understand that IT WAS NOT MY FAULT.
My solidarity with everyone who are dealing with these issues. This story is not over bc I didn't even told the whole story. It's not a lack of memory. That memory haunts me most days. It's the threat of being blamed for his actions that prevents me from telling the whole story.
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