To my family members:
I am wholeheartedly asking that if you did not click on this blog with an open mind and intent to open it further, that you exit out of this page. I have taken the time to process, uncover and acknowledge generations of abuse, before you easily place doubt, question yourself and the actions you’ve taken to learn our family history.
This is intended to share knowledge, to educate and spread awareness. I am not disrespecting anyone, I am sharing my experiences.
TRIGGER WARNING
Sexual abuse, Rape, Grooming
Part 1 - Conditioning
My rapist had a huge role in my life, growing up I always looked up to him and had secretly wished he was my own father.
He was always doing nice things for me, like taking me shopping, buying me nice jewelry, inviting me on trips and vacations with his family.
But all these nice things came with his own personal agenda because now that I have the capacity and awareness to see what he was really doing, I can label it grooming and conditioning.
This isn’t a typical “Lifetime movie” experience on how a predator groomed his victim, see I was already his victim. He raped me when I was 1 year old until I was about 4 or 5 (the memories go black and it’s hard to remember exact details). He began grooming me during the abuse and most impactfully, after.
Growing up, he was always the worried Uncle, made sure everyone, including me, could see just how much he cared about me.
Every time I saw him, he made comments about how I wore my makeup and the clothes I was wearing, my grades and how I behaved.
I just wish I could reach in my mind and pull out the repeating voice of him telling me that
“You’re attracting boys”
“Old men will stare at you because they like what they see”
“If you don’t do well in school, You’ll end up like your mom and dad” (turning me against my own parents)
“You’re not dressing appropriately for your age”
The older I got the more I started to feel cringey and disgusting around him. I felt so small, but I couldn’t be mad because he was just worried and this was him showing me that he loved me and cared about me.
The comments he said to me or about me, even made other family members uncomfortable, but they believed he was just worried about me too, that he cared.
This is something that many abuse survivors have been through.
My rapist attempted to condition me into feeling safe with him, he taught me how to internalize my pain and turn it into shame by conditioning me to sexualize myself. All while fooling the adults around me at the same time.
Part 2 - Exploring 12
When I was 12, I was in 6th grade and that was the first time I ever heard the word “masturbate” and understood what it meant.
That one experience of being able to articulate and understand, opened a door of intense shame. For the first time I was able to understand that something was wrong, I didn’t know what but I knew that there was a problem, and I convinced myself that it was me.
In 6th grade I was abnormally exploring my butt, to a point where it stands out significantly in my mind now, because I had gotten pin worms. I had no clue where I learned that until I reassured my 12 year old self that she can tell me.
During this time, we were homeless and I was living with my grandparents. The upstairs bathroom of their house had one of those distorted windows in the shower, that you can actually see through if you were trying to (from standing in the hallway outside the bathroom).
I remember catching my grandpa watching me shower multiple times. It made me so uncomfortable that I started showering in the basement, that had mice and spiders everywhere. No 12 year old is going to willingly shower down there. That year, before we moved into our new house, my grandpa raped me in his basement and my grandma was an accomplice.
My grandma was an accomplice because she groomed me for him. See, I started exploring makeup in 5 & 6th grade, my grandma would make loads of comments on how
“if you wear that shade of lip stick you’ll get grandpa excited”
“you’re going to get grandpa in trouble”
and would let me know when she saw my grandpa giving me “the eyes”.
Yes, my grandma has endured her own abuse. That does not mean she didn’t have a role in
my abuse that needs to be acknowledged.
My dad has confirmed that during this time, my grandpa approached my dad and said “you should never trust anyone with your kids alone, not even me”. He pushed moving as top priority and shortly after I was out.
Part 3 - Child Predator
I didn’t have the capacity to understand what they were doing then, and like I said before, I do now.
They loved bombed me my entire life, so that when I went through my exploratory phases and was able to put language to my experiences, the first thing I did was shame myself and internalize it, not share it with a safe adult.
The worst part is that when they conditioned me to sexualize myself, I had the same outlook toward other people, even children.
As I got older, so did my little sister and she became very confident in her body. She reminded me a lot of myself at her age, exploring makeup trends and different clothing styles. She was freely able to do this without my parents/step agreeing with my uncle, because he wasn’t treating her the same way as me. So of course, I noticed, I was resentful and felt it was my job to tell her that what she was wearing was inappropriate.
She was a kid, and so was I, but I was the one perceiving her as inappropriate.
A child cannot act provocative
A child does not have the capacity to understand what that word even fully means.
A predator has the ability to perceive a child in these ways.
Yes, I was a child but I was conditioned to be a predator by pedophiles.
I did not have this perception out of awareness or intention, I had this perception because I was conditioned by abusers for my entire childhood.
I have been accused of child on child sexual abuse, at the age of four. I do not have any recollection of their experience and it is not mine to share.
This does not mean I don’t believe their story.
I cannot fully acknowledge their trauma, but I am acknowledging and confronting my own and seeing how it’s effected the people I surround myself within different aspects throughout my life.
As assured by my therapist, A true predator or pedophile is incapable of acknowledging and confronting the hard truth of themselves.
It takes courage to confront any type of trauma and I am sharing these very personal details of my life to remind you that you are not your abuser.
Your abuser probably taught you some really horrible things that you only mirrored, but it is your job to acknowledge them and to find acceptance in where it’s rooted so that you can evolve and heal.
Your most shameful and embarrassing experiences are also the ones dominating your negative self beliefs, they are the unhealed parts of you, sit with them for a little bit and meet them with curiosity before judgment, get to know these parts of you so that you can heal.
You do not have to agree with your behavior or actions but you can acknowledge them.
Thank you so much for reading this, I would love to hear anything you’d like to share in the comments or via email.
With love,
Sarah Mae ✨