Silence In The Family

When I was 5 my mom used to leave me with a babysitter. My memories are vague about the incident and I was confused when I was young. I remember my sitters husband taking me alone to their bedroom and touching me down south. I also remember me sitting in his lap while he played cards and foddling me under the table. It wasn’t until I was about 14 that I started to have reaccuring nightmares and uncomfortable feelings being around men that I began to realize that these were memories that I buried and kept silent for years. When I was 15 my mom took me to a doctor to be examined to see if my hymen was broken. I refused the test and left. That’s when my mom told me that when I was 5 I told her that my sitters husband touched me. I never knew that I told anyone and questioned if this actually occured. But my uneasiness was undeniable and my moms statement confirmed the nightmares. Not only tha t around the age of 7, one of my cousins held a knife to my throat and told me not to tell as his brother raped me. To this day no one in my family knows. Even after years when I was 15 he would show up at my house when I was alone and my mom was working to force me to have sex with him. By this time I was older, very aggressive and protective, I refused and said ” we are cousins” which didn’t phase him at all. He told my other cousins what he did and then they tried to convince me as well. I felt exploited, hateful towards love, men, relationships. It made me question my sanity because I tried to for so long forget it and kept my silence that after a while of seeing therapist, psychologist I began to think it didn’t happen. I expressed all my anguish in poetry. To this day my family does not know, we all have children now, to bring it up now seems pointless. To emerge dark secrets and reveal a truth no parent wants to know, hear that their son’s are rapist. Rapist who have their own children now.