This is a story of a girl who sacrificed her sanity to protect her family from falling apart. Please understand that the victim is still plagued by the ordeal and for the first time in almost two decades since the incident has she decided to finally talk about her experience.

Uncertainly, she began by mumbling, “I want to stay anonymous. Nobody in the world knows this except my boyfriend. I’ve always wanted to speak about it to heal the pain but I’ve been too ashamed and didn’t want to destroy my family.

I must have been five or six when it happened. I remember staying over at my grandmothers house, she has this massive yard with three houses in it and a beautiful garden.

I loved my sleep back then and I was often the last one to wake up.”

She paused and shook her head uncertain again. I could see the doubts in her eyes as she battled with herself to continue speaking and I knew that her thoughts are all scattered bits of information that I would need to consolidate all of her thoughts into a full story. I suppose when something devastating happens at such a young age its not uncommon for ones mind to play hide and seek with all the details of the event.

After a minute, she begins speaking again, “I can’t seem to remember exactly what happened, maybe because I was asleep when it began, but I vividly remember waking up as my pants were sliding down my legs. Startled, I looked around and realised that my cousin (who was about thirteen at the time) was responsible for removing my pants.

Still sleepy, I was confused and did not understand what was happening. He started touching my body in inappropriate places. Using he’s fingers to fondle me. Then he tried to rape me but after a few minutes decided it was too hard to enter me and gave up.

I was frozen in my bed. Confused.”

She later explained to me that in the moment it was as though she’d forgotten how to cry out or scream all she could do was lay very, very still. She said “I just laid there until he left. He acted as if nothing happened. At the time, I was a child and I did not know how this badly this experience has damaged me.”

She tells of her flashbacks that she still experiences and how they used to happen every night. During the story she confessed that the only reason she ever told her current boyfriend was because she had a flashback during sex and began shaking and crying in pain and he wanted to know why she was so distraught all of a sudden.

But her biggest fear isn’t her nightmares nor how insane the flashbacks will make her. Her biggest fear is that she believes exposing him will destroy her family. But she also fears that the same man may one day destroy her daughter the way he has destroyed her.

To protect her family and their reputation she is forced to protect the man who ripped away her innocence…

Because she is a family girl.

Crying for her sanity,

Brokebella