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Sometimes life has a cruel sense of humour. I was a happy kid leading a normal life when life thought of teaching me some lessons in the most nasty way possible.I was around 16 back then.
One after the other events happened which lead to us leaving Chennai and shift to Nagpur.
Little did I know my world was going to turn upside down.
This man, at whose house we were staying in, who gave us shelter, who helped us when we desperately needed it, the same man ruined my life.
Those hands which I thought used to bless me suddenly started groping me.
Those touches which were supposed to caress a 16 year old daughter-like girl suddenly turned abusive.
I was still coming to terms with me suddenly leaving my hometown in the middle of the academic year, secretively, running away. Therefore, when all this started happening, It was difficult to even understand at first, forget accepting or fighting about it.
An inner emotional battle then started. I wasn’t prepared, nobody would ever be.
I didn’t know if I was even getting what was happening or was misunderstanding stuff.
Of course, the 16 year old me knew the difference between a good touch and a bad touch. I was aware but maybe not ready to accept the reality that was happening to me.
I was scared to tell about all this to anyone- what if they judge me, what if they beat me, what if they abandon me, etc. My family was already going through a difficult time and this wouldn’t be the right time to tell them about all this, I thought. Because, we didn’t have a place to live either.
All my fears stopped me from raising my voice, I was emotionally shattered. But with time, all this continued, his abuses kept increasing.
I became a silent, scared, shy, insecure, nervous, anxious person. The child from my childhood had suddenly vanished. My self esteem was badly damaged. I was not sure of getting an admission that year. I was broke.
Then came that evening - where once again his ugly hands touched me, I had had enough I thought and everybody would support me. I yelled at him and came out of the room crying, clueless about how to react. I let my mother know that someone had been physically abusing me all these months and couldn’t control my emotions. My mother was under medication for schizophrenia and clinical depression back then. I did not name the guy, so she assumed it to be the house worker who was doing all this. When my mouth gathered courage to tell her it was her own elder brother who had been doing all this, she was shattered. I could see her breaking down. She couldn’t accept reality and started telling me I must have misunderstood his ‘love’ for me. When other adults came to know, they did the meanest thing they could do to me - they asked me to keep quiet, shut my mouth because nobody would believe me, and after all he was doing us a favor by giving us a place to live.
I was exhausted and worn out with whatever was happening. First being abandoned by a close family-aid, and then being ‘used’ by an uncle, I started hating men. I was in a very different journey since then - a negative, self destructive journey. I stopped laughing, making friends, interacting. I started hating my body. I put on a lot of weight and started being ugly enough for no man to even look at me.
The after effects, the trauma still haunt me.
Since then, my life has been a roller coaster, many heartbreaking events happened after that which made me hate men even more.
Though I am in a much better place now, but the struggles of reaching till here, making me what I am today are worth cherishing. I don’t regret over whatever happened.
This is life, and this was a cruel prank life played with me.
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