To the man that molested me:
You molested me when I was 4 or 5 years old and I repressed those memories for over 25 years. For 8 months, I have remembered everything you have done to me. When I close my eyes, I see the dresser right in front of the bed when I felt your penis in my butt. I see your sister lying on the bed beside me fast asleep. I can feel your ejaculate on the top of my butt checks. I can smell your sweat in the room. I can hear my dad calling your name and I can feel the comforter on the bed. It was white. These memories and flashbacks have come back in various intensities over the last few months, but they are still present with me every single fucking day.
This happened 25 years ago, but the impact is still strong and it has changed my life. The thought of you, your wife, or your children causes me anxiety. I now suffer with anxiety, flashbacks, and lack of safety. I have been dealing with this in therapy and with my husband. I have withdrawn from family and friends. My sense of security and safety has been lost, even within my own home. As a therapist, I am retriggered by my client’s shared experiences. You have impacted my confidence, my marriage, my friendships, my relationships with family, and my career. I wish I could choose to not be impacted. I wish I could feel in control. I wish it was easy to move on and "be healed". I wish I was not impacted by this and move on like the other victims. But I can't because this is my reality for now. You have changed...shattered... my life.
You—child molester—are the person who made my life change. Yet why do I feel like I am being punished? My relatives act as if nothing has happened. Of my like 30 cousins, I can only be real and honest with 2 of them. Everyone else feels like they have moved on. Maybe its because they don’t know what it feels like to have your control and safety taken away. Maybe its because they do not know how to deal with it. Maybe they avoid their pain. Maybe they are healed and do not have a problem interacting with a child molester. Maybe I truly am the only one who is suffering. Maybe they will never understand what is happening to me until it is their child who was molested by a trusted family member. Whatever the reason is, I feel alone in my struggle. When I try to bring this topic up with others, they get quite. They tell me it is okay. They tell me not to feel what I feel. They tell me to be hopeful or to pray. They don’t hear what I say. People are uncomfortable. Damn right, you should be uncomfortable. That is fucking uncomfortable and wrong. The best way to heal is really sharing my story. So how can I heal if there are few people who want to hear my story and how it is impacting?
I know I am healing and I am getting better. I know that God has given me the strength to see the beauty the world has to offer. Yesterday, I turned 30 years old and I vowed to myself that I would be brave and allow myself to do what I need to protect myself. This means giving myself permission to be angry, be sad, be alone, be scared, be brave, be silent, and basically be what I need to be to heal. What this also means for me, unfortunately, is to separate myself from those who interact with him. I am not sure how I can spend time with someone who can empathize with both me and him. Quite frankly, I do not believe that he should be cared for nor should his feelings, experience, struggles be heard or understood. Maybe in a few months, I can ask myself the question, why are people interacting with him and/or his family? Maybe in the future, I can see that there are two sides. But I am not there right now and I don’t know if I ever will be.
I understand that you were molested as a child, but that does not make it right to molest others. I was molested and I have not have the urge to go molest other kids. YOU ARE A MONSTER! You have children and not a day goes by that I wonder WHEN you will molest your children or their friends. You may not act on your thoughts anymore, but you probably still fantasize about them. When you change your daughter’s diaper, do you wipe her vagina and fantasize about what it would feel like to penetrate her? Do you insert your finger in her vagina or anus? Do you have pleasure watching her to grow into your prime target age? I will make sure that I do my part to protect the children around you. I will NEVER forget how you changed my life. You are a child molester and you will always be. I may be working to forgive you and heal, but you will always be a monster to me.
