Hi Reddit, this is my first time posting, and English is not my first language. Bear with me.
I’m 18 (female) years old, and something happened to me 12 years ago. My grandfather sexually assaulted me. Here’s a little background. I was born in the city, but my grandparents took me home to the province 12 hours away when I was three, so my mother could work. I was with my father for the first 5 years of my life, but he left and ghosted us. It was my grandparents and I for a while until my mom came home when I was six or seven, but before that, the incident happened.
My grandparents and I sleep together on the floor of our living room. We have a pretty big family, so the two rooms were occupied by my aunts (my mom’s sisters). I couldn’t remember if Grandpa was drunk or not, but I woke up to someone pulling my pants down. When I opened my eyes, it was Grandpa. The man I used to trust, the one I saw as my father figure. I didn’t know how, but I managed to stand up and run while he followed behind me, crying and apologizing. I remember crying too while running towards my grandmother, who was in another room. When I reached her, I was still sobbing and a mess that couldn’t utter a single proper sentence, while my grandfather was also kneeling and apologizing. I couldn’t remember much after that. Did I go to bed? When did I stop crying? What was Grandma’s reaction? Did I manage to tell her that Grandpa did something bad? I couldn’t remember much, but from that day forward, until my mom came back home, I was sleeping with my aunts and not with them.
I remember a shift; Grandpa was not as playful with me, and Grandma was kinder to me. I don’t know if those are significant, but no one ever mentioned that incident. Not my grandpa, not my grandma. Did I let anyone in our family know? No, I didn’t know the weight of the situation. Did my grandpa threaten me? No, he didn’t. I just didn’t tell anyone, thinking it wasn’t a big deal. For a while, that was buried in the back of my mind, and I would get dreams of it happening again, but couldn’t recall if it happened to me or not. Things got blurrier when my mom got into another relationship, and we moved out of the house. Those nightmares visited me less and less, but every time we’d visit Grandma and Grandpa, I would feel uncomfortable seeing Grandpa, and he would avoid me as well. Soon, my grandpa’s health deteriorated, and he died in 2016.
Things got better eventually, family drama about who gets to keep the house, blah blah blah. Years flew by, and I would still get the same nightmares and still not know much about the origin of those nightmares. It wasn’t until years later that I would read somewhere on social media that states that trauma can make you forget about something traumatic that happened to you, only then did I start to piece together and connect everything, and remember. I have always wondered why I was hypersexual growing up. I’d feel guilty and ashamed of myself, little did I know that it was rooted in trauma.
Now 12 years later, I still haven’t told any of my family members. i have told a few of my closest friends and my boyfriend but none of my family knows. But whenever someone talks about my grandpa like he’s a saint, I would just keep my mouth shut knowing that i know something they don’t. I wanted to talk to someone about this, specially to my grandma or my mom, but I don’t know… I don’t know how things will play out. I’m also scared that my mom would get angry at my grandma for not stepping in or something. I don’t know what to do. Would it even matter now? He’s dead. What do I even do?
Comments
Yes it would matter! When you feel comfortable you should definitely tell someone, such a big part of SA awareness is survivors speaking out about what they went through! Even though he’s dead it may be good for the rest of your family to know what he was really like! obviously only do this if you feel comfortable – I’m always here if you need to talk!
If you are still thinking about it go talk to a therapist, get a busy life fill your day and it will help you to move on. Also be careful about this detail go your future man it may be used against you but also a good man will make everything possible to help you about it don’t forget that in this world good men still exist
It makes total sense that you’d feel torn..wanting to say something, but also scared of how ur mom might react or what might happen to ur family,im not here to tryna fix your mind of course,i can’t control what you do either,i would recommend you to do not push yourself or say anything when youre not ready to
English is not my first language too!
I don’t know the laws where you are, but if you are 18 and your grandfather is dead, a therapist will PROBABLY not have to report what happened to anyone. You may want to ask some hypothetical questions first. A therapist (or priest if you are a member of a faith) should be able to be a safe person to talk to about this, and get your feelings about straight before you tell your family.
You don’t know exactly how your family will react. They could support you, or more distressing information could come out about your grandpa, or they could call you a liar and react negatively. Ideally you could work through this experience with a therapist so that you would be ok even if they are not supportive, and you have someone you can go to who does believe you.
Also, if you bring this up with your family, it’s possible that the nightmares, etc., become stronger for a bit since it’s being brought up.
My 62 year old wife of 40 years is finally working on the sexual abuse she had to endure from her step grandfather. Because we moved and are now closer to her brother – who does not know what happened- it started to become more and more difficult listening to his positive comments about the man she hates. That, and not wanting to take away his good memories by telling.him what took place, brought her trauma back front and center though it had been 50 years.
My current retirement job is working at a child advocacy center. The top five perpetrators are not strangers and trafficking gangs. It is bio-dad, step-dad, uncles, cousins and..,grandfathers. You are not alone in this and what you are dealing with makes sense from a trauma standpoint and you could be helped seeing a trauma therapist. What you are feeling and your thinking is quite normal for those that went through what you did. It’s okay not to remember, to be cloudy, to not want to make issues, to avoid. Those are normal responses only those who went through it understand even if they don’t understand it clearly.
Look into trauma counseling.