He loved me... that is what I told myself, as he snuck into my room at night. He loved me... as he made me sit on his lap and watch TV with him as he caressed my thighs. He loved me... as he begged and pleaded for me to sleep in his bed so he wouldn't be lonely. He loved me... He had to, right?
That was his job. That was his role as a trusted adult in my life. He was supposed to love me and want what was best for me; that means that this must be ok. Right?
I was only eight years old when he first molested me; and not understanding everything that was happening was what kept me silent, at first. I didn't have language for the discomfort that I felt or the guilt that plagued me. All I had was his promise that he loved me. And even as his abuse continued to last for almost another four years, completely undetected by other adults in my life, I still stayed silent. The more it continued- the more shame ate away at me, the more he told me he loved me, the more I bought into his lies that he needed me, and the more I became a shell of the little girl I should have been.
Even now, almost 20 years later, I grapple with the little girl inside of me who never had the opportunity to be a child. I still struggle to sleep at night because my body still holds the trauma of his hands waking me from my slumber. I can feel his hands, my shame, as fresh as if it was yesterday. I still hold so much anger- at myself, at the other adults in my life who should have seen the signs and known. Why didn't they see the signs and know? Now, that I am an adult... will I see the signs and know? Will I speak up? For all the little children who become victims to sexual violence, I pray we all learn to see the signs, to speak up, before it becomes too late.
The hardest lesson that I have had to learn is this- He did not love me. I was only a child. He was only a pedophile.
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