I've been thinking a lot about this a lot lately, and I think it will help me to write as much detail as I can about what happened as I can remember, especially since I am about to see him this upcoming weekend for the first time in months.
It was some night in early January 2018. By early, I mean the first few days of January, as I was staying at my grandma's house for the New Year. My cousin Ryley's boyfriend was in town for the holidays, and was staying in the room I typically would sleep in. My cousin, who I will refer to as newspaper, as I feel uncomfortable calling him by his name, decided to spend the night, this night, and I didn't want to share a room with him due to a prior event that I will explain later. I decided to sleep on the couch, and my grandma and sister slept in my grandma's room.
Before I fell asleep, Newspaper came out to the living room, and I asked him what he wanted. He told me that he was just checking if i was awake, and then left. He was playing video games the entire hour before I decided to go to bed, and I could hear that once he went back to the room, he continued playing. Most likely a few minutes later, I fell asleep, but this didn't last long. I woke up to see newspaper sitting in front of the couch, staring at me, and the second he realized I was awake, he dove down to the ground, as if I wasn't going to notice him.
I asked him what he was doing, and I honestly don't remember what his response was, but once again, he left and continued to play video games.
This happened at least two more times, and on the last time, instead of leaving after I asked him what he was doing, he stayed. He sat there looking at things on his phone for a solid ten minutes, and I continued to watch the video I had been watching before I went to bed. Oddly enough, I still remember that it was a Super Carlin Bros video. Eventually, he turned his phone off and got my attention.
He said something along the lines of "Sometimes when I see you I just want to-" and he proceeded to grab one of my boobs, squeeze it for a second, and let go.
I was immediately mortified by this and told him to leave. He asked me not to tell anyone, and I just continued to tell him to leave. He did, and he returned to playing video games for a while later.
At this point, I felt so ashamed. I kept thinking that If i had only stayed in my grandma's room, this would have never happened, or if I had just gone to my grandmas the first time I caught him staring at me, this would have never happened. I felt like I was to blame. I didn't put any blame on him and felt like it was entirely my fault. I didn't trust myself to sleep. I stayed up, and eventually he turned his game off and presumably went to bed. I stayed up for at least an hour after this, and when I decided I couldn't stay awake any longer, I covered myself entirely with my blanket.
In the morning I didn't speak to him, in fact, for the rest of my stay, I was very cold to him, he would press me as to why, as if he didn't just molest me the night before. That day, I wore three bras. they were, thin, training bras, as I had never bought a real bra at this point. I didn't want to have boobs anymore. I wanted the smallest chest possible, because that way, I knew he wouldn't have that sick urge when he looked at me anymore.
This event scarred me for months. In fact, it's still traumatizing for me. I see a trauma psychiatrist for it. For months I was afraid to get close to guys. I was distrustful of them, and even still, I am distrustful of guys. I feel like they want to use me, and that they're thinking these awful things about me. For months, I couldn't shop in the juniors section, because their tee shirts had a neckline that ever so slightly showed cleavage, and that made me beyond uncomfortable. At this point, however, I am not afraid of my chest or what others think of it, I have healed enough that I don't have to suffocate it under three bras and not wear the clothing that I want.
I didn't tell anyone about what happened, except for my closest friends and my boyfriend. It wasn't until he told me he was worried about my safety that I told someone. The first person I told was my nana. I told her on accident. I started lightly touching on what happened, and eventually it all spilled out. A few days later I told my mom. I was terrified. I still felt like what happened was my fault and I worried she would be mad. She didn't say much, and told me she had to tell my dad. A couple days after that, she said when she told him he went outside, presumably to take his anger out. This upset me so much, as I felt I was causing pain to my family over what had happened, and this feeling only got worse. He called his brother, which he hates phone calls, because it gives him anxiety, and I can't imagine how hard that call must have been for him. His brother, is newspaper's father. He told me that he thought that his brother was going to "beat the shit out of newspaper". Spoiler alert, Newspaper's father has been the only truly supportive person of me in this situation on that side of the family.
I didn't want my dad to have to go through the anxiety and pain that came with calling his mom, my grandma, so I told her for him. She was extremely supportive, *at first*, and she told me the experience she had with her grandfather, which was far worse than what I experienced. After this I would either not go to family events, on that side of the family, if my boyfriend couldn't come, as I felt safe with him, or I'd go with him there. It was a really upsetting thing for him, and at the time I had been pushing all my feelings down, and blaming myself, and so the true pain and trauma didn't hit me for months. At the time, he felt worse about it than i did. It was something that was hard for him. To know that someone did this to me, and there was nothing he could do to change that. I am sure my dad felt the same way about it, but he never expressed that to me.
Every single time I saw him or heard his voice, It was painful for me. It hurt my heart so bad and made me slightly sick to my stomach.
Fast forward to earlier this year, I was at my grandma's with my dad and sister, and newspaper wasn't there. I went in to the kitchen, where my grandma was and she started chatting with me. Not long into the conversation, she brought up newspaper. I interrupted her and said that I'd prefer it if she didn't talk to me about him.
Her response was not good.
She told me that it was so hard for her to avoid talking about her family, and that she didn't want to pick favorites. She also said she thought I would have been over it by now. I got up and left and went to the bathroom. I vented to my friends, because she was not the supportive person I thought she was. (this was not the first time she had been unsupportive of what happened). When I came out she told me that I didn't have to go off and pout about her, and I sternly told her I wasn't. She then proceeded to give me a religiousesque speech, saying things like I had to find the strength in me to overcome this, and other things that really didn't help. What I needed was time to heal, not for someone to preach to me. She continued to talk down to me about the situation and insinuated that I didn't love her anymore. She told me she didn't want our relationship to be ruined because of this and said,
"Do you know how hard it is for me to know it happened in my house, and that you don't feel welcomed in my house anymore?"
She full on manipulated me and made this about herself in a "pity me, o woe is me" fashion. This entire situation made my recovery so much more difficult, and I am still uncomfortable around my grandma because of it.
There's more to this situation, including other things he has done to me, but Its late now, and im tired. I will post more later, as recounting all this, and a formal and somewhat organized way has helped me already. At the beginning of this story I was on the verge of tears, and now I just feel relieved.
Thank you for listening to my story, and I will update with more information later.
