The Pain Continues

by Stephanie M
(California, USA)

At only 7 years of age, I began getting abused by my mother’s husband. It all happened so slow. I remember the first encounter. I was laying in bed, he walked in and touched me in a weird way. Since that day I was afraid. I ran downstairs to tell my mom. Social workers got involved, but as a little girl I was afraid and didn’t speak up. I thought to myself “maybe it was an accident.”

After that, maybe about 1 1/2 years passed, and my mom started working at a laundromat. I was about 9 years old now. It was around summer time. I remember my mom, him, and me staying overnights in the storage room inside the laundromat to sleep because it was too far of a drive to come every day. It was basically a home that whole time we worked there. We even had a little shower room and everything.

One day while my mom was in the shower, I was left alone with him. After all this time nothing had ever happened, so I wasn’t afraid, but being around him did make me feel uncomfortable. While she was gone he took the opportunity to start feeling on me. All I did was cry softly. I had no idea what to do, all I remember was feeling nasty. A horrible feeling in my stomach and heart. When Mom came back, I pretended to be asleep, but in reality, that night I cried myself to sleep. It was the worst night of my life, and that is where it all started.

Every day after that it moved quicker and quicker. It wasn’t just touching or feeling on me. He slowly began doing things much more worse than that. He would tell me that If I told Mom I would hurt her and she would never forgive me.

I was about 11 when he began to actually rape me.

I stayed quiet for all those years. He was the only “father figure” I ever had around but I would have much rather been alone than dealing with this. I even remember praying to God every night asking him to remove this person from my life or to give me the courage to leave or something.

This continued till I was 14 years old. Every day my mom left, it’s like I already knew what was going to happen. I got used to it. From 9 to 14, I don’t remember a day where I wasn’t touched or raped. It’s like everyone around my bad a feeling that he was doing something to me, except for my mom.

Finally, at the age of 14, I had the courage to tell my mom, thanks to God and my best friend. She noticed it. She was the first person to ever even touch the subject. It felt like finally I could say something because I had someone supporting me. I had someone on my side. I asked her to please not say anything. She told me I had to tell my mom that instant or else she would. That scared me so much, so I told her I would do it but to please head to my house.

As that man sat in his room, I took the opportunity to talk to my mom and tell her everything. It all happened so fast. That day, he was out of the house. We didn’t call the cops at the time or anything because there wasn’t like a correct way to react. He instantly left running. We went to the cops right after all that.

Till this day, nothing has happened to him. All I know is God is in charge and he will handle it, so I leave it to him.

I am now a couple days from being 18. I got a boyfriend for the first time and it’s still really hard. I’m not as happy as I wish I was. I still do get flashbacks and I am still in pain because it’s hard to just let it go. But I’m making it through. It just sucks that so many of us go through things like this, and no one deserves it. It will always have an impact on me.

God never puts you in a situation you can’t handle. And he proved that to me. It’s very hard to be completely happy but I will not allow this experience to make me shut down. I have huge plans and I will be writing a book on my whole life.

Some of us just need to hear these stories to get by. As the years go by I will continue to heal. We are all strong beautiful people and we deserve to be happy. Thank you for taking your time to read my story, may God bless you all.