Survivor Story 1: Trigger Warning

I am Anon and I am a survivor of sexual assault.

It started when I was 15, a 10th grader and I realized that it was a serious offence committed by my abuser when I was 18.

My abuser is my biological father who unfortunately still lives with me.

When I spoke to people about my experience, my first reaction was that of shock- because I had never in my worst nightmare imagined that a man who had seen me since I was a child, who watched me grow, who played with me as a kid would do something that I fall short of words to describe.

When I was 15, he came and rubbed his knee at the back of my leg. This happened twice and I remember feeling confused, shocked and at a loss of words because it was so out of the blue. FOR 3-4 YEARS I DISMISSED IT AS SOMETHING DONE OUT OF PARENTAL LOVE!

Since then, he would leave no stone unturned to make me feel uncomfortable, he would come and lie down beside me and start touching my shoulders or my back right when im about to wake up, when my mother is away he would try to push me to the corner of my bed and lie down beside me (the bed can fit only one person) and it took me so much time to realize that this stuff is messed up.

I spoke to a couple of my online friends and surprisingly 2 of them had the same experience. They were the ones who told me that this is not right and that if someone cannot respect your boundaries especially after you reiterate, multiple times, that you aren’t comfortable.

I remember telling him to move away in November 2020, the day he pushed me to the corner of the bed, he gave the classic gaslight explanation of “I'm your parent, why do you distance yourself from me?” and once he said that I am his property and that he is entitled to do whatever he wants. I felt disgusted, powerless and alone. Because there was no way out of this hell of a household.

He sometimes makes me uncomfortable even in front of my mother and my mother is somehow not realizing he is wrong despite me telling her that he makes me feel uncomfortable. She in turn tells me to not think too much. After all, he is my dad, right?

Whenever he sees me sitting alone, drinking my morning coffee or vibing to music, he makes it a point to come sit right beside me despite there being so much space or come and walk where I am walking because he knows that it makes me uncomfortable.

Some days he does nothing and that leads me to a feeling of confusion and a feeling of guilt, you know the “maybe-I-have-it-wrong-maybe-it-never-happened” and I just wanted to let people know that survivors do feel this way sometimes. It took me so much time to come to terms with the fact that what I've been facing is abuse and it's not correct.

One tool abusers use is blackmail. He blackmails me by saying that if I don't sit/ sleep beside him, he won't get me the books/clothes I want . He uses his position of financial power to make me feel powerless. He threatens to cut my funding for higher studies if I talk back to him because I am uncomfortable. He hits me whenever he is angry with anything because he knows I am the youngest and hence less powerful. There have been days where I've cried in the washroom till 2 am because the slap he gave or bottle he threw would hurt. There have been days where I have been screamed at by him and my anxiety got horribly triggered and I even attempted to end my life because it all felt too much to handle. The only thing that gave me the reason to live was to get out of the household, heal and come to terms with my trauma and build a better life for myself because i dont deserve any of this.

Yet he speaks to me about academics and jokes around and pretends as if nothing happened and the cycle of guilt continues. This, this is where I feel the most alone and powerless. Covid has worsened the situation and him working from home means me being in danger. Especially after the 2nd wave I have lost all hope and I just want that day to come when either he goes for work physically or I go to college physically.

Some tactics I use to keep myself safe-

• Since he wants to get physically close, I keep my books around my sofa/ where I sit, and basically keep as many things as I can just so that he doesn't get that space.

• When he is sleeping I move quietly to the other side and cover myself with pillows and hug the pillow tight so he cannot move it.

• I sense when he is coming near me and I usually go to the washroom or pretend to be on a call so he doesn't come.

• The moment he gets angry, I run to the other room or lock myself up in the washroom.

I am aware that I can file a legal complaint, but the problem is he is a man who has the power to ruin my career and cut me off from everything, my family will obviously victim blame and support him and ruin my entire life, which is why I plan to move out when I finish my bachelors and never come back to him, slowly cut him off from my life. He is the one in control of my bank account (and i cannot get control of it till idk when), he has access to my email id, checks my phone and in such situations I’d recommend that people make a spam/ another email just in case something happens and store all their important information/ documents like birth certificate, passport details in that email.

If any survivor is reading this, my heart goes out to you, you are extremely brave and resilient for putting up with whatever has been going on and I hope that we all get out of this and heal ourselves.