How to cope with telling my sexual assault story
When I was in elementary school, my uncle molested me more than once. Later in life I found out that he used to come on to my mom as well. While I have move past all of this, my cousin gave birth to a baby girl, and they are in close proximity to my uncle. I have never ever spoken on the subject before but I felt a huge need to immediately tell my cousin my experience in the hopes that he wouldn't leave his baby girl with my uncle to baby sit or something as she is now a 14 months old. The conversation went the worst way it could. The moment my cousin answered, I couldn't speak. All I could make out was "Can I tell you something, no questions asked? Please don't tell my mom because I'm afraid of the guilt she would feel. But please don't let your dad baby sit your daughter alone, please." What followed were some short kurt comments by my cousin explaining if I don't say more, its hard for him. I texted him 30 min later once I was a bit calmer and explained that I didn't think I would get choked up and be so cryptic and tried to downplay the situation to comfort him and apologized. He responded by saying that he wants make sure I'm okay and that I should get help. My brother called him later and my cousin basically said that I have no relationship with him (had missed his wedding for work reasons) so it was really rude of me to say I love his daughter and drop a bomb like that. He said it wasn't my place speak on the subject when I wasn't prepared to share everything yet and that the way I said things were hysterical and not believable and that I'm going through an episode. He also said that he needed me to understand what I did was wrong. I know I could have handled it better, but for all I know, my cousin could have left his daughter for baby sitting tomorrow. I felt a calling that it needed to be addressed immediately regardless of if I wasn't prepared to talk about it. I did the best I could, I didn't know I wouldn't be able to get the words out. But to hear that it's not my place and that I'm having an episode really truly hurt. I am so far removed from the situation, I opened an old wound just for him, and I was left feeling worse about myself. I potentially saved a baby girl from a repeated offender today (even if there was only a 1% chance), regardless of my cryptic and unhelpful delivery. I just need someone to tell me I did the best that I could and that I did the right thing... My brother heard out my full story and said he would address my cousin from now on. It just hurt for my brother to repeatedly say my delivery was so wrong and I “dropped the ball.”
@starsk3000
There is absolutely no doubt that you did what had to be done, in the best possible way you could do it.
Like, if we see a kid drowning in a lake, even if we are very poor swimmers, we do anything we can to save the kid. Maybe we don't look neat with our poor swimming style. Maybe we gobble a lot of lake water. We could even risk drowning ourselves.
All these shortages increase the ethical value of the effort. You did it no matter what. Because it was the right, ethical thing to do. You did it the best way you could, that might be "imperfect", but you did it anyway.
You put yourself in a very uncomfortable situation, risking hurting many family relationships, and experiencing a triggering situation that would make you suffer from your own old wounds.
Your "delivery" style here is totally irrelevant. Criticizing you for that, would be like blaming someone that alerts that the house is burning shouting "Fire !", because she did it with an unpleasant voice. Ridiculous.
You should feel very proud for what you did, and for saving a little girl from such an impending serious risk. Not certain, but very dangerous for her whole life mental health and wellbeing.
Besides, the fact that all this affected you so much, maybe implies also that you still have some wounds from those childhood episodes. Reflect on this, and if this is the case, might be you should take care of those. We could deal with that in a further conversation.
I am very proud of you. You are a compassionate and courageous person. You deserve to be recognized for that.
Keep in touch, and come back to us for any further concerns you may have.
I wish you all the best !
Kind regards,
Marcelo.
Thank you so very much for saying that, truly. I really needed to hear that. You said everything I needed to hear, I can’t thank you enough for putting me at ease
@starsk3000
Thank you !
You are welcome !
I just told the truth as I see it...
As every decent person would see it, I think.
All the best,
Marcelo