Chana's story
I guess first up I'd like to say I'm doing pretty well healing wise, I still have a long way to go but I'm in a better place than I was even a year ago. Um also triggers throughout for all kinds of abuse, self harm, suicide attempts, and sort of near death experience.
So I grew up in a Christian home that seemed perfect from the outside but inside it was screaming and arguing. I struggled with making friends even as young as five and six yrs old so I was a lonely kid. My cousin decided to use that to his advantage, he started paying attention to me more than the other cousins, said I was his favorite and that he loved me. he snuck candy out of grandma's secret stash just for me, then one day when I was 7 he wanted to play a new game. he made me touch him and perform on him for the first time. He was only 11 at the time. we played the game every day of the summer, somedays he switched it up and touched me instead. he tried to kiss me with his tongue and i shoved him away. he then said we were all going to play hide and seek and locked me in a closet for about an hour. afterwards he told me he still loved me even though i had misbehaved. things got progressively worse, i had a lot of 'accidents' if i dared to tell him no to anything. I was 9 the first time I attempted suicide. I couldn't tie a knot very well at that age. :( for perceieved wrongs my cousin would choke me until i passed out. he tried to drown me twice, once he had to give me cpr because i stopped breathing, he went all the way a couple of times, sold me to a guy at a park once too, it finally eneded when i was 10. i told a friend at school who told her mom who told my parents. So i was safe and got help right? No. it was swept under the carpet I was forbbidden to tsalk about it and cousin wasn't supposed to be alone with me anymore. I self harmed in many different ways and I hated myself immensely.
that's all for now, will post more later, it does eventually get better
Hello, @SuperWhoLock1988
and wow, your story had a real effect on me. I can only imagine how all this must have felt for you, the pain, the thoughts, the confusion.. I'm so glad you're making consistent progress and managed to stay strong and don't lose your hope in the end through all this. It does get better in time and it can be an experience that helps you learn a lot about yourself and the meaning of your life in general.
Please stay strong and take care of yourself! <3
@cloudTraveler thank you.
trigger warning possible for talk of religion,
I went from fourth grade until the summer after 9th grade with this secret. I hated myself so much and was self harming regularly. At this point I was made to go to church I didn't really care much for it but one night we had a new youth pastor and the night he first spoke was the night i had planned to commit suicide. I even had a note written out.I remember the sermon but I'm paranoid someone will somehow figure out who I am so I'll just say it had nothing to do with hope or not going through with my plan but there was just something about him that made me stop. I kept the note for a while but even to this day I can't truly tell you why I didn't follow through. After that he always took time to at least say hi to me. Now this was not a small youth group, In fact on a small night we'd have around 300 kids so I blended fairly well into the background I mean most of the leaders around there couldn't even remember my name. There was a youth camp during the summer and the pastor kept bugging me to go, I was bullied even in church so I put him off as long as I could but finally brilliantly came up with the good excuse, I didn't have the money. I truly didn't and I figured that would be the end of it. Lo and behold a generous member of the church paid my way, it was about $200. I didn't really feel trapped into going but Iwas only doing it to get some time away from my family. It was by far one of the best decisions I've ever made. I sat alone on a little half wall the first day and the youth pastor came and asked what I was doing. I admitted that I didn't have friends but that was ok i didn't mind being alone. We talked for a bit more and he left. about five minutes later this girl comes barrelling towards me screaming my name. She hugged me and said she had just arrived and she was going to be my new leader. We broke up by age groups since the youth group was so large. At this age I had learned to tell when someone was spending time with me by force or out of pity. This girl was genuinely glad to just hang out with me. I was so baffled as to why anyone would want to be around me. We split up into small groups to talk about the play/drama that had been on stage the night before. It all surrounded on secrets that were holding us back. I thought no way, I'm not allowed to talk about that. I considered just not saying anything until one of the other girls spoke of a secret very similar to mine so with my heart pounding wildly I told this group of about 10 people about what had happened and how broken and worthless I truly felt. I broke down completely. the females of the group surrounded me and held me, praying for me. It didn't instantly get better but the feeling of wanting to not be around lessened and the youth pastor became like a father to me. I was very wary of all men except the youth pastor. A new guy leader managed to slowly gain my trust, I call him my big brother. He's the one that helped me realize that what had happened to me wasn't my fault and that I deserved to be treated better. there's pages I could write about him and his wife as well. they've definetly been pillars in my life. I still was somewhat in denial though and figured I could just "be better" because I was a Christian and if I was still struggling it meant I didn't really trust God. So fast forward past graduating high school and going into college to start working on a degree in Psychology. I failed out due to PTSD, depression and just a myriad of other issues. It took losing my job and coming very close to once again ending my life to make me realize that I needed to get some help. iut took some time and three different therapists before I hit on someone that could actually help. Some days I feel like I haven't moved forward at all but when I think back on that scared 14 yr old me, i realize I've come a long way. I still have a way to go but I'm working on it, I'm not running away from it or denying I need help beyond just praying to God. Don't get me wrong, I am a Christian but needing extra to move forward doesn't make me any less of one. One pastor finally got it through to me in this way. Hidden abuse is like having a scraped up knee with rocks and stuff in it and just covering it with a bandaid and nothing else. The top of it will heal, form a scab maybe even toughen it up a bit but below the surface, infection sets in and could spread throughout your body. So you decide to uncover it. You dig down into that scab and yeah, its going to hurt and then comes the process of getting each little spec of debris out. its time consuming and not a job that can be rushed. then the medicine which of course burns like fire. Then you have to keep it clean maybe even pour some more meds on it until it finally heals up correctly, yeah there will be a scar but the process will be worth it.
anyway this is the shortened and less graphic version of my story up to now. I'm still seeing my therapist and we are in the beginning stages of doing EMDR. I want to heal from this and move forward so that I can do what I really want which is to open a ranch for severely abused kids that don't mesh well in other homes. I also want to be a psychologist for children.
@SuperWhoLock1988 Thanks for posting this. It was really touching and I'm glad that you're slowly moving out of this. I'm not religious, but I'm thankful that you had someone at your side when you were so deeply hurt. I hope that you will become the game changing factor for so many abused kid that you strive to be :-)
