Standing strong

Content warning: Story mentions sexual assault

By Leslie Contreras

When you're a child you expect those years to be fun, where you play games, and have your innocence, but sometimes things happen in life and that gets taken away from you. I experienced it first hand.

When you feel close to your cousins, you expect them to protect you, care for you and all of the above, you’ll never expect the worst of them just because they are family or because of how kind they are to you. But sometimes, blood doesn’t mean anything to family. 

The start of fourth grade, I became really close with my family, from going to their place once a while to going everyday I became really close with my guy cousins. One of my cousins never really spoke to me, he was very nonchalant towards me but never to anyone else, I always questioned myself why. 

Overtime the truth starting showing itself because the sexual abuse started from him, When it first happened I thought it was normal because being 8 years old you don’t really know the pros or cons of whats okay with a cousin relationship. Us being blood cousins never really made me ask the question “why?”.

Being 8 years old with mental issues made me feel different from everyone else because no one knew what I was feeling. None of my friends, school teachers I trusted or even counselors were able to help me. At that moment I felt hopeless thinking of what I can do to make myself feel better about the situation.

I always blamed myself for everything that I went through, I always told myself “why was it me?”, “why would my own cousin do this?”, “ just why?” I always asked myself that for almost 3 years. because I never knew how to physically stand up for myself, little me felt so overpowered by him I felt like nothing to him, like if we were never blood.

I had my last straw with him, I couldn’t take it any longer, the suffering I was dealing with everyday made me feel hopeless each day. Coping with depression at such a young age is sad and harmful  no child should go through at such a young age. I decided to tell my mom after 4 years of on going sexual abuse.

Telling my mom was risky because I never really open up to my mom about my problems, I’m the child who was always very quiet about their problems and puts a smile on their face everyday to cover anything. Telling my parents what happened to me broke me, I’ve never seen my parents in the way I saw them that day. I wish I would’ve never seen them like that. 

Being the youngest and going through that situation without any of my siblings knowing was hard, I became very distant with everyone I didn’t know how to talk to anyone. I suffered alone because I wanted to, I didn’t want help at that moment. The help was useless to me because it would just remind me of what happened to me which I hated. I felt like everything I was going to say was going to be told to my parents and I didn’t want that so I declined the help I received.

Finally at 13 years old I accepted the help I received. Telling the police what had happened was scary and nerve racking for me, being young talking to the police about something so personal was weird. In my head I was just thinking the worst of what could happen, I felt like I ruined my moms relationship with her sister. I was just hoping to find myself again and never feel what I felt while being quiet about the situation. 

Now I'm 14 , almost 15 and I'm proud to say I've almost healed completely. It’s never easy, it's always going to be a journey, maturing really fast isn’t what I always wanted but now that I have grown maturely, I can say I know what's best for me, I know how to stand up for myself and can set boundaries now. I really hope my story helps anyone even if you're scared to speak up. May you heal and seek the help you truly do deserve.

For Warrior Times, This is Leslie Contreras