Survivor Story #2

(Submitted January 16, 2019)

I was 6 and at my Aunts house, as we usually were on the weekends. I was upstairs with my cousins and we came up with a plan to play hide and seek. I went into my aunts room, hid in the closet, and shut the door behind me. Some time passed on as he was looking for me.. soon I heard the door open, and close behind him, I heard the food steps around the room. Eventually he got to the closet and paused for a minute, almost like he knew I was there... he opened the door, looked at me and said something that has haunted me almost my whole life, “let’s play a different kind of game.” He then told me to close my eyes.. and he assaulted me. I couldn’t open my eyes to see, I couldn’t move, I couldn’t do anything.. I couldn’t even say no.. when he was done he walked out of the room and I just sat there, not moving, not breathing, and still not opening my eyes..


I don’t know how long I sat there for but it had to have been a long time because my family was starting to call for me. So I gathered myself together, and went and had dinner with the whole family. My mom could tell something was up, when we got to the car later that night I started crying and told my mom what happened. She took me home and from then on I was different, it’s like he took my sparkle away. Almost as if the light the kept me going just died. My mom never reported what happened to me. I will never blame her for her decision because at the time she thought it was the best thing for me. She didn’t want to “tear apart the family” and in a way to her, it made sense, at the time she didn’t know what to do. Her nephew had just assaulted her daughter. We stopped going there for a while, and for a while it seemed to work. I wasn’t the same after but I was learning how to cope with what had happened, until I saw him.. he was at a store I was at back in 2015 and he ran right up and hugged me, I did see him in between the time of the assault and this but it was always with my mom there and we never had a conversation.

He asked me how life was going for me and then starting going on and on about how “he’s in college” and “has a stable job” and “a fiancé”. And I thought to myself, why does he get to live such a beautiful and happy life and I am too scared talk to men, too scared to sleep in the dark, have PTSD, why am suicidal, why do I have to be sad when he allowed to be so.. happy? So that’s the day I decided to stand up for myself. I went to my therapist and told her everything he had done to me. By this time I was already 16, and he was 22. The detectives had me come in.. live through it again.. face him.. and all for them to say “Because he was a minor at the time of the assault, given his current age, there is nothing we can do.” Then he got away with it.. again. Through the prices of this I found out he has two other rape charges, one from a former girlfriend, and another one from his other cousin. He got away with all three, he seems unstoppable..


I am now 18 with bipolar disorder, social anxiety, panic attack’s, PTSD, I can’t even close my eyes, but that will never stop me because he will not keep me down anymore. What happened during my childhood was hard, but it made me the strong, outspoken, and independent woman I am today, and that I will thank his sorry a** for. #stoplettingrapistfree

- Anonymous