This one here is deep. This was my first ever blog post, on 2nd January 2017. That’s when I started my healing and came to terms with my past.

Sharing my story has helped so many of you and I want to say it’s never too late to heal the trauma of your past.

This will be deleted again closer to the release of my book.

…..

While I sit here typing every word, drowning in tears of pain caused by the very people that were meant to protect me. I only hope this can relate to my fellow black females of today. It all started in 2006, where I was 10/11 years of age. During our family holiday in Jamaica we always stayed at our grandmother’s house, whom recently got married to this man (who shall not be named).

The house was getting rebuilt and so there were no doors just curtains, except for the room, I fell prey to. As I was walking outside, I could see my mother bathing in the outside wash room in the near distance. I was passing my grandmother’s room minding my own business, and the back door was open. My grandmother’s husband had music playing in the background and he asked me to come in and dance, so I climbed up onto the high doorway. Out of nowhere, he came behind me and his hands started to wonder down to my private area, this is where he began to rub me down (over my clothes). Straight away I asked what he was doing and shouted to get off. I turned around and told him to “F*** off!!” I then proceeded to run. I stopped for a moment and thought to myself, “should I tell someone, who can I tell?” I then remembered my mum was in the wash room. Let me tell you I was so scared to even say the words, but I found the courage and ran to tell her. My mother’s reaction was one that I could never expect, she said to me, “It’s your fault, you keep bothering him.” At my disbelief that the mother I thought that was meant to protect me, only turned around and put blame on me. This hurt tremendously and from there I knew I had to grow up quickly, because I was alone.

My cousin’s that I was close with at the time were basically giving a background story of the man my grandmother married, it was clear that it was no secret he was known for molesting children. This got me angry to know that this scum was living under the same roof as my younger siblings, so I started to call him names such as a rapist.

My grandma heard of this and called my aunt that was in England at the time and so she called me. She asked why I am calling him those names and asked, “has he ever done anything to you?” Me knowing very well that everyone knew what he was, but no one did anything or spoke about it. I replied to my aunt with a firm, “no.” I was not ready for the questions and doubts of me telling the truth or not. Besides, they wouldn’t have done anything. It was like they were covering for him, like the older sister and cousin that I am; I felt the duty to protect my siblings, whom were more defenceless at that time, (5-9 years old).

If he was around I would watch to make sure he was never alone with any of my siblings, especially my 5-year-old sister.  There was a time I saw him in the kitchen and being a toddler, she ran into the kitchen. I quickly ran after her and picked her up before he could lay a finger on her. At that time the wash room was outside and it was raining. So, my mum washed me and my siblings in the front room. My heart was pounding!

I could hear his car pull up on the drive way. I was relieved my mum finished washing me and my brother in time, so I quickly took him to the room where our suitcases were. I tried to get some clothes out in time before he could make it into the house. It was too late, stood in only our towels, he came in and I told my brother to go behind the suitcase. He drew closer to us and I said to him to get out but he wouldn’t listen, instead he stood there laughing. He tried to call my brother to come from around the suitcase, I then said to him again, “get out.” and I slapped him. That’s when he finally left the room.

I kept this with me for a long time and told my best friend a couple years later, she encouraged me to tell someone but who am I kidding, I told my mum she blamed me, the rest of the family are in denial. What options did I really have? I felt very alone and learnt to forget it, but it was almost impossible.

Rikkisha