TW: sexual abuse

Before I get into this, I just want to warn that this is a sensitive post, dealing with a sensitive topic. It is a truth I have lived with since I was 5 years old. The only one I blame for what happened is the boy involved, except for those times when I forget that it wasn’t really my fault. I don’t blame my parents, I don’t blame my brother or anyone else. But if you are sensitive to discussions around sexual assault, I would recommend you steer clear. I don’t go into details, but sometimes just touching on the topic can be enough to trigger the pain in some.

Here is my truth.

I was sexually assaulted when I was five years old. It wasn’t by an adult, so I’ve spent a long time even accepting that what happened to me was a sexual assault. We were both five, you see, and we were sort of neighbours who went to the same school. His family had clearly not sheltered him from the realities of being an adult, including sex, like mine had. I think I may have had some vague notion that sex existed, but I don’t think that I actually understood what it was. We were playing some innocuous child game, probably with trucks and tractors but I don’t remember.

What I do remember is him asking me if I wanted to play a new game, a secret game, an adult game. He said it was called sex. I had my misgivings, but he was insistent and I agreed. I can remember him telling me not to tell anyone, that it was our secret.

I think we wore our clothes at first, but eventually he had convinced me to remove them, and we were rolled up in a blanket on the couch playing our secret game. It happened more than once, but I don’t remember how many times it happened. I do remember how it ended.

We were wrapped in the blanket when my older brother burst into the room, calling out that it was time for dinner. I remember the shame I felt. I remember trying to hide in the blanket and the boy rolling me out so I tumbled to the floor and he stood triumphantly over me. I was his conquest.

I don’t think my parents knew how to react. I suspect that they pushed it aside as a kids playing doctor sort of thing. I knew it was wrong though. I remember my parents being quite upset. Not with me, at least I don’t remember it being with me, although they did quiz me on it and I remember feeling even more ashamed and guilty for agreeing to what this boy had suggested.

I remember becoming an outcast after that. This boy would chase all the other girls around the playground, shouting to them that if he caught them they had to have sex with him. I can remember sitting there, at 5/6 years old and thinking to myself ‘If they knew what it was like they wouldn’t be laughing so hard as they ran’. I remember still feeling guilty, still feeling ashamed, and I don’t think I knew what to do with those feelings.

Eventually, I pushed the incident aside. It wasn’t relevant to me as I went through elementary school. I imagine it was still in the back of my mind, though. I had a strong hatred for the boy, but I was lucky enough not to be in a class with him again until I reached Grade 6. I can remember him stealing a note off my desk to tattle on me to the teacher in front of the whole class.

As I hit high school and the kids around me matured and began to become more interested in having boyfriends/girlfriends, making out, and all that goes with that. It wasn’t until I was entering that phase myself that the incident from Grade 1 began to really affect me.

I spent a lot of time afraid, I spent a lot of time second-guessing my actions, my thoughts. Being intimate would leave me feeling guilty at times.

When I was hospitalized in Grade 12 for self-harm and depression, the story of Grade 1 came out again and it was clear that it was something that had greatly affected me and continued to do so. I remember my mom apologizing, saying she never realized how much it had hurt me.

And I forgive you, mom. You never knew because I never said, and I don’t know that I’ve ever fully understood how it affects me even to this day.

Sometimes I wonder who I would be, who that boy stole from world. I know I would be a different person. Would I be braver? Would I be able to connect with people better? Would I have this creativity that feeds off that deep pain?

I don’t know. I try not to think about it too much, because the woman I could have been died back in Grade 1, and I followed a different path.

It still hurts me to this day, so I don’t think about that time much. I actually don’t think about being a kid much. But I know it still affects me.

About a year ago, the boy contacted the law firm I work at. Now, I don’t know if the boy even remembers me, but I knew him as soon as I saw his name. And then I had to go and explain to the lawyer that he could not take this boy, now a man, on as a client. I didn’t say why, except that he had hurt me very much as a child. I cried. The boy was not taken on as a client, and I was never forced to speak to or see him.

I don’t want to ever see him, and I don’t want to ever speak with him. It terrifies me. I wonder if I somehow affected his life as much as he affected mine, and I know I didn’t. There is no way.

Maybe, though, maybe as he grew up he realized what he did was wrong and felt shame himself.

I won’t hold my breath, though.

I just hope that he hasn’t hurt many other women. I don’t pretend I was the only one he hurt like this.