The One Who Doesn't Want to be Silence Anymore

Grandma’s house is supposed to be the best place on Earth with cookies, warm hugs, and lots of love; at least that’s what I thought until I was 16 years old. Up until this point in my life I thought that “love taps” on the bum were normal and something other families did too. I thought getting picked up and carried as a child was an innocent position. Then one day it all changed.

I didn’t know what sexual assault was. I had heard of it but didn’t understand or know I would ever have to deal with it. One Sunday at family dinner at my Grandma’s house, we were dishing up food from the island counter and my uncle put his hands all over my body and touched my butt in very inappropriate ways. I turned around and asked him to stop and he said, “Make me.” I just walked away and later that night I sent a text asking him to not touch me like that ever again because I wasn’t a little kid anymore and didn’t want to be touched that way. Little did I know what would come from that text. My uncle took measures into his own hands and tried to get my dad fired from his job, called all of my aunts, uncles, and grandparents to tell them I was a liar and that nothing had happened, and called the police station to say that if I called, I was lying and that he didn’t do anything.

My grandparents told me that I couldn’t say anything because they didn’t want their son to go to jail. My aunts wanted me to go talk to a therapist to “fix” my emotions. Of course things didn’t stop there. I was touched again. And again I asked him to stop. It’s been 5 years since then. I’ve never felt safe at my grandparent’s house again. I still know the exact place I was assaulted in the kitchen. I can’t be in the same room with my uncle alone anymore. I’ve been silenced and isolated by my own family members. I’ve been told to forget about it and that is the one thing that I can’t do.