I’ve been through a lot and I’m only 19

I’m very confident, I don’t have self esteem issues…which is a god damn blessing for a woman nowadays. The only “issue” I have is I’m a tad overweight when I don’t want to be, but I know that’s easily fixable so I don’t let it weigh me down.

Nah, all my issues come from familial shit, rape, abuse, etc.

I’m extremely tired all the time, I have no motivation to do anything, and that hope that I once said still lingers even after the final strand of it is gone is slowly starting to fade…finally.

Trust me, I’m aware I’m depressed. I was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder and was on medication for awhile but then…lost the bottle and then made the biggest decision of my life and since then I still haven’t gotten back to the meds…probably should. At the same time the meds were helping my anxiety and my depression.

Little backstory of major shit that’s actually relevant;

I was born

My mother raised me alone and I believed it was because my father just walked out (Ha ha :))

I was showing symptoms of more than just being a shy child but neither me nor my mother knew the difference.

My grandmother became my second mother, and my cousin became my best friend.

Fast forward to 2011, come out as bi- ha just kidding i was just a full on lesbian

Uhh, my cousin’s brother (yes he’s also my cousin but I want to make this the least confusing that I can), raped me when I was 14 and I will tell the entire fucking truth so there’s no confusion – I will admit that I said yes at first, and yes he said that I could leave when I wanted but I was terrified. He had proven before that he could easily beat me in a fight and people fucking have eyes. He could have easily seen I was terrified and even throughout it I was terrified and showing clear signs. However, I classify it as rape because he wanted to go even further and that’s when I said no. That’s when he said I should “let him.”

His intention was one fucking thing from the start and he never had my well being above his pleasure. As if incest wasn’t bad enough, let’s top it off with rape!

Come my 18th birthday, we were going over a sex ed thing in my biology. My teacher told us about consent and all that – everything that I’d become familiar with. Sex didn’t bother me, in fact it bothered me when people GOT bothered by it – I knew consent was clear and if it was even slightly hesitant, you stop what you’re doing and communicate.

I asked my teacher after class what happens if you “consented” to it but were clearly scared and…fuck, some other shit related to what I just said up there ^. He basically vocalized how I felt about the situation; “Yeah, that uh…that’s complicated but still raises some red flags.”

Whether or not this was the biggest mistake of my life or not, I’m still not sure.

He told the counselor. I got pulled aside. I was forced to tell my mother what happened 4 years ago on my 18th birthday. It was supposed to be the biggest milestone of my life, man..

I wasn’t ready. My later interactions with this counselor from then on were aggression, hostility, and then passive aggression. I knew what she did had my best interests at heart but since then, shit’s been less than good.

At least I got to learn that my best friend would side with a rapist and blame me for it. Brother or not, I had always been there for her, and her for me. I fucking thought we had something but clearly that didn’t matter. She was the first to know my sexuality and all the other milestones in my life and they fucking meant nothing. I was family too, man.

Whether or not I was unknowingly suffering from PTSD beforehand, I’m not sure. However, I know that I’m having nightmares on occasion (used to be a lot worse when it first came out). People who even remotely look like my rapist make me lock up and I have to stop a panic attack.

Also, yes, he denies anything happened.

After my 18th birthday had past and all this shit happened, I met someone who I still think about at least once a day. Thing is, they were a freshman and I was a senior, but I never had any intentions on having sex with them.

I fucking loved this person so much – I had a lot of love to give and I still reminisce out laying in bed with them under fairy lights, listening to indie music…yeah, it was the stereotypical lesbian experience (there was even a polaroid camera involved.) And god, I loved every fucking second of it. I loved being with them, laughing with them, pressing my cheek against their chest (They were a few inches taller than me) when we hugged.

Unfortunately my mom found out and started calling me a predator when I was too shy to even kiss this person. I told my partner, and through everything that I went through with my mother they supported me. They consoled me when my mom would send me nasty texts, when I told them what happened to me.

Graduating and having to leave for college despite not being ready was one of the most heart breaking things I’ve had to do. It was the first time I really felt like I was being “torn” from someone despite having to move around every two years because I’m a military brat. I’ve had to leave a lot of people behind but fuck this one time in particular. 

If there’s a god, he fuckin’ hates me let me TELL YOU.

Come college, that experience with my mom really opened my eyes. Despite telling her I had no intentions of having sex with my partner, and her knowing what happened to me when I was younger with my 17 year old cousin, really felt like shit. Made me think that she thought I would stoop so low – even made me feel like she thought I was over everything that happened. After that, I really analyzed everything she and I had been through and…

Man I have put up with some serious BULLSHIT.

It was like being raised by a child, and then growing up to raise my parent. I was never good enough…then I was everything to her. I got a B and was greeted with “Oh…good job.” and this was AFTER she said I didn’t “care enough” the first time I got a B…wonder what she’d say if she knew I got a D in speech class.

There was a bunch of other manipulative bullshit that made me understand why I was SCARED of talking to my mom sometimes. Scared to open up, reluctant to ask for ANYTHING on…fear?? of being lectured. My mother was a fucking life sucking tumor, I guess.

So…I made a big decision, my first real decision I made on my own…and left. At the end of the first semester of college, I had to leave. My depression was dragging me down, I had no energy, and I had come to terms with everything and knew staying in my family wasn’t healthy.

My only regret was that my Grandmother got caught in the crossfire. She didn’t deserve this. She didn’t deserve to be in this shitty family, or to get caught in this stupid war, or to be stuck with her shit eating husband who sits on his ass all day, or be stuck with a toxic son-in-law who treats his wife like…property almost.
If I could help her, I would, but I can barely help myself.

I’m currently living with some friends and they’ve been really good to me.

HOWEVER FAMILY LIFE AIN’T LEAVIN’ ME ALONE YET.

I come to learn, through my dad’s side of the family, that my mother had lied to my father about going with him to Japan for work (I think I know why but the stories are different), and he finally gave up after some bullshit beforehand! He never wanted to leave, but he had been hung so high that everything just broke, I guess!

Now I have a job that I hate, but I barely held the last one for longer than a week so I can’t quit this one!!!

…I still sometimes have great dreams with my ex. We parted on good terms but that doesn’t make it any less fucking painful. S’why these dreams…kinda suck. Wake up just to realize it’s probably not gonna happen again despite how much we both want it to.