Child abuse and the end of one's life

It's been quite a few years now since a cousin of mine committed suicide. Through my mother I have learned much about what she had to suffer through. From the sexual abuse she suffered as a child at the hands of an uncle and grandfather - along with a number of other girls - to the wilful denial and dismissal of what she had gone through by her family, including her own mother. This all culminating in the criminal case against this uncle and grandfather for multiple cases of child abuse getting dismissed in court due to a formulation error on the side of the defence.

I used to think that I understood why she decided to took her own life. Both my mother and I sympathised with her decision and were nothing short of venomous about the actions and outright betrayal of her own family and the justice system. Yet now I realise that I didn't understand it at all. Before I was just able to sympathise on an abstract level. Now I can directly feel the pain she must have suffered.

Looking back, it's amazing how long these memories have remained buried, even though I always wondered about this sense of incredible sadness and loss that I seemed to harbour in the depths of my mind without understanding why. Now that I am finally able to give these feelings a place and context, it's possibly even worse. What used to be dampened and lessened in its impact through the veil of ignorance, I now get to experience directly.

What happened to me when I was five, maybe six years old basically ended my life. What I recall most strongly is this figure standing in front of me, like a dark shadow, reaching up so high and appearing so incredibly threatening to me. I try to defend myself. Brace myself against what I know will come next. Knowing full well that there is no way that I can do anything to help myself.


Of course I didn't want to remember any of this. I might have been much happier if I had never remembered any of it, but unfortunately its impact has reverberated through and largely shaped my life. Just because I could not remember what had happened didn't mean that it didn't affect my life. Maybe it was the generally safe environment in which I grew up which allowed me encapsulate these memories and pretend none of it happened. Maybe I just couldn't deal with it and pushed it away.

I don't know what I should do at this point. Part of me knows that I died back then, at the hands of this monster. Another part of me is just in pain, unable to function any more. Only a sliver of me seems to be still capable of dragging myself through daily life, as I noticed today at work. Everything is just pain, incredible sadness and rage.

I need help at this point. Some kind of support. I hope that my psychotherapist can help me there. I hope that the court can protect me and not fail me like they failed my cousin. I hope that I won't find myself alone and abandoned like my cousin did, whose own mother called her a liar. What she went through was the worst kind of loss, first of one's body, then one's self, then to be cast out and thrown away by everyone else, thus losing literally everything.

Deep inside I can feel this terrible sense of loss. I finally understand why I was so negligent and abusive towards my body and myself over the past years. Why at some points early on I tried to deal with this loss by reflecting what had been done to me onto others, maybe in the hope that it might help somehow. Which of course it didn't. Most importantly I can see this hole inside of me now where the real me was supposed to have been. Not this scared, terrified child that could never grow up because it never could trust others again.


I will not just submit myself to the eviction case or anything else like it, like a willing victim. I do not care if that's 'how it's supposed to be'. That's what I got told as well while I was being abused as a child. It's likely what my cousin and all those young girls got told as well by those monsters. Cease your questions and objections. Just go along with it. We're older and wiser. We know best. This is how it's supposed to be. How it's supposed to work. Now let us do our thing.

Whether it's a black-hearted landlord or family members, doctors and lawyers devoid of empathy, or just regular people wrapped up in their delirious layers of ignorance, most often it's not consciously observed by most what damage is being wrought, until it's too late. Every person has a right and duty to defend themselves against this, no matter what. To survive and hopefully live on to maybe thrive.

Sadly, at some point the only way to stay in control of one's life and not submit to injustice and suffering is through the abandonment of one's very existence. Anything else is to accept the death of one's Self. Since nobody reached out to help my cousin, she had to take this last, terminal step to remain true to herself. I share her pain and grief, as well as the rage she must have felt at a world which abandoned her like mere trash.

I mourn that she was forced to take this step. I pray that I won't have to follow her footsteps. Even though I try to keep an open mind and stay positive, it's painful to be reminded over and over again how little the average person truly cares about others. Maybe it's because they have never truly experienced suffering that such a level of empathy remains closed to them. I do not know, but it makes me worry that in a matter of months it'll be my turn to definitively take back control over my life.


Please, do not abandon me. Please, protect me against those who seek to harm me. Just this once.

Please make this nightmare that I had to keep reliving since I was a child finally end.

I cannot do this. I need others to help me. They must.

If they do not...


I guess I was already dead anyway. This was just one long nightmare before the curtains finally close.


But what if...


Maya