This post forms part of Prostasia Foundation's Survivor Expressions series, a platform for CSA survivors to tell their stories in their own words and own way.

Johnathalien

Johnathan (he/him)

“You grew up in a protective home. There is no way you have trauma.”

Was what my mother said to me.

Living on a good chunk of acres, in a big house, with money coming in from my father’s job as a surgeon. Two loving siblings and cousins and grandparents who were affectionate and close. Walls put up around me, to protect me, I was safe within them.

These walls, they became my prison. When you think of sexual abusers, you think of big, burly shaggy men. Maybe you dont, but the people around me did. My abusers were not big or forceful. They were like leeches. Small. Able to slip through the tiniest cracks in my walls.

Like the little girl my age. It was just a pretend game, but i got bored of it. All she would play was making my character fall asleep and having sex with my character while he was drugged. I never did anything in the game. I just unknowingly took her characters drugged drinks and then slept through her getting on top of me. It was just a pretend game. I dont even remember the girls name.

Within the walls of my enclosure, my sister of two years older had a friend over one night. Being the youngest in my family, with no friends, no cousins my age, i craved attention more-so than anyone around me. When my sister let me hang with her and her friends, I would quickly become the butt of their jokes. As an undiagnosed autistic child, I was basically an alien to others. Aliens are weird. So then it was fine when they kept undoing my swim undies. I was fine. Even as my cousin came to talk to them in the hottub and they made me hide because there was no time to put them back on. Even as I asked them to give me my undies back, embarrassed, and they held them away from me. I was fine. I was annoying. I was an alien. It wasn’t that bad.

I didn’t know how to cry out in pain as the leeches would bite harder into me. My alien voice was ugly. I never knew how to talk. No voice to complain. No permission to understand. Alien.