Sixth Suspect: PU (The paedophilic uncle)

This post is probably the most difficult for me to write. I was eleven years old and a very, very naive one at that. The perfect child; obedient to the core. Not that it matters. An eleven year old girl should always be treated like the child that she is, obedient or not. Anyway, we were visiting our family friends’ house and I was upstair watching television. My uncle came upstairs and I could smell the alcohol in his breath. He came close to me and put his arm around my shoulders.

“What’s this?” he asked, cupping my newly emerging breasts.

I blushed with shame and humiliation. I thought if I told anyone, they wouldn’t believe me, and it would also break up his family. I kept silent and ran downstairs.

I must add, he never tried anything again – and probably regretted it – but from that day, every time they visited, I physically felt the fear shiver down my body and my anxiety manifested into a pent-up anger and an inability to sleep throughout my teenage years.

Many years later, I told my ex-husband what had happened to me as a child in an act of trust between husband and wife. It was the first time I had told anyone about the abuse, thinking it may have a link with my vaginismus. Big mistake.

Upon our divorce, he took great pleasure in announcing it to every member of my extended family and his own. My childhood abuse became a weapon for him to malign my character.