Caution!

Speak Up About CSA is another segment introduced by LeanOnTree. We know it is a difficult subject and has a potential of causing an emotional riot within the reader. Please do not read this entry, if you can get emotionally vulnerable, overwhelmed or unsettled. Even if you choose to read this, please take good care of yourself. Have comfort food, be around with people who care about you, or pamper yourself in one way or the other.

We intend to create a community for the Adult Survivors of CSA. As of now, we are based out of Delhi. If ever you feel like talking to us, you can approach us through Facebook or email us at leanontreeblog@gmail.com. Yes, you can also meet us. We do not come with answers, we come with experiences. We can share experiences with each other, and hope in honest sharing and bonding, we’ll find our answers. If you are ready, let us join Palak as she recounts her CSA & Incest.

PROLOGUE

On meeting her for the first time, Palak seemed like a witty, bold, and opinionated person. And she still is. But what we didn't know is that there is more to her. Isn't that the case always with the people we perceive or judge to be a certain someone on the surface? With this first guest entry on CSA, Palak speaks out about her abuse as a child. She takes the first step to deal with the aftermath, silence, and residue of one of the darkest memory of her life.

Palak Speaks Up About CSA

This is the first time I am writing about my sexual abuse on a digital platform. Not that I thought I will ever write down a mail to someone telling them about my trauma and plight. However, there comes a saturation point wherein you try to settle down and suppress the issue inside you, considering it to be the worst nightmare.

I do not remember the exact age when the series of my Child Sexual Abuse started. But I would have been between 8-12.

The ironic thing in my case is that I was sexually abused by my cousins (both females), one of my age and the other, 4 years elder to me.

I remember whenever I used to visit my maternal grandparent's house, all the siblings would gather and play in a separate room (which was really spacious.) So when we started playing games we also started mimicking actors and actresses, and then came a time when we also started imitating the way a male protagonist in a movie used to flirt with a girl.

It was so severe that my female cousins would ask me to pretend that one of them (acting like a man, during the game of imitating) would behave like she is my boyfriend. In the presence of my male cousins and my real elder sisters, who were too old to play this game, these cousins would pretend that this game is confined to just imitating actors. However, the moment they were engaged and would leave the room (which they mostly did,) these two cousins would take turns to touch my private parts and feel me down there. Also they would ask me to feel them in that very manner. Earlier I thought it's very inappropriate to do this and said no. But then among the two, the eldest one would threaten me to do it or else she would complain to my mother and my sisters. Mind you, my mom and sisters were very possessive and short tempered in nature, due to obvious reasons of me being the youngest and the most notorious one. Hence I agreed to do whatever they always asked me, separately or jointly. I did everything - from being asked to take off my panty to open her bra.

It feels so painful while even writing this down.

And this threat kept going on and on for at least 3 years, sometimes at their house or at mine. I also remember it happening in the washroom while bathing at my Nani's place, when we are small and all used to bathe together.

I got so used to it till a point that I, after a couple of months, starting initiating it even before they used to imply - because I got addicted to it and it was fatal. Very fatal!

Not that I enjoyed it back then. I wasn't even aware about that episode of my childhood to be categorized as an incident of CSA. But after several years my elder sister caught me talking dirty things (adult in their term) with my cousin and she thought that they are the bad influence and hence instructed mom to never take me alone to Nani's house.

I was in a manner glad and relieved deep down, but later I gave her the most stupid explanation and narrated her the entire episode (but not too clearly) so that she never thinks or perceives that I am a bad person.

That was the last time I spoke with her about my Child Sexual Abuse. She later told about it to my mom, in my absence. I think she did so in my absence as she was aware that not only it would be awkward for me but would also be tough for mom to bear.

Slowly and steadily we stopped visiting my Nani's place and eventually deserted our family ties for reasons more than just my experiences.

The rape was over! The abuse was over! Those people were gone. And the bitterness and shame was gone too. But the only thing left were scars and bruises of compelling, hatred to disowning my own body, and also to start touching my private parts. I wanted to feel them and assume how it would feel like if I ever got touched again by any cousin of mine (for that matter.)

I will not co-relate my CSA with my sexuality, but somewhere I do feel that it had a major contribution in self-introspecting, if my liking towards women is genuine or is conceived after the series of abuse I received from these women.

But that can't change the fact that I admire women, and I love them even after all this.

I would also like to add that while growing up, and from the days I started watching porn, to me I would always prefer watching lesbian porn. Lesbian porn perhaps because I always had a hold of a woman's body exposed to me at a tender age, and the liberty to allow her to touch me.

And now where are these two women? Well the older one has a boyfriend and soon will marry him. The second one, of my age often meets me at the metro station on my way to office every morning. She doesn't speak anything to me, but I can see this embarrassment in her eyes always. Also, I am completely unaware about whether these women have explored their sexual preferences or still are good at faking it.

Warm hugs to LeanOnTree for taking the initiative to give fellow human beings a shelter within the pain and atrocities, and a push to overcome it and educate people about it.

Regards,

Palak Sharma