When I was really young, I was repeatedly raped by one of my older cousins. It happened so often that I stopped going over my aunts house. I never ever ever told anyone about it. Then it stopped and maybe a year later another one of my cousins tried to do the same thing, but I didn’t let it happen. This had just stopped happening to me and I wasn’t going to let someone else start again. I told my mom and she told my aunts and grandma. They kept asking questions and asked if this had ever happened to me before but I said no. I was scared and I just wanted everyone to stop talking about it, so I told them that this was the first time and nothing happened. Everyone dropped it and so did I. But I was so young and traumatized that I actually made myself forget that any of this ever even happened. I blocked it out of my mind to protect myself and everything went back to normal. This summer I had a lot of time to think about why I am the way I am and one night these memories just started coming back to me. I started having nightmares and random anxiety attacks. I was shaking and I felt nauseous. I guess my mind felt like I was ready to handle it now but I didn’t even realize that any of this happened. I see them both on a daily basis, everything is normal between us, and now I suddenly have to remember this and I wonder if they remember too. Does he even feel bad about what he did to me? I know they aren’t the same people as they were then. I love them and that’s the hardest part because I feel like I shouldn’t. I blame myself for everything, I hate myself for it. I’m never going to be the same. I tell people I’m a virgin because it’s easier than telling them I was raped by my own family. I feel like I can’t trust anyone and I’m always scared of something like that happening again. Sometimes I think maybe I deserved it. I almost killed myself twice because I was so depressed, the only reason I couldn’t do it is because killing yourself is the ultimate sin and I would go to hell for sure. God would never forgive me and that thought kept me from ending it all. Maybe that’s why I stopped taking my medicine because what’s the point or is that still considered suicide? (Because I have a terminal illness called Sickle Cell Disease) But having access to all of my medications 24/7 is tempting sometimes. My mom doesn’t understand and I don’t expect her to. I didn’t tell her then and now I can’t tell her even when I want to. It’s old news anyways and the last thing I want is for my family to be more divided than we already are. It only feels new to me because I blocked the memories out of my mind, now they’re coming back and hitting me harder every time. I’ve never felt so emotional until now. It’s like when I think about it I just break down and hate myself even more. I have never ever ever told anyone about this, I haven’t even said it to myself out loud. It’s like actually saying it makes it real. I have no one to talk to about it and I don’t know how to handle it. Why do I have this information now after all these years? But it explains why I’m so fucked up. It’s so hard for me to say how I feel even about anything, it don’t like to feel, I always bottle my feelings, I don’t cry at all unless I’m alone, I don’t trust anyone, I keep my guard up, I’m always paranoid, and I blame myself for everything. Also because of what happened I feel like sexually I’m not as interested as I should be, I don’t even know what to do during sex. I’ve always had guys telling me what to do and i didn’t have a choice so that’s what I expected from every guy, but it’s not like that with my boyfriend. I feel like it’s weird because he doesn’t force me to do anything and that’s pretty much what I’m use to if that makes sense. I’m not even sure if I want to wait until marriage to have sex because I feel like there’s no point, I’m trash anyway. I’m just so messed up in so many ways and I won’t tell anyone why. Everything can be going wrong and I will literally say nothing because that’s just how I’ve learned to be. I learned to keep my mouth shut, act normal so no one asks questions, don’t have feelings or getting attached or let my guard down so I can’t get hurt , and don’t cry because it only makes things worse. I blocked out everything and everyone because that’s how I survive. I get scared when I start getting close to someone so I push them away because I can’t trust people. What if they hurt me or worse..what if they leave me. I’m scared of being left alone because I need someone to take my mind off things and keep me busy. If I think for to long then I might feel again and I don’t know how to handle my feelings so I try not to feel anything at all by bottling up and ignoring my emotions. Now I’m way too emotional numb, unstable, and self destructive. It’s like I’m an emotional time bomb waiting to explode. I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Im usually able to bottle all my emotions and ignore my feelings but that stopped working when I began to remember the all terrible things that happened to me. It’s not just effecting me emotional but physically as well. I don’t sleep anymore, I start trembling and getting nauseous. I don’t even want to get out of bed anymore. I can’t talk to anyone because I’m to scared so I’ve just been going through this alone. It’s embarrassing and I haven’t been able to accept it and just get over it. Talking about all of this makes me get a pit in my stomach. I get overwhelmed with emotions and I start shutting down and blocking everything out and I don’t know how to deal with it.

I have seriously deep rooted anxieties and I’ve been debating if I should tell anyone this for a while now because telling people might make it easier for them to understand because then they would know why I’m so weird and awkward and crazy and they could understand why I have anxiety so much and never sleep. I’m scared to tell anyone because I’ve never ever ever told anyone (except for my current boyfriend). I just don’t want people to look at me differently or treat me differently. I only told my boyfriend because we’ve been friends for 3 years and he deserves to know who he is falling in love with. (I’ll update on how this affects ours relationships). But what should I do?I want to tell my mom and getting some personal help, but I’m scared and I don’t want this to destroy my family.