I don’t even know where to start from. I was born in South Asia in a middle-class family. Father was a businessman and mother’s duty was raising the kids. I have an elder brother so the four of us looked like a perfect, happy family. I was always into reading books and was academically better performing than my sibling. As far as I remember, he was very loving towards me when I was young. My mother’s sister also had two boys, so most of my cousins were males. I didn’t have anyone to play with so if the boys invited me to play with them, I would be so excited.

I don’t recall when the first experience was. I might have been five or younger. Brother and cousin asked me to come play with them in the attic. I was so happy. It must’ve started with curious minds of two 7 YO boys and exploration of differences in our body parts. Which later led to touching, feeling, and even tasting. Mother once asked me why we were playing in the attic which was dusty and tiny (we couldn’t even stand up straight, it was more like a crawl space). Innocently I told my mother what was happening, and she forbade me to play with the boys. I was sad because that meant I had nobody else to play with. So, I went and told my brother and cousin what had happened.

That’s when for the first time they told me that it’s a “secret” game and that I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone about it. My next memory is when the two of them rented an adult movie and showed me what intercourse is. Now whenever we played, I was always given chocolates or money. I might have been eight(?)YO at that time. They would touch me and touch themselves and I remember feeling confused, frightened, frozen, funny, everything at once. They taught me how to ask the shopkeeper for an adult movie, how to look up pornography on the internet and even how to delete browsing history.

Things started escalating further. They were teens by now and my body was getting bigger too. Since sex education is almost non-existent in South Asia, I started learning about intimacy and pregnancy through media and some friends. I started worrying that my brother or cousin might get me pregnant (even though there was no intercourse. I feel so silly thinking about it now). For the first time, I started saying “No” to them when they wanted to play.

My sibling was a typical-always-angry adolescent by this time. Things started getting worse at this point and he got angrier when I wouldn’t comply. There would be verbal fights, then physical fights. Punches were thrown, hair was pulled, all his manly muscles were used until I couldn’t fight anymore and gave up. He was also very careful about not leaving any marks or evidence.

The cousin on the other hand was always kind and loving. He made me believe that he wasn’t rough and angry like my sibling. That he would never do something I didn’t like. And he would always make sure I got a chocolate or candy or jelly. I never had the audacity to say “No” to the cousin. I would try to push his hands away when I was in pain but that didn’t stop him.

Dramatized crime series on the TV taught me that you could go to the police and that whatever is happening is definitely wrong. One day I threatened my sibling that if he ever tried to play again, I would go to the police.

His response? (Evil expression) “Hahaha you are in ___ (insert South Asian country) baby. The police won’t do anything and even if they did, since I am under 18, they will take me to juvenile. Do you even know what juvenile is? They will release me and then (voice turning angrier and in a threatening tone) I WILL COME FOR YOU”. (Face turns normal again) “And besides, if you speak about this, you will get blamed too. Because you willingly played and even took chocolates and money from us. You know that’s called prostitution, right?”

And so it began... a tsunami of guilt and fear and shame. I didn’t know what to do, whom to tell, what to tell, where to start. Topics like these were avoided in our family. How was I supposed to tell anyone what was happening? I had told my mother once when we were young, and she had forbidden me to play with the boys, yet I disobeyed her. Now I was in fear that I would be punished instead and blamed for not listening to her.

I was silenced. On the outside, I was an above-average high achiever. My parents would praise me whenever I got good marks or when I won prizes in school competitions. They would tell my brother to learn from me and be more active like me. I loved those moments so I would always try to be the best out of the two of us.

Father always believed that children shouldn’t know about parents’ fights. But I could always see it in mother’s eyes. Either tears or a sad face. I knew they fought a lot. I knew father dominated mother and never let her work or be independent. She wasn’t allowed to go out too often, and even if she did, she had to be back before father arrived in the evening. She would confide in me. She would come to my room in the middle of the night, lie next to me and cry until dawn. She would tell me that she is living only because she doesn’t want me to be like her. That she wanted me to be strong, independent woman when I grew up. Sometimes she would hit herself with a belt or a comb. How would I tell poor mother what was happening when she already had so much to deal with? How bad would father’s anger be if he found out what was happening?

When I was 15, I let my secret out to one of my closest friends in school. He was a male and I felt like I could trust him. He couldn’t really do much except listen and empathize, but I felt heard. I like to believe that I wasn’t affected by any of this until then. Once I spoke about what was happening at home, it started eating me. I would self-harm by slashing my wrists. I would secretly smoke. I would try to overdose on paracetamol (the only medication that was always around in my house). I hated myself. I wanted to end my life.

My South Asian parents didn’t like it that my closest friend was a male. They always kept pestering me about this issue. Now it didn’t matter if my grades were good or if I was a class captain, I was suddenly a “bad” teenage daughter. I felt rebellious one day when they raised this issue again. I snapped and said, “yes he is my boyfriend”. All hell broke loose. I was grounded for a month (not even letting me go to school). They taunted me saying I was disgusting to have fallen in love when I was just fourteen. Mother was heavily disappointed in me. She even scolded me for self-harming, which she called copycat behavior as a result of watching garbage on TV. Suddenly I lost their love and their validation. I lost my identity. Their son was their favorite child now. And brother didn’t leave any chance to rub this on my face. That year he became monstrous during his playtime. I was mastering the art of self-harm and becoming a pro at hiding and putting on a happy-face mask in front of others.

My parents told me that they were doing what’s right for me. That they were only looking out for me. That they were protecting me from the hands of a stranger boy who could potentially harm me, who could break my heart, who could do unthinkable things to me. Little did they know that the one causing harm was sitting right next to them, smirking.

One day mother read my journal where I had penned down some thoughts and minor details about the sexual abuse. She told me that the men in this house have anger issues and we can’t do anything about it. The best thing to do is ignore.

“If he comes to your room, stand up and leave. If he teases you, act like you aren’t listening. The more you react, the funnier it will be for him. If you don’t react, he will get bored and just leave you alone. As women, we must have strength to tolerate.”

I would remember her wise words and lay there like a corpse while he played and sure enough, when he was done, he would just get up and leave. No fighting, no punches. My new technique to guard myself!

Happy days were coming though because my sibling wanted to go abroad for further studies. I cannot even express how happy I was when his visa got approved. Now I only had to deal with the cousin, and I wasn’t seeing him every day, and he was the “nice” one, so it was bearable. Life got slightly better until it didn’t again. My brother called home and said he wanted to come back because western lifestyle was not for him. He even said that he would come back so his little sister could get a chance to study abroad if she wanted to. Oh, what a caring brother!

My teensy bit of hope that he must have changed was crushed when he came back and proudly showed me a vast collection of pornography on his laptop. Most of these videos involved domination, humiliation, punishment, electrocution etc. I was frozen. This was worse than watching a horror movie. This was real life, and these were real people (I didn’t know pornography was also fictional like movies. Or were they? Some of these videos were so gruesome, I still wonder if they were consensual). I knew I needed OUT. I knew that if I stayed there longer, he would want to try these out on me.

So, I started my journey of trying to convince my parents to send me abroad. One of their kids had just wasted all their hard-earned money and returned without completing his degree, so they were not keen on letting me go. On top of that, I was a girl who had just turned 18. I wanted to study fashion, but father wanted to make me a doctor. Mother didn’t want me to go because I was her “only” friend and that she needed me. Finally, I negotiated with father that if he sent me abroad, I would study science for him. That was how I left that place and began my freedom journey in Australia.

As soon as I got permanent residency and Medicare (gov funded health care), I went straight to my GP and began therapy. Even though I had told the health professionals about childhood sexual abuse, I wasn’t diagnosed with C-PTSD until I visited my 2nd psychiatrist and 5th psychologist. The first 6 years of therapy were for anxiety and depression. After two failed attempts at taking my life, it was only last year when I started EMDR therapy, and I finally feel like my healing journey has begun. The sibling and the cousin are still part of my family, so I get reminded of the trauma every single day, but I am managing. I have my amazing psychiatrist-psychologist duo and a loving husband who help me ride this roller coaster. I am also doing an undergraduate degree in Psychology. Five months ago, I got my aunt to tell my parents what had happened. I still haven’t been able to speak directly to my parents about the events or the details. They are trying to be supportive but at the same time they keep brushing the topic under the carpet, so nobody finds out. He is still living with my parents, but I haven’t spoken to him or seen his face in 1.5 years and that is a massive achievement for me.