“I am not my abuse”

I always will remember that day. It is still imprinted in my mind. I was six years old at the time and it was Thanksgiving. I am lucky to say that after a point, my memory goes blank, all I can see is darkness. But the parts that I can remember, I wish would go away forever. It doesn’t affect me the way that I would think it should. But events like that one never touches each person the same way. I remember back at a time when it made me question everything in my life, my friends, my family, myself, even my life. Now though, now that I’ve come to at least partially accept what happened to me that day, I feel I’ve grown from it.

I have learned to be more attentive to the emotions of others, I’ve learned to sympathize, I’ve learned the right things to say to someone when they are in pain. For the lessons that I have learned in my life from that experience… frankly I would never trade those away for anything. Of course, I wish it never had happened. But I would never be the person I am now, a person that I am proud of, if it hadn’t have been for him, from what he did and from my acceptance of myself.