Responses
Him been a minor doesn't forgive anything and your mother f*ck,i'm sorry but I really want to curse at her. She should be with you not help revive your trauma.
I hope you have people who truly listen to you and are willind to help and accompanying you. You're truly a fighter and deserve the better. (I'm not sure if I explain properly what I want convey as I not good at english)
Ough do these chapters hit home for me, especially 22/23. The way Ines is experiencing her trauma and suffering from flashbacks from just the sight of the SA'er/abuser from her previous life, yet at the same time telling herself how logically she shouldn't be experiencing this but can't control it, and how it must seem unreasonable to others around her since she's the only one who knows whar happened.... it hits close.
[TW for mentions of C SA]
So, I was tricked and SA'd by a relative when I was very young. He was older, about double my age at the time, but still a minor. It took me a few years to slowly realise what had happened, and I wasn't even a preteen yet. I always doubted what had happened because it just seemed so... unimaginably horrible to be real, but due to a sequence of events, my parents found out I had remembered the incident when I was around 17, and confirmed to me that it had happened and what age I was when it did.
I'm now closer to mid 20s, and have never had any particularly reaction to this relative when meeting him a few times a year at family gatherings - except I did suddenly have one earlier this year. He hadn't shown up in a while so I guess I assumed he wasn't coming, so when he suddenly appeared, I had this rush of anxiety and dread and everything bad at once - a trauma response, essentially. Hell, I couldn't even look at him. I was constantly on the verge of tears, and everything got much worse when I could hear my young girl cousins hanging around him, who are roughly the age I was in when it all happened.
All of this explanation to say that while on one hand, it feels unfair for Ines to have to suffer but having no tangible proof to punish the asshole, I relate to it. My mother made me feel guilty about my uncontrollable trauma response by saying she couldn't invite half of my relatives to the next gathering in order not to exclude my,, SA'er and make it obvious to everyone.
Like I understand my trauma is mine to handle and I shouldn't bother others with it, but on the other hand, I've never been able to react to my trauma at all, literally jumping between tiny moments of anxiety and tears at nights when it came to mind, to feeling absolutely nothing at all about it. Nothing for the past 17 years. Then the one time I do, completely unexpectedly to me included, I'm considered to be irrational and selfish.
Idk, I guess I relate to the unfairness of Ines because in my case, he was also a minor at the time - can one really blame him? I'm also unable to feel anger, and it always felt like my mother has taken a "neutral" stance on the issue, not really on my side. I guess it feels a bit unfair, bevause it feels like it minimizes all the trauma I've experienced in the past two decades because of him, just because he was a kid. Hey, I was one too. (I will say, while he was a minor, he was 100% old enough to know better.)
Sorry for the long ramble and explanation, if anyone managed to read through this, thanks. I appreciate it. (￣∇￣")