When I was in 6th grade, I began to notice my stepdad become more violent with his words towards me and my mom. I put it off as him just being irritable from our big move across the country, and ignored it. But the anger and abuse continued, and escalated from only being verbal to being physical with me. He would come  into my room late at night and mess with me (sexually). Those multiple occurrences scared me for my entire life, and even though I haven’t seen him in almost 3 years, the memories still haunt me sometimes, and I sometimes still get nightmares about it. I have trouble sleeping currently, and I blame my increase of anxiety to the fact that this happened to me at a vulnerable age, 12-14 years old to be exact. I no longer live with him, and he is in jail for at least another year, but I guess there’s always that fear of “what if?” Like what happens when he gets out? What happens when I’m an adult and he’s out of jail and wants to contact me. Even if its only to apologize, I don’t think I’ll ever be able to look back at my childhood memories, or pictures of my family, or even look at him every again.