My story goes like this, I was molested for years by a member of my family. It started at the age of 9 and didnt really stop until I was around 16. I always ignored it and never said a word. I thought to myself for a long time that I had nothing wrong with me and that I made the whole thing up in my head. But after I turned 18 I began feeling uncomfortable around this person and I never thought anything of it, it wasn’t until the person left that I opened up about this feeling I was having. It eventually led me to have nightmares about this person attacking me over and over again, I couldn’t sleep anymore. I was crying nonstop, I was too afraid to go to school alone. I was living in constant fear of being hurt again. I wanted the world around me to stop, I wanted nothing out of life anymore, I simply couldn’t deal. So I opened up to people around and one by one the ones close to me began to understand how I was feeling, it helped for a while but it just stopped working. I began to go down my spiral of depression once again, I hated it. constantly not having the motivation to do anything, I stopped doing all the things I loved. I was convinced that was my end. I was encouraged to speak about my story to my family. I was dreading this for weeks I couldn’t do. I didn’t think my family would believe me. So I told them little by little and only one member of my family really believed me and tried to stick up for me. my sister confronted this person (who denied it the first time she asked) then he called her again and said it was true. another member of my family said I was making this up, that this was a smart young man who wouldn’t do anything like this to his family. It sucked watching most of my family picked this person over me. My mom heard about it and was upset for a day. she talked about it once. that was it. that’s what hurt me the most. that my own mother couldn’t fully acknowledge that I was deeply hurting from this. My family still continued to communicate with him as if nothing was wrong. even trying to have me video call with him and our entire family. I couldn’t. I always thought that my family was progressive than other brown families in our area and culture but I was wrong, having my family chose the boy that hurt me again and again. But I mean that’s just the sad truth about growing up in a “brown” family the boys can do no wrong and everything is a girl’s fault. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I hope one day “brown” families will do better about understanding how serious mental health and trauma really are. they just expect you to take it with a grain of salt because they apparently sacrificed everything for you to have a better life than they did. I just want to be heard from my family. I want them to stop with this stigma that a man can do no wrong.