Realizing you’re being abused doesn’t feel like some movie moment where the truth smacks you in the face and everything makes sense. It’s slower. It creeps in like a poison you didn’t know you swallowed. For me, it was never just one day. It was moment after moment, layer after layer, being ripped apart and touched by people who were supposed to protect me. Grown men. Family. Over and over. And for the longest time, I didn’t even know it was abuse. I thought it was just… life.
Realizing You’re Being Abused When You’ve Been Raised In It
When you grow up around abuse — when it starts early and it’s all you know — there’s no “before” to compare it to. There’s no safe memory to look back on. You don’t realize something’s wrong because wrong was your normal. Realizing you’re being abused didn’t come from someone hitting me. It came from feeling hollow. From wondering why I always felt sick, scared, or numb. It came from finally hearing words like “rape” and “incest” and feeling them crawl across my skin like they belonged there.
Because they did.
Because they had.
For years.
Realizing You’re Being Abused Is Like Waking Up Inside a Nightmare
I was still just a kid when I started putting the pieces together. Some things I remembered. Some things I only felt in my body. But all of it had been buried so deep that even saying the word “abuse” out loud felt like treason. Like I’d be the one who got in trouble.
But the truth was clawing its way out. I remember flashes — being touched in ways no child should be. Being told to stay quiet. Being blamed. Being made to feel dirty. I wasn’t even a teenager yet. And the people doing it? They were family. Blood. And no one — no one — protected me.
Realizing You’re Being Abused When Everyone Around You Denies It
You want to know what realizing you’re being abused feels like when your whole family denies it? Like you’re losing your mind. Like you’re the villain for even saying it. I wasn’t just abused — I was gaslit, silenced, and shamed for surviving it. I carried their secrets while they walked around smiling in public like nothing happened. Like I was the problem. Not them.
They’ll say I’m lying.
They’ll say I’m crazy.
But I remember.
My body remembers.
My soul remembers.
Realizing you’re being abused was the first step in a long road to taking my life back. I didn’t get justice. I didn’t get closure. But I got clarity. And once you know the truth, you can’t unknow it. I may still carry scars — but I don’t carry shame for what they did to me anymore. That’s theirs to live with. Not mine.
