I was 33 and had my first daughter. My mother said, “I can’t wait till I can have her spend the night.” And there it was. A huge eye-opener. So I plunged myself into seeing a therapist. I stopped talking to my stepfather after he blatantly did something I specifically asked him not to, in regards to my daughter’s picture.

I hadn’t told my siblings about the sexual abuse.

Because I just shut him out, it left a hole and created confusion for my siblings. It also left a blank canvas for my mother and stepfather to belittle in me in any way they wanted. Making me out to be a nasty person.

Two-and-a-half years later, I snapped. I’d had enough of the abuse from them mentally, spiritually, verbally. I told my sister. It was the most courageous thing I have done. She couldn’t believe it. She said she has to know everything in detail because she’s going to confront him. I could breathe. It was such a great feeling.

I knew I’d hurt her world, but I was free.

She did, in fact, confront both of them, in detail. He didn’t deny any of it. He said he thought of me as a friend, not as a daughter. My sister was confused and disgusted. She had just had her daughter a few months before.

My brother didn’t want any part of me. He said I don’t want to know, it’s in the past, move on.

My sister struggled to play it safe. Eventually, she chose to invite him to her daughter’s birthday parties over me and my two girls, who were very close in age. This was incredibly heartbreaking for me. I had a huge wake-up call. Here I was, still in another country that he had moved us to–away from my huge, caring family. And now he had taken my family again. I was alone, heartbroken, and without my mother and family.

So I called the police and started another nasty battle.

My mother always likes to compare her own childhood trauma with mine and she downplays mine, as though I should just move on. And she asks me to drop the charges. Sometimes offering money. Or makes me feel guilty for charging him. She says, “Do you know he won’t be able to work overseas if he’s convicted? And he will be thrown out of this group.” She wants to know what charging him will do for me.

I keep reminding my mother that this was not ok. This is not good behavior. What happened to her as a child was wrong. What happened to me was wrong. I have come to realize that it’s ok to lose them because I believe in me. The choices I left my mother to make for me when I was 17, I’m now doing in my late 30s. Because it wasn’t ok. I try to understand how my family works. It is so much harder to deal with the truth than it is to pretend.