My earliest memory

Trigger Warning (SA)

I was only a little girl between the ages of five and seven years old. It’s hard to remember sometimes, I think I blocked out so much, but I still see images and flashes of events. sometimes it feels so real and like I’m there again.

I was told to meet him in his room. It was just a cuddle. Something normal. Comforting, or at least it should have been until he asked me to touch him “down there”. He said it was ok and it would be fun. He held me, cuddled to his side as he directed me how to make him feel good. (Lord, even now this is difficult to talk about but I’m trusting this process of writing about what happened.)

He placed his hands under my shorts and held my bottom as he taught me how to masturbate him.

As I got older, I thought for the longest time that it was his girlfriend at the time that started the abuse. She made it known that she didn’t like me or my younger sister. Looking back, this is one of the earliest memories I have of the sexual abuse. He would always call me to his room after I showered. Almost always when I was the only one in the house. I always thought it was just me, but as it will turn out, I wasn’t even the first.

My name is Cassandra. I am my father’s first born and oldest daughter. Since I can remember, until I was about twenty-two years old, I had been physically, emotionally, mentally manipulated and sexually abused by my biological father. My entire life I was conditioned and groomed to believe that what I was living through was completely normal. It was expected of me to please him. I complied because I thought it was what a good daughter, who loved and adored her father was supposed to do.

I always had a special bond with him… I thought it was because I was his first born. I wanted to make him happy. Of course, I loved my father, he was the only constant in my life. And Looking back, honestly, so was God. My biological mother wasn’t present, and years later I would hear her story. (I love you so much Momma!)

Shortly after what I thought was the first time, it gradually became constant. It was ever so often… then a couple times a week… then every single day. It was routine. I knew exactly what he wanted me to do. Exactly where he wanted me and all it took was a “look”, and that was my queue to obey and please him.