Emmet, 15, United States.

by Emmet
(Illinois)

This is abuse. I know that much. I was 6-8 years old, and it happened with my cousins... and my siblings... which makes me wonder if everyones gone through this? With my cousins... every time we would have a sleepover... they'd well... play with one another... And one night - they brought me into it. This continued for what seemed every single time. What's worse is that I began to like it, which makes me sick to my stomach. Which is even worse... is that I wouldn't be invited to anyone's house because I took off my shirt and hugged another shirtless guy... This part... seems really redneck... and I agree with you that it is because I have no other way of describing it.. But my sister would start to abuse me, where she made me touch her breasts when she was 12... and she would act like she was some "new girl" every time that she put on a different shade of lipstick. I feel like these things that have happened to me might be the reasons I'm now gay. Because my sister made me afraid to like any girl I met... and that its horrible to want to do anything with them without being wrong in my heart... and that... guys made me feel great. I feel like I wish I was the only child in my house, and that I had no cousins... however I know that this is wrong of me to say or wish for - because without all of them I wouldn't have what I have now. Sensitivity and knowledge and understandings to things I would never understand. I wish that no one ever touched me, I wish that never happened. But I don't think that these things happened for BAD. I think these things happened in my life, so that... maybe I am supposed to learn something from it... that things will happen in your life for a reason. And I believe that these things happened to me because I'm supposed to tell someone this... Or maybe I'm supposed to be someone's husband or... maybe I should change the world in a way. I know for one thing that is correct - is that maybe - maybe this isn't the worst thing that has ever happened in the world... That... Other people are having much worse of times than I, and that I should be so glad that this has stopped! It has stopped.. It's stopped for maybe 4-5 years now. I feel stronger now that I've told someone this story... I KNOW for a fact that I am stronger, because it takes a brave individual to tell their stories about their dark tainted childhoods... or whatever. I'm a smart person, and I think that as a smart person - I'm not going to let this happen to my children. I really just don't know at this point what I'm supposed to do. But I know that maybe for right now I can just breathe a little bit and try and forget about it little by little.