I want share my personal experience that I have kept to myself for almost for 20 years.
I didn't tell anyone about this secret. Not even my family and friends know about this.
I was a 9 year-old boy.
All of this nightmare happened when I was 9 years old. I was a member of the school sports club. There was a teacher called Mr. Joeffery (not his real name). Mr. Joeffery was very kind and friendly to all his students, and he was the #1 favorite teacher in our school.
I was at sports class.
One day, I went to the athletic room. I was the only one in this room since I came a bit early, and Mr. Joe asked me to get some sports equipment before we started the PT (physical training) class. And I was wearing my track pants. Mr. Joe was there. He asked me to sit on his table and play on his lap, so I did as he said.
As a 9 year-old boy, I never dared to refuse anything a teacher asked me to do. I thought that I must follow a teacher's instructions.
So, I obeyed.
I didn't have any courage to fight back .
This all where it begins my worst nightmare and phobia always haunting me in my dreams.
His hands started crawling into my track pants. He grabbed my private parts and started stroking my private parts. I didn't have any courage to push him away or to tell him to stop doing that. I thought that whatever a teacher did to me was right and I had to obey.
I kept quiet and cried.
That day I was so lucky because one of my friends came to the athletic room looking for Mr. Joe. All the students were already waiting on the field for PT class. He then let me go.
My parents never knew about this black tragedy of mine. I went home straight away and cried in my room. I never told my parents anything about what happened in my school. I was afraid they were going to be angry at me, so I kept it a secret until now .
I stopped attending sports class. I gave the excuse that I had lost interest in PT lessons. I gave a thousand reasons to avoid being with him alone and I vowed that I would never be around Mr. Joe again.
I'm not the only kid that Mr. Joe victimized.
After that incident I found out that I wasn't the only one that he preyed on. A few more of my schoolmates also got abused by this child molester.
He was found out after a friend complained to his parents about Mr. Joe's evil behavior towards his students .
But, I was sad because his parents didn't take any action against Mr. Joe, and my friend's parents didn't believe him because his parents thought he made the whole thing up due to his bad behavior at school .
Crying was my only solution to relieve my nightmare.
I never understood why my teacher did such a thing to me in that sports room. I don't even dare to ask my parents about what was happening to me and few of my schoolmates.
In the end, all I could do was cry. I was so afraid and ashamed about all the things Mr. Joe did to me.
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All gifs from giphy.com
After a brief hiatus, the Secret Writer Project is back. If you submitted your secret over a week ago and have not seen yours yet, please accept my apology. I had to finally clear the air about the harassment issue that a number of women have been experiencing here on Steemit. Also, I won't be publishing the Secret Writer every day, as that proved to be too much for me. So, I've settled on publishing it 5 days per week, approximately. Please, to save the integrity of this project, only submit your personal secrets! I know it's tempting to submit other stuff, but please don't. This is only for secrets, YOUR SECRETS.
To get the FAQ on The Secret Writer Project go here: https://steemit.com/secret-writer/@stellabelle/secret-writer-faq
Thank you,
Stellabelle
[drawing I did in my early twenties]
Parent need to pay lot more attentions to their children behavior if you(parent) found out something wrong with your children do acts fast to investigate what happen around him. Don't neglect your child .
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exactly! As a parent myself, I have already had a talk with my youngster about her private parts and how they belong to her. Every parent must have this talk. Explain exactly to your child that no one is allowed to touch their private parts and if an adult does, to immediately tell their parents about it. As a victim of sex abuse myself at 4 years old, I vowed that I would never let my daughter go through what happened to me.
If parents would only realize that children are vulnerable and don't always want to expose their shame, all parents would have this talk with their children at a young age. Children must be taught that teachers are not allowed to touch them in their privates, and that no adult has that right....
I also go as far as to say that teachers don't have all the answers. I am instilling my daughter with a critical thinking setup and I don't care if she decides to rebel actually. School, at least the public ones are not doing a great job, in my opinion of preparing kids for the future world where nearly everything is automated and we are using our imaginations to survive and thrive.
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Ya I agree , hopefully every post you posted from secret writer will give more consciousness too others people around here , you're project more to make people how precious their life and how lucky they are not to be victims like you're previous and current story . But if they do I hope they start to move on and stand tall again . Go to therapist or whatever that might help them to cure their problems .
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therapy is actually the best move when sex abuse is involved because most friends and acquaintances cannot handle hearing about it. I went to therapy many times after being abused and repressing the memories. It helps to have someone else say, "It was NOT your fault. You did nothing wrong and you can release your shame. Shame is the real killer in this situation. Shame results in more pain and further victimization. Shame begins in adults and parents being unable to discuss these things openly. If we had an open and trusting environment, this shit wouldn't be allowed. It is shame and inaction within parents that results in these shitstains of humans called pedophiles getting away with this horror.
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I think this is often the way with pedophiles - they can be the life of the party, the "favorite" uncle or teacher that the kids initially like and trust. We need to teach our kids to have a healthy suspicion of people who want so badly to be liked.
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I am suspicious of all adults, especially those who "enjoy" being around children. That is an immediate red flag.
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I know, right? It's terrible to feel so cynical and yet as women we know that an emotionally healthy mature male does not go out of his way to hang out with kids--unless he's their father. I'm suspicious of every Big Brother, of every Boy Scout leader, of every elementary school sports coach, of any male who spends extended time with children not related to him. My brother became the soccer coach for his daughter's team when she was 9 because the then-coach gave him the "creeps." The guy became increasingly annoyed/frustrated at having to work with an assistant coach (my brother) who insisted on being at EVERY practice and he left to coach another team of preteens. Three years later he was arrested and found guilty of sexual molestation of two girls.
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Great read, thank you; I spent all of my education at all boys Roman Catholic schools. Although they have been portrayed as very sinister, I have to say my education went without a hitch!! There was never any sexual abuse that I was aware of, there was an element of physical abuse; many of the "brothers" were a little too fond of corporal punishment. So much for "spare the rod" etc!!
With this all being said none of my children have been brought up with a Roman Catholic education, but that is really only due to my personal thoughts on indoctrination.
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"There was never any sexual abuse that I was aware of,"
that I was aware of ...
Doesn't mean it was NOT going on .... that is imho the TRULY SAD part, most never hear of this until 20+ years later ...
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I was commenting from my own perspective; I'm aware abuse does go on, thanks for your response
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So sorry. I feel guilty even upvoting, but thought for a sec and realized that creating and maintaining public awareness that this is happening and ultimately will be made public, is probably important as far as prevention goes with other children. If anything can help with prevention that is.
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This is a perfect example of why it's so important for the victims to speak up! It may be difficult and that doesn't change what happened to them, but it may save dozens more from the same fate!
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there's something disturbing in the way that the child was not trusting of his parents. This indicates that the child didn't feel that his parents would believe him. That is a troubling part. Parents need to be suspicious by default and probe as to why a child is upset and crying.
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Such a good point! Parents that don't see that their children are acting strangely is almost as sad as what IS happening to children. I am very proud to say as a parent of 2 boys, & 2 girls , I always watched for signs that "something was just not right w/ all of my kids". For these very reasons that our Pre nup was based on NO ONE else raising OUR (MY) (Future) children, or NO DEAl !
Again ! Keep Shining that LIGHT !!!! GOOD WORK !
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Yes. If it is truly as traumatic as it sounds it would bleed over into all of his other activities and personality... warning signs everywhere for the parents
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@stellabelle Thank you for shedding more light on this subject. This EVIL is more widespread (imho) than people want to believe ... It breaks my heart that "people that love children are NOW suspect". Now days we must protect ourselves too, by making rules ie: never be alone with a child because just the opposite of this article is true. People are using the law to punish people that have done nothing wrong, using molestation as a tool to hurt innocent people. I know this a different issue, but it is another part of this problem, the 'other side of the coin', so to speak.
PLEASE continue to fight the EVIL being done to children !! Good WORK !
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Great writing , Keep sharing with us @stellabelle
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Thanks for sharing secret-writer. It seems especially that males are afraid to admit abuse. There's no good abuse whether male/female young or old, but I feel men get a lot of trouble from other men if they admit the were sexually abused.
I think women tend to band together in support (from what I have seen, this may not always be true) but men do not offer that same support. It's often seen as some sort of weakness.
I feel that the stats on abuse are not always accurate because people are afraid to share their abuse and may be embarrassed / ashamed. I'm glad you found a way to share your story, because with an audience of 80,000 people I'm sure you are not alone and this may give hope to someone else.
Glad to see you slowing down a little bit @stellabelle and not trying to push through an unmanageable work load. Hope you can publish my secret writer submission someday since I definitely cannot myself for a number of reasons.
Hope that persistent testical-less douchebag is removed or hidden from view for you, since I absolutely love what you have done for steemit and inspiring others to share difficult stories.
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I believe we need to teach our children how to react when something like this happens. Also teach them what is unintentional or complete accidental. Seems like misunderstandings happen all the time when it comes to sex crimes. Also it's becoming a very popular thing to be a victim. As a parent i think you have a lot of influence on the way your children understand right from wrong. In this case he shouldve fwlt comfortable telling his parents what he felt wrong and the parents should react on the severity of the situation.
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Interesting article!
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beautiful drawing. I'm sorry you went through so much. No child should have to experience that. love to you my friend.
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After reading this post, my positive attitude towards teachers has been reduced to zero. You poor. Sorry that happened in your life. I had 5 teachers, and no one ever acted on it.
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