**Trigger Warning - this may be troubling to some and it may get more graphic than you'd like to read.**
My first tip off that something was wrong was when I was about 15 and asked to try on a dress at my grandmother's house. I went to her bedroom and was undressing when she came in and I freaked out trying to cover up and started crying. I didn't understand my response and was embarrassed. My grandmother told my mother I was a prude and it was never spoken of again. The next time was in the months after I was raped I started having nightmares about my grandmother and aunt. I told my mother and she lost all color but didn't say anything. Very shortly after I was at lunch with my mother and flatly asked, "What happened to me that no one is talking about?" She nearly screamed, "What did my mother do to you!?!?". I said, "I didn't say grandmother...". We looked into repressed memories but I couldn't afford the therapy so it was stuffed down further.
Everything came back up again when my aunt died of unknown causes at 51. My mother and I flew down to Texas to look through her things as my uncle was remarrying and my mother was the last of that family line. My aunt had been in and out of mental institutions since she was 7, and being an artist, did a lot of therapy paintings and other art mediums. We went to a storage locker to look through her art and came across the therapy work and it was amazing and terrifying. Some paintings were just a blur of colors while others showed a scene. I got progressively sicker to my stomach looking at them. Though none showed abuse, many were what I'd call the moment before being abused. Two immobilized me the most. One was a little blonde girl, naked from the waist up, looking back horrified at a hand reaching for her. The other showed a naked little girl sitting cross legged on the floor with an adult sitting on a bed nearby. I told my mother, "Those are me." She wouldn't believe it and said, "No. These were about her. Not you." I wouldn't let up and said, "She was brunette as a child...not blonde...I was blonde! And the other painting it's me on the floor, the leg is grandmother's and that's her cigarette!". We stopped talking because it was too much to take in. A day later we were looking at photography my aunt had done and I came across a self portrait of her topless. In my head I heard myself talking like a little girl saying, "She's bad.". I stood up in a huge panic attack and screamed at my mother, "I want out of this fucking house and state right now!!!". We didn't speak of it again until we waited for our flight back. My mother said, "No filter. Don't overthink it. What do you think happened?" I said, "Something happened in the bathtub." My mother said, "Fuck!". My mother doesn't speak like that. She said, "My mother used to wash us too far..." I felt my vagina tense at hearing this and said, "I know she did that to me."
I've had years of therapy but no other real memories come up. One therapist said, "Something happened. Now whether you saw something or an act was done to you doesn't matter. Your mind doesn't know the difference." I'm finally at peace with my mind revealing it if and when I'm ever ready. I no longer feel I have to prove the memory or work to get the others to come. I know there is a lot more and perhaps it's a gift to never know.
But it happened...
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