Heather Corinna’s started a new project on Scarleteen which seeks to bring together pairs of people — one under twenty, one over forty — who are dealing with various aspects of sexuality, gender, reproduction, or abuse.
I had the opportunity to talk with a young person name Tien, who recently experienced sexual abuse by a family member. Read a portion of our conversation:
AAG: How are you dealing with the emotions? Do you find yourself angry? Hurt? Missing whatever good parts of the relationship you had?
Tien: My emotions are random right know. Sometimes I am fine, then the next day I am depressed. When people
found out about the relationship I was angry at myself because he was someone I thought I was in love with and I did not want him to get in trouble. I do not feel hurt, just confused since he is someone who should protect me but instead hurt me. I do not miss the good parts of the relationship, the good parts were essentially the talks we had together and when we went out to restaurants.
AAG: How do you relate to your cousin now? Do you still have to see him at family functions? How have his parents and/or siblings received the news of his abuse?
Tien: Right now if I saw him again I would probably slap him and tell him how he hurt me. I am in the process of writing a letter to him stating just that. I would not be seeing him at family functions for a very long time, since not only did my mom report him, she pressed charges. From what he told me the last time I talked to him, his parents hate him.
Read the rest of the piece here.
And as always, if you can part with five or ten dollars to support sex-ed, I know it would be very much appreciated.
This is awesome. Seriously, an awesome project. If I was in the right age range, I’d totally participate.
Your new friend sounds like an amazing young woman, especially with all she’s been through.
Best wishes to Tien, After the pain is joy, I’m sure she’ll have a delightful future…