The Next Time I See My Cousin, Only One of Us Will Walk Away Free

I didn’t attend my aunt’s funeral. I couldn’t. Her son, my cousin Kwame, was the reason. When relatives called to ask why I wasn’t there, I didn’t sugarcoat it. I told them the truth: that I still remember what Kwame did to me. I remember how his mother did nothing to protect me, and I remember how my own mother labeled me the bad child.

One aunt was shocked that I still remembered. She told me not to speak of it again because “he’s blood,” my auntie’s son.

That was the moment I knew it was time to cut ties. My parents are gone, and I owe that side of the family nothing. They are toxic.

Kwame has moved on with his life. But I’m still here, struggling.

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I was just six years old, sick, tired, and fresh from a hospital visit. Life with my dad was tough, so my mom took me to her family home in the village to rest and recover.

When we arrived, I was already sleepy. She sent me into one of the rooms to sleep. One of my cousins was lying on the floor, so she tucked me into the bed. The door didn’t have a real lock, just a bent nail you could slide across. She left it slightly ajar so I could call for her if I needed anything.

In the middle of my sleep, I felt a shadow pressing down on me. I opened my eyes and saw my cousin lying on top of me. I didn’t understand what was happening, but there were forced movements. The door that had been left ajar was suddenly shut. By the time they managed to open it, he was caught trying to take advantage of me.

But instead of protecting me, I was the one who suffered.

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My mother didn’t scold him or report him to the police. Instead, she inserted some kind of hot balm inside my vagina. I cried so much. After that day, I was tagged “Akwadaa bɔne,” a bad child, and my mom said it every chance she got.

We stayed in the village until things got better financially. Eventually, we moved to Accra to live with my dad, but every Christmas, my mom took me back to the village and back to Kwame.

He didn’t stop. He would lure me into rooms, have his way with me, and warn me not to tell anyone. This continued until I was about nine, when my parents separated and my dad kept me in Accra. That’s when the visits stopped, but the damage was already done.

Even then, I couldn’t tell my dad what had happened. I knew how strict he was. I was certain that if he found out, he would have done something outrageous to Kwame. My mom knew it too, and that’s why she never told him. It became a family secret, and now, I can’t tell him anything. He’s gone to his maker. So is my mother.

You see, ra]pe affects people in different ways. Some become withdrawn, afraid of intimacy. Others, like me, become addicted to it. I started craving intimacy. If you showed me a little attention, I would offer myself to you on a silver platter. I was drawn to older men too, maybe because my abuser was older. I began pleasuring myself, and that’s been my reality for the past 15 years. I pray constantly about it because this can’t be the life I was meant to live.

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I haven’t seen Kwame since my parents separated, but I hear he is living his life. He has children now, all boys. I pray that one day he has a daughter and that she experiences what he did to me. If not her, then his sons. Or their children. I pray that the pain he caused finds its way back to him. I pray he suffers before he dies.

And if we ever cross paths again, one of us will not walk away free.
#MyChildhoodTrauma

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