"My grandfather destroyed our family, not me"

Nowadays you are in your late twenties. How are you doing?

Now I am doing well again. Over the past years, I have talked a lot about what happened and sought specific help.

The only thing I know is that you were abused by your grandfather when you were a young girl. Can you tell us your story?

My grandfather ignored me from the time I was little. My brother was his favourite. When I was twelve, he suddenly started being nicer to me. I had a skin disease and regularly needed to have lotion put on my skin. Since my mother worked, she sent me to my grandfather. And that is when it started. He gradually started going further and further. Until he eventually undressed... and undressed me...

How did this make you feel?

Strangely enough I found it okay at the beginning, he gave me the feeling of being able to accept myself for the first time, to love myself... He always said that nobody should find out, otherwise it would destroy the family and that he was a good guy after all. It went on step by step until he took off my trousers. And even then he assured me that he was doing it for my own good. He made me feel like we shared something special.

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When did you realise that this was not okay?

When I first became closer with a man, all the images resurfaced. How my grandfather was standing naked in front of me, touching himself and me. From that point on it started troubling me much more. I had suppressed it until then. The rest of my family then learned about it two years later. The relationship with my grandfather had been good until then, but was shut down from one day to the next.

Why did you want to talk about it?

I want it to be discussed. I was educated about sexual acts in school. But I was never taught where the line is and how to say no. More women are affected than is commonly thought, I think it is important for people to say "this happened to me".

Did you report it?

I wanted to go to the police, but it took about a year before I received a response about reporting it. At that moment in time I was at university and found it all massively overwhelming. Every time I spoke to someone it pulled me right back into the past. I sought legal advice and the lawyer told me that I could only tell my story, but there was no proof. The police also pushed me to decide whether I really wanted to go through with it, when there was no way of proving the perpetrator's guilt.

How are you coping now?

My grandfather passed away recently, so now it is easier for me to distance myself from the abuse.

He always used to tell me that if I told anybody, that I could tear our family apart. But nowadays I know that he was the one who destroyed our family, not me. He hurt me and I'm a member of the family. In seeking help, I was actively doing something for myself. If I could give advice to other victims of sexual abuse, I would encourage them to get specific help and support as soon as possible.