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Survivor story submitted by Lara Vasquez de Velasco
Ten years old. That’s how old I was when it started. I didn’t know what it was then, I just knew it wasn’t right. I thought I had a friend. She said I was special. She said she loved me. And I wanted to believe her. I needed someone. But what she gave me wasn’t love. It was confusion. Fear. Silence.
I used to hide in the bathroom to cry. It was my safe place before she took that from me, too. The same walls that once felt private became my worst nightmare. I never knew how long I’d be kept in
there, what she would do, or how long I had to pretend to be happy afterwards. I remember washing my hands over and over, wanting to rip my skin off, like I could scrub away what she did to me. I was ten. Just ten.
I had friends, even then. But I was never really with them. I laughed when I was supposed to. I smiled in the pictures. But I kept everything to myself. I was too scared to tell anyone. I was scared of what might happen if I did. If I let them come too close, they’d know. They’d see how broken I was, how I was falling apart. I didn’t want them to see it. I was ashamed and scared of what would happen if they did; what if they got pulled into it too?
She told me things I shouldn’t have ever heard. Showed me things I can never unsee. She said if I ever left, she would hurt herself or kill herself. That kept me stuck. Frozen. I didn’t want her to die. I didn’t want to be alone again. But I didn’t want to be touched either. I didn’t want any of it. Still, I stayed.
Because I couldn’t leave. I didn’t know how.
When I was thirteen, I felt like my life was over. I don’t talk about that part often. But it’s real. When you’re that young and your parents don’t see the signs – the way you stop talking, the way you flinch when someone touches your shoulder, the way you stay up all night crying because you’re scared to sleep, the random bruises you told them were from playing or how you stopped laughing at the things you used to love – that pain just piles up. You start to believe that maybe no one will ever notice. Maybe no one will ever see you. Eventually, it feels easier to disappear than to keep living through it.
Even after she left, I was still haunted. I hated my body. I hated how memories came back like flashbacks in the middle of the day, destroying my mood in seconds. And yet, even with all of that,
part of me missed her. That’s the scariest part. I missed the person who had hurt me. I had isolated myself so much that she had become my entire world. How do you grieve someone who broke you?
There were five of us. Five girls, all being abused by her. We all knew what was going on. She made us watch what she did to the others, forcing us to watch how they were in pain. It was almost as if she fed off the control and the manipulation like we were just her puppets. Some of the girls don’t even remember most of it anymore – Their minds have locked those memories in a box and lit it on fire.
Maybe that’s the only way they were able to find peace. I remember more than I wish I did. I carry their stories with mine, and sometimes, that weight is too much for me to hold. But I speak because they can’t. Or they won’t. Maybe they just still haven’t found the words.
I wish I could go back and tell that little girl to run. To scream. To tell someone. I wish I could take the pain from my friends who I tried to protect. The ones she hurt, too. I tried to keep her attention on me, thinking maybe I could save them. Maybe it helped a little. But they still carry scars, too.
It’s been almost five years since I last saw her. I’m seventeen now. I’m not free, not yet, but I’m still fighting. I’m speaking. I didn’t go to court. I couldn’t do it. It was too much. But this story is my way of reclaiming what she stole.
I’m not the same girl she knew. I will not let her define me anymore. I still remember. I still hurt. But I also have hope now, hope that maybe someone will read this and realise they are not alone. Maybe they’ll speak up. Or maybe they’ll listen when someone else finally finds the courage to whisper, “It happened to me too.”
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