You are ugly! You are fat! You are not good enough to be part of the “Cool Girls Club.”  

Trying to be all the things other girls were, to be accepted into this world and your surroundings. Girls with beautiful hair, bodies, and clothes and everybody want to be friends with? Was this one of the reasons that I was groomed to be a victim? Because I was the one standing out as the weak one? And how did it happen to me? 

What is Child Grooming?

Child grooming

According to Wikipedia: Child grooming is befriending and establishing an emotional connection with a child, and sometimes the family, to lower the child’s inhibitions with the objective of Sexual abuse. Child grooming is also regularly used to lure minors into various illicit businesses such as child trafficking, child prostitution, cybersex trafficking, or the production of child pornography. 

There are 6 stages of Sexual Grooming:

Stage 1: Targeting a Victim

Stage 2: Gaining Trust

Stage 3: Filling a Need

Stage 4: Isolating the Child

Stage 5: Sexual Contact

Stage 6: Maintaining Control

Today, I can understand the grooming process and remember how all of this happened to me.

My uncle sexually abused me for many years. And in a blink of an eye, you are in a situation that you did not see coming. But these memories are burned into your mind forever. They steal your identity.

Why did he choose me? Was I so weak that he decided that I will be the best candidate for his evil actions? Or was it because we spend so much time at their home? With the number of hours we spent at his home as children, he always gave me treats and money. What young child will not like that?

But before I understand what is going on around me, he isolates me from everybody. He will take me in his car to an isolated place where nobody will think that we will be. And very quickly, he started with sexual contact. The fear that he built in me was indescribable. Until today I can not explain that fear. And if I look at my abuser today, he is an older man with no backbone. But in that hours, he was this monster, and I could not escape from him and his painful deeds.

Even in my adult years, I had dreams where I tried to run away from him and scream as loud as I can. With no success. Only bubbles coming out of my mouth and no sound. You can never explain any pain to people if you did not go through this suffering yourself.

Many times I was thinking as a young child, when will this ever end? He was an evil man and a master manipulator. And that is exactly what they all are!

And the saddest of all is that there are so many young children that are and were in this situation that did not even know that this is wrong and not their fault.

There were many times that I was wondering if I was the reason for that what was happening to me? And if I was looking for it.

The answer is always : NO!!!!!!

This exactly what your abuser wants you to think. And you did not do anything wrong.