I Would Leave My Father's Home Only to Experience More Violence in the World

Womanhood has always been something I have been uneasy with.

Since childhood, being female has always meant experiencing violence. I woke up to this world to violence. My first memories are of my father sexually abusing me at 3 years old. Because of the symptoms my C-PTSD exhibits, my therapists believe I experienced sexual abuse when I was pre-verbal.

The sexual abuse was paired with physical, verbal & mental abuse.

I endured 28 years of physical abuse and grew up witnessing my mother being physically abused as well. When I look back at my childhood, the abuse I experienced was surreal.

At 5, I witnessed my mother bleeding after my father chased her around the neighborhood throwing silverware at her. At 7, my father told me I would amount to nothing but a stripper & I knew what he meant. At 8, I was trolling Times Sq. with my dad, picking up sex workers.

At 16, my father told me to tell my mother that he would kill her if she came back home after they had a fight, because he had interrupted her while she was talking on the phone.

My mother & I were always aware and scared of the fact that my father could take our lives at any time .

I've been choked, smothered with a pillow & his bare hands, dragged on the floor by my hair, slapped, pushed & shoved to the ground.

How he didn't break a bone or kill me, I have no idea.

I would leave my father's home only to experience more violence in the world.

Yes, I experienced more sexual violence as an adult. I have had 6 strangers shove or hit me who put their hands on me not only because they saw a queer Afro-Arab woman.

One man went as far as to tell me to go back home.

I've had strangers expose themselves to me, and grope me, women included.

Yes women, we too act out toxic masculinity.

And then there's the violence of having C-PTSD & being stigmatized for it.

I am but one woman.

This is just one story of abuse.

There are billions of us out there.

This needs to end.