I am a sixteen-year-old girl. I grew up in a situation that should have never happened. It all started when I was seven. I was sexually assaulted by my cousin and it hasn’t stopped.

My cousin is four years older than me, that means at the time this all started he was eleven years old. I had not really understood what he was doing as I was so young. He had made me believe that what was happening was okay, but it wasn’t.

He told me it was no big deal and that it is normal what he was doing to me. This has been going on for about nine years. And it has only gotten worse over the last four years. The worse part about was that all my other cousins knew it was happening and knew it wasn’t okay, but they didn’t say anything.

My own brother knew what was going on and didn’t try to stop it. I have always been the scapegoat for my family, I got blamed for everything. So, I knew that if I did say something they wouldn’t believe me.

So now I have to live with the fact that I was not only sexually assaulted but also raped by my cousin, and I can’t tell anyone what happened.

This never should have happened and because it did happen, and no one did anything to stop it, I can’t trust men. And now I know that I would be better off dead than I would be living on this earth knowing that my rapist is out there walking free.