Anonymous Story: Lifetime shame

I really don’t know how to start this story because it was just last night that I came to the realization and came out of denial about the abuse I experienced from 5 years old to I’m not sure what age because I don’t remember a lot of what happened. I just remember my mother trusting my aunt to take care of me and my aunt would never supervise us. One of my cousins was a few months older than me (Let’s call him X) , and his brother was 6 years older than us (Let’s call him Z). It all started with Z exposing X and I to online pornography. I have snippets of memories where we are sitting on the trampoline outside and my older cousin would rub my private parts and encourage his brother to do so. He told me to preform oral sex on both of them and i remember as the abuse was happening, i had a fear of my mom catching us because Z emphasized not to tell anyone or else we’d get in a lot of trouble. Coming from a strict Hispanic household, I feared of being spanked or humiliated by my family. The next few years as Z grew into a teenager and spent more time with his friends, X and I would preform sexual acts with each other every time our families would visit each other because that’s how we “played” together when Z was around. I remember having a conversation with X around 10 or 11 years old and acknowledging that was we did as younger children was weird and that we’d never do it again. Throughout my whole life I’ve blamed myself because at 5 years old I knew what sex was and I knew exactly what was going on. I have no idea why I never told my mother but now at 19 years old, I feel like too much time has passed and I should deal with healing by myself. Z is now happily married with two toddler boys and X is going to school to be a mechanic or something. I honestly barely talk to them now and I always felt guilty because I’ve distanced myself from their family, however now that I realized my 12 year old cousin touched my 5 year old body… it just makes me sick to my stomach.. After the abuse was finally over I felt like my childhood was ripped away from me; I feel like all my life I’ve known too much and been way too mature for my own good. I’ve had depression and began self harming at 11 years old and still struggle with the urge to hurt myself today. I’ve always thought that maybe I was just born depressed, but I’ve now realized that kids shouldn’t feel that way for most of their life and that something happened to me along the way that made me like this. I’m currently at a university to become an elementary school teacher because I’ve always had a passion for children’s happiness and making them feel safe. I think my experience will ultimately help me as a teacher recognize signs of abuse so I can report it and make sure my students grow up happy and healthy.