Learning Boundaries: A Story of Childhood Trauma and Abuse

by Jasmin Pierre

Listen to Executive Director Gabriel Nathan read this post aloud:

My story:

I started noticing that something felt different about me at an early age. I always had this overwhelming feeling that I would try to ignore. I thought it was normal to be sad all of the time.

Starting in elementary school, I pushed scary memories to the back of my mind. The memories would come over me at any given time. I would simply be watching cartoons, doing an art project, or reading my favorite book and suddenly I’d catch a glimpse of a memory of my brother touching me inappropriately in my mind… just like he had in real life. I would quickly push the thought to the back of my mind and try to go on about my day like nothing happened.

This pushing away had a negative impact, I noticed sad moods that would engulf me. Even when things were going okay, I still felt an overwhelming despair. Other times, I would feel a deep fear, especially in my sleep. I experienced nightmares about being touched again. My stress manifested into serious stomach pains. The stomach issues became so severe that my mom had to take me to the pediatrician. As it turns out, I was forming an ulcer from stress.

One day, I couldn’t take it anymore. The touching eventually led to my brother inappropriately kissing me over and over. I hated the feeling. I finally spoke up. In a counseling session for my brother, in which I was present. My mom was present in the meeting too. They didn’t really do much about it. The counselor told my brother to stop his bad behavior…and she told me to defend myself if he tried it again. That was the end of the conversation. This made me feel like what happened to me didn’t matter. Or that it wasn’t a big deal. It caused me to continue to suppress my trauma.

The abuse wasn’t reported by the counselor. While my brother stopped kissing me, he would still do other inappropriate things. Sometimes, I wonder if it would’ve all stopped if someone had taken me more seriously.

Unfortunately, it’s very common for Black girls to be ignored about sexual abuse in this system. I didn’t know that fact back then. I just knew that what I said wasn’t taken seriously. So in my seven year old mind, I tried to let things go again and forget.

Looking back on this as an adult makes me mad as hell. I’m very angry at this system and how it treats Black people. Especially Black women. I remember a quote from Malcolm X stating “Black women are the most disrespected and unprotected people in America.”

All of this was taking place in the early nineties, utilizing mental health services was a very hushed thing during that time. I know things are still stigmatized today, but it was even worse back then. Anything mental health related was considered taboo, especially for Black people who’ve historically had less access to mental health resources due to systemic racism.

My mom did try to get my brother help for his behavior, but she could only afford services offered by the government that were unhelpful. This part wasn’t her fault, this was the system. Many people have no idea the racial disparities that are involved in healthcare for Black communities. I sometimes feel the resources offered actually made my brother’s behavior worse.

My mom’s fault comes in not taking my molestation seriously enough. I found out years later as an adult that she knew my brother was molesting me, even before I spoke up to the counselor as a seven year old. My Granny told her what was happening, but she didn’t believe her. The abuse went on and off throughout my life. My mind has blocked out the earliest memories. The first time my Granny spoke up to my mom about my brother touching me I was six years old. Things continued on and off with my brother until I was eighteen.

I will not attend my mother’s funeral when she dies. As she is already dead to me. Finding out she knew the entire time about my brother’s abuse towards me disgusted me, especially upon discovering that my Granny tried to warn her and she did nothing. I set extreme boundaries with my mom in the year 2020. I told her I no longer wanted her in my life. I have stuck to those boundaries. I have peace in my decision.

Molestation by incest can cause serious trauma to the brain. I tried suppressing all of my feelings about it as I grew older.

I still experienced scary flashbacks in my mind of what my brother did to me. My sadness and stomach pains were starting to get worse. I felt I was in a dark hole that was getting deeper.

To make things worse, something similar started happening to me at my dad’s house. As a preteen, I would spend the entire summer with my dad in New Orleans, Louisiana, my hometown. When my parents divorced, I moved to Louisville, KY, with my mom but I had the opportunity to spend summers with my dad.

My Dad was a wonderful person; he just had bad taste in my motherly figures. When he started seeing my emotionally abusive and manipulative stepmom, my life changed again. I met her when I turned twelve, she had four children from three previous partners. Three of them were grown and out of the house, however, her youngest child lived with my dad and stepmom.

My step sister reminded me of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. She was either my best friend in the world or my worst enemy. Unfortunately, the mean side of her was present more often in the time we shared together. My step sister had behavioral issues just like my brother. She also had childhood trauma from her biological father. However, her mom refused to get her the help she needed.

My step sister was awful to my dad, and to me. She displayed angry outbursts, specifically towards us. She would cuss at us, call both of us horrible names, hell…one time I even saw her physically attack my dad and she did the same to me. However, it was her verbal and sexual abuse towards me that has had the greatest impact on my mental health.

With the sexual abuse from my step sister, the encounters began by her offering to have sex with me. I remember the first time she admitted wanting a sexual relationship with me, we were about thirteen and fourteen years old. I was staying for the summer with my Dad again. This was in the early 2000s when everyone still had house phones. Someone called and I picked up the phone.

When I said “Hello?” the person on the other line asked for my stepsister and I told him “she’s not home right now.” He then asked, “who are you?” And I told him “I’m Jasmin.”  He started laughing and said “Oh, you’re Jasmin. I’ve heard about you. So you do know she wants you right? Like in a sexual way”.

At this point in my life my stepsister and I were on good terms. So I thought he was lying and I became angry. When she got home I told her what happened and she looked at me with an embarrassed face and turned her head away from me slightly before saying “I do feel that way. I even had a dream about us having sex. It was fun.”

When she admitted it, I sat there in silence. I looked at her for a long second, but then I turned my head away and faced the TV. The experience was not dissimilar to turning off my thoughts as I had in the past with my brother.

I remember another encounter when she got drunk and told me she felt horny for me. Once again I said nothing, but that was the last time I sat silently. I wanted to be clear that I didn’t want her in that way ever.

Those are just some of the memories of her being sexual towards me. Although she didn’t try as often as my brother, even trying once was bad enough for me. I tried so hard to block everything out of my mind. I only wanted to remember the good parts of my step sister, the parts when we were so close. I only wanted to remember the shopping trips, staying up late watching movies, the normal and fun double dates, going on trips, telling each other secrets, going out to parties. That’s the sister I loved. I loved that part of her so much that I would bury my trauma, acting like nothing happened.

Throughout the years, I tried my best to forgive my step sister’s behavior, because I knew she had her own problems. I knew, this is why my dad did not want to give up on her either; we wanted her to get better. I still loved her despite the abuse. Our relationship was always very complicated.

However my step sister would take things so far with her anger that I felt unsafe. I couldn’t take the constant switch ups. Even as our relationship got better in our late twenties, I always knew in the back of my mind that something bad could happen again.

Before I cut my stepsister off in 2021 I asked her “Why? Why were you so horrible to me growing up? I never understood it.” She responded to me “I was jealous of you. I felt like you were taking my place.”

I think jealousy is a normal human emotion but the way she displayed her jealousy towards me was abusive, and it traumatized me, which is why I made the choice to eventually cut her off.

Throughout the years I started displaying severe suicidal ideation, anger issues and body image issues caused from the violation I experienced from my brother and step sister. I developed a deep long term sadness, more stomach issues, aches and pains, extreme fatigue, and an addiction to benadryl that was meant for my seasonal allergies.

I moved back home to New Orleans after College and lived with my Dad. He started to notice my decline more than anyone else had before. If it wasn’t for my Dad’s love, support, and kindness I don’t think I would still be alive. He would gently remind me something was wrong, and he stayed with me every step of the way on my journey to finding out what was wrong. All the way until the day he died. He didn’t always understand, but he was always willing to learn.

I never told my dad about my step sister or my brother sexually abusing me. He really tried his best to provide and help all three of us. He loved all of us dearly. I knew it would break his heart to know what was going on. When he died in 2019 from Lung cancer I finally started speaking up more.

Even though my Dad’s death was one of the worst things that happened to me, it finally gave me the courage to say more. I didn’t feel I could begin speaking my truth while he was dying. Trust me, if lung cancer hadn’t killed him, learning what my brother and step sister had done to me would have become its own next deadly thing. I knew it would’ve broken him.

I became tired of the ways some of the people in my step family treated me. It wasn’t just my stepmom and her youngest daughter who turned out to be abusive. The second eldest daughter did something very sick and cruel, which  finally made me come clean about the years of abuse.

I cut my step family off in 2021. I was done with hiding how the abuse made me feel. None of them understood that. I’ve been a mental health advocate for ten years. Now, I’m very open about my story. Once I started becoming more involved with therapy and my support group, I told my support team about the decades of abuse, they all told me I didn’t have to hide it anymore, that my step family would  have to deal with the consequences of what they did to me.

I made a mental health video about some of the abusive things my stepmom did to me growing up.

I was in my thirties and in therapy after my dad’s passing, I felt tired of running from my past at that, seeing the constant dysfunction in my family and how my trauma was impacting me finally made me take the step to confront it all. Being Molested gave me severe health issues, major Depression, PTSD, anxiety, and a physical disorder called PMDD (Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder).

I was finally acknowledging just how much family dysfunction impacted my mental health. The last straw was me telling my stepmom what her daughter did to me and she said nothing. She protected her family’s predators just like my birth mom. Her reaction wasn’t surprising to me. I didn’t even get upset. She has always been like this. Her silence was honestly more sad than anything.

My mom is still upset that I won’t speak to her and she wants a relationship again. She wants me to forgive my brother even though she acknowledges he’s wrong. I refuse to give her what she wants. I feel very empowered in knowing I’m keeping my boundaries strong with this.

Things are not perfect in my life but they have been way more peaceful without family drama. I do not regret finally speaking my truth.

I’m telling my story because I hope it will help other Black girls and women feel more comfortable speaking up about sexual abuse in their families. We deserve to have that weight lifted off our shoulders.

​EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: Gabriel Nathan | EDITOR: Laura Farrell | DESIGN: Leah Alexandra Goldstein | SITE ORIGINATOR: Bud Clayman