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My struggles. #Depression #MentalHealth #sexualharassement
Read everything if you can. I need as much advice as I can get on this. I'm sorry if it's too long.
Also, feel free to ask any questions to what you don't understand, I'll try my best to answer them.
Back back in 2019 I left my home country and move to another as a refugee to go to college as they were insecurities at the time in my country and there still are.
I was going to be staying with my Aunt and her family as my parents didn't have enough money to afford college and paying for a dorm on top of that. I was 18 at the time.
Coming from a French speaking country, it was required to do 1 year of English studies before enrolling into college.
When I finished that, I enrolled into a college that was literally into its first year of 'business' in 2020 and when covid came around, they closed down permanently and I wasted a year just like that.
By that time, I had left my Aunt's place to live with my uncle and 3 cousins (2 girls and 1 boy) who were all just in their early teens.
My uncle used to rent an apartment with 5 rooms and he'll occupy one with my cousin (the boy) and us 3 girls will have another room.
The remaining 3, he'll put in full on adult males as supportive tenants who used to bring their male friends also, so one room can even have 5 guys sharing it all together at once.
It was chaotic.
And an important thing to note is that the entire apartment only had ONE BATHROOM AND ONE TOILET.
And none of them had locks on them.
So it was normal for any of them to open the doors on you at any time when you were showering or doing your business in the toilet and I can't begin to tell you how uncomfortable and shameful that was.
And as you can guess, sexual harassments started happening inside the house. Not just to me, but to all my cousins as well. Even the boy.
I thought it was just me at first because I was older, but once I talked to them, I discovered that they were going through the same thing.
You get a guy who is old enough to be your father touching you inappropriately and making sexual advances to you.
And to make it all even more disgusting, it will be someone you refer to as "UNCLE".
Not my actual uncle, but in my culture, here is how we refer to some people:
A woman or man who is older than you by 5-9 years, we call them by 'brother/sister' followed by their first name.
And the ones older than you by 10 years or more but are not your family member, we put 'uncle/auntie' before their name.
I had to put that there just for clarification.
Anyway, when those situations started to get out of hand, we sat my uncle down and explained to him what was happening, he didn't do anything about that.
He just told us they help him pay rent since he can't afford it on his own and can't chase them.
We asked him, why can't we move to a smaller apartment where it can be just us and no one else? He pretended to listen but never did anything about it.
We even suggested he starts getting female tenants instead, but still got nothing.
I know women can be predators too, but we all know that generally, they are safer to be around than men.
My cousins and I well all in school. I was in college and all that started affecting my mental health and grades, but I couldn't allow myself to break down so I just let it be.
I also kept thinking about the fact that I was an adult living in his house and eating his food, so I had no reason to complain, even if my parents were sending him money.
Not to mention, my refugee document had expired during covid and the country refused to grant me another one for some reason, so I couldn't even get a job.
I felt useless, I accepted the fact that I was a failure and a disappointment.
I started skipping meals for some reason (don't know if it was an eating disorder or something) but I could go days without eating, just drinking water and sometimes having a single slice of bread and I'd be full just with that.
My sleep also got scarce. I'd spend the whole night just staring into nothing and when I felt like my thoughts were going down a bad path, I'd distract myself by studying or doing my assignments at night.
If I managed to sleep, it wouldn't be more than 4 hours. And that was on my best days.
My uncle started requesting me to wake up every day at around 5 to prepare for him water to bath, make him breakfast and lunch to take to work and I started doing it. (before he was doing it by himself).
But those were the same times those guys will also be moving around the house to get ready to go to work, and being alone with one of them in a small kitchen without anyone else around, it was another opportunity for them to keep their disgusting behavior going on.
Eventually, I stopped waking up at 5 to do that for my uncle and would just wake up at around 7:30 to get ready for school when they were all gone.
My uncle got mad at me for stopping that and just went on to tell my family that I was a lazy person and wasn't doing anything for him.
Not sure if he told my mom that, but I know most of my family members can't keep anything to themselves, so she must have heard everything by now.
Is she did, she never confronted me about it and I'm thankful because I don't even know how or where I can start to tell her the truth.
And that is just to summerize everything that's happened in the spun of 4 years. And i would like to tell you that everything's better now, but I can't. The situation hasn't changed.
Being an introvert has made it hard for me to open up to someone and when I felt like I could trust my Aunt and told her some of this, she said I was just lazy and that my uncle wasn't at fault for anything.
Now, I'm at a state where I don't feel physically or mentally able to do anything and all I can do is regret everything about my life and feeling like I've failed my parents and siblings since I can't even support them financially.
Everything's my fault and I don't know how to stop feeling like this.
Please help!!!
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