WEBVTT
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Hey, what's up y'all?
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It's your girl Poppy Britt.
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If it's your first time here, then welcome.
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And if you've been here before, then welcome back.
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Thank you so much for making time and space for me.
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I know I'm a little late because I said I was gonna start posting every Saturday, but I am trying to give myself grace and still show up.
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I had quite the week, you could say.
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I had been very busy with work.
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We just had our annual assembly this past weekend.
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I had also been working on a report for work for the last year and a half of all the work that I've been doing, and that has been consuming my whole entire time and being so so very busy week with work, but also I don't think I've ever cried as much ever in my life as I did this week.
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I have literally cried for the last eight days, you could say, because I just had a really long week, I guess you could say.
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I am currently going through my Saturn return, so I know that my Saturn return will come with me having to face a lot of things, a lot of traumas, blah blah blah blah blah.
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I also knew that moving back home meant having to look a lot of the things that I was running away from in the face and actually work through those traumas instead of running away from them.
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Also, just want to say this is a very nuanced and layered topic.
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Also, trigger warning, I am talking about SA and just traumatic shit that I've been through.
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So, yeah, if that is something that you don't find yourself in a position to want to listen to, I completely understand.
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Feel free to log off because yeah, I will be talking about one of my biggest traumas that I have.
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I don't know that a lot of people know this about me unless they're super close to me.
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I was SA'd by my uncle when I was seven years old.
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It happened in Mexico.
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We moved shortly after, so I didn't really have to see him ever again after that.
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But it is something that took a lot for me to process.
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Uh when it first happened to me, I genuinely had no idea what had just happened.
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I think my body just went into shock.
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Again, I was seven years old for a very long time.
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I didn't tell anyone.
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I didn't tell my mom until I was about like 10 or 11.
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I don't fully remember, but it took years before I told her, and even more for me to tell my dad because I just didn't want to tell my dad.
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So I asked my mom not to, and my mom has always been a sweet, sweet angel and so supportive, so she respected that boundary.
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The essay happened through my dad's sister's husband, so it was my dad's cuñado that did it, and so I know that put my dad in a very awkward and uncomfortable situation.
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Remember when I first told my mom, she told me how important it was for me to allow her to say something because that could save and protect a lot of other people.
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Eventually, my mom spoke about it to my dad.
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Eventually, the adults in my family found out.
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My dad's siblings, etc., etc.
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They are all in Mexico, so I was here.
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I kind of just told people I didn't really know what came of me having spoken up about what I experienced with this person.
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It is something that has heavily impacted me for my whole entire life.
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It's still a very sensitive topic for me.
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That happened again when I was seven years old.
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I am 28 now, and so it's been something that I've been carrying for 21 years.
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It's been easy for me to separate myself from it because that person is someone that I have never had to see ever again.
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However, that is still trauma that my body endured.
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It has changed my perception of everything.
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I didn't realize how much of an impact it really had on me until I literally had to look at it in the face, quite literally.
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My uncle, the one that did the essay, his son showed up to our house.
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He is my dad's nephew, and he did nothing to me.
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He's only a few years older than me.
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So he was a child when this happened to me, and I don't really know if he even knows what happened.
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He came to our house and he was supposed to be staying with us for two weeks.
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He looks exactly like his dad.
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And so I didn't have to look at this in the face because he was in Mexico.
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For the first time ever, I was seeing a visual representation of what happened to me, and it gave me really, really bad anxiety.
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Even when I like shook his hand to say hello, I tried to be kind and welcoming.
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My body was really just having very bad anxiety.
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I could not sleep that night because he was like sleeping next to my bedroom basically.
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Even though he is innocent and I feel so guilty, like I know he didn't do anything to me.
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I just had really bad anxiety.
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And so my mom had already told my dad that, like, you know, he should probably not have him here because it was gonna make me uncomfortable.
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One of the topics that has been big in my life for the last few years, especially, is consideration.
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And I have separated myself from certain friendships and relationships where I did not feel considered.
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It was very hurtful to me that my dad didn't consider me in that moment.
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He just brought him here without asking if maybe it might make me feel uncomfortable.
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I think my dad, since he found out later about what happened, and since we didn't really fully address it because it was in the past, he never really had to deal with all of the pain and anxiety and everything that that cost to me.
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He didn't have to deal with it.
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You know, I have been the one that has had to deal with that for the last 21 years.
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So I felt genuinely hurt.
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And the next morning I told my mom, like, I couldn't sleep, I had really bad anxiety, I just don't feel good about being him being here.
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And my mom was like, You should tell your dad.
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I thought about it and I actually went to church.
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I was crying on my way to church.
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It was one of those weeks, literally, where you could look at me and I would genuinely cry.
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Like I was crying all through church.
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I was crying on my way to church, on my way back, just crying non-stop, basically every single day for the last week.
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It has been a lot for me to process.
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This happened last Sunday.
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I went to church and basically on my way there, I asked God for church to bring clarity to me and deliver whatever message I needed to hear regarding the situation and how to proceed.
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The whole sermon, everything that they were reading was exactly what I needed to hear.
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The whole topic was basically about how if you see someone doing something bad, God calls you to tell them or correct their behavior, obviously in a kind manner.
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If they choose to not listen and it said, like if they die on their own, I won't look at you because you did your part in telling them that they were wrong.
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If you don't tell them that they were wrong, they die or they do something wrong or whatever, hurt themselves or whatever else, then it's on you because you also failed to correct them or to tell them or to help them change their behavior so that that negative outcome wouldn't have happened.
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And then the other like lecture or whatever, I'm still getting into church, okay?
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So I don't really know what these things are called.
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The next like lecture was if someone that you care about is doing something wrong or hurtful, it's up to you to discuss it with them.
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If they don't listen to you, then consult with someone that they love and that they trust so that they can tell them.
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And then if they don't listen to the both of you, then pray for them and hope that their heart changes and that they find clarity as well.
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Those two within themselves were basically confirmation to me that I needed to speak up because my mom had already spoken up for me and he didn't do or say anything, right?
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Also, take this with a grain of salt.
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My dad is a very complicated individual.
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We have a very complex relationship, nonetheless, I love him dearly.
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So this isn't an open invitation for people to talk shit.
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My dad, again, I've said this a million times, has been through a lot.
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I give him grace because you know he is also learning and didn't really have a handbook to life.
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He struggled a lot.
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So, like, I try to give him grace.
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He is someone that I deeply admire.
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But my dad, unfortunately, is also very machista.
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Typical Mexican immigrant, first generation dad, machismo is very much still present to this day.
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And so it's something that we always clash on, and he's gotten better, but it's taken a lot of work and a lot of us clashing.
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He's trying to learn.
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I know that I am one of the people that he loves the most and that he values my opinion over a lot of people.
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So I know that maybe in that instant he wasn't considering how it would have affected me.
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So I decided to tell him because at one point my cousin was outside of my bedroom door just trying to make small talk with me.
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I don't think he meant any harm, but it was just making me very uncomfortable, even just the way he was looking at me, and again, I don't know, maybe it was just something in my head, but I just felt very uncomfortable.
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So I let my dad know that having his nephew here made me very uncomfortable.
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That although it wasn't him that hurt me, and I know it's not his fault, like it wasn't my fault either, and so it's not something that I should have to relive.
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And my dad's reasoning was basically that it was only two weeks, like it was not a big deal, it wasn't anything he did, so why is it a problem?
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Also, my dad has issues, he's machista, with women telling him what to do, and so he was pissed.
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The next day, my cousin was gone.
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I don't know what he did.
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He didn't when I told him that it made me uncomfortable, he had nothing to say, and so the next day I was curious to see if he was gonna find other arrangements for him because there's plenty of other family that he could stay with, etc.
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etc.
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He didn't say anything to me, but he did have him relocate.
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So by the time I got home, he was gone.
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But my dad was livid, he was pissed, and he was super mad and was basically like, I just don't understand, like, why is it such a big deal?
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Like, he didn't do anything to you, and I felt so so betrayed.
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He said that me and my mom behaved badly by advocating for me and my feelings, and basically, unfortunately, having asking my cousin to leave, and I I feel so bad about it.
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I I genuinely do, but I like I told my dad, I cannot help the way my body reacts to trauma that I have had pent up in it for the last 21 years.
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I saw TikTok the other day of how sometimes, especially as a firstborn immigrant daughter, you have to check your parents sometimes because that's the only way you gain respect.
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It was one of those moments where I literally had to put him in his place, call it what it was, like him protecting abusers, even collaterally.
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I know that again, my cousin didn't do it, but his father did, you know, and he didn't take me into consideration.
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He he thought that by me bringing this up, I was being problematic, I was bringing old shit up basically.
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I don't think he understood just how much it impacted me.
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And at the end of the day, I have to remind myself, my dad is just a man, and that's another thing that I've had to deal with as someone that has dealt with an emotionally immature parent for my whole life.
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He is a narcissist.
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For much of my life, I have had hope that he might change, and I was just actually during that same time finally accepting that maybe he never will.
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People won't change their behavior if they don't see anything wrong with it.
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However, that's why it's so important to call it out and make people uncomfortable.
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He thinks that I was being problematic by bringing up what happened because I know it's a very fucking uncomfortable topic to talk about.
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I know he's in a very uncomfortable position, but I think that as the victim, my comfort comes first.
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I heard a quote earlier that said, abuse is not a peaceful action, therefore, my abusers should not know peace.
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And so that's basically how I feel about me and what I have gone through.
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I am quite literally so sick of making abusers comfortable protecting their name.
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And I'm I hate the fucking narrative about how these false accusations or accusations or speaking up about sexual assault ruins a man's lives because it fucking doesn't, and we see it every fucking where and I'm so fucking sick of it because so many people, so many women have experienced assault, abuse in many capacities at the hands of men, especially, and we are expected to be quiet about it.
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Abuse thrives in silence and isolation, and so that's why I felt it was important for me to still show up.
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It's been something that's been very heavy on my mind, and I shared this with a couple people that I trust, and basically everyone, because I was like, Am I tripping?
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Am I overreacting?
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And everyone was like, No, like you are right to feel this way, you are right to feel betrayed by your own father.
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And so it's one of those generational curses that I am choosing to break.
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I don't care if I get called problematic or if I get called angry or whatever else.
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Yeah, what really set me off was when my dad said that I behaved badly.
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I don't know how I possibly could have done that.
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I literally welcomed him and I greeted him even though I felt uncomfortable.
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And so my dad had the fucking nerve to say that I behave badly simply for speaking up for myself.
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That's why I'm so passionate about speaking up because I refuse to allow people to tell me that I am problematic for pointing out bad behavior.
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I quite literally am not interested in being looked at as someone that behaves well if that means me being silent.
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So many people are abused, and in many instances, the person that experienced that abuse is receives way more hate and is shamed way more than the abuser themselves.
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I feel like it's so important to speak up, and I love when women on TikTok, for example, expose their cheating or abusive baby daddies or whoever.
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I love when people expose their abusers.
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A lot of abusers will not change unless they're literally publicly shamed.
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I think it's so important to show the fact that so many women could emp and so many people could empathize with my experience is so fucking sad, and that so many people and so many women that I know have experienced abuse or SA and have had to remain silent because they were afraid of how they would be perceived or if they would be believed.
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It's so fucking sad.
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It's sad to see that a lot of people will side with an abuser even though they don't even know what happened or question someone that is saying what they went through rather than simply believing someone.
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Most people aren't just making those claims just to make them.
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It's a very fucking heavy claim to make.
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A lot of us speak up knowing that we're never gonna get justice.
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The person that abused us is probably gonna be able to continue their life without any retribution.
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But I feel like at least speaking up about it gives me power back.
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It allows me to reclaim my story to empower other people to do the same.
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And so, yeah, this is me showing up, finally being able to talk about this past week and all of my feelings without crying.
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Because had you asked me, and actually my aunt asked me, I saw her on Saturday, and she knows me very well, and she's she was like, I can tell you're sad.
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And as soon as she asked me that, I wanted to start bawling.
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And even now, as I speak about this, I want to cry, but I have given myself space to cry.
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I think there is a lesson in everything, and I just went to church and had been wondering how to proceed because again, my dad is someone I love very deeply.
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I just genuinely felt and feel very betrayed and hurt, and I think it's very important to have these hard conversations.
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And my dad is the type of person that we will have these kind of issues, and his way of getting over it is by just not speaking about it.
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And so the other day he was trying to talk to me like nothing happened, and I refuse to proceed without addressing the situation and what happened and how it made me feel.
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Just genuinely can't believe that he villainized me for setting boundaries, especially over such a sensitive topic.
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Feel very betrayed because that is my father, that is someone that should be protecting me, and I didn't feel very protected in that moment.
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The way he reacted, how angry he was simply because a woman told him what to do and he didn't get his way is very fucking sad and very fucking problematic.
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And so, yeah, I really do need men to do better just overall.
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I need us to believe victims and protect victims.
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I need us to hold abusers accountable because this happens way too frequently, and we're just forced to go on like nothing happened.
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Abuse changes your perception again of everything.
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And I have been sitting here wondering if I overreacted all week basically.
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And I asked when I went to church this past Sunday to show me how to proceed with the situation with my dad.
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They basically talked about forgiveness and the importance of grace and how God forgives us for things that we do all the time and how we should be allowing that same grace to others.
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If we expect forgiveness, we should also give forgiveness.
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He also mentioned some I'm like some quote, I don't even know what you call them, but basically, someone asked Jesus, I don't know, he asked God how many times he should forgive someone, and I was asking myself the same because I feel like I have forgiven my narcissistic dad so many times, and it seems like he may not ever change, and I might just have to accept that.
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Jesus's response was basically like 70 times seven or seven times seventy, basically infinity, because especially when it's someone that you love, like you have to give them grace and continue to love them.
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So that was like a clear fucking sign that this is someone I love very dearly, and so relationships require difficult conversations.
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I know that my dad loves me unconditionally.
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It is very hard to forgive someone that isn't fully sorry.
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I haven't seen that he really cares, but I feel that by not forgiving or holding on to that anger, it has power over you, and so I am choosing to allow myself to express this anger and this hurt in different ways by going to the gym, by still showing up for myself, even when it's hard, for proving that I can speak up and set boundaries and and break generational curses that we have normalized, it could protecting abusers.
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So I know it's going to make me look at a lot of things face to face, and I know that's a lot of the things that I was running away from.
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I'm going to have to look in the face.
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So I'm taking everything with grace, I'm giving myself grace and just trying to see the lessons and everything and have God basically guide me.
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This isn't something new to me, it's something that I have had to process for a very long time.
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So I promise I am good.
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The reason I speak about it is because I think that there are a lot of things that are very important to talk about, even though it's hard.
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So yeah, that's basically it.
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Thank you so much for watching.
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If you stuck through the end, I will see you guys in the next podcast.
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In the meantime, be kind to yourself, be kind to others, and make sure that you leave things better than you found them.
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Hey, what's up y'all?
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It's your girl Poppy Britt.
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If it's your first time here, then welcome.
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And if you've been here before, then welcome back.
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Thank you so much for making time and space for me.
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I know I'm a little late because I said I was gonna start posting every Saturday, but I am trying to give myself grace and still show up.
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I had quite the week, you could say.
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I had been very busy with work.
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We just had our annual assembly this past weekend.
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I had also been working on a report for work for the last year and a half of all the work that I've been doing, and that has been consuming my whole entire time and being so so very busy week with work, but also I don't think I've ever cried as much ever in my life as I did this week.
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I have literally cried for the last eight days, you could say, because I just had a really long week, I guess you could say.
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I am currently going through my Saturn return, so I know that my Saturn return will come with me having to face a lot of things, a lot of traumas, blah blah blah blah blah.
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I also knew that moving back home meant having to look a lot of the things that I was running away from in the face and actually work through those traumas instead of running away from them.
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Also, just want to say this is a very nuanced and layered topic.
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Also, trigger warning, I am talking about SA and just traumatic shit that I've been through.
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So, yeah, if that is something that you don't find yourself in a position to want to listen to, I completely understand.
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Feel free to log off because yeah, I will be talking about one of my biggest traumas that I have.
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I don't know that a lot of people know this about me unless they're super close to me.
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I was SA'd by my uncle when I was seven years old.
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It happened in Mexico.
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We moved shortly after, so I didn't really have to see him ever again after that.
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But it is something that took a lot for me to process.
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Uh when it first happened to me, I genuinely had no idea what had just happened.
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I think my body just went into shock.
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Again, I was seven years old for a very long time.
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I didn't tell anyone.
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I didn't tell my mom until I was about like 10 or 11.
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I don't fully remember, but it took years before I told her, and even more for me to tell my dad because I just didn't want to tell my dad.
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So I asked my mom not to, and my mom has always been a sweet, sweet angel and so supportive, so she respected that boundary.
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The essay happened through my dad's sister's husband, so it was my dad's cuñado that did it, and so I know that put my dad in a very awkward and uncomfortable situation.
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Remember when I first told my mom, she told me how important it was for me to allow her to say something because that could save and protect a lot of other people.
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Eventually, my mom spoke about it to my dad.
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Eventually, the adults in my family found out.
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My dad's siblings, etc., etc.
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They are all in Mexico, so I was here.
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I kind of just told people I didn't really know what came of me having spoken up about what I experienced with this person.
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It is something that has heavily impacted me for my whole entire life.
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It's still a very sensitive topic for me.
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That happened again when I was seven years old.
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I am 28 now, and so it's been something that I've been carrying for 21 years.
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It's been easy for me to separate myself from it because that person is someone that I have never had to see ever again.
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However, that is still trauma that my body endured.
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It has changed my perception of everything.
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I didn't realize how much of an impact it really had on me until I literally had to look at it in the face, quite literally.
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My uncle, the one that did the essay, his son showed up to our house.
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He is my dad's nephew, and he did nothing to me.
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He's only a few years older than me.
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So he was a child when this happened to me, and I don't really know if he even knows what happened.
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He came to our house and he was supposed to be staying with us for two weeks.
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He looks exactly like his dad.
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And so I didn't have to look at this in the face because he was in Mexico.
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For the first time ever, I was seeing a visual representation of what happened to me, and it gave me really, really bad anxiety.
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Even when I like shook his hand to say hello, I tried to be kind and welcoming.
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My body was really just having very bad anxiety.
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I could not sleep that night because he was like sleeping next to my bedroom basically.
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Even though he is innocent and I feel so guilty, like I know he didn't do anything to me.
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I just had really bad anxiety.
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And so my mom had already told my dad that, like, you know, he should probably not have him here because it was gonna make me uncomfortable.
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One of the topics that has been big in my life for the last few years, especially, is consideration.
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And I have separated myself from certain friendships and relationships where I did not feel considered.
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It was very hurtful to me that my dad didn't consider me in that moment.
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He just brought him here without asking if maybe it might make me feel uncomfortable.
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I think my dad, since he found out later about what happened, and since we didn't really fully address it because it was in the past, he never really had to deal with all of the pain and anxiety and everything that that cost to me.
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He didn't have to deal with it.
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You know, I have been the one that has had to deal with that for the last 21 years.
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So I felt genuinely hurt.
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And the next morning I told my mom, like, I couldn't sleep, I had really bad anxiety, I just don't feel good about being him being here.
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And my mom was like, You should tell your dad.
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I thought about it and I actually went to church.
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I was crying on my way to church.
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It was one of those weeks, literally, where you could look at me and I would genuinely cry.
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Like I was crying all through church.
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I was crying on my way to church, on my way back, just crying non-stop, basically every single day for the last week.
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It has been a lot for me to process.
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This happened last Sunday.
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I went to church and basically on my way there, I asked God for church to bring clarity to me and deliver whatever message I needed to hear regarding the situation and how to proceed.
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The whole sermon, everything that they were reading was exactly what I needed to hear.
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The whole topic was basically about how if you see someone doing something bad, God calls you to tell them or correct their behavior, obviously in a kind manner.
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If they choose to not listen and it said, like if they die on their own, I won't look at you because you did your part in telling them that they were wrong.
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If you don't tell them that they were wrong, they die or they do something wrong or whatever, hurt themselves or whatever else, then it's on you because you also failed to correct them or to tell them or to help them change their behavior so that that negative outcome wouldn't have happened.
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And then the other like lecture or whatever, I'm still getting into church, okay?
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So I don't really know what these things are called.
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The next like lecture was if someone that you care about is doing something wrong or hurtful, it's up to you to discuss it with them.
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If they don't listen to you, then consult with someone that they love and that they trust so that they can tell them.
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And then if they don't listen to the both of you, then pray for them and hope that their heart changes and that they find clarity as well.
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Those two within themselves were basically confirmation to me that I needed to speak up because my mom had already spoken up for me and he didn't do or say anything, right?
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Also, take this with a grain of salt.
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My dad is a very complicated individual.
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We have a very complex relationship, nonetheless, I love him dearly.
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So this isn't an open invitation for people to talk shit.
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My dad, again, I've said this a million times, has been through a lot.
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I give him grace because you know he is also learning and didn't really have a handbook to life.
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He struggled a lot.
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So, like, I try to give him grace.
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He is someone that I deeply admire.
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But my dad, unfortunately, is also very machista.
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Typical Mexican immigrant, first generation dad, machismo is very much still present to this day.
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And so it's something that we always clash on, and he's gotten better, but it's taken a lot of work and a lot of us clashing.
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He's trying to learn.
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I know that I am one of the people that he loves the most and that he values my opinion over a lot of people.
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So I know that maybe in that instant he wasn't considering how it would have affected me.
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So I decided to tell him because at one point my cousin was outside of my bedroom door just trying to make small talk with me.
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I don't think he meant any harm, but it was just making me very uncomfortable, even just the way he was looking at me, and again, I don't know, maybe it was just something in my head, but I just felt very uncomfortable.
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So I let my dad know that having his nephew here made me very uncomfortable.
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That although it wasn't him that hurt me, and I know it's not his fault, like it wasn't my fault either, and so it's not something that I should have to relive.
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And my dad's reasoning was basically that it was only two weeks, like it was not a big deal, it wasn't anything he did, so why is it a problem?
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Also, my dad has issues, he's machista, with women telling him what to do, and so he was pissed.
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The next day, my cousin was gone.
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I don't know what he did.
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He didn't when I told him that it made me uncomfortable, he had nothing to say, and so the next day I was curious to see if he was gonna find other arrangements for him because there's plenty of other family that he could stay with, etc.
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etc.
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He didn't say anything to me, but he did have him relocate.
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So by the time I got home, he was gone.
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But my dad was livid, he was pissed, and he was super mad and was basically like, I just don't understand, like, why is it such a big deal?
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Like, he didn't do anything to you, and I felt so so betrayed.
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He said that me and my mom behaved badly by advocating for me and my feelings, and basically, unfortunately, having asking my cousin to leave, and I I feel so bad about it.
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I I genuinely do, but I like I told my dad, I cannot help the way my body reacts to trauma that I have had pent up in it for the last 21 years.
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I saw TikTok the other day of how sometimes, especially as a firstborn immigrant daughter, you have to check your parents sometimes because that's the only way you gain respect.
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It was one of those moments where I literally had to put him in his place, call it what it was, like him protecting abusers, even collaterally.
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I know that again, my cousin didn't do it, but his father did, you know, and he didn't take me into consideration.
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He he thought that by me bringing this up, I was being problematic, I was bringing old shit up basically.
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I don't think he understood just how much it impacted me.
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And at the end of the day, I have to remind myself, my dad is just a man, and that's another thing that I've had to deal with as someone that has dealt with an emotionally immature parent for my whole life.
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He is a narcissist.
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For much of my life, I have had hope that he might change, and I was just actually during that same time finally accepting that maybe he never will.
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People won't change their behavior if they don't see anything wrong with it.
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However, that's why it's so important to call it out and make people uncomfortable.
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He thinks that I was being problematic by bringing up what happened because I know it's a very fucking uncomfortable topic to talk about.
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I know he's in a very uncomfortable position, but I think that as the victim, my comfort comes first.
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I heard a quote earlier that said, abuse is not a peaceful action, therefore, my abusers should not know peace.
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And so that's basically how I feel about me and what I have gone through.
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I am quite literally so sick of making abusers comfortable protecting their name.
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And I'm I hate the fucking narrative about how these false accusations or accusations or speaking up about sexual assault ruins a man's lives because it fucking doesn't, and we see it every fucking where and I'm so fucking sick of it because so many people, so many women have experienced assault, abuse in many capacities at the hands of men, especially, and we are expected to be quiet about it.
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Abuse thrives in silence and isolation, and so that's why I felt it was important for me to still show up.
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It's been something that's been very heavy on my mind, and I shared this with a couple people that I trust, and basically everyone, because I was like, Am I tripping?
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Am I overreacting?
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And everyone was like, No, like you are right to feel this way, you are right to feel betrayed by your own father.
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And so it's one of those generational curses that I am choosing to break.
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I don't care if I get called problematic or if I get called angry or whatever else.
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Yeah, what really set me off was when my dad said that I behaved badly.
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I don't know how I possibly could have done that.
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I literally welcomed him and I greeted him even though I felt uncomfortable.
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And so my dad had the fucking nerve to say that I behave badly simply for speaking up for myself.
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That's why I'm so passionate about speaking up because I refuse to allow people to tell me that I am problematic for pointing out bad behavior.
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I quite literally am not interested in being looked at as someone that behaves well if that means me being silent.
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So many people are abused, and in many instances, the person that experienced that abuse is receives way more hate and is shamed way more than the abuser themselves.
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I feel like it's so important to speak up, and I love when women on TikTok, for example, expose their cheating or abusive baby daddies or whoever.
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I love when people expose their abusers.
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A lot of abusers will not change unless they're literally publicly shamed.
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I think it's so important to show the fact that so many women could emp and so many people could empathize with my experience is so fucking sad, and that so many people and so many women that I know have experienced abuse or SA and have had to remain silent because they were afraid of how they would be perceived or if they would be believed.
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It's so fucking sad.
00:14:58.559 --> 00:15:11.519
It's sad to see that a lot of people will side with an abuser even though they don't even know what happened or question someone that is saying what they went through rather than simply believing someone.
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Most people aren't just making those claims just to make them.
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It's a very fucking heavy claim to make.
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A lot of us speak up knowing that we're never gonna get justice.
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The person that abused us is probably gonna be able to continue their life without any retribution.
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But I feel like at least speaking up about it gives me power back.
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It allows me to reclaim my story to empower other people to do the same.
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And so, yeah, this is me showing up, finally being able to talk about this past week and all of my feelings without crying.
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Because had you asked me, and actually my aunt asked me, I saw her on Saturday, and she knows me very well, and she's she was like, I can tell you're sad.
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And as soon as she asked me that, I wanted to start bawling.
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And even now, as I speak about this, I want to cry, but I have given myself space to cry.
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I think there is a lesson in everything, and I just went to church and had been wondering how to proceed because again, my dad is someone I love very deeply.
00:16:14.159 --> 00:16:21.840
I just genuinely felt and feel very betrayed and hurt, and I think it's very important to have these hard conversations.
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And my dad is the type of person that we will have these kind of issues, and his way of getting over it is by just not speaking about it.
00:16:30.240 --> 00:16:41.519
And so the other day he was trying to talk to me like nothing happened, and I refuse to proceed without addressing the situation and what happened and how it made me feel.
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Just genuinely can't believe that he villainized me for setting boundaries, especially over such a sensitive topic.
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Feel very betrayed because that is my father, that is someone that should be protecting me, and I didn't feel very protected in that moment.
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The way he reacted, how angry he was simply because a woman told him what to do and he didn't get his way is very fucking sad and very fucking problematic.
00:17:05.839 --> 00:17:10.000
And so, yeah, I really do need men to do better just overall.
00:17:10.160 --> 00:17:13.359
I need us to believe victims and protect victims.
00:17:13.519 --> 00:17:21.920
I need us to hold abusers accountable because this happens way too frequently, and we're just forced to go on like nothing happened.
00:17:22.160 --> 00:17:25.680
Abuse changes your perception again of everything.
00:17:25.839 --> 00:17:31.279
And I have been sitting here wondering if I overreacted all week basically.
00:17:31.440 --> 00:17:38.400
And I asked when I went to church this past Sunday to show me how to proceed with the situation with my dad.
00:17:38.559 --> 00:17:53.599
They basically talked about forgiveness and the importance of grace and how God forgives us for things that we do all the time and how we should be allowing that same grace to others.
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If we expect forgiveness, we should also give forgiveness.
00:17:58.160 --> 00:18:19.039
He also mentioned some I'm like some quote, I don't even know what you call them, but basically, someone asked Jesus, I don't know, he asked God how many times he should forgive someone, and I was asking myself the same because I feel like I have forgiven my narcissistic dad so many times, and it seems like he may not ever change, and I might just have to accept that.
00:18:19.200 --> 00:18:32.880
Jesus's response was basically like 70 times seven or seven times seventy, basically infinity, because especially when it's someone that you love, like you have to give them grace and continue to love them.
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So that was like a clear fucking sign that this is someone I love very dearly, and so relationships require difficult conversations.
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I know that my dad loves me unconditionally.
00:18:43.119 --> 00:18:46.799
It is very hard to forgive someone that isn't fully sorry.
00:18:46.960 --> 00:19:17.759
I haven't seen that he really cares, but I feel that by not forgiving or holding on to that anger, it has power over you, and so I am choosing to allow myself to express this anger and this hurt in different ways by going to the gym, by still showing up for myself, even when it's hard, for proving that I can speak up and set boundaries and and break generational curses that we have normalized, it could protecting abusers.
00:19:24.799 --> 00:19:34.240
So I know it's going to make me look at a lot of things face to face, and I know that's a lot of the things that I was running away from.
00:19:34.319 --> 00:19:36.079
I'm going to have to look in the face.
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So I'm taking everything with grace, I'm giving myself grace and just trying to see the lessons and everything and have God basically guide me.
00:19:45.279 --> 00:19:49.839
This isn't something new to me, it's something that I have had to process for a very long time.
00:19:50.000 --> 00:19:51.680
So I promise I am good.
00:19:51.839 --> 00:19:58.960
The reason I speak about it is because I think that there are a lot of things that are very important to talk about, even though it's hard.
00:19:59.119 --> 00:20:01.440
So yeah, that's basically it.
00:20:01.680 --> 00:20:03.039
Thank you so much for watching.
00:20:03.119 --> 00:20:06.960
If you stuck through the end, I will see you guys in the next podcast.
00:20:07.119 --> 00:20:13.599
In the meantime, be kind to yourself, be kind to others, and make sure that you leave things better than you found them.