This story is one chapter of a 5-part series entitled “A Familiar fraud”; a lived experience submitted to Liven Elle with bravery and courage. Please do visit the Trigger Warning page if necessary, before engaging with this piece.

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Click here to read Part One

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Part 2: Imprint

The secret lived quietly inside me – not because I chose it, but because I didn’t yet have words for what had been taken.

Life continued. Family visits. Gatherings. Familiar rooms that no longer felt entirely safe.

And then one day, he was gone.

He left our everyday lives for a long period of time, and distance settled. Whatever had followed him created separation enough that my body softened its vigilance.

Distance did something strange to my fear. It dulled the edge.
When someone exists only as a name mentioned occasionally, there is a sense of control. He couldn’t reach me. He couldn’t touch me. He couldn’t surprise me.

We occasionally heard from him. Brief contact. Nothing close.

But my body remembered.

Years later, whenever I saw him – even briefly, my shoulders tensed before my mind caught up. My breath shortened. Muscles locked into stillness.

I told myself I was imagining it. That the past was the past.

But trauma does not live in logic.
It lives in muscle memory.

I grew up. Built a life. Found faith. Found language. I learned that what happened had a name.

Sexual abuse.

I learned that silence does not mean consent. That freezing is not permission. That survival often looks like stillness.

The imprint remained, not only in memory, but in instinct.

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Part 3 coming soon…

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