I believe that something sexually traumatizing happened to me when I was five during the trip to Tennessee. I became unhappy at school and often cried at lunchtime, after having a good preschool experience, and started wiggling in my desk because my vagina hurt, but discovered masturbation by accident and began having orgasms at 5.

One of the few childhood photos that exist of me still (and there are only 4 that I have access to) may say something on the matter. It is a special time for my mother. She is walking happily, my grandmother is standing several feet away, almost a lurking figure in sunglasses and perfectly draped cardigan. My father is also several feet from my mom, but glaring in the direction of my grandmother. The figures barely seem connected.

I am standing almost aggressively in front of the camera. My head is tilted with the unhappiest frown in the world on my face. I have been wondering if my brother might have assaulted me at the rest area on the trip because my memories are lost after a fall in the snow there, while I vividly remember details of my other grandfather's funeral. My brother was at the rest area , and he can be seen grabbing his crotch while looking at me and holding hands. But my mother believes she was assaulted or raped by my uncle at 5, and he was sent away to live with his grandparents.

I am frowning at the man taking the picture, one of my mother's other brothers. Is that my young self screaming out?

Why am I harping on this, you may ask. I believe this effectively ruined my school age years emotionally and really ruined my life, even before the sexual assaults that I do remember. I used to love that photo, thought I was being a bratty ham. I love the dappled light on the green field on it. It's also sad to see my parents so slim and attractive. I wish mother had protected us from her family and not put us in harm's way just so she wouldn't be rejected. I'm trying to learn how to not fight rejection, for her family did reject her, ashamed of the incest, they blamed the victim. How sick these dynamics really were.