Looks can be decieving..

I look perfectly normal. I act perfectly normal. No one suspects a thing. I mean why would they?
After eight years, I've learnt to hide my feelings well. To blend into the background. I wasn’t always like this. I know, how cliché but it’s the truth.
I used to be normal. Be happy without trying. Now I feel abnormal. Like I don’t fit in, no matter how hard I try. But I smile.
Continue trying even when I want to scream and shout and hide under my blankets so no one can find me. But we cant always get what we want now can we.

Your thinking I'm just being a typical teenager. Complaining about all that is wrong with my life, acting like the world revolves around me. You couldn’t be further from the truth. I'm 16 but I act like a 24 year old.
Andrea Thompson my name is.. but everyone calls me Andy. What happened to me to make me different you wonder? Well its my past. Its not your typical heart broken poor me story either.

Where to start.. Lets get the background information. I was the normal little girl until I was 6. Flaming red hair and blue eyes that constantly sparkled with adventure and excitement.
I had two little brothers who would always play with me, and a family that loved me. I belonged. Accepted. Understood. What more could a 6 year old ask for?

Then things started to crumble. Falling apart around me like a decayed bridge that left me stranded in one place. People that I once thought I belonged with left me stranded. No one really understood what happened. It was all shoved under a rug so to speak. Andy's Dirty little secret.

Secret? What secret? Well my uncle sexually abused me. Made it into a game. How was I supposed to know? Being so young doesn’t help. I was still learning right from wrong. I didn’t even know what sex was. It happened for two years, before my parents found out and stopped me seeing him. I don’t blame them for not knowing or finding out sooner or stopping it. How could they? I didn’t even know what it was. How could I explain it to them when I thought I would get in trouble?

I will always be amazed at the power he held over me. For a little girl who always tried to be good, getting in trouble was bad. I didn’t want that! So it continued until I was 8.  When everything first came out, I didn’t want anyone around me. I finally found out what was happening and that it was wrong.  I went into counselling. I hated it. I didn’t want to talk. I wanted to forget.

My parents were the only ones who were always there. No matter what. When I would fall, they would pick me back up and help cover up the scratches that would occur. They  were always there for me to talk to. The rest of my family didn’t understand. They wanted to pretend like it never happened. Like it never existed. Andy's Dirty Little Secret.. No one needs to know. It never happened.

They still don’t get that it did happen. That even 8 years after it stopped, it still affects me so greatly. I have forgotten most of the horrid memories that used to haunt my dreams, but sometimes, when I least expect it, they come back. Seeping into my brain like a poison.

They always manage to make me crash. Each fall greater then the last, but I still come back. I get stronger and stronger each time. My family understands me and all that happened. They accept me for who I am. With them, I do belong. It just hurts me that no one else really understands. That I'm treated like an outsider, because I went through things most young kids don’t even know about. But what can you do? As long as you belong with your family, who needs anyone else?