My music teacher raped me multiple times between 2007 and 2010. I was made to believe that this was “punishment” for not practising music enough, and was threatened into not divulging anything to my parents. I remember being gagged, pinned down and violated several times, although I can’t really differentiate among the memories now.
Fortunately, I was shifted to a different teacher who was a wonderful person. I never opened up about anything during my teens. In 2019, I received the news that my abuser had passed away after a long illness, which somehow triggered severe PTSD. I still get nightmares, flashbacks and occasionally suffer from sleep paralysis. I’m also transgender, and looking back, I realise that the compounded effect of trauma from SA and gender dysphoria really messed up a lot of things for me.
