Today on Unfiltered Stories, our guest is Pattie Martins, who shares her story of surviving CSA at the hands of her father. From such a young age, she knew that the way her father touched her was wrong and very inappropriate. Pattie struggled because of this experience and her family being indifferent to what happened to her. Years later, her father's confession on the phone gave her the validation that she needed.
#Abuse #Trauma #reallife
You can find Pattie here:
YT: https://www.youtube.com/@thetruetruewithpattiemartins
IG: https://www.instagram.com/thetruetruewithpattie/
TT: https://www.tiktok.com/@injoyinmyself
Thank you for watching Unfiltered Stories! We offer a platform for our guests to speak openly about their life stories and journeys, shedding light on the challenges they faced and the resilience they've shown.
Our mission is to raise awareness about survivors by delving into their stories, exploring the impact of their experiences, and how they've managed to heal and rebuild their lives.
By sharing these stories, we aim to break the silence surrounding those challenging memories and create a compassionate environment.
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#Abuse #Trauma #reallife
You can find Pattie here:
YT: https://www.youtube.com/@thetruetruewithpattiemartins
IG: https://www.instagram.com/thetruetruewithpattie/
TT: https://www.tiktok.com/@injoyinmyself
Thank you for watching Unfiltered Stories! We offer a platform for our guests to speak openly about their life stories and journeys, shedding light on the challenges they faced and the resilience they've shown.
Our mission is to raise awareness about survivors by delving into their stories, exploring the impact of their experiences, and how they've managed to heal and rebuild their lives.
By sharing these stories, we aim to break the silence surrounding those challenging memories and create a compassionate environment.
🌅 FOLLOW US 🌅
Facebook ➮ https://tinyurl.com/UnfilteredFB
TikTok ➮ https://tinyurl.com/UnfilteredTT
Snapchat ➮ https://tinyurl.com/UnfilteredSN
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NewsTranscript
00:00Hi, I'm Patsy Martins and this is my personal sexual abuse story.
00:04Until the age of nine, I grew up in rural Portugal.
00:08I was in a small town, sort of in the thick of it there.
00:11But honestly, as a kid, it was just so much fun.
00:14I was running through the woods, I was making mud cakes, I was a bit of a tomboy.
00:18We lived with my grandparents, they were lovely and loving.
00:22My parents were more tense, they were very young when they had me.
00:25Then what happened when I turned nine and we moved to the play?
00:29Firstly, I didn't speak English and we were quite poor and things were a bit scary.
00:34And like my parents, they didn't really socialize very much, so I was always really sort of bullied.
00:40Definitely an outsider.
00:42I mean, I was clearly different to these people, right?
00:44I was loud, Latin, sort of countryside rebellious.
00:48I had broken English.
00:50Yeah, I had a hard time, I was bullied a lot.
00:52When I started developing, I also lost a lot of weight.
00:55Because I was obese, morbidly obese, and I'd lost 50 kilos, that's like 100 pounds.
01:01That was a big turning point for me and my self-esteem.
01:04But it was around that time that my father started looking at me differently.
01:07He had started giving me sort of a strange, he started giving me more attention.
01:13Which is strange for me, because I never had their attention unless I broke something, unless I was in trouble.
01:18Because it was that type of sort of strict Catholic upbringing.
01:22He wanted to know if I had had my first kiss yet.
01:27He wanted to know if I had tried smoking yet.
01:30He kind of suggested that he massage my shoulders, my legs, which was completely out of the blue.
01:36We didn't have that type of touchy-feely relationship.
01:38I mean, I'm still a virgin, I barely know what sex is.
01:41And so, okay, yeah, you know, I'm supposed to trust that.
01:45So then, he would then, you know, sometimes just hug me out of the blue.
01:50And then his hand would slip and he'd touch me in a private area.
01:53Like, oh, sorry.
01:54I never really spoke to him.
01:55He didn't help me with homework or anything.
01:57It was almost like the quintessential, uptight, Catholic sort of way of life.
02:02At that time, it was the scariest thing that I was experiencing because it was alienating that my dad was
02:10touching me in a way that felt too intimate, sexual.
02:15With these moments that were kind of sneaked into the sort of day-to-day mundane lifestyle in the corridor,
02:23in the kitchen.
02:24You know, I could be doing washing up.
02:26He'd sneak up from behind and help me.
02:29And it all just sounded innocent, but it felt like I wanted to scream and I couldn't.
02:35At that point, I didn't really have anyone to ask.
02:39And it just kind of kept happening.
02:41And it got to the point where I could hear him going to the bathroom in the middle of the
02:45night.
02:45I could feel that maybe there was something going on on the other side of the wall.
02:50Like, he was hesitant on whether or not coming in.
02:53And so, that's like when I stopped sleeping because I just felt as though at any point he could come
03:02in.
03:02And this behavior with my dad lasted three years.
03:07Sort of, I hope he won't commit to my room tonight years.
03:10Years where I would be afraid if he knocked on the door when I was having a shower because he
03:18sometimes would just open it.
03:19Like, if there was a day that I forgot to lock it, he'd just like walk in and just look
03:24at my body and take a little bit too long.
03:27You know what I mean?
03:27Like, I knew it wasn't an accident, but nothing could be proved.
03:30And I don't know what he did.
03:31I just know that I feel very violated.
03:34Things started to change for me when my grandmother visited.
03:38I think it was actually a moment where she saw him with me in the kitchen.
03:42Him trying to help me do the dishes and holding me from behind in a way that seemed too close.
03:50I saw that there was a, I saw that she nooked and that there was a moment between them two
03:55and me.
03:56And I felt embarrassed as though I was guilty or something.
03:59Later that night, my grandma sat on my bed and she asked me, you know, if I was okay.
04:07And I immediately burst into tears.
04:09She suddenly explains to me that I do have a right to feel the way I feel.
04:17I asked her, can you tell mom?
04:18Because my mother is kind of someone who's a bit difficult to talk to.
04:22She's scary.
04:22She's a scary person for me to talk to.
04:25And my grandma immediately told me that she was going to try it, but that she didn't expect that it
04:30would go well.
04:31That night, something changed permanently.
04:34Because now I knew that what I was enduring was in fact something that was not right.
04:40The way that my dad looked, touched, and spoke to me was inherently sexual.
04:49Sometime during that same period, my grandma came back to me and said that my mom did not take that
04:55talk well.
04:56My mom accused my grandma of trying to create trouble in our family, trying to split.
05:01Well, not long after that, my grandparents returned to Portugal.
05:05I remember seeing them drive away from my bedroom window.
05:09And it was even scarier to think that I was going to have to deal with this on my own.
05:13And that it was so scary that my grandparents drove away because they didn't know how to deal with it.
05:20So my grandma had convinced me to, at some point, when my dad is outside in the evening, go downstairs
05:27and ask my mom to talk.
05:30There was one day, it was around 10 p.m., I should be in bed.
05:33I come down the stairs, I hear her watching TV.
05:36And I honestly, I sat on the steps for like a long time because I didn't know that I was
05:41actually going to go through with it.
05:43And I stared at her for a bit and eventually I, safely, approached her.
05:51Like I said, she was a bit scary.
05:52And I told her that I felt like I needed to say something, that I didn't feel comfortable the way
05:57that was being with me.
06:01And it was just, I can't, it was the cringiest moment of my life because I didn't know how to
06:06speak about sex.
06:07I didn't know how to bring it up.
06:08I just knew that my grandma had told me it was the only way and I was desperate and scared.
06:14And so she just keeps asking, but has he ever touched you inappropriately?
06:20Yes, but not like, and I'm kind of stuttering.
06:25And I think my mom was so scared to even imagine that that was a possibility.
06:32That she just took that and said, if there's doubts, then it's not real and don't even go there.
06:40And then she proceeded to tell me that I was wrong to have even entertained grandma's idea that maybe there
06:48was something wrong with my dad.
06:49She yelled at me and pointed to the garden and told me to go outside right now and apologize to
06:55your dad.
06:56You go outside right now and apologize to your dad for having thought that he was a pervert.
07:02I went outside.
07:04I looked for him and he was there like working on a car engine and I said, like I was
07:11pale and I was crying and shaking a bit.
07:13So he stopped and I said, mom told me to come out here to tell you that I'm sorry for
07:22thinking that you could be touching me.
07:25You know, completely because I'm not comfortable and I'm just like crying and I'm sick.
07:32I'm physically sick.
07:34And he just turned blue, you know, he just told me to go to my room, but I could tell
07:42that something had exploded that day.
07:44Problem also with the way that this was dealt with was that then it kept happening because I'd complained.
07:51So now it could continue happening even more sort of blatantly because who else am I going to complain to?
07:59My dad continued, I would call it stalking at that point.
08:03My mother later confessed to me that there was one night she slept in front of my bedroom door because
08:08she had caught him there in the middle of the night just staring at me asleep.
08:11At the time, I just kept being told that nothing was going on.
08:15They kept telling me that I was making a big deal out of nothing because I just needed the attention
08:23and talking about things that made everyone uncomfortable.
08:26And why did I insist on doing that?
08:28There was one morning I turned 16.
08:31We had moved back to Portugal.
08:32So once again, now I don't speak Portuguese and once again, very alienated.
08:37And in the Portuguese tradition, when your daughter turns 16, 15 or 16, you give her like an heirloom, like
08:46the first heirloom, and it's usually given to her by her dad.
08:48Normally at a party or something, like a birthday party, in my case, he walked in and he was watching
08:54me sleep in the morning and my breasts were uncovered.
08:58And I quickly pulled my pyjama down and he was there holding this ring box with a ring in it
09:05and it looked like he was proposing.
09:07I spent most of my formative years crying either in my bedroom or in a bathroom.
09:13In my case, I was never fully physically raped.
09:18Just everything else that comes with sexual abuse, the mental games, the inappropriate touching, the clarity.
09:26Eventually he divorced my mom.
09:27But even after that, I was the one to blame for the divorce.
09:32I was convinced it would all be my fault because I was just such an irresistible, seductress, and I couldn't
09:38help but be.
09:39I don't even know what the words would be.
09:41So when my mother told me that there was a moment that she was so scared that she stuck in
09:46front of my bedroom.
09:48When she said that, and I'm in my 20s and I spent years saying that that's what was going on
09:53and they were telling me that I was making it all up.
09:55I knew everyone around me.
09:58I knew that I knew and I knew that my dad knew.
10:02But because we didn't speak about it, it didn't exist.
10:05It was the moment when, aha, I'm not crazy.
10:10When that moment happened, that when I went to university, my father called me.
10:15After having divorced my mom, I'm in my dorm room and I get a call from France, which is strange.
10:20Pick it up and it's my father on the other line.
10:24I'm like, what, 18, 19?
10:26I'm sitting like in my dorm room bed across from my, from the cousin I shared the dorm room with.
10:33She's staring at me going, is everything okay?
10:35And I remember pretending like, yeah, he was drunk and he was telling me all the things that he wanted
10:42to have said to me out loud that he hadn't.
10:46He said, I'm in a bar.
10:55And he remembered me, right?
10:58And I'm like, you shouldn't have my number.
11:00I told you I didn't want you.
11:01They shouldn't have given you my number.
11:03He said, you know, I've always wanted.
11:06And then he just proceeded to say all the things you wanted to do with me sexually and candidly talking
11:13about touching my lips and licking.
11:15And I'm like, I'm like 19 and I can't believe he's actually saying it.
11:22I hung up and I threw the phone on the floor like I wanted to get rid of it because
11:27it was too much for a brain to deal with.
11:29But it set me free.
11:35Because it wasn't me.
11:40And I think to this day, it's really young.
11:45Simply that I could really appreciate that if you let someone mess with your head,
11:52if they didn't, that I was my own worst enemy.
11:55I thought I was an awful person.
11:57I really did.
12:00I just thought I didn't deserve to live.
12:04Right after that phone call, I kind of automatically just went up the fire escape to the roof.
12:11And I just went with my shoulder a few seconds because I thought maybe now I'll jump.
12:19Because it's just too dark.
12:22It's too dark for me.
12:25To hear his voice.
12:27And in my ear, it was too dark.
12:29And I almost jumped.
12:34But I feel I didn't want to die, you know?
12:37And I felt I felt like a guiding spirit to an ancestors who had told me to take a breath,
12:50think about it, just think that.
12:53And I did.
12:56And I stayed up there.
12:57And then a friend of mine, who was quite wise beyond her years, when she was older,
13:02she just offered me a cigarette when I started smoking.
13:07And, yeah, and I smoked that cigarette.
13:10And I was ready to sort of start talking about it.
13:17My family still denied that he was that crud over the phone, surely.
13:22But I had no doubts left.
13:24And of course, that put into question, how do I feel about my family?
13:28How do I really feel about them now?
13:30Years go by.
13:32I haven't spoken to my dad since that moment.
13:34But my family keeps insisting that when he visits, that I wait for him and that we have lunch together.
13:40One time he's listening from France, wherever he's living.
13:43And he's, I'm leaving the driveway.
13:46And he's in the car on the other side coming up the driveway.
13:51We're both essentially in the car.
13:54And I'm looking at him the other side.
13:56And he looks so small.
13:58Just this man, he's small.
13:59He looks kind of depressed.
14:02And he says hello.
14:05And I step out of the car because my grandma and great people really pushed me to do it and
14:08say hello to him.
14:09So I feel like I have to, which isn't fair.
14:12And he said, it's so brave that you would just say hello to me.
14:15I remember he said that to me.
14:16And then he also said something to the effect of, you just need to get in for it.
14:20I haven't spoken to him since, but I do know for a fact that he still doesn't admit anything happened
14:26to himself or the people around him and his new life in another country.
14:30Every woman had a different story.
14:33Every friend of mine.
14:35If there's four people at my table, if there's four women at my table, three of them have been sexually
14:39assaulted in different ways.
14:43Some of them raped, some of them touched, some of them abused.
14:51Eventually, I had to understand that it had been abuse with a capital A.
14:56And it's not because it wasn't rape that it wasn't abused.
14:59And that was very clear to me because he had done things to me and touched me and spoken to
15:07me in a way that I didn't want.
15:10And he was my dad.
15:12Making the video for the internet about my personal story with abuse.
15:18I didn't even know the title to give it at the time, you know?
15:21Is it sexual abuse? Is it not?
15:23I mean, in my mind, it already was.
15:25But was I going to get people asking me if I was right about putting it in that way or
15:31not?
15:31I was worried about what my family would think when they watched it.
15:34If they already thought that I was making a storm in a teacup, then now it was going to be
15:39intense.
15:40But to be fair, the relationship with me just deteriorated.
15:43I am going to say it now.
15:45And I have found this platform I can use.
15:48My voice no longer quivers.
15:51I'm not asking for permission to talk.
15:54I'm going to say things as they are because I knew that it would be the only way to get
16:04my voice back.
16:06To get my voice back into my body to stop justifying and stop defending its validity and its truth.
16:16Because so many of my friends on Facebook that I couldn't have fathomed, they wrote back to me saying they
16:23have a similar story.
16:25Like, a lot.
16:27And a lot of them were also saying, it wasn't right, but dot, dot, dot.
16:34And immediately, to me, it was validated.
16:38We basically can only get our power back when we scream at the top of our lungs what the truth
16:45is.
16:49That's what I did even though I wasn't screaming in the video.
16:52But that's how it felt.
16:54And I have never had that recurring dream again where I'm screaming and I feel like if I'm screaming at
17:01the top of my lungs and no one can hear me.
17:03I've never had that dream come back.