Of games and molest

This morning has been a very unusual day.  When I opened my Facebook, I read about a mother who complained about her husband addicted to games on his mobile phone, so much so that he not only neglected his wife and child, he neglected his responsibilities as a husband, father and caretaker.  She was cursing the game developer.

The weird part was, this is not an unusual phenomenon.  So many other women commented that they are going through the same experience.

I hardly talk about this as I don't like to put down my family for the sake of publicity.

But I have to say this that I am also going through this.  It gets better now but it's still there.  And I feel this is such a huge negativity that people have to start understanding that game addiction is as bad as drug addiction.  Once you stopped, you will get withdrawal symptoms.  I am serious.

My husband is hooked on the app game, Hay Day.  It's an old game and I played it for a bit but I don't understand what's the need to get addicted to it.  So much so that he goes onto group chats to exchange items with people all over the world.

Many times I have told him off.  If by playing games can earn you money, then by all means, do it.  But the money in the games remained as just money in the games and not real money.  And the time wasted on playing the games is like money being wasted.  Time = Money, no?

Sometimes I got so frustrated that I almost threw his mobile phone into the toilet bowl.  Yes, not rubbish bin, not out of the window, but toilet bowl.  I was tempted.  

Despite addicted to the game, he doesn't neglect his responsibilities as a husband and father.  He still does all the chores, no need to tell him what to do, he looks after our baby with full attention.

That's because I have warned him multiple times, of fathers who neglected their child and ended in a tragic situation, like the case of the Singaporean father who was so into playing a football game on his mobile phone that he forced fed his 3 month old baby girl, until she suffocated and died.  Then found out more stories, like skull injury and stuff.  I didn't follow up on the story.  But poor girl.

Conclusion is, it's not the game developer's fault for creating an addictive game.  It's the individual person who downloaded it and played it for the first time and got addicted to it.  We have to be discipline and understand that there's more to it than mobile games.  We have to be mature about it.

In all honest opinion, I love playing games as well.  I was introduced to it when I was around 8-10 years old.  Those times it was on the PC.  And my first game was Jones In Fast Lane.  It was such a simple game, but oh so addicted to it.  I would stay over at my cousin sister's place and we would take turns to play this.  In this game, we start out as zero.  Then we have to earn our education, money for food and shelter and have to keep the money in the bank.  And it's repetitive on a daily basis until you achieve all the goals.

Then there are other computer games that got me addicted.  One is Monopoly Tycoon.  So unfortunate that they don't develop this into mobile app but only PC games because it's such a good game.  It's a strategy game that start in the early 60s I think and goes through the era until 00s.  You have to buy properties and earn from them and compete with the competitors.  There are different goals every week.  

Then there was Sims.  That you play God and you control the citizens called Sims.  Then Diner Dash and all the cooking games, Candy Crush and so on and so forth.  

For me, I can play the game for a long time, but then I will get tired from the repetitive actions and would quit and look for another new game.

It was while addicted to one of the PC games when I was staying overnight at my cousin's place that I was molested.  Bet you didn't see this coming.  Neither did I.  Today, I read someone's blog and she confessed about the time she was sexually harassed when she was 8.  And soon, many other women also commented that they were in one way or another, sexually abused as well when they were young.  That's when I thought, I should share my story too.

I was 10 or 11 or 12 years old, can't remember.  Just remember that I have started to bloom, with tiny breast.   My cousin brother, brother of the cousin sister that I always hung out with and stayed overnight with, did it.  The computer was in his room and we were playing a game on his computer.  My cousin sister walked out of the room to get some food or toilet or what.  He came behind me and started tickling me.  The tickle becomes like full body touching, especially the chest area.  I was confused and didn't like it.  When my cousin sister saw it, she scolded her older brother.  He was like 5 years older than me.  Cousin sister was 1 year older.

Then it became a trend and everytime I stayed overnight, he would tickle me.  And I would hide behind my cousin sister and she would protect me.  I think she knows.  Then he stopped, don't know what or how or why, but he stopped.

I have never told my parents about it because I didn't know I was molested.  I didn't know what was it.  I just knew I was uncomfortable about it.  Then found out that he used the same tricks on other cousin sisters as well.

Many years later, after my cousin sister passed away in a tragic car accident when she was 22 years old and me 21 years old, I finally told my mom.  But she brushed it off and said, oh he was just playing with you.  I was angry because at that time, I knew it was molestation.  

What makes me so angry was this.  Around the age when puberty started, my mom started to teach me about period and puberty.  She warned me that if men touch me, my breasts would grow big and it's a no-no.  Unfortunately for me, after that molestation incident, my breasts did grew big.  I felt so bad about it because I was teased by my friends and relatives.  Of course, none of them knew what happened to me or what my mom told me.  

What makes it worse was when I was in Standard 5, one of our Malay male teacher, En Nordin, was a creep.  He would suddenly made me stand up in class and asked me to raise my hands for no reasons.  Only me alone.  Then later I found out that my raising my hands up and putting it down, my breasts would show more on my uniform.  Pervert.  I can't remember if I told my parents.  But at that time I was so mad about these perverts, called men.

For so many years, I felt so guilty.  I would hunch my back, so that no one would see my breasts.  I would not touch them and would hate my body so much.  It was only when I was an adult, I learned what happened to me back then and would forgive whatever that happened.  We still see each other now and then.  And I became more confident about breasts, especially when I was 18 years old, I have a lump removed from my breasts.  That time, many professionals, aka doctors, nurses, touched them.  I was uncomfortable at first, then feel it's ok.

And now, with breastfeeding, I am so ok with it.  So many have seen it and now I walked around the house bra-less.

So, only as an adult, I began to understand that what my cousin brother did was wrong, what my Malay teacher did was wrong and inappropriate and what my mom told me about puberty and how our breasts would grew is wrong too.  That my breasts grew big because of hormones.  Nothing to do with any men's touch.  

I don't want the same incident to happen to my girl.  The perverts are everywhere.  They can be family members, people that you see everyday and can be strangers.  The scary part is, being molest by a family member is far worse than being molested or sexually abused by a stranger.  It's because we have trusted this family member and we believe we are in good hands, but we were betrayed.

I wish to protect my girl but there's only to a certain extent.  I can't protect her when she is in school, away from me.  I can only teach her so much.  But in the end, I can only ask God to please protect her from all these negativity.

The world is getting scarier by the day.  It's almost a challenge to even walk out of the house because there are so much of negativity.  

And more people are inhuman.  I just hope to make the world a better place for my girl.  God bless us all.