The truth will set you free... I haven't ever written about this, but it is slowly destroying my life and I can't be silent anymore.
I have been seeing my therapist for a couple years now. At first it was, "Nothing ever happened to me, I am just depressed." After a year or so, I told her about a friend of the family who sexually abused me when I was a child. That was hard enough to talk about...but now there is more. I guess I just couldn't let myself remember for the longest time- it was too painful.
The truth is, I was molested by my father when I was little. My mother knows about it, hell- sometimes she was in the same room when it happened. How could she not know? It explains why she started hating me when I was that age, calling me evil and a bad child. It is still hard for me to tell myself I am not a bad person. What my mom has said to me has always hurt me. I will never forget it. And I will never forget that she never protected her own daughter.
I have been having some really bad memories lately, sometimes I feel like I am losing my mind. I can see some things very clearly, but it is horrifying. I spend a lot of energy telling myself I am a bad person and I am making it up, although I know that when I re-live those memories that they are very real. It's like I am holding on to the denial so I don't have to admit it to myself- that MY parents could be this cruel and sick. But I must face the truth to heal.
I can't live like this. I can't sleep at night anymore and I have horrible flashbacks and nightmares. I feel so alone, like a scared little kid a lot of the time. I have to fight myself to not SI or attempt suicide. I hate that suicide is always there in the back of my mind.
I am writing this down because this pain has to stop. I am admitting that my parents destroyed my childhood, I am admitting that they were never there for me. They made my world scary. I had no control, no hope. It is very hard to say this because I feel like I can't talk- that I am not supposed to. I need to fight that. I can't let my silence destroy me anymore.
Name Withheld
My horror didn't come from the threat of physical violence. No one ever told me not to tell. No, I kept silent for years because I thought I had consented to my abuse. I thought I had asked for it.
My abuser was my grandfather, beginning on a summer day when I was nine and he suggested we take a nap together. What followed that afternoon was a masterwork of manipulation and coercion. Snuggled in the arms I had always found so strong and comforting, I suddenly found myself faced with touches I had never experienced. When I cried or protested, he would stop, comfort me, get me to say that I loved and trusted him.
You're my special girl. Aren't you my special girl? Don't you like me to hold you? You want Grandpa to love you, don't you? No...yes...yes?
And then we would - I still sicken to think of these words - "try again".
He died when I was twelve, and three years later I told my parents. They weren't able to do much but begin to fight with each other over whose fault it was, and I quickly began to behave and achieve, to prove I was all right, to take care of them. I felt like I had somehow put myself into this situation - that there was something so wrong about me that I had called this behavior out of my grandfather - and I set about trying to take care of it by myself.
In college, when I was trying to make sense of what had happened to me, I would wish that I had a violent story to tell, and I'd often add attack-like details to the way I told my story. I wanted to tell a story in which I was a helpless, blameless victim, because I felt so guilty. Why hadn't I stopped him?
I found solace in the music I played, in understanding friends, including a loving man who helped me begin to learn how love and sex could really be. And the pain and confusion faded, and I thought they had gone away.
But last year, these things began rising up with a vengeance. Of course they had waited all these years, and in a way I'm grateful that they waited until I was in a very safe place in my life. Still, as much as I know that I must experience these emotions and express this poison from my body and mind, I am at times almost overwhelmed by the grief, horror, and sadness that spills from me. At times it feels like it will never end, like I have an endless supply of dark bile within, and I feel terrified of my own mind.
I don't know if I will ever not be angry at what happened to me - but maybe I can stop being angry in ways that are harmful to me?
Thank you for the opportunity to say these words. Scream, everybody.
DKZ
Well I was raped in college, by the guy I thought trusted. I really can't do this. I have to go. Sorry, please accept my apologies. My condolences to all who have went through the terrible experience.
Cheyyen
im = badones
