Hello everyone,
Let me introduce myself. I am a 31-year-old mom to a 4-year-old autistic boy and a 16-month-old daughter who is fine, thank God. I have been married for 10 years but am going through a friendly divorce, which is very weird. I'll explain that some other time. I am here looking for support from others who can relate to what I've been through and is still going through.
Here's my story. I was sexually abused by my own father from ages 6-10. I have blocked most of these memories so I don't really know exactly what happened or how often but it seemed like it was a daily ocurrence and I remember him on top of me and doing oral on him but not much else. I don't remember being in pain or bleeding or much of anything. I don't think we had sexual intercourse, but am not really sure. I just remember him always finishing off by saying it was our little secret and couldn't tell anyone. I'm sure you can all relate and apologize if this makes some of you feel uncomfortable but I am really trying to get real. I just realized today just how much in denial I have been these years. My life has just been a facade it seems. I don't know who I am really.
I thought I had dealt with this back when I was 17, when I told my high school counselor what happened after she confronted me about my slipping grades and excessive absences. The pain was so fresh in my mind at that time that it was very easy to blurt it out. My senior year was one crazy year. I was in a foster home for a month awaiting for my best friend's mom to get custody of me. I then moved with my best friend and her mom to New Jersey for 2 months but I was so depressed that I returned to Miami because I missed my brother, friends, and co-workers terribly. I loved my job at a supermarket and wanted to get back to that, and I did. I went back and moved in with a roommate and lived with her for 3 months or so and then eventually moved back in with my parents. That whole time in my life is such a blurr. Anyway, I had read countless self-help help books and wrote a lot of poetry and faced my pain by bringing all this stuff out and got angry with my father, so much so, that I could've killed him if I knew I could get away with it. When I went back home I treated my parents like crap and became the queen of the house by getting the master bedroom and not having any more curfews or anything. I did whatever I pleased which was very liberating because before that I couldn't even talk on the phone. They were very strict because I was raised as a Jehovah's Witness. I left that too when I totally rebelled from everything at 17 and never looked back.
I thought I had put that behind me and that I forgave my parents. My dad for the actual abuse and my mom for not doing anything about it. I love my parents very much and they come up to Orlando where I live now to see me and the kids on a monthly basis and talk to them most every day. They always make me laugh and the grandkids bring them so much joy. They can't stop talking about them. Anyway, they are an integral part of my life now and I like it that way. The problem is that it is all a facade. I pretend everything is just fine and dandy when it really is not.
I started seeing a therapist about two months ago when my husband decided he wanted a divorce and I was ripped to shreds. I went to her for depression and because my husband pushed me to go. The first time I saw her I told her about my dad but said that I was totally over that, which I really did believe at the time. Today, about two months later, I finally shed a tear and got into the subject of the sexual abuse from my father. I told her that I did not want to hurt their feelings and that I don't want to think of my father as a monster, which she insisted he is because he is a paedophile and that my daughter is at risk. I told her that I think it is even harder to recover from abuse from your own father because it is very hard to villify him.
Gosh, I'm so drained from writing all this and apologize for the extremely long entry but I am really trying to face this and get over it because I really haven't. Is there a book that might help me through this. An hour a week with a therapist is not going to cut it. I know I have a lot of work to do and I am ready.
