[CindyABW]

Hello Samithemage:

I never thought I would be posting these kinds of things either. But like you ...here I am. I am more comfortable with an online group at this point. I've only been in active recovery for a few months.

Sexual abuse by a relative is a tramatic thing to deal with, I understand from experience. My brother was my abuser and maybe someone else, I can't remember everything. I have memories back to when I was 3 or 4 but little detail.

You are not alone. You are on a path to heal. You are brave.

Welcome,

[AH03]

I'm interested in sharing my story and getting support from others like me who experienced abuse as a child...

[DianaJoy]

AH03, please feel free to share your story in any thread here, and to create a new one if you'd like. I've only just recently gotten the access to change the settings - you should be able to create a new thread in any of the forums :)

[Beautiful Hair]

I realize I can't start a new topic in this particular section of the forum, but wanted I wanted to say related to the first few steps in your Survivor to Thriver book.

I so appreciate that this book is made freely available to those who need to do this work. I have to do a good, hard housecleaning and some laundry and errands today, but by this evening, I hope to sit down and begin reading and doing the exercises.

xo
BH

[Beautiful Hair]

I'm curious about something. Since I've begun dealing with the abuse, I seem to be losing sleep. Nothing consciously wakes me up; I just wake up suddenly at 2 in the morning, feeling like it's 2 in the afternoon, thinking about trivial stuff. I wonder if bringing my past out into the open is causing this.

[Drenched]

Emotionally abused by alcoholic parents, sexually abused from12-14. Then being sexually assaulted at 20 doesn't make for good memories. Don't know what else to do, or where to go anymore. Tried family member I could always talk to. Not anymore. Haven't heard anything from them in over a month, and their a family therapist. Been "dealing" with this since I was a kid, I'm now 55 years old.

[Beautiful Hair]

Glad you found us, Drenched. I only recently joined, but have been made to feel welcome and supported.

[jenreedy]

I would like to post on this forum

[DianaJoy]

JenReedy, you're welcome to post to any thread here, or to create a new thread. I've changed the settings on the board so that users can create thread, I just haven't updated all the existing threads to show that :)

Welcome, Drenched! Thank you for sharing your story

Beautiful Hair, I love your username! Working on the abuse could very well be part of what's keeping your awake, or waking you up. Sometimes things, like sleep, get worse for a bit. Then again, it could be something else. Regardless, I do hope it clears up soon! Insomnia is rough.

[Drenched]

I don't want to explain, so I don't have to remember. When I remember, it hurts, and I cry.....

[Drenched]

I was sexually assualted. I didn't remember it until about 2 months ago. I don't know why it came back. It happened 35 years ago. I remember the fear I felt thinking I was going to die, that he was going to kill me that day. He had a gun, and fired it less than 6 inches from my face. I was terrified, but now I relize that's exactly what he wanted me to think, so he could do anything he wanted to me. I was 20 years old, and was supposed to be a man, but I had absolutely no control over anything. I remember begging him not to kill me. To this day because of what he did, I don't have a best male friend, nor ever will, I can't trust them. I've managed to repress it for that long, but now I think of it almost every day.

[DianaJoy]

Drenched, it sounds like you're in a break-through crisis. Dealing with that break-through crisis is the very first step in the Survivor to Thriver manual. It's hard to process the memories, but you can do it! You've already survived the abuse.

You can read more about the steps in the manual - online or paper version - hllp*://www.ascasupport.org/manual.php You may want to look into seeing a therapist that isn't a family member. Often county health clinics have therapists available for low or no cost.

Good luck!

[littlem]

When I was 2 my mother left my father and took me across the country. For 3 years we lived with other family and I had a sporadic relationship with my dad, who could barely afford to travel to see me. When my mother remarried, her new husband insisted that my ties to my father be severed, claiming financial rights. My mom complied, actively, being so disappointed with the end of her first marriage. I believed what they told me about my dad--that he didn't care enough about me to try to have a relationship with me. In this way I became brainwashed starting age 6. At age 8, I was adopted.

Then Dad #2, as I call him, began to fight me on everything. He was cold and cruel, and openly hostile to everything I said, no matter how harmless, innocent or child-sweet. He and my mom frequently "spanked" me, painfully (please, it's beating) with wooden spoons. I tried desperately to please other kids and adults around me but quickly found my best talent was bringing out their impatience and ugliness. I became bullied at school and at home, and trusted few. My grades plummeted as I lost interest in achievement, despite test scores showing that I was gifted. I made very few friends because I didn't want the embarrassment of bringing them to my very nice but very hostile home. In short, I checked out. The shaking started when I was 9, the face-slapping when I was 11 (sometimes backhand) and the picking me up and throwing me when I was 14. By the time I was 12, I reached a point of dissociation that was so severe a teacher described me as "disturbed" to my mother, and I was taken to therapy. My therapist was the only adult I felt I could go to, so it was a blessing. For a while things got better and I even got to choose my own clothes. Then as I left therapy and got older, it got worse. I entered puberty, and Dad #2's behavior around me changed. He would touch me on my bottom or my chest as I walked past him, WHENEVER I walked past him, but as if it were an accident.

By the time I reached 14, the lockdown began. In the first month of my new private high school--where I didn't know anyone yet--I was grounded for a month after spending an hour with a boy at a McDonald's and lying about it. That pretty much killed my budding friendships and I got very isolated and so lonely. I began cutting my arms soon after and had frequent thoughts of suicide. My grades stayed down, and every report card meant my parents would shut me with them in their bedroom and scream at me for hours, as I wept and begged for them to stop. The first time, I showed them my arms in desperation. My mom insisted that Dad #2 talk to me on the couch about it. There, with no one else around, he touched my breast, then ended the conversation as if nothing had happened.

In the summers I was required to stay home and look after my younger half-sisters most days rather than see my friends, while Dad #2 worked and my mom went to the health club or ran errands. In the evenings, I started smoking marijuana and using hallucinogens with the small group of friends I did have. During the school year I went to school high repeatedly. High school was a sad blur, punctuated with some heartbreaking relationships and some close friends who later came to reject me completely, for whatever their reason was at the time. As I've said, bringing out the worst in people seemed to be my great talent.

When I was 18 I moved out and started working, having been told that despite my family's high income, I had to earn full-ride scholarships for college and would not be given any help. I worked and stayed out of trouble and out of debt, but drank a ton and used a lot of drugs.

When I was 25 I stopped partying and put myself through college. No help was ever offered. When my youngest sister went, my mother and Dad #2 paid her living expenses.

I reconnected with my father in my 30's. He was a kind and generous man who had let himself be convinced by my mother when I was little that my life would be better without him. Our relationship was gaining some traction when he developed pneumonia and died without warning in hospital, in front of me, as I was otherwise alone, of a VRE infection. That was two years ago. I'm glad I was there for him when he went. That's the best thing I can say about it. My mother has apologized for separating us. I appreciate it, but it hasn't helped anything yet. I hope it does some day.

I got married 6 years ago to a guy who turned out--you guessed it--to be abusive. Very. We have a three year old and have been separated since January of 2010. The excruciating irony here is that I want more than anything to have a family life that is loving and intact, and supportive for all. But I will never have that. I get through every day just working and relearning how to be independent, but feeling for the most part that I will never love anyone, that I don't have the ability to trust anyone enough. Or, doubting that any trust I would give would be misplaced. I don't trust men, I trust a handful of women, and I barely trust myself to build the kind of life that could make my son happy and emotionally healthy.

I've been in therapy for three years. But I'm hollow, afraid that I'll be isolated forever and haunted by near-constant grief and anger that just float, never really going anywhere, and never healing. I've come here because I don't know what to do and I ask for your help. I want to feel happy some day. Thank you for reading.

[Darkstar]

Hello,
I am brand new to this site. I have only recently admitted to my wife what happened to me and together we told my therapist last week. I am a little confused on how or where to post on this forum. I have never spoken with anyone about what happened to me when i was a kid. After all these years living with this chip on my shoulder, and being filled with hate and anger... I want to get help so I can finally be happy. I end up taking my anger out on loved ones... Verbally not physically ... I just want this anger I've been living with for almost 30 years to go away.. I don't want to be a hot head pissed off at the world anymore. I want to have children with my wonderful wife but not until I can be calm. I don't want kids to grow up with someone filled with so much hate. I have so much anger. Yet, im blessed with a great wife who loves me and great friends and family the best dog in the world.. Why can i never just be happy? I feel this burning hate filled rage inside me every day. Just want it to go away. Anyway that's it for now.
Thanks.
DS

[DianaJoy]

Welcome to the forum, LittleM and Darkstar! Feel free to read, reply, and post to any forum or any thread here.

The Survivor To Thriver manual (www.ascasupport.org/manual.php) lays out the healing steps, and gives a lot of good guidance on how to grow from surviving the abuse to thriving. It's a great resource, as are the other posters here :)