[gloworm]

I'm not too sure what I'm doing here so just bare with me. I dont know if this is the right place to post this or not. Anyway here goes. I have very little memory of my childhood , just little bits and pieces untill I was 10 years old. so some of this I remember and some of it has been told to me by other members of my family.
My father was a child molester. When I was six years old he was caught trying to molest a little boy in our town. My family was a very prominant name in our town and so rather than put him in jail and cause a scandel, it was decided to run him out of town. my mother went to my grandparents and was basically told that she married him and now she had to stay with him. this was in the 1940s. So they packed us up and moved to another state. my father went to work for a friend of his there. we would sometimes go over to their house to visit. I remember one night while we were there, this man asked me If I would like to see his rabbits. He took me outside and when we got to the rabbit cage he put something in my hand but it wasn't a rabbit. I went running back inside but I didn't go to my parents I went to my sister and the other children. I must have known somewhere inside of me that I wouldn't get any help there. Also I remember having nightmares of being locked up in a shed in that same backyard and knowing something terrible was coming to get me . Anyway my only memories of my childhood are mostly sexual. When I got married at 16years old my husband told me I wasn't a virgin. But I had never been with a man before him that I knew of. Also when I was seven I remember me and the little boy next door exploring each other and I was telling him where to put it but first you had to put a leaf over it. how would I know about contraception at 7 yrs old. or where to put it. There are so many things that dont add up in my memorys.
When I was 47 I was taking care of my father .He was living in a nursing home. I kept asking my sisters and children to visit him but they wouldn't. Finally my son told me that he would never go see him as long as he lived that he had molested him every weekend from the time he was 6 untill he was 11. this just floored me. I called my older sister and she said that he had her too/So then I called my younger sister and she said he had molested her too. How could all this have happened all around me and yet I had no memory of it. The nursing home wouldn't allow me to confront him with it because they were afraid he would have a heart attack. I had to take care of him untill I had a really bad wreck a few months later. He decided to move to texas with some friends of his then. It turned out to be a cult and they took him for everything he had. He died there all alone a few months later. I have never had closuer over this and he never asked anyones forgiveness for what he did.I need to know if I was molested too and why I cant remember. my sisters said he used to give them to his friends. how could anyone do that to their own child. I know this all happened a long time ago , but it has caused me to make a lot of mistakes in my choices in men and caused untold pain in my family. I hope someone will read this and tell me how I can remember whats happened. thank you
since writing this post 40 people have read it but no one has written a reply. I really need to hear from someone just so I 'll know someone is really reading it. I dont know how to start to try to remember whats happened. thank you
gloworm

[ERNEST]

I am by no means an expert on this topic. I am a fellow survivor. I began my journey into recovery in the year 2004, when I first told someone about my abuse. What I have learned about sexual predators is that they more often than not they victimize anyone that they can get their hands on. I am 1 of 4 children and I know for a fact that my sister and one of my brothers were also victimized by my father. So I don't know how many other victims there could possibly be out there. I really hope that this information gives you a reason to keep searching for answers and to be able to make sense of this part of your life. It bothers me to know that as we speak there are probably thousands of children around the world being robbed of their innocence by some sick, perverted demon in a position of trust.

[Yves_Papa]

I am sure that the best way to help you remembering is to keep on talking and listening.
I have the opportunity to participate in ASCA meetings with actual people, and this is extremely powerful, actually far better than any of the paid therapy groups out there. There is nothing like talking and listening about the ordeals to which we have been subjected with real people.
If you have the opportunity to come to the San Francisco Bay area, I highly recommend that you come in to some of our meetings. You could use the ASCA link on top of this page to find out more.
Also, as far as I know, you are more than welcome to start meetings in your own area. ASCA has created a meeting format that allows for lay people to run them with peer survivors safely. The materials are all available on-line, and there is training available. There will actually be a training class next weekend, and if you can make it, please reply to this and I will see if and how we could get you in.

[dinowoman]

when i find a memory reoccuring... i try to find time to close my eyes while i am in the tub of warm water thus i don't dwell to long on it. when the water gets cold i must take a break. anyway remind yourself you are an adult now and they cannot hurt you now. at some points you have to remind yourself again. there you can cry all you want and be ready to clean up the mess. anyway close your eyes and focuss on the images you do remember allow yourself to ask the questions what was i doing before that? After that ect. what was your least favorite outfit. that was probaly one you were wearing when the event occurred. imagine the nasty things but alter them knowing you are an adult now and use your adult self to demand that he stop doing this to you use statements like i was a child you are my father and you were surpose to protect me from people like you. imagine him responding to you not as a molester but as a father and appologizing to you addmitting he was wrong even if he would never do so in life. keep both memories. the one where he hurt you and the one where you defended yourself and he appologizes. if it were done to him he would have wanted retribution..don't ask him why he did it there is no good answer there. hope this helps

[ellison]

I can identify with your feelings. The wondering and lack of closure can be really hard. Just keep posting, you are heard here and supported. There is no judgement made. Sorry I can't offer much more than this at the present time.
Ellison

[Emms]

I still have to remind myself at times that my abusers can no longer hurt me, they're dead. It's weird because even after her death, my mother was haunting me and hurtine me. She left me a lot of debt problems to clear up and also told a lot of lies about me that I still have to clear up someday. Yes, we're adults now, we're strong enough now and our abusers can do nothing to us anymore, though it still feels they can at times. We've survived and no one here will judge any of us, that's what makes it such a good place to come.

[Pandalynn]

I was sexually abuse by my so called mothers boyfriend. When I got older I decided to just forget about it. Then I started having bad dreams. Then I started to remember again. I got help from a counselor on this. I learned that the reason people don't remember is because the trauma was so bad that they block it out. So there are some things people don't remember. What made me remember again is my bad dreams and watching a movie on someone being sexually abused. I hope this helps.

[Emms]

One thing that seems to keep appearing in a lot of ppls posts is the boyfriends of mothers. I had that one too, along with my granddad and my mother herself. I think some men look for this, they look for a woman with a young child puropsely so that they can get to the child.

[littleb]

I AGREE! I think sexual predators have a "more the merrier" clause, they look for a group of weak ppl they can easily mentally and/or physically manipulate. It may not be a concious effort but it is there all the same. I think thats what makes a big draw to single mothers/fathers, they are financially not as stable, they have to handle the pressures pf raising thier children all alone, so when some guy/gal comes around telling them they'll help take care of them, it sounds great.

And then (if) you wake up and you find not only have you been abused but your children as well. its sad.

[Pandalynn]

I agree littleb and emms, Its so sad but very true.

[littleb]

I went to bed last night, and my man and I fought over a back massage, so stupid but we did. He wanted one, I used to give them to him all the time but havent in like 2 years....which ill admit is a long time but have given plenty of back rubs idk sometimes he makes me feel guilty, like I dont do enough, but is just hard enough to get up sometimes and do anything at all. anyways, it took me an hour to get to sleep after that and then every hour after that I jolted myselfl awake. I think I even woke him up popping out of bed all frantic at about 1am, idk if it was the fighting or what, but had a horrible time trying to sleep last night.

I know its me, but when we fight, I automatically think he doesnt love me anymore, which is silly to say, or think, I think (hope), I want to say I know its not true and mean it, but can't make the feeling go away. I know that all in itself hurts him because he's never left me or done anything to make me feel that way, but I cant make myself not feel that.

Not to keep going on/off diff topics but sometimes i can't cry either, sometimes I cant feel even when I want to. Sometimes I feel like I'm here, but Im far away. and i keep finding myself revisiting thoughts of suicide, which makes me cry even now, but its not so much that I want to die, or kill myself, than it is I wish I wasn't ever born. I dont feel this way all the time, i dont think, but generally following a fight, when I feel even lower about myself than I normally do (which as im sure most of you know is already pretty low). idk, im hoping that in talking about it, I dont act on anything like it, ever. Its like theres two ppl the one tht hates me and the one that doesnt, and its a constant fight between the two, and I never know whos going to win from one min to the next. I cant get rid of them, and I can't stop them. I'm just here while they battle it out.

[littleb]

Okay after reading, and re-reading and re-reading, i think i know where im at...and im dissapointed to say its not as far as i hoped but at the same time....atleast im not on step 1.

I feel stuck at step 3. I'm here everyday almost posting, but outside of that, ive no help, i don't talk about it, no support, no professional help....and i've changed nothing in my lifestlye to try and commit to this. I still do the same things day in day out.

Im so flighty....so wishywashy, I'm ok one min, then seriously depressed the next. I can't seem to make a commitment, i can when i feel good, its all dandy then, but within 5 mins i could be feeling depressed again and it all goes out the window. I feel like i repress things every day, it gets too much and i push it away. I go home n push it away, forget about it, its like im going a step back for every step forward......am getting no where.

The more i read the manual the more i know i need to seek professional help of some sort, there's more to this than what i can handle by myself, i need to be in couseling or therapy or something..everything in the manual tells me i need to do it, but i dont have money, and im afraid they'll put me on meds and I CANT be doing more drugs than im already doing...unless it will magically prevent me from doing other drugs, which i doubt but...who knows so....i can't commit, even tho i want to (or is that another excuse?). I have insurance, maybe i should try (even tho i haven't paid ANY of my medical bills from before)...i just dont know what to do if the ins doesnt work, and i suspect it won't. Where do i go from here?

all this talking makes me naeseous, my stomaches doing backflips *right now*.

I don't want to be just "going through the motions" anymore with no real intention of healing... i want to heal, i want to be okay, i really do. I just need to get past this step, and have no idea where to start or how to take that leap. Or what to do if i take that leap n fall flat on my face??

[Emms]

It's funny how memories come back to us. Just reading and replying to some other posts I had the most vivid memories of my mother's behavoir around my old boyfriend and his friends many years ago. She would wear her skirts as short as possible and would play fight with these young lads. She'd roll around in the hall playing tickling games with them and play fight like a young boy, making sure her body was touching theirs. She didn't do it when my dad was there but I think he knew it was going on. I'm pretty sure some of the lads said something too cos a couple of them were stopped from visiting us by their parents. They were around 16 years old, she was in her 40s.

Anyway, these games remind me so much of the tickling and touching games my grandad played with me and touched me where he shouldn't have done. I was much younger, but it was a similar thing. It occurs to me now that my mother was kind of committing a sort of child sexual abuse, except that the boys were not legally too young as they were 16. It's sick when I think about it but she was doing the same as her father and as these were teenage boys, they responded and probably thought she fancied them, which would make them feel good as she was attractive. In her own way, she was a sexual abuser too, just like her own father. I know it doesn't always work like that, it's a myth that abused children always turn into abusers themselves but true that many abusers have been abused themselves as children. It's not the same thing as saying most abused children will become abusers, cos I didn't and I doubt if any here did, but it does happen and it obviously happened to her. Her family really were a bunch of perves and I wonder just how much abuse actually went on before my time. One thing's for sure, I was the last. The chain is broken now. They're all dead, thank God!

[littleb]

Hooray for breaking the cycle! you've got to wonder, how long does this go on in families before one of us wises up to the fact it "shouldn't be this way"?

It kills me, drives me CRAZY, when ppl tell me they "beat their kids" or whatever, because that's how they were raised.....its not that hard to look back and see that "how you were raised" made you very unhappy, why would you turn around and do it to ur kids then?

My dad used to scream at us, and he'd say sometimes "i know you don't like me yelling, i didn't like my dad yelling at me" (which was usually what he said before he imploded and ended up on another drinking binge)...and it always made me think "if you didn't like it, why do you do it to us?"...

i dont want to talk badly of him right now tho, losing his mom, im losing my grandma, didn't know her all that well, but couldn't have, being as isolated as I was from everyone. Im actually worried about my dad, as much shit as hes put us all through, i still feel bad for him. Maybe i shouldn't, maybe i should be applying that to myself, but i feel like atleast "i can be helped"...my dad can't. He didn't deal with things well when grandpa died, i can't imagine he'll do all that well when grandma passes too....

I need to call her and say something, just wish i could figure out what. I feel so bad, and so stuck.

ugh back to work, ive been busy on the work front too, so not ignoring anyone just not able to post as much as i did before "right now" (watch i'll post a dozen times today cuz i said that)

[detach]

Gloworm,

I'm new here and just wanted to say I'm sorry for your pain! Thankfully I wasn't sexually abused myself (that I can remember), but more emotional trauma, except when my mom tried to strangle me of course.

Anyways, I had a stepfather (whom I hated) that would get in bed with me drunk when I was 5 yrs old and for yrs I tried to remember if he touched me or not....cuz he was creepy. Anyways, I recently came to the conclusion that if he did and I don't remember then it's my brains way of protecting me, so why open pandoras box....so, I have decided I have enough trauma to deal with and I'll let that piece go...

take care
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