Sufferer Hello, recently confronted childhood abuser

[Daydreamer]

Hello all,

I just created an account and wanted to introduce myself.
I have been reading your forum for a while now and I thought I could join, get some support and offer some support back.

I wanna start by saying that after reading some of the discussions here I am sorry for all the painful things you had to go through and I really admire your strength and determination. I am realy happy to become a part of your supportive community.

As for me, I am a woman in my middle twenties. As a child I have been abused by my father, first physically and later sexually. The sexual abuse was a secret until about a year ago, when i confronted my father about it. I also told my Mother then.
Since the confrontation (which was very emotional and spontaneous) my relationship with my parents have been very difficult.
I have very limited contact with my father, my mother is very confused, she does not want the rest of the family to find out, including my siblings.
That situation is causing me a lot of anxiety. I do have a therapist, and I am trying to work through that problem.
The main issues I am trying to figure out in therapy are:
- recognizing what kind of impact my abusive childhood has on me now,
- recognizing how much power my father still has over me, emotionally and mentally,
- making sense of my relationships with my parents and close family, what could it be in the future.
One of the very difficult issues for me is the fact that my abuser was also my father. That means, besides molesting me he did other things too, positive things.
So I feel guilty for being angry at him and not wanting to see him. I am wondering what my obligations are towards him, but also my mother since both of them want me to keep that secret.

Thank you for reading.

 

[Tornadic Thoughts]

Greetings and glad you chose to become a part of the community. Not glad for the reasons why we've all found it necessary to seek this space out. Have you been diagnosed with PTSD? Do you have any external support via therapy or other treatment options?

Our local area has a sexual/domestic abuse shelter that offers ongoing free counseling to anyone who has experienced either or both. I've found it takes quite a village to help me navigate this thing called life.

Sexual abuse by anyone is such a hard thing to face, regardless of the circumstances, but I feel it adds a whole new level of complicated when it's a parent or family member. Glad you reached out here. Wishing you wellness and relief in finding ways that are the healthiest for you.

 

[Still Standing]

Welcome, lenaandlore, Glad you found us. Even more supportive of you that you are able to talk about your history. Sadly, I am not able to give you advice on how your experience will continue to affect you. It tends to be individualized as to how, when and where, one may react (or not react) It took me until well into my 60's before I acted out a flashback. Fortunately, you are in counseling on the front end of your life. That is a good thing. It is going to take some time to work out boundaries and how to go forward concerning you mom. The only thing that would make me bound up tighter than a ball of rubber bands is your parent's request to keep your experience secret. Why? Who are they protecting? For one, they are protecting your dad, the abuser. IF you have sisters, keeping quiet may not be the best thing...for them. They may also have been abused. You may be their open door to find courage to expose their own abuse. This is something to discuss with your counselor. See what advice he has to say about going forward.

 

[Sweetleaf]

You have no obligations towards him whatsoever. All the kindness in the world doesn't make up for rape. You owe your father nothing.

My father was an alcoholic, kinda just a shitty father too. He did do a lot of things for me and with me, which I enjoyed and which were good, but that doesn't make up for what he did. He had me watch pornography with him starting at like 9 or 10. I don't really know what was up with that, or what all went on with that, or what that was about. Didn't even think about it for like a decade, until recently.

I owe him nothing. You owe your dad nothing. I havent spoken to my dad in 8 or 9 years or had any other form of contact, even though he's tried contacting me many times. Nope. Not going to happen. I don't give a f*ck that he misses me because he was just complete shit and dropped his end of the parent-kid bargain, if you will. "Be nice to me as a kid and raise me well and I'll take care of you when you're old" - that's the bargain IMO. My dad broke that. Your dad broke that. We owe them absolutely nothing.

Don't let people bully you into being nice to him - they don't know what the f*ck they are talking about because they were sheltered and had good parents. You owe him literally nothing.

Also, you shouldn't feel like you have to listen to your mom's attempts to silence you. You don't have to tell anyone about anything, but you also don't need to let her hold you back.

I know first hand about those conflicted feelings of guilt, in relation to parents doing bad things and feeling bad about judging them for it. It's hard. But you're not alone. Just know you owe him nothing, and for abusing you like that, he broke his end of the bargain, and that means you owe him nothing. People break contact with their parents over less. Be good to yourself and welcome to the forum.

 

[EveHarrington]

Welcome!

My father abused me.

You don’t owe either of your parents anything.

And if you keep their secret? And if he goes on to abuse your nieces and/or nephews? Are you going to be able to live with yourself at the end of the day knowing you kept his dirty little secret?

 

[Daydreamer]

Thank you for your replies! It' priceless to get this kind of encouagement.

Have you been diagnosed with PTSD? Do you have any external support via therapy or other treatment options?

I am using an online therapy service. My therapist and I message few times a week. I do not know how official diagnosis looks like, but my therapist said that my anxiety and emotional reactions are sympomatic of PTSD.
Except for therapy I have a lot of support from my boyfriend.

Still Standing - I know you are right that by staying silent I protect only my father. But it would affect a lot of people if I did talk about it. Especially my Mom, she stayed with my father so it would be really hard for her if all that was out in the open.
That really resonates with what EveHarrington said about him possibly abusing other kids too. I do not have nieces or nephews yet but I might in the future and I know the right thing to do would be to protect them, not my father.
I have an older sister whom I told, and she has a memory of one incident too. I also have younger brothers - they do not know. It is a really big problem for me. I feel so stuck at this, I can't keep on pretending that everything is fine but I also feel like I can't tell the truth. At least not yet.
I understand what both of you are saying and while logically I think you are right about it, the things I logically think and the things that I feel are worlds apart - it is really hard.

EveHarrington - I am so sorry for what your father did to you, thank you for sharing.

Tibergrace - I am sorry to hear about the way your father treated you as a kid. Being forced to watch stuff like this at that age must have been really damaging and confusing.
To respond to your first sentences - there was no actual rape involved, the abuse was fondling my breasts and genitals.
I understand what you are getting at with "breaking the bargain" and it does make a lot of sense to me. I just have a really hard time dealing with it. It' so confusing to feel that wide range of emotions towards one person. I can't eally hate him and I can't really love him.
Same goes for my Mom, you all probably know that very well. Wondering how much did she know, why didn't she stop him. But at the same time I feel really sorry for her and see her as a victim in this whole thing too. It' all so confusing and painful.

Thank you all again for responding. I am reallyg glad I reached out to you.

 

[littleoc]

But it would affect a lot of people if I did talk about it. Especially my Mom, she stayed with my father so it would be really hard for her if all that was out in the open.

So, let's imagine you have a kid and a husband. One day, your kid confronts your husband in front of you about the sexual things he did to her.

You don't show any support to your bundle of joy. Instead you stay with the abuser, and because it makes you feel guilty and confused, you tell your baby girl to keep it a secret, forever, even at the cost of her own health.

Does that sound right?

You don't strike me as the kind of person who would do such a thing. So why is it okay when you're the child here and not the mother?

Just food for thought. I'm glad you made it here :)

 

[Sweetleaf]

To respond to your first sentences - there was no actual rape involved, the abuse was fondling my breasts and genitals.

That's sexual assault. Just because it's not penetrative sex doesn't mean it's any more excusable. What he did was extremely wrong. Stuff like that can be distressing and disturbing enough when it happens to you as an adult and is done by another non-related adult, I imagine having a family member do that to you while you were a child would throw a whole lot more into the mix.

It's common for sexual assault victims to try to minimize things, I think. It's hard to not try to minimize things that can be so distressing. What happened to you is still rape.

The sexual assault I experienced in my several year domestic violence situation as an adult was of many different types. Some of my most distressing memories are ones that are sexual assault but don't involve penetration down there.

Just because you can think of things that might have been worse, doesn't excuse anything he did or make it any less.

I understand what you are getting at with "breaking the bargain" and it does make a lot of sense to me. I just have a really hard time dealing with it. It' so confusing to feel that wide range of emotions towards one person. I can't eally hate him and I can't really love him.

I know exactly how you feel there. It took me some time to get over that and shift fully to hating him and not feeling bad about it at all. Even then, every few years I've had some low moment where I start feeling guilty about not contacting him for so long, but when that happens I just speak with my mother and she helps me remember why he's so bad and why I shouldn't talk to him.

It helps me to focus on the bad things he did. It helps me realize that the good didn't really matter - that I didn't really matter to him.

 

[Daydreamer]

littleoc- thank you for your input, it helps to put things in perspective a little bit, even if it's a painful perspective.
Tibergrace - thanks again for all encouraging words. I realize that to some extend maybe I am trying to rationalize or minimize what he did.

I am at the beginning of my journey, I know it's gonna take some time and a lot of work from my side to make some sense of all that.
Hearing from you - people who are alreay ahead of me on the journeys gives me inspiration and hope, that I can get better too.

I already feel like I made a little baby step towards opening up about it by reaching out to you. I hope at some point I will be ready to open up to those who should and deserve to know about it.

Thanks to everybody who read and to all of you who replied, it's a big help.
It's really nice to meet you all :)

 

[WillyKat]

Welcome to the forum @lenaandlori .

Agree with other posters that you don't owe your father anything. You need not ever speak to him again, but if you do, make it dependent upon him admitting his wrongdoing, getting some treatment, committing to it as Priority 1, and making real progress. It's unlikely he would ever get to the admission part, unless he was forced to do it, so there's no need to think on it much.

As far as your mother goes, I realize that's difficult, but consider the possibility she enabled. As far as your siblings are concerned, it's not her choice about informing them. It is yours. And if you were treated so badly, it raises the possibility that they were too.

Have you read Judith Herman's book, Trauma and Recovery. You might find it helpful and very informative. That said, it's overly academic in tone and seems aimed at an audience of therapists. It's unfortunate that it wasn't written more for survivors. Still, there's a lot of good stuff there.

 

[Scarlet13]

Hi, so I completely understand that feeling about how you don't know if you should love or hate your abuser and how you can have good memories along with bad.

My mother could be a really good person at times, but she had a lot of blind spots.
That is how I think of it.
I got hurt because of her blind spots.
It sounds like your mother is choosing your father over you.
It is time to ask, what do you need and want?
It is time to choose yourself.

 

[Daydreamer]

What I need and want is a break from that mess, from stress, anxiety, guilt, racing thoughts. But I don't think there is a way for my to get that, at least not soon.

My therapist said that in her opinion it's better for me not to work on my relationship with my father while I'm still working through my trauma, but that may take years. I find it difficult to give myself the time. I often get into some kind of panic modes - that I have to deal with it and solve it as fast as I can.

My father's reaction to the confrontation was a little agressive. He denied parts of what happened, yelled and implied I'm lying. He did not apologized and when I asked him if he ever thought about it and had any regrets he said he did not.

Thank you for replying, and I am sorry about your painfully experiences.
Thank you @WillyKat for a book recommndation. I did not read it yet and I will definitely check it up.