Childhood conditioned romantic feelings for my dad ( that JUST WON'T GO AWAYYY!! )

[saffronstuffie]

kind of vented a bit abt it on my profile a bit, but a run-down of it, my dad made me love him. I've been getting sexually abused by him since I was 2, he also romantically abused me - which was basically just, conditioning me into loving him - the abuse stopped when i was abt 11-12 ( basically when i cut-off monitored visiting with him!! because my brain was like, "hey- uhh- maybe we shouldn't keep seeing this guy, he makes us feel gross and stressed whenever we see him, but i won't tell you why just yet!! because you're still being abused!!" :'] )
i don't know how to stop these feelings at all, but I WANT them to stop! i hate how nauseous i get thinking abt loving him at all, how it makes my body feel weak and disgusting, but my brain is still wanting to!?!?! what the hell?!?
i wish my dad didn't make me center my life onto him. i'm so mentally underdeveloped, in terms of recovering/healing from abuse, because of the abuse him AND OTHER GROWN MEN made me go through, i wish i knew how to deal with this easier.
i hope other people understand, or at least kind of can comprehend, what i'm dealing with.. sorry if this was gross to read ( it was gross to type, because- ugh- literally anything about my dad...

hate that the main reasons for my issues is because of my dad, i have so many artificial memories of parental affection he's shown me, but the amount of ones that were romantic or sexual, that won't stop bothering me DAILY ( probably because of me recovering from surgery, as my flashbacks used to be at least bi-weekly, if i could sum them. unfortunately, i can't really do much for this, because it's just my body's way of dealing with INTENSE PHYSICAL TRAUMA. kind of makes sense, but also whyyyy??? ) outnumber the good memories immensely. ( most of the flashbacks are the same, but i've been discovering newer ones that are REALLY BAD. it's been a lot, for my brain - to not want to just make it stop thinking, because of how it ONLY THINKS ABOUT THIS STUFF!! ) :(

 

[Movingforward10]

You sound in a very difficult place and I'm sorry you went through what he and others did to you and the impact it's had/having on you.

I didn't have a parent abuse me like that , but had others. Although my mother was 'inappropriate' with my body. So my story is different. But many people on here will recognise the confusing and conflicting feelings there are around perpetrators. Especially when they are parents. It's a mindfield to unpick. The grooming process. The impact of grooming. The longing for a relationship and the disgust of the relationship.
It's very difficult.

"Be kind to yourself" is a phrase that is often used. One I didn't understand for a long time but now do. And it's an important phrase. Giving yourself compassion and care is a radical and healing act. Particularly when your parent(s) didn't/couldn't/chose not to.

 

[Deanna.michellle]

thank you for sharing this, i’m so sorry this is the case for you. my heart is with you, i could not imagine. I wish i could hug you!
the perfect word for this situation is grace.
your circumstances doesn’t make you.
there’s so much I want to say to you. You never deserved this from someone who is supposed to care for, love, & protect you. the betrayal, i can read it thru your words. I see you. Wishing i could do something to help! I understand the feeling, you just want it to go away.

 

[arfie]

empathy, saffron. my father did similarwise with all 11 of his children, both male and female. the cultural distinction between love and sex is confusing enough without parents acting like sex partners more than loving parents. my own father called his rendition of this, "sex education." he often forced us to "educate" each other in live porno shows.

getting past the love/hate aspect of this perversion is no small feat. so far, i am mostly just trying to purge my system of the hate toxins. my natural craving for a father's love is still a mystical mystery to me.

keep venting, saffron. your answers are in there. be gentle with yourself and patient with the process.

"hate is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die." ~12 step proverb

 

[Rose White]

It’s no easy fix. Rather years of repatterning in therapy. Not impossible but is a long process.

My dad sexually abused me at a young age too.

I did psychodynamic therapy for five years to stabilize my ego and my symptoms and now I’m doing psychoanalysis to work through my sexual issues.

 

[saffronstuffie]

You sound in a very difficult place and I'm sorry you went through what he and others did to you and the impact it's had/having on you.

I didn't have a parent abuse me like that , but had others. Although my mother was 'inappropriate' with my body. So my story is different. But many people on here will recognise the confusing and conflicting feelings there are around perpetrators. Especially when they are parents. It's a mindfield to unpick. The grooming process. The impact of grooming. The longing for a relationship and the disgust of the relationship.
It's very difficult.

"Be kind to yourself" is a phrase that is often used. One I didn't understand for a long time but now do. And it's an important phrase. Giving yourself compassion and care is a radical and healing act. Particularly when your parent(s) didn't/couldn't/chose not to.

( sorry in advance for the switch between plural and singular pronouns, just stupid system bs that's done unintentionally. )

i've been trying to give myself kindness, trust me. but the only issue is, i have an alter that's basically a conditioning introject.
he's based off my dad. ( he's not actually the perpetrator, but acts like him. he's abused headmates / alters. he yells in our HEAD when he's mad, which will make our body physically jolt while dissociating, because that happens when he argues with us.. and the thing to top it all off, his "type" of alter, or labeled role within a system, is a persecutor. it's a lot. )
it's been literal hell trying to get him to NOT be awful towards us, because he's kind of got internalized hate ( for basically being our dad, it's not like he knows how to be anything/anyone else. ) that he reflects onto us, because he thinks we're just like him right now. ( jobless, "functional" stoner, hypersexual, ect. ) he's like, always here, too.
he's basically always waiting for us to do something bad, and then gets mad at us for it, telling us to apologize for whatever we did. and go hide away. because we're bad.
either that, or he hurts himself. ( or wants to, and floods our brain with intrusive thoughts, if we manage to keep him from fronting. it takes a lot of work to fight for front with someone that REALLY wants to front, in order to hurt the body. even then, he still manages to do it sometimes. :[ )

I really wish that this was easier than just going to therapy and talking about stuff, or whatever it is people with little T trauma do for what's wrong with themselves. But I feel alone. Lost, even, because none of the therapists around me actually do therapy for even regular sexual assault. What is someone like me, who's been dealing with it my entire childhood, even supposed to do when this is the case????
The only option that feels left for us, is just waiting until something bad happens to us. And then it'll finally be all over. But we have a partner that we care for, one we want to be with for forever. ( yes, even the persecutor!! just yesterday, our partner's finally started to crack away at that harsh, rusted, exterior of self-hate + guilt he's been wearing for, like, decades. we KNOW he can be decent, he doesn't have to be "good" even, just not take out every little thing that goes wrong out on ourselves. ) Our body deserves more than to just be put back into abuse, or harmful coping mechanisms, it previously experienced. :[

 

[saffronstuffie]

It’s no easy fix. Rather years of repatterning in therapy. Not impossible but is a long process.

My dad sexually abused me at a young age too.

I did psychodynamic therapy for five years to stabilize my ego and my symptoms and now I’m doing psychoanalysis to work through my sexual issues.

I'm just worried that any type of talk therapy i try will do what it always does, flashback flood. And that always happens whenever i try to talk with people, even my own partner, about my sexual abuse. The flooding triggers worse stuff for our system, too. ( a perpetrator alter fronting, and wanting to harm themselves, because of the flashbacks. there's a few others, but this is definitely one of the main issues. ) plus, i don't really trust therapists, AT ALL, which you need to be able to do for psychodynamic therapy. because of MULTIPLE didn't help me out, after they told me how they could help ""with anything"", when I literally admitted being abused within the foster care system. they just dismissed it with asking me how i could be a better kid. ( as if i wasn't already walking on eggshells, constantly, with my last foster mother. )
Therapists never properly helped me out with the domestic abuse I regularly experienced as a teen. So I don't know how therapist ; that most definitely won't be trauma-informed, because none are, not even NEAR where i live ; will be able to help out with my childhood sexual abuse.
I feel like I'm just screwed over with the cards I've been dealt with rn. I'm sorry if my comment comes off as mean, I'm not even upset, just tired of not knowing how to get better. I do appreciate the help.

 

[saffronstuffie]

empathy, saffron. my father did similarwise with all 11 of his children, both male and female. the cultural distinction between love and sex is confusing enough without parents acting like sex partners more than loving parents. my own father called his rendition of this, "sex education." he often forced us to "educate" each other in live porno shows.

getting past the love/hate aspect of this perversion is no small feat. so far, i am mostly just trying to purge my system of the hate toxins. my natural craving for a father's love is still a mystical mystery to me.

keep venting, saffron. your answers are in there. be gentle with yourself and patient with the process.

"hate is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die." ~12 step proverb

Your words are genuinely so kind, thank you! I have SO much hate for my dad, I'm not sure if that hate will ever settle, but the love is new, as of recent. It's definitely a repressed "new", because I wouldn't react so viscerally to it if it wasn't something I had no experience with before. ( i felt like clawing open my lower stomach / abdomen! this is a normal feeling i get, with a lot of bad stuff i remember about him. )
Think that it might've not helped how evangelical my dad was, he believed in god - I think - but he also viewed himself as god. So everytime I'd go to sunday school, and got told something about god ( his affection, mercy, and forgiveness for all his children, ect. ) I thought it was just about my father, and how HE "loved" me!!
I wish I could go back to before he started his abuse, to kill my dad, sometimes. It would've made me be in a lot less of danger than I know I would'nt be in, if I just had a normal, and decent, dad.

 

[arfie]

Think that it might've not helped how evangelical my dad was, he believed in god - I think - but he also viewed himself as god.

what my father evangelized on depended on ? ? ? which brand of beer he was drinking? who knows what. he often used religion/philosophy to justify his "education." i s'pose i am grateful i never had to fit in with any sunday school crowd for very long at a time, but the cognitive distortions plague me to this day.

I wish I could go back to before he started his abuse, to kill my dad, sometimes. It would've made me be in a lot less of danger than I know I would'nt be in, if I just had a normal, and decent, dad.

it's not my business, but i find myself hoping this wish never comes true. i'm not sure incest survivor for murderer is a fair trade. however, your anger is well-justified. anger channeling is my soul saver when my anger escalates to this intensity. my earliest anger channeling exercise was taping his picture to a fence post and beating the unholies out of that picture. dipping my stick in a catsup bottle added an especially gratifying splat.