It All Keeps Adding Up... Can I Get Some Support? ... Please?

[chant2012]

I know this is redundant... But I just need to say this.

I need prayers. Well, my dad does. He was diagnosed with cancer as you know. I've been telling him to go to the doctor for months... He finally did as you know. I am trying to remain positive. I know God is here with me and with him. He has this all covered, but I'm still scared. But The Evil One feeds off of fear, so I will pray and trust in God. But I ask for prayers.

I have been working through a lot of things. I've come to realize what I know I've always known: my dad didn't have any bad intentions when he did the things he did. He never abused me sexually. Emotionally, he violated me and it had to do with his sexual frustrations and some other adult things. It was not right and it was selfish but he didn't do it to hurt me. In fact, I don't think he even knew it was wrong. I don't know how he couldn't have known... But I don't think he did. The physical punishment that happened was isolated and by the things he's said, he feels were justifiable. The "games" that we played that I loved but also found painful were just that: games. They bordered on being "sadistic" maybe. But he's not like that.. They weren't like that. I can't explain it. I guess he had a mean streak but he honestly loves me more than anything.

And yeah, he failed to stop his friend from r*ping me and is still friends with him but that's my fault... In my fear and shame, I rather harshly yelled at him to stay away and go back to sleep (he couldn't see what was happening, he could only hear it)... He only listened to what I told him to do. And he thought that I was enjoying and wanting it I think... I am not even sure if he knew sexual stuff was going on for sure... he might have "had a feeling" but I don't think he was sure. I guess even though the last thing I wanted was for him to see me like that, at the same time I wanted him to help me. It's not even that really... It's that once he found out a few weeks later when I told him what happened, he didn't do a thing and is still friends with him. I guess I am just confused and feel very guilty too. He even said, most of the guilt is mine and I must face that. And now I have been so mean and vile to him the last few years... And weirdly, none of this matters to me and I just want him to be okay.

I would kill myself if it would help him. I'd take his cancer if I could make him better. It's the least I could do. He and I used to be BEST friends. I lived for him. He was my purpose. I used to think when he would die, I would have to die too. I think I kind of planned on it. I just could not live without him. Because I didn't feel I was supposed to. I also didn't ever think I could move out and leave him.

Looking back, it wasn't healthy I guess... And hunting was "our thing"... Well, since his friend r*ped me, it's been over a year since we've hunted together due to the fact that his friend is often down there (as they own land that borders each other's land). Now, I think I will make amends with his friend and go hunting with my dad if that is what my dad wants to do. I am not sure how I feel about it. I feel it is the right thing to do.

We'll find out soon how my dad is doing. The doctor seems confident about it. God is here with us. All I know, is that I love my dad and oddly feel no ill feelings at all about any of my r*pes by any of the men who've hurt me over the years. In fact, I feel the blame. It was my fault. But that doesn't matter right now, my dad does.

 

[Muzikluvr]

Chant. DON'T go hunting with your dad and the rapist. Don't.

Discuss your post in therapy. Seek help in dealing with your dad's mortality, and your numbed feelings regarding rape.

Find a trauma therapist. Someone who understands child molestation, and just how intertwined victims become with their abusers. You are not alone in the way you feel about your dad, and just how far you would go for his happiness. But, he has created that in you to serve him, and he cares little for how it makes you feel. That's why you were angry, and that's why your anger is appropriate. Don't lose it, just because you are facing his mortality.

Please. Don't go hunting with a rapist. Don't make friends with any rapists.

I understand minimizing rape. I have done it myself. But, when you're being raped again, you will remember what's so horrible about it. The lack of control. The shaming the rapist does to you. The fear. The anger you feel toward yourself for "allowing" it by putting yourself in harm's way. All rapists make you feel like you chose it.

Please don't let the dissociation from your own feelings that you're experiencing now, make you feel invincible. You are not invincible. The more traumas you have, the more you will have to deal with later. There is no excuse for rape. Even if you can accept the blame for choosing to go hunting with a known rapist, he is still a vile and disgusting rapist who must be prosecuted... YOU are NOT his only victim. YOU are not special in that way. What he does to you, he would do to any woman as vulnerable as you. Others will be raped by that man, who didn't know what he was capable of before... like you were the first time.

 

[chant2012]

My dad didn't sexually abuse me. He loves me VERY much. In fact, I think it's safe to say he loves me more than almost anything. He is one of the best people you'll meet. And I'm afraid that I've painted him in a bad light. I didn't give him credit.

As for his friend, it's weird because he and I were so close. And I know that doesn't reflect his true nature. I've been around him my whole life; and he never tried anything ever. It was the alcohol. It's not excusable; but perhaps it's explainable? It was so unlike him.

Also, I MISS hunting. I truly miss it. My dad hasn't asked me to. This is all 100% my decision. When we have gone fishing since this all happened, he didn't take me to where it happened. He cares.

I can't bear to see him hurt...

Thank you for being so kind and concerned. Sorry if I seem obstinate. Blessings to you.

 

[Muzikluvr]

A martyr (Greek: μάρτυς, mártys, "witness"; stem μάρτυρ-, mártyr-) is somebody who sufferspersecution and death for advocating, refusing to renounce, and/or refusing to advocate a belief or cause, usually a religious one.

A martyr advocates a belief or cause. Yours is your love for your father. Your bond with him. But, that is not one that anyone else in society will support. If you are killed, you will not die a martyr. You will die a victim. One who obstinately refuses to grab her own steering wheel and drive her own path through life. You are stuck in your father's world. You cannot even see yourself from your own perspective. What you are seeing is yourself from your father's perspective, and that's why you can't remember what's so bad about being raped. You also are seeing it from your rapists perspectives, and so you understand them and you forgive them, and you believe they didn't mean to do it... and they won't mean to do it the next time either. They just can't help themselves.

You cannot argue against their perspectives because you were so young when they taught you their perspectives. Your father especially. You have no perspective of your own because you had no life experience upon which to base your perspective. You cannot identify with any other little girls, or young women. You cannot feel outrage on their behalf anymore than you can on your own. You are mired in the abuse cycle. You are the woman that people point to and suggest that women LIKE to be raped, or don't mind it, or understand it, or aren't really hurt by it. But you are hurt. I know you are. You will understand someday, if you survive.

You are not invincible. The rapist is not the victim. Your father was a terrible father and caused a lot of pain in your life.

I feel very guilty and upset... There we are again, repeating childhood conditioning... Don't live for myself... (This was not explicitly told to me but it was implied by 'their' actions and how I was to treat my dad and yeah it doesn't matter...)

It matters a lot. They trained you not to live your own life. My abusers did the same to me.

And I know deep in my soul he didn't do the things he did with sexual intent... They were not good, they were 'weird' things, but he didn't have these gross motives behind them.

Excusing him won't change what he chose to do.

He loves me so much. And when it comes to his friend r*ping me and my dad not doing anything about it... Well, that is just how it is..

You're still excusing him, I didn't quote it but you blame yourself for his not helping you because you were so ashamed that you were being raped by his best friend (or might you describe it as having sex with his best friend?).

The physical stuff wasn't too often and it was when he lost his cool. I get it. It is easy to lose your temper... But it still hurt a lot, the things he did.

Excused. He matters more than you do. He couldn't help himself, not on your account, and why should he, he's your father. You're just a daughter. (sarcasm)

And I just can't forgive myself for how I have acted towards him the last few years... I hate myself... I do. I pray he is OK.

Interesting how you can't forgive yourself, but you forgive your dad, his best friend rapist and apparently other rapists in your life as well. But, you? You hate. That's sad, and the product of seeing yourself through their eyes. Look how they see you. Yet you forgive them, love them, care for them... and they hate you.

I know God is here with me and with him. He has this all covered, but I'm still scared. But The Evil One feeds off of fear, so I will pray and trust in God. But I ask for prayers.

It's almost like you think because you got angry with your dad, and you tried to live your own life... that now you're being punished for it... and you hope that prayers will bring him back so you won't be in trouble for killing him by not being there for him anymore... or something equally as magical. You didn't do this to your dad. He got cancer. It's not karma. It's not punishment from God. It's nature. It happens.

Emotionally, he violated me and it had to do with his sexual frustrations and some other adult things. It was not right and it was selfish but he didn't do it to hurt me.

It was not right. It was selfish. And it hurt you. But you don't care. You don't value yourself anymore than "they" valued you when you were a kid... and they didn't value you... that's why they taught you not to live for yourself, but to live for others... your dad specifically.

The physical punishment that happened was isolated and by the things he's said, he feels were justifiable.

Oh, this one is cherry. Me too. My parents say what they chose they were justified to choose. Wrong. They chose wrong, and based on a lot of their own misconceived core beliefs formed in childhood with parents who were somewhat to extremely messed up. The fact that my parents defend their choices is the main reason that I don't speak to them now... as long as they think what they did was defensible, I know that they are toxic, crazy, selfish people. I refuse to be around that.

The "games" that we played that I loved but also found painful were just that: games.

Games played with parents, are not painful. Ask my kids.

The "games" that we played that I loved but also found painful were just that: games. They bordered on being "sadistic" maybe. But he's not like that.. They weren't like that. I can't explain it. I guess he had a mean streak but he honestly loves me more than anything.

You can't explain it because it's indefensible. You can't explain it because you cannot find the bridge that connects sanity to your father's perspective. You fully understand your father's perspective, but you're struggling to understand sanity... and that's scary.

And yeah, he failed to stop his friend from r*ping me and is still friends with him but that's my fault..

He's still friends with a man who raped his daughter. Wow. I guess my father 1 upped him there... when one of my rapists admitted raping me to my dad, my dad ended the friendship... although, he told the rapist that he understood why he'd done it and didn't blame him... and then got mad at me on the way home for destroying his friendship with that man. I don't expect you to be angry at my dad for me. I'm sure you will excuse him for me. I was 9 at the time. The man defended himself by saying he was only a senior in high school, and he'd heard that I was playing a rape game from my own grandma. So, obviously... he thought it was real.... and he's real sorry IF he did anything wrong.

I would kill myself if it would help him. I'd take his cancer if I could make him better. It's the least I could do.

It won't help. It will never help to kill yourself. What will help is learning to see yourself through your own senses, and with your own perspective of the world. Applying empathy and understanding to yourself first, and to others second. Expecting the same level of understanding from others that you offer them... and realizing that no one is better off when they are excused from the consequences of their own actions. No relationship is authentic where one person is expected to excuse another's transgressions time and again.

He and I used to be BEST friends. I lived for him. He was my purpose.

I think you have miswritten this in the past tense... it is still true today. He is as close to your best friend as he ever was, and the rest is obviously still true.

I used to think when he would die, I would have to die too.

I'm afraid that's what you have in mind by suggesting that you'll go hunting with him and the rapist again.

I think I kind of planned on it. I just could not live without him.

Ditto my last statement. Are you planning on dying on that hunting trip? Have you thought about it? Would you mind if you did die?

 

[Muzikluvr]

I do not write that message to hurt you. I have been where you are, sort of. I wish someone could have shaken me out of my dissociative stupor and saved me from years of ongoing traumas.

I tried to post to a website a long time ago, regarding some of the rapes I'd remembered. I wrote about how wonderful my family was, but that they just didn't respect me for some reason. And, that I probably deserved that. I never went back to check how people responded to it. I chatted with a couple of women in a chat room and they were very upset by the things I said, many were pretty similar to what you've written here. One woman didn't speak to her family anymore and she tried to tell me that I needed to distance myself from mine as well... and I thought she was trying to destroy my family. I was angry.

There are several traumas that happened after that which may have been avoided if only I had continued to reach out to people like me, people with PTSD, people with childhood sexual traumas.

So, I want to tell you how brave I think you are, and how proud I am to know you.

There are a lot of other people like us out there... possibly reading this thread, and for the first time ever realizing that they are not alone in their overwhelming capacity to love and forgive their abusers. I just hope they understand that as long as they value that trait over their own safety, they will continue to be abused.

 

[chant2012]

Hmmm. Wow. That's a lot of stuff to read and sort through. I know you are trying to help and mean nothing offensive by it. I'm sorry you were so hurt. You deserved none of it.

And logically, I know I didn't either... but part of me doesn't believe it maybe. I was an adult when his friend r*ped me so it's not nearly as bad as it could have been.

My therapist said that sometimes parents cause their children pain unwittingly. Maybe out of ignorance, selfishness, learned ways of parenting from their parents, what have you. That doesn't make them evil. They probably are not even aware they're hurting anyone at all. She said, unfortunately, that a parent might be abusive without actually intending to abuse... A parent can abuse and still love their child with a love so deep. (Granted, there are those parents who DO intend to hurt their children just because they're evil and sick. But this was not my case. My childhood was filled with more love than I can express.)

I have no doubt of my father's love for me. But, according to my T, both the good parts of my relationship with my father and the bad parts (intentional or not) can coexist; making it so confusing. She said this is where it's hard to sort through.

My dad made mistakes and yet he loves me so much. Maybe he loves me too much: codependent love. But he still tries to do his best and he always has. He isn't evil. Flawed: but not evil. But still, that doesn't mean it was right.

I am also proud that you've learned to set boundaries for yourself. And you sound like a wonderful mother with a good head on her shoulders. Your children are lucky! :)

 

[chant2012]

They changed his surgery date from the 20th of this month to this Friday, the 3rd. I am very glad. I will exhausted as I get off at 7am Friday morning and then have to drive to the hospital in my hometown for his surgery which is at 9am. Then I have to be back into work at 11pm. But it is worth it. Prayers for him appreciated.

 

[chant2012]

My dad's surgery went well. They had to take some of his muscle in his throat as well as his lymph gland and right tonsil but they got it all out. Such a relief. I am still reeling from the stuff I was dealing with before I found out he had cancer. I am just so mixed up with how I feel... I hate this. But thank you. My aunt is not doing well, now she broke her hip and had to have surgery. It went well and she is able to resume her treatments (radiation and chemo). Blessings. ♥