Why is this so hard for me to say (or write?)
I've survived the slow recall of my childhood rape. It was a repressed memory that only began to come back after I was married for the first time. Even then, my very first flashback wasn't exactly what I admitted out loud to a therapist. No... the most horrific detail of that first long lost memory was even worse than the flashbacks and memories that my mind was slowly able to handle.
After many years, I was finally able to put the pieces together and recall most of that one terrible night that changed my life. But it was only the one time that my own older sister took me to that apartment, where the dark-haired teenage stranger went beyond my sisters expectations of 'dirtying' me up and actually penetrated my ten year old body.
I recall almost the whole thing... the familiar look on my sisters face, the Cheshire grin on his face, the Coor's cans on the table, the smokey haze that rose to the ceiling in the kitchen, the sweet stench that I later came to recognize as pot.
The trauma of that night... maybe it was to a higher degree of harm and pain physically, yet I find it so much easier to have come to terms with and to talk about than the other abuse that hit closer to home.
I still want to deny that I ever suffered on-going sexual abuse... actually, what I want to deny is that my own father was my perpetrator. There.. I said it! But what if I'm wrong? Anyone who ever met my Dad knew him to be a good man; a good husband, good father, hard working provider, well liked by everyone. Even my own husband said of my dad, "Oh, there's no way he could've ever done anything like that!" Of course, that comment only put me further in denial.
One time, well after I was married to my current husband and had at least most of my kid's, I wrote my dad a very tactful and personal letter... not outright claiming he molested me, but strongly suggesting it. My mother called me a few weeks later, wondering what I told my dad because for weeks he had been moping around the house all moody and grouchy. I didn't tell her, nor did my dad ever respond.
I surely don't want to accuse an 'innocent man'...so how do I know it was him? Can I believe my own memories more than I can believe him?
I do know that he molested both my older sister and brother... my own mother is the one who corroborated my sisters memories! Is it so unbelievable that he would have done the same to me?
I think this is a good place to end this post... It's becoming a mix of sad & angry and leaning towards going back to denial... denial is strangely more comfortable. But there is more... my dad wasn't the only one. My father isn't the one who was sneaking into my room at night... but I hesitate to say anything about 'him' because I know he was also a victim of abuse.
I've survived the slow recall of my childhood rape. It was a repressed memory that only began to come back after I was married for the first time. Even then, my very first flashback wasn't exactly what I admitted out loud to a therapist. No... the most horrific detail of that first long lost memory was even worse than the flashbacks and memories that my mind was slowly able to handle.
After many years, I was finally able to put the pieces together and recall most of that one terrible night that changed my life. But it was only the one time that my own older sister took me to that apartment, where the dark-haired teenage stranger went beyond my sisters expectations of 'dirtying' me up and actually penetrated my ten year old body.
I recall almost the whole thing... the familiar look on my sisters face, the Cheshire grin on his face, the Coor's cans on the table, the smokey haze that rose to the ceiling in the kitchen, the sweet stench that I later came to recognize as pot.
The trauma of that night... maybe it was to a higher degree of harm and pain physically, yet I find it so much easier to have come to terms with and to talk about than the other abuse that hit closer to home.
I still want to deny that I ever suffered on-going sexual abuse... actually, what I want to deny is that my own father was my perpetrator. There.. I said it! But what if I'm wrong? Anyone who ever met my Dad knew him to be a good man; a good husband, good father, hard working provider, well liked by everyone. Even my own husband said of my dad, "Oh, there's no way he could've ever done anything like that!" Of course, that comment only put me further in denial.
One time, well after I was married to my current husband and had at least most of my kid's, I wrote my dad a very tactful and personal letter... not outright claiming he molested me, but strongly suggesting it. My mother called me a few weeks later, wondering what I told my dad because for weeks he had been moping around the house all moody and grouchy. I didn't tell her, nor did my dad ever respond.
I surely don't want to accuse an 'innocent man'...so how do I know it was him? Can I believe my own memories more than I can believe him?
I do know that he molested both my older sister and brother... my own mother is the one who corroborated my sisters memories! Is it so unbelievable that he would have done the same to me?
I think this is a good place to end this post... It's becoming a mix of sad & angry and leaning towards going back to denial... denial is strangely more comfortable. But there is more... my dad wasn't the only one. My father isn't the one who was sneaking into my room at night... but I hesitate to say anything about 'him' because I know he was also a victim of abuse.
