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readytomoveonbut
I want to break free of my past and live my life already. I got out of the home recently. Everything is very stressful and tenuously in place, and now, of all times, my fear and suspicion about being molested in early childhood have returned. Because I keep going back home and traumatizing myself, I guess. It feels like I'm married to my parents and I'm like one of those women who keeps going back to her boyfriend who beats her. Why do I keep going back? It hurts to be around them. I get nervous on the way there and the whole time I'm there I want to leave. I know they manipulate me with money and food and the family pet to get me to come over, and yet, I let them do it. It makes be so, so angry. Every therapist I've ever seen has said it's a toxic environment, that we're enmeshed, and I have PTSD from being threatened with violence by my dad. My dad always treated me like an adult, like his buddy, and used to share sexual innuendo/jokes with me, watch mature-themed television around me when I was a little kid, and I think he's an exhibitionist, because he would always sit around in his underwear and never used a towel to go from the bathroom to the bedroom. When I was a teenager, he tried to guide me with his hand in the small of my back like men do with their girlfriends and I lost my mind. I told him never to touch me again. Around this time I stopped being able to hug people. I used to beg him to wear more clothes. About five years ago, he finally agreed when we were in family counseling and the therapist supported me, saying it could become a big problem if he kept going without pants and a towel. Except in the last year, he's started going naked from the bathroom to his bedroom again. About three years ago, I was dancing to a workout video and my dad sat down to watch me. It felt so wrong I stopped but he encouraged me to keep dancing. It was belly dancing and he wanted to watch me moving my hips around. I wanted to vomit. I left the room and he made fun of me.
My dad used to tell me stories every night before bed and then I spent hours trying to fall asleep, having insomnia for years and years. I've had insomnia my whole life, with recurrent nightmares of a man/male-monster forcing his way into my childhood bedroom, that I can't hold back the door and keep out. My dad took me on special father-daughter adventures over the weekends and pulled me out of school to "go have fun" regularly but I have memories of only one outing. He was the fun parent, and always gave me gifts and special treats, until I hit adolescence. Then it was like I became his mortal enemy, and my mom and him switched roles. Mom became the "fun parent."
I seem to attract predators in my personal life and in the professional arena. After being stalked online and having my personal life made public in my community, I was so embarrassed about being a virgin that I went out and found someone to have sex with. It wasn't a great experience; I couldn't feel anything erotic when he touched me. It was exciting to explore him but I didn't like the sex very much. Yet I met up with him a second time and that was worse, because I let him convince me to have sex in public. Both times I felt so dirty I had to wash myself immediately afterward. The two people who stalked me had been gas-lighting me and pretending to be "right for me" based on what they learned about me online. I felt so sick and violated and foolish. And I felt guilty, like I deserved it. It was during this period that I went out of control for a couple of months with depression and insomnia and manicky behavior, feeling so desperate to have people love me, and not just pretend to love me to use my body, that I met this guy. On top of this, I convinced myself that since no one else was showing interest, maybe I should settle for one of these jerks that stalked me. It was pathetic. I tried to reconnect twice with the one. Thankfully, they'd grown a conscience, or at least some self-respect, and were no longer interested. (I had made a rant about their behavior before I fully pieced together how much my privacy was being violated, perhaps shaming them into acting better). In the aftermath, I figured, f*ck it, everyone knows, so I attached my name to the account. I wanted to stop using it, but it was like I was punishing myself, keeping it open and not filtering anything.
I'm doing risky things. I feel very impulsive about sex and masturbation. It's almost like a desperate drive, and yet I feel like I don't really want it, I just want to feel loved and get off. Two days ago I came pretty close to hooking up with a married man I found on the internet. He wanted to be my "Daddy." My first "lover" wanted to do that too, but I just could not even fathom it. It freaks me out a lot, even though I have a fetish for father-daughter incest. It seems like half the men I'm attracted to look like my dad. And I can't really orgasm without fantasizing about incest (not with my family, but in general) or non consensual sex and some sort of degradation. Well, it makes me sick to think about what gets me off. I hate it. But I've had BDSM fantasies since pre-school. I used to lie in bed and masturbate sort of ineffectively while imagining doing the most despicable things to beautiful women to humiliate them. I didn't know how penises got hard and went into vaginas, or what vagina's were really like (I thought sex was like putting a hotdog into a hotdog bun but I knew the woman "had" to be wet, which I imagines was sort of like the chilli on a chilli-dog. I guess from this memory, I can conclude that I never saw an erect penis or an aroused vagina, so at least I can rule out that type of abuse?). However, I was OBSESSED with sex from probably age four on, and my toys had all kids of sexual activities going on, gay sex, lesbian sex, straight sex, rape, molestation, even my teddy bear got in on the action. I always thought it was because I wrestled with being lgbt and growing up in a repressed Christian household with parents who made sex into a big taboo. Until a few years ago.
I'd accepted that my parents were both inappropriate about boundaries (my mom showered with me into adolescence, and always wanted to cuddle and have me rub her back, always wanted to "inspect" my genitals when I had skin problems and apply ointments herself when I got infections, and she started flashing her boobs at me "because she was hot and her bra made her sweaty" when I was in my teens. I've only gotten her to stop flashing her boobs in the last three years, with the help of that therapist.), but I never realized my dad was "weird" around other kids until it hit me out of the blue. My dad was the friendly, jokester uncle that always played with all the kids. He even volunteered at my school. Another thing he always volunteered to do was change babies' diapers. Like clock-work, it was almost like it was "his thing," he would volunteer to change all of my cousin's diapers. And I've heard the story about his brother peeing in his face when he changed his diaper DOZENS of times over the years. Ok, that's a little weird, but it never bothered me until I realized my dad has an uncontrollable retching response to vomit and poop. If he has to clean up after the dog or someone who has gotten sick, you will hear him retching throughout the house. Why would he be so enthusiastic about changing babies' diapers if poop makes him retch? Why didn't we hear him retching when he went to change them all these years?
I initiated sexual play with my best friend, really enjoying having him look at my genitals and tricking him into kissing me down there but not reciprocating. I felt powerful and it turned me on. But I also felt guilty, so I confessed to my parents. They both about had a apoplectic melt-down. It was so traumatizing all the yelling, and crying, and hand-wringing, you would have thought I had confessed to skinning animals and running a drug cartel. I was only five, maybe four. The scene got repeated at my best friend's house when they told his parents. Well, right afterward, my friend and I decided to move on to belly-buttons, because those weren't forbidden. My dad "caught" us looking at each others belly buttons on the porch and my dad acted like it was just as perverted, saying, "now, don't you start in with THAT, now." Every now and then we kept on looking at each others genitals because it was even more forbidden but eventually we got bored. Soon thereafter my family relocated and I had a lot of trouble making new friends. I have felt so much shame over this over the years and I still don't understand why it was made into such a big deal.
So, I have PTSD. I don't have flash backs anymore, but I get a lot of other symptoms. My triggers are angry men, the scent of my dad's favorite beer, and his deodorant. His deodorant has been an abhorrent stench to me for as long as I can remember. It's like layer upon layer of secrets keep revealing themselves in my family, and I've had it. I don't want to deal with this bullshit anymore. I want it to be over with and settled and processed and healed from. I just want to know what really happened. Was it only sexual abuse without touch and general emotional abuse? Because I feel really messed up. I'm really, really, so f*cked up with boundaries, self-confidence, trust, dissociating from my body, and sexual dysfunction.
Can I make myself remember some how? What if I'm imagining all of this?
My dad used to tell me stories every night before bed and then I spent hours trying to fall asleep, having insomnia for years and years. I've had insomnia my whole life, with recurrent nightmares of a man/male-monster forcing his way into my childhood bedroom, that I can't hold back the door and keep out. My dad took me on special father-daughter adventures over the weekends and pulled me out of school to "go have fun" regularly but I have memories of only one outing. He was the fun parent, and always gave me gifts and special treats, until I hit adolescence. Then it was like I became his mortal enemy, and my mom and him switched roles. Mom became the "fun parent."
I seem to attract predators in my personal life and in the professional arena. After being stalked online and having my personal life made public in my community, I was so embarrassed about being a virgin that I went out and found someone to have sex with. It wasn't a great experience; I couldn't feel anything erotic when he touched me. It was exciting to explore him but I didn't like the sex very much. Yet I met up with him a second time and that was worse, because I let him convince me to have sex in public. Both times I felt so dirty I had to wash myself immediately afterward. The two people who stalked me had been gas-lighting me and pretending to be "right for me" based on what they learned about me online. I felt so sick and violated and foolish. And I felt guilty, like I deserved it. It was during this period that I went out of control for a couple of months with depression and insomnia and manicky behavior, feeling so desperate to have people love me, and not just pretend to love me to use my body, that I met this guy. On top of this, I convinced myself that since no one else was showing interest, maybe I should settle for one of these jerks that stalked me. It was pathetic. I tried to reconnect twice with the one. Thankfully, they'd grown a conscience, or at least some self-respect, and were no longer interested. (I had made a rant about their behavior before I fully pieced together how much my privacy was being violated, perhaps shaming them into acting better). In the aftermath, I figured, f*ck it, everyone knows, so I attached my name to the account. I wanted to stop using it, but it was like I was punishing myself, keeping it open and not filtering anything.
I'm doing risky things. I feel very impulsive about sex and masturbation. It's almost like a desperate drive, and yet I feel like I don't really want it, I just want to feel loved and get off. Two days ago I came pretty close to hooking up with a married man I found on the internet. He wanted to be my "Daddy." My first "lover" wanted to do that too, but I just could not even fathom it. It freaks me out a lot, even though I have a fetish for father-daughter incest. It seems like half the men I'm attracted to look like my dad. And I can't really orgasm without fantasizing about incest (not with my family, but in general) or non consensual sex and some sort of degradation. Well, it makes me sick to think about what gets me off. I hate it. But I've had BDSM fantasies since pre-school. I used to lie in bed and masturbate sort of ineffectively while imagining doing the most despicable things to beautiful women to humiliate them. I didn't know how penises got hard and went into vaginas, or what vagina's were really like (I thought sex was like putting a hotdog into a hotdog bun but I knew the woman "had" to be wet, which I imagines was sort of like the chilli on a chilli-dog. I guess from this memory, I can conclude that I never saw an erect penis or an aroused vagina, so at least I can rule out that type of abuse?). However, I was OBSESSED with sex from probably age four on, and my toys had all kids of sexual activities going on, gay sex, lesbian sex, straight sex, rape, molestation, even my teddy bear got in on the action. I always thought it was because I wrestled with being lgbt and growing up in a repressed Christian household with parents who made sex into a big taboo. Until a few years ago.
I'd accepted that my parents were both inappropriate about boundaries (my mom showered with me into adolescence, and always wanted to cuddle and have me rub her back, always wanted to "inspect" my genitals when I had skin problems and apply ointments herself when I got infections, and she started flashing her boobs at me "because she was hot and her bra made her sweaty" when I was in my teens. I've only gotten her to stop flashing her boobs in the last three years, with the help of that therapist.), but I never realized my dad was "weird" around other kids until it hit me out of the blue. My dad was the friendly, jokester uncle that always played with all the kids. He even volunteered at my school. Another thing he always volunteered to do was change babies' diapers. Like clock-work, it was almost like it was "his thing," he would volunteer to change all of my cousin's diapers. And I've heard the story about his brother peeing in his face when he changed his diaper DOZENS of times over the years. Ok, that's a little weird, but it never bothered me until I realized my dad has an uncontrollable retching response to vomit and poop. If he has to clean up after the dog or someone who has gotten sick, you will hear him retching throughout the house. Why would he be so enthusiastic about changing babies' diapers if poop makes him retch? Why didn't we hear him retching when he went to change them all these years?
I initiated sexual play with my best friend, really enjoying having him look at my genitals and tricking him into kissing me down there but not reciprocating. I felt powerful and it turned me on. But I also felt guilty, so I confessed to my parents. They both about had a apoplectic melt-down. It was so traumatizing all the yelling, and crying, and hand-wringing, you would have thought I had confessed to skinning animals and running a drug cartel. I was only five, maybe four. The scene got repeated at my best friend's house when they told his parents. Well, right afterward, my friend and I decided to move on to belly-buttons, because those weren't forbidden. My dad "caught" us looking at each others belly buttons on the porch and my dad acted like it was just as perverted, saying, "now, don't you start in with THAT, now." Every now and then we kept on looking at each others genitals because it was even more forbidden but eventually we got bored. Soon thereafter my family relocated and I had a lot of trouble making new friends. I have felt so much shame over this over the years and I still don't understand why it was made into such a big deal.
So, I have PTSD. I don't have flash backs anymore, but I get a lot of other symptoms. My triggers are angry men, the scent of my dad's favorite beer, and his deodorant. His deodorant has been an abhorrent stench to me for as long as I can remember. It's like layer upon layer of secrets keep revealing themselves in my family, and I've had it. I don't want to deal with this bullshit anymore. I want it to be over with and settled and processed and healed from. I just want to know what really happened. Was it only sexual abuse without touch and general emotional abuse? Because I feel really messed up. I'm really, really, so f*cked up with boundaries, self-confidence, trust, dissociating from my body, and sexual dysfunction.
Can I make myself remember some how? What if I'm imagining all of this?
