I realized yesterday that I am here reading and now posting, with the hope and intention of staying awhile and and no one has any idea who I am. Maybe I should say hi to you all first. Perhaps you will come to accept me over time. I promise I bring no harmful intentions here.
I am married and a mom to a four yr old girl. I have been with the same man for 17 years. He has been great. He has been abused in his life, but he never talks about it. Never. It was by a man who belonged to the Big Brothers association. He told me that while he was drunk once.
Myself I grew up in caos. I recall being sexually invaded (very vague recolection) when I was just a wee babe. When I was six my mom married a man I would come to call dad. Over the years I have figured out that he started in on touching me pretty near right away. Mind you I have blocked out the years of my life from 6 to 10. Still unsure why. I do have little blips of memory that came through. Mostly traumatic stuff. I do recall from 10 years on clearly.
I had one older brother. To anyone looking at us, we looked like a right proper family. We were very well groomed and obediant children and the envy of all their friends. They owned their own busines and were financially secure 'up and comers' in our small community. But behind closed doors we were a mess of disfunction. There were lots of business dinners out for them, nearly every night. My mom drank usually too much with dinner and passed out when she came home, leaving step father to go about his business undetected. He came to my room several times a week, for what he said was our 'special time'. He said he did these things because he loved me so much. (I learned years later that some nights when he didn't come, chances were good that he was in my brothers bedroom doing things to him.)
My mom spiraled into alcoholisim.
As I got older (age 13) I went to work at their business. After a time (age 15) they had me leave school to be able to work more for them. Eventually I was switched to working the midnight shift full time. A shift I worked alone. Soon after he started working late at night. I felt like I was his to do with however he liked, no matter where I was.
I don't clearly recall when my brother started hurting me sexually. Around 12 I think. Where my step father had been gentle and loving (puke), my brother was not. I was beaten severly until I had no fight left, then he would rape me. There were several times he had his friends over to gang bang me.
I never told anyone about any of them. There were a ton of signs for my mother to see, but she never looked. And when she did there was always an excuse or a reason. She came to think I was clumsy and accident prone. I gave up hope of having her ever rescue me or
be a part of my life. To me she was gone. I came to hate her.
I hated my life and avoided home as much as possible. I started to use alcohol at an early age. I saw what it did for my mother and I liked the idea of escaping like she did. It wasn't long till I turned to drugs.
I left home at 17. That is when the sexual abuse ended.
I moved to a different town at 20. I spent years partying and living 'free'. I never saw how I continued to hurt myself. Alcohol, drugs, men, a bad attitude and a death wish. Then pile on some more alcohol and drugs on top of that. I have tried nearly every drug known in the world. There was only one I didn't like. I lost all control on that one. It was that dislike that probably kept me from dying.
I told my mother about step father when I was 17 and they stayed together for 4 years after that. They are now divorced. She found out about brother when he was charged. I no longer see step father or brother. Dispite my mothers sneaky attempts at having brother and I reunited as happy siblings. (She isn't at all well and lives in a dream like life.)
When I was 25 I took a lethal dose of brain altering pills. Medication I had been prescribed. I woke up in the hospital a few days later. I had already met and was dating the man I would later marry. He was at my side. After I signed myself out I sought help for myself. I had already been attending a day program at the local phyc. ward for obsessive compulsive behaviours. I returned there and saw an article sitting on a table that had been cut out of the local paper. It was about a lady who councelled sexually abused children. I gave her a call and set up an appointment. Her name was Wendy. She came to mean the world to me and changed my life forever. I went to her for some time. (Lord how I miss her.)
With Wendy's help, I was able to press charges against my step father and brother and named a few of the guys involved in the attacks. As it turned out, my brother and the other guys were minors at the time the crimes occured, so they couldn't be charged. We had to go by the age laws of the time it all happened. The police decided to use one of them as a witnesses against my step father because he knew some things.
The court process took years of my life. Too many. My step father served 6 days in a federal prison.
My boyfriend and I eventually married. We lasted marriage for one year, seperated for two and are back together for the past nine years. We have a beautiful little girl who reminds me to look for the beauty in all things. We have both been sober and drug free in A.A for 9 years.
Recently life has been getting to me and some of the stuff I went through as a kid has been surfacing. I think maybe because I see the innocence my daughter has. My husband and I have started to fight and that brings up alot of old triggers from my own parents.
Hubby is convinced that I need help (he thinks I am suicidal as well) and I am convinced that my life is good!
Most days I no longer know if I am coming or going. Just when I feel like my days are going good, he asks "what's wrong with you?". I'm starting to feel like I am crazy. I fight to keep a positive out look and he keeps crapping on me and pissing me off. I have seen lately that he is controlling to a large degree.
I suppose I came here to talk with you all in the hopes that I might get some answers to so many of the questions I now have. I feel like I have to fight him because I have this unfounded idea that he wants me to be controlled and feel low and dependant on him, so that he can have access to our daughter. Crazy I know, but it is what I learned by watching my own mother be controlled by my step father.
I have not told him this, in case I clearly am going crazy, plus I know how hurt he will be if I ever said that to him.
So that is my long long post on my life and who I am and what I am doing here.
I hope you will allow me to stay, you all seem so supportive and I feel so unsupported. Hubby moved us to a new town a couple years ago while I had Post Partum Depression and I still have not made any real friends here. My best friend has become toxic for me and I keep telling myself to let her go. I still have contact with my mom but I think she has Borderline Personality Disorder so she is no help, as usual.
I better end this novel and get to feeding my hungry child some food.
Looking forward to getting to know you all.