Hi Lauren - I'm new to this site. Was recommended to me by someone on another board that is pretty quiet.

My father is a pedophile - & a perverted one. He did stuff to me starting when I was a baby. My mother knew about it & tried to kill me when I was about 2 years old. There were other incidents too. I have a sister about a year younger. She was part of the problem. Since we lived overseas most of my childhood & moved every 2-3 years, I had no one. The many therapists I've see (I'm 55) have mostly been skeptical because they don't see how I could have survived.

I think what I have figured out is: I read a lot of books all the time about healthy families & imagined myself growing up inside the families inside those books; I split - I have DID, not as bad as MPD; some kind of faith that has been growing in me for about 20 years.

I also have PTSD & RAD. I hate labels & was always wary of them, but eventually found a few that "clicked".

I think the worst thing for me was that what my father did got people's attention when I told them, but my mother's reaction was actually what damaged me the most - not necessarily even the trying to kill me, but the not-protecting me. Sometimes the sins of omission are worse than the sins of commission - & a lot more insidious because they are subtle.

I confronted my mother before she died. I think it helped relieve her of a lot of the guilt she had carried with her. She acknowledged, but said it was too painful to talk about (for her - just like her to "forget" I had feelings too).

I have given up on relationships with men - my choices are too damaging & I think I'm too damaged to have a healthy relationship. I have been celibate for over 20 years. I have to wonder sometimes - what's the point? But I keep muddling along. I hope someday I figure out how to get beyond just surviving to feeling alive - JJ