Hi, I am pretty new here and it's my first time posting in this particular forum so please tell me if it's not OK to post things like this here. This post will mention CSA, though I will avoid going into detail. I am really scared writing this that it will upset someone, so please know that's not my intention.

I suffered CSA at the hands of my father growing up. I have clear memories of much of this and less clear memories of other times, also periods of no memory at all. I dissociated heavily at times, so the abuse seemed to have happened to someone else or like it never happened at all. I've had much therapy over the years to help me deal with this and the flashbacks I still get.

Just recently though I have started to remember different things. It is like there is a part of me who has decided now is the time to share their experience, which I have until now refused to look at/think about and there's nothing I can do about it.

What I remember is this: Most of the time the abuse was taking place I would 'go blank' or cry and ask for it to stop. However, now that I remembering that this wasn't always the case. Remembering this is more like being told about it happening to someone else, but also I know it was really happening to me. Not sure if that makes sense.

In these memories I responded to the abuse differently. Instead of fighting it, I went along with it. Doing my best to 'please' my abuser. When thinking about these memories, I can't remember these episodes of abuse starting or finishing. It is like at some point during it I just decided to go along with it. I don't remember enjoying what was being done to me, but I do remember making a lot of effort to do what was asked of me and do it well. I remember thinking that this is how I was supposed to act when someone made advances on me, without seeming to acknowledge or understand that the person doing it to me was my father. I can remember acting like this with boyfriends and men who paid me a lot of attention in my teens and adult life too.

Like at some point, when it became too difficult to deal with that attention something or someone took over. Instead of being upset, even though I wasn't enjoying it it seemed like the best thing I could do - the thing I should be doing - was making sure the other person enjoyed it. I would put on a performance, acting in ways that now I can remember them really disturb me.

Is this something other people can relate to? I know logically that this must have a been a way to cope and that nothing I did invited the abuse, but its really hard to feel like that's the case when it feels like I actively engaged in it at points.

I feel so lost at the moment. I am also facing the possibility that I have a dissociative disorder on top of everything else, and I wonder if this could be part of that. It really does feel that at these times I wasn't really aware of who I was with, just that it seemed clear to me that I was meant to be acting in a particular way so I did, without really understanding the situation at all.,

Sorry if this is confusing or upsetting for anyone. I just don't know where to go to talk about it.

Milli

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