No offence taken. But that wasn't the whole thought process. I posted forum threads asking if this might have happened, questioning the likelihood, examining the evidence, ignoring the fact that I already knew, I just wanted to prove myself wrong.

But, all the while, I was talking myself out of it. Telling myself: my dad wouldn't do that, so he can't have. Telling myself it couldn't have happened because there is a shelf above my bed (which makes no sense), it couldn't have happened because I didn't wear pajama trousers which proves I wasn't being abused and if I was it means it was my fault (which also makes no sense).

There's been this on-going face-off between the part of me that wants me to let myself believe this and deal with it, and the part of me that uses all sorts of faulty, maladaptive and magical thinking to make it not be true. I mean, I told myself it couldn't be true because there is a shelf in my room. That's... clutching at straws. It's a constant tug of war between the part of me that wants to deny it (because I don't want it to be true!) and the part that knows it happened.

I have been going round in these circles for years. Thinking this might be true, then talking myself out of it. I think I wrote about it in my teenage diaries, but I threw them away. Not in the house, in case my parents saw. I threw them in a bin in the street.

You know, I appreciate you saying this, but I think it refers to some kind of end goal and not what I need right now. Right now, I need to be all about this, if I want to be. I need to be sick and wounded and confused and hurt and devastated. Because I've been those things already, for a long time, all by myself, and I need to honour that, if that makes sense.

I've been seeing the bigger picture for too long. I need to wallow. I need to be all about this. I need to be allowed to be. I hope this makes some sense. I spent years trying to put things - lots of things - in perspective and just get on with life, and it's not served me well. I need to be sick and wounded for a bit.

Why? Because I believe I am being ridiculous, pathetic and self-indulgent, because I think it is shameful that I posted about this, because my faulty thinking tells me it's not a big deal and I should just get over it and forget about it. All of which tells me moving on isn't possible right now. I know you don't mean to minimise, it's just it's a trigger point for me, and tells me a lot about how I am feeling.

I've always had to do the moving-on part without the healing and grieving that comes first. So I feel threatened and invalidated when I think of having to be healed, because I'm afraid I'll be robbed of the healing part again. Trigger point, like I said.

Thank you all for your replies. I'm so confused right now because I keep thinking maybe I made it all up, maybe I just got the wrong idea somehow, maybe I imagined it. I keep thinking it's so pathetic and self-indulgent to talk about myself, so shameful, so disgusting.

But the thing is that, since I admitted this properly to myself, consciously, since I posted it on here, since I let myself see this as my reality, I've felt better. Relieved. Not sui any more.

I think I invented this imaginary world in which this never happened, and the sui feelings came from the strain of trying to hold that together. Now I feel so much better it's actually quite ridiculous. I'm sure it won't last.