I've never posted my story on here before. This isn't comprehensive, but it's the main points. I'm having a really difficult time with it being Christmas and all, probably because that's when these things happened more and when I spent time with these people.

1.) I was sexually abused by my cousin, 12 years older than me, from age 3 to 6. I don't remember too many details-- I just mainly remember locations where it happened (5 different places total, but who knows how many times in each location), and some of the sensations/feelings/images from it. I know it happened at various points in the year, but two of my most vivid memories were on Thanksgiving and Christmas. I don't know "why" it stopped, but the age I last remember it correlates to when he moved out of his mom's house, so I kinda think I just didn't really see him as much anymore.

2.) Growing up, my mom would sometimes act emotionally abusive to me. I really think she suffers from some kind of mental illness that's never been diagnosed-- She also was physically, sexually, and emotionally abused in childhood. At times, she would be super-fun, outgoing, caring-- during these "good" times, we would bake cookies, do arts and crafts projects, play games. But other times she would turn on me or my dad-- blaming me for any slight thing that went wrong, criticizing me for everything (i.e. getting a B rather than an A, grounding me for having a sock on my floor). She frequently was on an extreme diet, at times was extremely frighteningly religious. She would leave me and my dad on a whim, stay gone a couple days, then come back and everything would be "fine." The worst of this was when I was 12, I tried to kill myself by taking 77 children's chewable tylenols. I struggled with depression ever since i could remember (probably dealing with the sexual abuse and my mom's unpredictability, though at the time I never connected anything.) I told my parents very shortly after, which sparked an argument (My dad saying, "She needs help, this is normal", my mom saying, "She's fine, she's just doing this for attention.") As usual, my mom "won"-- she ended up leaving us for a week, I didn't get any help for the suicide attempt (medical or psychological)-- we just ignored it. (I was sleepy and later threw up, but obviously I was okay, physically.) This was the week before Christmas.

3.) When I was 15, I started having worse problems with depression and started cutting myself. A lot of this was triggered by me remembering the sexual abuse again and realizing it's impact on me. I was seeing a therapist, at my request, and after several months of talking about nothing really, I told her about my memories. Unfortunately, she didn't tell me ahead of time that she was a mandated reporter and that she'd have to file a DCF report because I was under-age. She then told my parents, against my will, who then told my aunt (my cousin's mom), against my will. My whole family found out either through my parents or my aunt. My aunt and I used to be super-close; we always lived in the same neighborhood, and she was like a best friend to me. Initially, she said she believed me and still wanted to have a relationship with me. Then she ended up just cutting all contact with me and my mom, and I haven't heard from her since. That was 8 years ago. Other family ended up having similar reactions, but maybe not as extreme-- they didn't outright reject me but alternated between refusing to talk about it to asking me, "Why couldn't you keep your mouth shut?" My immediate family, however, was mostly supportive.

4.) Around the same time that I told about the abuse, I became friends with this 19 y/o guy (I was 15). He was the first person I ever told about the abuse (even before my therapist), and I think we became so close because he had similar experiences. Well, he and I soon became romantically involved, and we ended up staying together for 5 years. The relationship was emotionally abusive from the beginning (and I guess sexually abusive in that it was technically SA for us to even have sex), then later on physically and sexually after we moved in together. He also had an alcohol problem. We lived together from the time I was 17 to 20. He started stalking me and harassing me after we broke up, and I haven't been completely away from contact with him until a year ago.

5.) When I was 22, I was studying abroad in London and dating a guy I had met there. We were together about a month when he sexually assaulted me. I have had a hard time calling this r*pe because we had had sex before, but this particular time he forced me to have sex w/o a condom. In retrospect, I could see traits that were emotionally abusive also, but at the time, I didn't recognize it.

Anyhoo, I've also had an emotionally abusive relationship for about 6 mos with a female shortly after the r*pe, but I've lost interest in writing now. Not all of these things happened around the holidays, but some did, and it's like one memory triggers memories of all these things....