new with a hard question

I have been looking all over this site and it seems a safe place to ask hard questions so here goes.

After being abused as a toddler by my mother who was hospitalized, I sent to live with a couple. While I lived with them the husband sexually abused me. He used my fear of my mother to keep me from telling. My mother finished her treatment and I was returned to her and my father. My father was one of the good guys and probably why I am as healthy as I am or as I seem. However his profession lead to his being out of the home for months at a time and although now more sporatic and less severe the abuse and neglect continued. Eventually my mother divorced my dad and took me and my much younger brothers with her. I was often the babysitter and main caregiver. In many ways it seems that she traded a husband for a wife as i was statrting at age 11 in charge of cleaning cooking and caring for my siblings. This is all background for my question.

Because of the early sexual abuse I was highly sexualized and masturbated often. One time when I was 12, I tried to use my oldest brother who was 5 at the time. The guilt from that one act drove me to try to kill myself and lead to self injury. I was so desparate to avoid hurting anyone or anything I turned it all on myself.

I have been in therapy for a few years now and have dealt with so much. I am so close to being a new and better person. But I don't believe I deserve to because of this. My brother doesn't recall this -- he has other mental health issues. I have never told anyone but God about this, but my therapist threw out some ideals last session as to why I am still stuck. I feel like she suspects but I couldn't tell her -- I am not sure I am going to post this even and not sure if it belongs here or on the abuse survivors' page.

Anyway, what do you think? Can this be forgiven? Who would I have to tell?

Please be gentle I haven't cut for 10 months now but I am so close to it. I pray this doesn't trigger anyone else. I just need to hear someone else's thoughts.

Hi {{{{{{{{{Dalila}}}}}}}}}}

It was great talking to you in chat last night.

I have read over your post a few times trying to know what to say to you....the one thing that stays in my mind is that I am so sorry you went through this. You were just a child .

It was not your fault and you deserve to let go of this guilt you feel. It is too heavy on your shoulders and is keeping you from moving forward. {{{{{{{{{Dalila}}}}}}}}}}

Keep posting....you have found a wonderful group of supporting and understanding people.


Heather

I can understand the feelings of guilt. You did to your brother things that other people did to you that hurt you. The guilt is perfectly understandable. But it is time to let it go. I would recommend talking about this to your therapist. She will help you get to understand why the little girl did what she did to her brother and she will help you see that it wasn't her fault. You were a child who was abused then forced into the role of a parent. Is it not surprising that you made a mistake? Please talk to your therapist about this, you deserve some peace of mind.
Carrie

PS Welcome to the boards!

{{{{{{{{{{{{{dalila}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}

You were a child, doing as you had been taught to do. If you had continued to try to use other children, then there is treatment for children who become abusers (where they are taught empathy and helped to realize the effect that they have so that they can stop doing it. This treatment, especially if started when still young, is highly effective and such youth are able to get past it and move on with their lives.) You don't need that treatment, as you recognized what you were doing on your own and didn't do it again. You have empathy, or you wouldn't care like you do now.

Your therapist probably knows that there is something you feel guilty about that is holding you back from accepting yourself and allowing yourself to move on. When you tell her what it is then she can help you to move past that guilt. You are a good person and you do deserve to be happy.

<font color=green>"Loneliness does not come from having no people about one, but from being unable to communicate the things that seem important to oneself, or from holding certain views which others find inadmissible" Carl Jung</font color=green>

I am sorry that you're feeling so bad. I think the hardest thing to do is to forgive yourself, to let go of the shame, to accept the fact that you were only a child. You didn't know the"normal" way of behavior. What we see and experience when we are young makes us feel like Everyone lives this way, acts this way. But, are we to blame? No, because we never LEARNED anything different.

The shame is hard to let go. I believe it is the last thing to go. But you care. You want to make it better, to feel better, and there's nothing wrong with that. You have to accept that because of the abuse that was inflicted on you, you acted out inappropriately. Why should you have to carry around the rest of your life this guilt of a child? It was not your fault. I say that in my head every day. I hope eventually I can fully accept it and I sincerely hope that you can too. Yokus

Thank you all for your thoughtful answers. I guess I am gonna bite the bullet and talk to my therapist about it. I can't believe how hard it is -- my stomach is literally in knots. Although I am not cutting I am picking at every scab and sore spot -- just can't seem to win that battle. I think this is the last big thing I have to work though. I will let you know how it works out.

Dalila

{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{Dalila}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}} Sending you all sorts of possitive thoughts to encourage you to tell your therapist. It isn't your fault. You were doing what you were taught. I'm also a survivor of sexual abuse.

<font color=blue>"The winds of change continue rolling and they just carry me away."</font color=blue>

Thank you, not sure why but tonight is hard and I am scared and mad at myself. I had nearly talked myself out of talking to the therapist but I really need to do something. As much as I want to take the anger and fear out on myself I know that it would make things worse not better. And yet I feel as if I almost need to do something that shows how sorry I am and how bad I feel. Crazy thinking but there it is.

I go from I want to stop this to I want to cut this out to I don't deserve to have this stop. I feel as if I was finally talking only to help myself and I worry about my brother -- what he recalls - what he feels. Why do I deserve any relief? And ironically that is a big part of why I am able to not cut -- because it brings a moment of relief and I don't deserve it. How the hell did I get tied up into such knots? No wonder the very ideal of looking at my knots makes me ill. I am just venting now, sorry. I guess I had better stop. I am sick of talking about and thinking of me.

Dalila,

I don't know what your brother remembers. You could ask him and tell him that you are sorry. The last thing I want to do is minimize what a child goes through after sexual abuse (I was sexually abused maybe twice by a neighbor, in a pretty minor way, and I repressed the memory - remembered it sometime in my twenties). I also don't know how far it went. But from what you are describing, you have suffered from this a whole lot more than he probably has. He might not even remember it. And you were a victim too.

I am sorry that you hurt so much. Telling your T about it will allow her to help you, and you do deserve to feel better.

I don't know what religious background you have, but maybe confessing what happened to a religious authority would also allow you to move past it, as they could help you to complete the repentance process (it sounds like the only place where you are stuck there is letting go and forgiving yourself).

You aren't a bad person. You deserve to feel good about yourself and who you are now, and to have a happy future.

Have you tried painting? When I read your last post I thought of the colors red and black. Don't know why. Anyway, it is a way to express yourself.
Carrie

I have not tried painting - I have in the past been able to 'write it out' but right now it just seems to add to desire to cut. I can't get in to my therapist for several weeks -- she is just booked up solid. I suppose if I do lose it and cut she will find time for me but I don't want to do it that way. Four weeks till my next appointment and I am hanging on by the skin of my teeth as it is. I am not sure if this is helpful or not but between posting and a couple of verses of poetry I feel like i can go on a little more.