I never really forgot this

I can totally see how you would have thought that way. It would have made perfect sense at the time!

Hey, TR, for what it's worth, what Red Panda says is true. At one point I wore layers, baggy clothes and lots of them, etc. She just made me strip and that was worse and more humiliating. I got to the point where I just got undressed and laid there and waited for her to come in. It's one of the many reasons why I feel like stuff is my fault.

MKAC, I'm so sorry to hear that. Submission isn't consent. It wasn't your fault. Easy to say...

I get very upset if my clothes are removed for me. I once cried because my husband took my sock off.

I'm really struggling with body memories at the moment - stabbing pains, well, there. The hardest thing has been remembering how he used to get angry when I acted out, call me names, possibly other stuff that I've blocked out, when I was acting out because of what he was doing to me. Who the hell does this to their daughter and then calls her spoilt and ungrateful when she gets angry and depressed? No wonder I blocked it out for so long. He wasn't nice to me, I can't even kid myself that he loved me and acted like a good dad. He never acted like a dad. He just lived in the same house, frightened and bullied me.

(((tinyrabbit))),

You need to understand that when someone experiences something like this, it is normal to react and "block it out" the way you did. This is "not" something any child or even teenager has the life skills and overall knowledge to know how to react in this kind of scenario.

You also need to realize that human beings are designed to "do just what you did" and we are designed that way to "ensure our survival".

You struggle with "I knew all along but somehow I shielded myself from it", that is normal. Our brains will opt to do this if we have no way to "understand" how to react and defend in situations like this. Instead, we often opt to move forward if we can and "block off whatever we do not understand" or have the capacity to react to emotionally.

At this point you have more "knowledge and processing abilities, as well as emotional reasoning with "this feeling goes with this kind of experience". However, the brain also has a way of only "slowly" leaking these experiences out to the overall areas of the brain that "process with also our emotional senses". Remember, our brains are wired to "self protect" and "avoid experiencing chemical dumps" from trying to "process too much all at once".

It is "very important" that you do not allow yourself to begin to "self blame" for not doing the things that you "now know how to do or now know is very wrong" about your history of abuse. The truth is, "you really did not know how to react at the time of abuse". The reality is that "when this abuse took place, you were pretty much a deer in headlights and you genuinely did not know "how to respond" other then the way you responded. However, children and young teens do sense they are doing "something wrong" and they tend to "hide it" feeling that somehow they too are at fault and for some reason "no one will understand their abuse and "may blame them" or even make it worse somehow.

It took me a long time to "understand this myself too". I do remember being "afraid" but I also felt that if I "told" that it would make it worse somehow. I realize now, that how I handled "fear and abuse" was all I really knew how to do at the time.

I never imagined that I would be revisiting these experiences "years" later when I developed PTSD. I thought that I had simply survived my past and had somehow just moved on, I didn't realize that it damaged me and created defense mechanisms that were typical of "abuse victims".

The feelings of "self blame, and even being "damaged" or somehow unworthy" is the normal response to finally facing and working through "experiencing sexual abuse" in some way. However, this is something that is experienced by "many" and you are truly not "damaged" either. You have survived and thrived even though you experienced something that was an "assault on your trust and sense of safety".

(((Caring Hugs)))
OE

Thanks Open Eyes. I really really appreciate all you have said here. I'm so sorry you have endured such hurt and had it come back to you through PTSD.

It's hard to resist self-blame as it lessens the sense of betrayal. The crazy thing is that even now, despite the history of abuse and assault that has its roots in CSA, despite the PTSD, panic attacks, flashbacks, sui feelings, disordered eating, somatic health issues, all of it, I still can't seem to hate him. The bonds of attachment are so strong that, even though I'm having bodily flashbacks, I still can't hate him. Probably because it means admitting what a terrible excuse for a father I grew up with, what I've lost and never had.

I have been wavering between denial (usually for absurd reasons like "but he was smiling in a photo") and acceptance, but have run out of denials. I've been talking about it - cryptically in sessions, more openly by email - with my T and he told me today that he believes me and feels there is truth in this, but then he said something about how sometimes we remember things differently to make them easier to cope with. I wondered what the heck he was talking about.

Later on, I realised. I'd just been saying I was sure I was asleep when it happened which is why I don't really remember much. That I was asleep so I didn't know it was happening. Now I'm wondering if that's another defence I've set up in my mind. My dad always went to bed hours later than my mum and I was afraid of the dark and afraid to go to sleep - I still put off going to sleep now, I guess this is why - so I think he did do stuff to me in my sleep.

But he used to R-word during the day. I'd stay off school (choosing to be there with him so I do feel like it's my fault, like I must have wanted it). My sleep disorder didn't get really bad until my 20s. And even then I didn't sleep all day, I just found it hard to get up. But I keep insisting I was asleep when it happened, because that's easier than entertaining the idea that I was awake and had to dissociate.

((tr)),

It is "normal" to still want to "love" a parent and not want to see an abuser as someone "bad". We all are designed to "love our parents" and look to them as someone we also need to "please" too.

It is not unusual for a child to go along with "SA" either and have a part of themselves confuse it with "they must be special" somehow and that is why it is happening.

If you disassociated, that doesn't mean "you consciously chose to react that way", this is something that happens "without conscious effort", it is our natural way to "protect" that we often do not even "realize" we use.

I don't remember every time I was abused either, I am sure I also disassociated things that happened to me.

I don't think it is important to remember "every detail" what you need to find is "how it affected you in ways you didn't realize".

Disbelief is also common.

OE

Thank you - your posts have really brought me a great deal of comfort.