My mother chose me because I was the most vulnerable. I came into the world at a time in her life when it wasn't convenient, when the stress of having another mouth to feed was nearly too much. And the way she treats people when they are stressed out, its a pattern I have watched for 40 years. My dad just couldn't deal with it anymore. So, they got divorced. Then she really couldn't deal with the little emotional being that I was. It was too much again and again. Then she remarried and had a health issue and that created stress....once again it was too much....I was too much for her to handle. I think as I grew older she saw something of the little girl she once was, in me, and she couldn't face that little girl's pain or the pain in my eyes, so she did whatever she could to remove it from her sight. She liked when I hid away in my room because then she didn't have to look in the mirror. Then it was moving out of state, then a job with a nasty boss, and on and on it went....always something eating away at her....something to give to the girl who reminded her of herself. And to ease the burden, she made me into Cinderella, cooking and cleaning...chore after chore...never allowed to go to the ball or the mall or the beach. She didn't have to do anything except decide what chore came next for me. She didn't scrub her own bathroom, she rarely made her bed, she didn't do the laundry or vacuum the floor, she didn't mop or dust or wash the dishes. She didn't get up to get her own soda or snacks...nothing. She had a slave for that....to lay her burdens upon. All her promises were empty. All of them broken. She cannot handle life, refuses to look at herself.....so she chose to control something she could....me. My brother emotionally parented her until he moved away. And then it was my job and I refused to pick up the task. So, I was resented, isolated, emotionally beaten down until virtually nothing remained....all because she could not look at herself.

Yes, I know why. No, it does not make it right. Yes, it damaged me emotionally. Yes, it affected my entire life. No, I will never get justice. No, the pain will not just go away.

Can I live anyway??

YES!

Can I live well and happy?

YES!

i never really asked myself this. my dad told me that everything was my fault so i thought that i deserved to be abused.

Well, my mother was mean to me because she had unrealistic expectations. She thought that babies and children are essentially dolls that you dress up and show off. She didn't believe I would have a will of my own. I was simply an extension of herself; a continuation of her life and effort. After about 4 or 5 years of showing me off and having all the cashiers tell her what beautiful green eyes I had, my novelty quickly wore off. She didn't know what to do with me or how to persuade me to submit. She attempted to give me obvious choices where I was practically forced to take her preferred option. When that still didn't work, she got angry. I was her only child so there wasn't anywhere else to spread her anger to. She had very little control of her own life growing up, so that's probably why she wanted a strangle hold on mine. There were certain things that I did and said that she believed were not acceptable. In those cases, it was shame that motivated her.

As for the whole CSA thing from my stepfather, I was a child he had access to with a mostly oblivious mother. I believe he married her with the intent of gaining access to me. I don't think it was something that just happened. I think planning went into it. He found this woman who's only real achievement in life was, well, me. Easy target.

I have to live with the guilt of letting him abuse my younger sisters I could have stopped it as i had moved out when i was older but i did nothing this guilt will live with me for the rest of my life. I was so used to been abused I should have just let him continue doing it to me I will never forgive myself.

I used to ask Why me? A lot. But I have realized, in each situation, I was just in the right place at the wrong time, and as I got older, and moved into abusive relationships with men, it was not a why me thing. Again, wrong place at the right time, and I was vulnerable, thats all there was to it. I was vulnerable because I didn't know anything except abuse, I didn't know it was wrong, and I thought I deserved the way I was treated. I felt it was my fault, if I was better behaved, stonger, faster, kinder, and better they wouldn't have to do this to me.
I am getting over this way of thinking. It is not me, it's them, they are the ones at fault, not me. My only fault in all of what I went through was not knowing to stop it, and now that I do know better, I have stopped it.
I can heal from the emotional damage. And I will!

I do ask "why" but it's less "why me?" and more "why would they do that?" I know why it was me - my mom was mentally ill and lived with a psychopath for my childhood. That's why. But why someone would take so much pleasure in torturing a little girl? That "why" I'll never understand. (doesn't stop me from asking, though!)

I think at some point, after you've evaluated the whys enough so that there is not going to be any better understanding, it's best to accept that you may never understand why. To keep trying to figure out why it happened when the best answer isn't and answer to why, but just to realize what happened was wrong, will only keep you from moving on with your life.

We all have a choice. Will you let what happened to you define you and the rest of your life? Or will you take charge of your recovery and move on to a better life?

To anon4now2: it was not your fault he abused your younger sisters. Even if you tried, you probably could not have stopped him from abusing you all. I had 2 younger sisters and a brother. I was the oldest. When I was 6, my youngest sister was born. I prayed to God everyday, morning and at night before going to bed for my little sister's protection. I didn't want the same thing done to me to her. I prayed and prayed. When I was 8, my little sister fell in a deep tub of water, drawning. I rushed to find some adults who could help her out of the water. I found my mother talking to a lady. I begged my mother to come quick, but she ignored me. I was crying and begging to come help. It was futile. When I went back to my little sister, she wasn't moving any more. She was flowting on the water, face down. I blamed myself for not been able to rescue my sister.

My little brother, he was in preschool age, and I was about 13 or 14. I learned that he'd been stealing from a candy store that was walking distance from where we lived because no one fed him (or any of us). I learned early on in my childhood to hang out in a restaurant kitchen, so I had food to eat, but I didn't share my food with my sisters or with my brother. I tried to feed my siblings at one point, but it was too much for me, and I could not continue. So I left them to take care themselves on their own. I always felt I was too selfish for not taking care of them. Although I was much older than them, I was still a child, too. I couldn't have done much. I blamed myself a lot nonetheless.

When I was in my 20's, the sister I thought was dead found me. She was revived in the hospital she was taken to, after all. No one cared to let me know, thougth. So I lived with a lot of guilt for a long time. Anyway, long story shourt, she was not mad at me.

I stopped blaming myself for what happened to my siblings. It was not my fault. I sometimes think I could have chosen some different path, but when I think back, there was no way I could have rescued all of my siblings and myself. All I could do was rescue myself and survive. anon4now2, you are not a bad person! I hope you can forgive yourself and move on because the blame wasn't for yours to take to start out with. It was the abuse that created the situation, not you. You did the right thing by removing yourself from the abuser. It's not right to allow anyone to abuse you, either!