I am brand new here, this is the first place I could access after coming across some extremely distressing information. I don't know if I can handle this alone, I don't know how.

Let me lay out the general information as factually as I can first. This is from the perspective of an aging child (me) between starting at the age of seven and ending in the present, age 16:

September 16, 2008

-When I was 7, my father left to an unknown destination after some involvement with the police. I didn't know what or why at the time, of course. I was taught like most children are that my parents = good, police = good, so the conflict between my father and the police would have been incomprehendable to me (like, why would two infallibly good forces be fighting eachother? That isn't logical to my young mind). 

-My mom once asked me if my father ever touched me under where my underwear covers. At the time, I found the question laughable because of course he wouldn't touch me there. Still to my knowlege, he never did, fortunately for me. When I asked her why she would ask such an odd thing, she replied with much difficulty that my father had been accused of touching one of my friends inappropriately. I asked if he did, she swore to me that he didn't.

-My mother and I leave the state and move to another to live with my grandparents. This was a confusing time in my life because I had delt with more then any child should have to. My father was gone and neither my mom nor I knew where he was, the police were regularly checking up on us, and I was under the belief that he was totally innocent.

-We recieve several phone calls over this time and see him once more on a trip up north to see other family. I recall little of this.

December 2, 2008

-Authorites find my father dead of apparent suicide. My mother tells me this seveal months later. I remember this very clearly, she said something like, "[My name], [Father's name] is dead." I was sure she was kidding- she had to be, right? -but no, he was truly gone. The grieving process for me was a blur, I remember my mom being extremely depressed more then anything. Understandably, I was hurt, angry, and confused. 

Between 2008-2010

- I don't recall specifically how, but I eventually work out of my mother that he had, in fact, been guilty of the charges of lewdness with a child. Keep in mind, the child in question was 8 years old. My father was 48. My mother had known of his guilt and lied to me, a major rift was struck between us. She also alluded that the reason the police wanted to take him away so badly was because he was a repeat offender, but my mom said the other case was with an adult male.

Between 2011-2016

-My mother remarries, all questions stop. I make a couple half hearted attempts to find him in online public records, but I draw up nothing. 

Just now, January 17, 2017

-I made another half hearted attempt, this time including his middle name and the phrase 'sex offender' at the end. Articles, news papers, old television broadcasts, and even a blog post pop up. I click on one, and there is his mug shot and my worst fears are confirmed by some emotionless text on screen. I will tell you right now, I have never been more pleased to not look like someone more in my life and I doubt I ever will. 

-He was ranked as a Third Tier sex offender and "...was convicted in [city at the time], [state at the time], of lewdness with an 8-year-old boy and later confessed to victimizing 38 other children in other states during a 20-year period..."

-I am in shock. I cried the most I can remember crying in the last few years of my life, I vomitted twice already. My hands feel so numb and my body aches in a way I can't describe. I feel such pain for my mother and what she had to go through. Every time I look in the mirror, I am filled with disgust. I want to run away from my own body because my veins feel like they're pumping acid now that I know what I'm really the child of. 

Nine years. Nine years. I don't know how to cope with this any more then I did when I was seven. I feel like I'm right back in that moment as a little girl just finding out that her father left, or that her father was dead, or that her father was a serial sex offender.