I am a survivor of abuse... My father was the first to sexually abuse me, but there where others as well... I am like many many others who was able to split my mind so that I could suppress the memories of his abuse on me and I only remembered the horrible things he did to me after my daughter was abused by my little brother... I went into total PTSD hell after she was abused and for the first time in my life Inwas able to see clearly exactly what my father had done to me... My mother left when I was three years old, she told me years later that she had seen signs of sexual abuse from me and had basically ignored and denied those signs. But my abuse started when I was a baby and I was still breast feeding... My father would make me suck his penis instead of the breast... The night my mother left it was my third birthday and my parents had been fighting and she just took off and never came home... My father was in a rage and took me into the shower and violently orally raped me... For the next year my father would molest and abuse my daily... He would film it, i remember the camera on the tripod next to the bed... At this point in my life it wasn't violent of scary it was just a little game that my father would play with me... Then after he was done he would tickle me so hard that I couldn't breath at all... I remember hating the tickling and felt every time that I was going to die... This tickle torture was a way for him to split my mind and force a different memory in place of the abuse... He would abuse he in front of other people by way of stimulating me when I would sit on his lap of his leg... People just thought he was the greatest most loving father and had no idea what he was doing right in front of them... When my step mother moved in the abuse stopped for a while... He told me one day that we could no longer love each other that way because my stepmother had had a horrible childhood and that she would be jealous of our "love"... That is when my father started tourturing me in other ways... Very horrible violent ways... I won't get into the details of all that abuse and torture I went through as it would take a long time to explain... But they involved hypnotizing me, drugging me, electric shock, and locking me in a dark small box and covering me with spiders... Things like that... At this point I was a pro and switching into survival mode... And would literally switch personality so that I had one part of me that handled the torture and abuse and one part of me that had no idea he was so evil... I was not a happy child, I was like a zombie most of the time... But the part of me that went to school, went to visit my mother and generally lived my life had no idea that there was this other part of me that was being hypnotized and abused... When I was six I was taken to Costa Rica with my father and step mother and they told me to go by myself to the bar and get a smoothie... I did and I followed the bartender up to his room because he had a big fluffy dog and I wanted to play with the dog... When I got to his room he sexually abused me, I told my father that the man had asked me to do the thing that my father used to have me do... Oral sex... And that I had been scared and ran away... My father and step Mother got me in a lot of trouble and told me that I was wrong to go to his room... And basically blamed me for the abuse... When I was 13 my father took me to Mexico... Just him and me... He did some crazy things to abuse and torture me there and then one night he drugged me and had sex with me, before this it had always been oral but this time he penetrated me... It was my first time... I had lost my virginity to my father... But because I was drugged I didn't remember it at all the next day...
I only remembered all this stuff when I was 30... there is so much more to my story but that is the basics of it... It is crazy though how all my life people revered my father as such a wonderful dad such a good guy raising his daughter without her mother...!!! He is so charming and so good at fooling people... Even my own husband has a lot Of doubt that all this happened to me... He is just that good at fooling peole

I should mention that I always remembered the abuse from the bartender... I never forgot that... But I did block out the disclosure... It was my father who told me in my adult years that I had in fact disclosed to him at the time... But it was a while later before I remembered all the details of my disclosure... It is no wonder I blocked it out... Part of me was trying to protect myself from knowing the truth about my father... My counselor says that this is a self defense mechanism in order to keep me alive I had to forget the torture I was put through by the only person who was my caregiver

Our brains are amazing protectors. And also our greatest weapon against ourselves. Your mother is a good example. She was able to turn her back on it. Whatever was going on in her brain to convince her that is was ok.

You are an amazing survivor and hero. Thank you for sharing.

Thank you for your kind words... I knew that if I wanted my daughter to thrive after her abuse I too had to be an example of thriving post abuse... And I have come a long way... So far in fact that I can say, yes it is totally possible to heal after abuse... Someone on this site put it very eloquently when they described this experience as, at first it is a open wound, still bleeding and raw... After time and healing it is a scab that can very easily be pick off and the wound will bleed some more, but over time the scab falls off on its own and you are left with a scar... You will always have the scar, and in the beginning it might hurt if you push on it, but over time it just becomes a reminder of the pain you once felt... So too is the healing post abuse...!!!

I feel like I have come so far from where I started and that I am able to be that example of a survivor who is happy and joyful and not defined by the past, the example i so desperately want for my own little girl...!!! She too is healing and strong and a shining example of a survivor...!!!

I wish so much that my story would impact people who are just now going through the open wound and scab stages of their journey... So they can see that it is possible to heal to the point of only having a scar... The abuse will always be there... But what happens after that can make you stronger and more capable and that parents and children can once again thrive instead of just survive...!!!

Lovesmama, you are....well, I can't think of high enough praise for the service you have done by writing this all down and sharing it here. As very painful as it was to read -- I chickened out at first and clicked off the page, because I didn't think I could take it -- you have given free insight to any reader into just how thorough abusers can be in debasing their victims.

Lusks1, thank you so much for asking for this "reprint." I agree -- it will help those who are considering giving in to denial to understand why their children tell only bits, or give only hints, or recant, or tell nothing at all. They can hardly remember the truth themselves because of the shock, because of the drugging, because of the perpetrator's deliberate memory-changing efforts (the tickling, above, for example). There is nothing I as a mom of a survivor could possibly say that would be more effective than lovemama's true story to convince another parent to believe his or her child's disclosure.

Thank you naive1 I appreciate your support and loving words... I know it is hard to read stories like mine and contemplate what it must have been like for our own little ones... I certainly have read lots of other people's stories and some I have had to walk away from for a while because of how horrible it all is...
You make a very good point about why kids don't disclose or don't disclose the whole story... I think that each and every parent who finds their way to this group was given a gift of disclosure... I know it doesn't feel like a gift... But it truly is... Our little ones, sometimes already big ones, have come forward and in their own way have asked for help... For our help to handle this burden... Still so many other children go on through life with no voice and no help... Just like me as a child... My voice was literally hidden away from me...

I had no one to turn too... My own mother who I only saw once every other month was no safe haven... She was even responsible for some of the other abuse I went through... so many stories to tell...!!!

So we as parents who have been disclosed to are the lucky ones... We all get a chance to demonstrate to our children that they are loved and they are worthy of so much more than being used and abused...!!! Even for those parents who the system has failed and the victim is still with the perpetrator... At least the child has the knowledge that their mother/father is fighting for them... Loves them... Doesn't want them to be abused and used...!!! That is powerful stuff...!!!

My mother was a heroine addict and she used as a means of obtaining her next fix... She would allow things to happen to me... And be compensated in $$$ or drugs...

All the children who have a parent who values them and would do anything to protect them are blessed...!!!
I know all too well how many people just don't care about their kids... All the parents in this group are amazing courageous, loving parents and I pray for all of you guys and all your children too...!!! I pray for healing and for justice...!!!