hi. i'm new to this site, but i'm excited to be here with people who i know will finally understand me. i'm very shy, but want to share my story because i havent dealt with a lot of the feelings that i've had, i've just pushed them away, or used drugs to block them and i'm tired of that. so here goes....

my father abused me for 5 years, starting when i was 10 until i was 15, when i told my mom and she kicked him out of the house.

i remember exactly the way it used to happen too. he never touched me, he always made me touch myself. and he always would say he didnt know how these parts worked and thats why he was asking me to do what i was doing, which always confused me. he would come into my bedroom and abuse me on my beanbag chair. sometimes we would look at porn together, and he would always ask me to lift up my shirt. it never happened when my mom was home of course, but sometimes he did it when my younger sister was home. he would tell me to go in his room or come find me in mine

this went on for five years. and i never once thought there was anything wrong. i thought that all dads had this relationship with their dads. honestly. i mean you see all those silly after school specials about this kind of thing, but it never occurred to me that it could be my dad. dads are supposed to love, not hurt. even when i got a boyfriend and started to experience other feelings, i never noticed the similarities between when my boyfriend would touch me and when i did it for my dad. i just never made the connection.

then the summer before my sophmore year in high school we went on vacation and i was watching a documentary on a porn star and my dad came in and started watching with me. all of a sudden it hit me like a ton of bricks, maybe all the touching wasnt supposed to happen. it was crazy, my whole world came down around me and no one had any idea. and i realized that thats not the way dads should be treating their daughters.

i told my boyfriend, and we both told my rabbi. after that, we told my mom. we ended up telling my mom the day before her birthday, and i've always felt bad about splitting up my family like that. i started therapy and started healing sorta.

i have always loved but hated sex. i want to have it physically but i rarely want it emotionally if ever. i mean i enjoy it a lot, but i always feel like a whore afterwards, even if my lover knows my story.

i started smoking pot a month after i turned 18, and didnt really stop. i smoked every day for about a year, but recently decided to try to stop to deal with my feelings. in the beginning it was fun and easy to escape a bad day or bad flashbacks or the feelings that came up when i went to therapy. i also started drinking pretty heavily and seeing a guy who partied harder then i did. i cant really count the number of times i woke up at like 4:30 in the morning not really sure what was going on or where i was and started puking. but hey, it was better then being in my room. it got to the point that i was partying every night and smoking through my days. i used to smoke at least every 2 hours, even when i was at work. i spent easily $100 every week on weed every week, and i work as a server at a pizza parlor, so i dont make much.

the guy i was seeing at the time introduced me to cocaine last december, and that was fun for a while too, it was a great escape and a fun time, even if it did make me sick the morning after. most of the time i was sick in the morning anyway, so it wasnt that different. i tried my first hallucenagen this past summer; it was salvia.

then one day i realized that i wasnt happy. i was miserable. all i did was drugs. i had dropped out of school, was broke and in a debt of easily a grand. and i also realized that all the stuff i thought i had dealt with in therapy i had actually just said pretty much what i thought i and everyone else wanted to hear. i wanted to believe that i was okay, but i wasnt. and i'm not.

sometimes i get so angry. my life was changed forever after that first time. and everytime after just engrained it deeper. i've cheated on every one of my boyfriends, though i dont want to. i hate feeling out of control, but if i'm out of control i dont have to be responsible for my actions, and i dotn have to answer to or deal with them either. i dont ever feel smart or pretty or funny or cool or sexy. i think i feel sexy, but thats only when someone tells me, and thats usually when they want me on them. sex means nothing to me, i would pretty much have sex with anyone i found attractive. i feel empty. sometimes when i see my dad, i just want to punch him. sometimes i want to hug him. he went to rehab in arizona but now is back in los angeles with me and my mom and sister. i just want my family to be normal. i sometimes still wish i hadnt told anyone at all b/c then my family would still be together. we would be whole; at least most of us would be.

my dads whole family abandoned us when this all came out. my dad it turns out was abused as well, and that is something my grandmother refuses to acknowladge. the only time i hear from my extended family is when they call to try to guilt me for not calling them. but they never call to invite us to holidays, birthday parties, or even a meal. one year for channukkah, we invited them over for a party and no one could make it. they later had a party without us that we found out about from a third party. the hardest part is that they dotn talk to any of us, which is confusing for my little sister. she sees me get so angry at them, and she gets angry, but she doesnt really get why she should be mad at them.

whenever i tell people my story and about my family and my life these past few years, they always say i'm a "strong person". but it feels so isolating to hear that and after a while it loses all of its meaning. i dont want to be strong anymore. i used to look up at the sky and yell "i dont want to play anymore!". i'm tired of people telling me that i'm strong with that blank stare because they dont understand.

is there anyone out there like me? i feel so alone. i mean, i always feel like my abuse wasnt as big a deal because i know there are people who have had experiences that i couldnt even imagine. is there anyone whose been through some of these feelings?

i hope i didnt offend anyone and i hope that someone out there can tell me when i'll see the sun again... thanks for letting me share