Please help me, childhood abuse ruining my life.

[SwanFace]

This is going to be long so I apologise in advance.

I have had a difficult relationship with my dad as I have always tried to play happy families but felt awkward. I kind of buried this but I remember him touching me inappropriately when I was about 8 (I think.) This is my only memory of overt abuse although he sometimes made inappropriate comments when we were alone and I always remember him looking at me. I was in real, proper denial about this until 2009, when I found pictures my dad had kept of me when I was little :( I then realised what it meant and it put what he did into proper context for me for the first time. I told my family about the photos and it was a shock to all but now this has been brushed completely under the carpet. Only my DH really believes me about what, in my mind, they prove.

My dad is hugely emotionally manipulative and I have managed to overcome the feeling of always being in the wrong, him being angry at me, and feeling ashamed. Whenever him and my mum argued, I had the most corrosive anxiety, thinking it was somehow my fault. I just always felt I was the source of all problems.

In 2009 I confronted my dad about what I found and what he did. He refused to acknowledge it and we had a stand-off and did not speak for a while. During this time I still saw my mum (they are still together) and although she knows about the photos, she was devastated but has carried on as normal. I know as a child displaying some unsettling sexual behaviours, during play with my friends, which I remember concerned her. So I wonder if he did anything else I don't remember, and I wonder if she suspected.

In my teens I had all sorts of problems with anxiety and panic attacks. I was also very reckless with my personal safety, drank too much, tried drugs, and was very promiscuous. My parents had no idea.

When I was 16 I had an affair with a private music tutor. This was my first 'real' relationship (if you could call it that) he groomed me from 15 and slept with me when I was 16 (lost my virginity). Finally wised up and disentangled myself when I was 18.

I have never managed a relationship where I was not unfaithful. It turns out dishonestly and secretiveness is 2nd nature to me :(

This all changed when I met my now DH when I was 22. It was a fairytale romance, we got married and until we had DC1 everything was wonderful. I had awful PND and had an affair. Up until this point we had a very good, trusting relationship. My DH found out, forgave me and we managed to get back on track. After our 2nd DC I felt the same way but managed to fight the massive compulsion to have another affair. I see now I am vulnerable to this always because of how I am.

I have realised I need men to validate me in a sexual way, proving my attractiveness to myself, in order for me to feel good about myself. Having someone admire me and stroke my ego made me feel better after the massive life change of becoming a mum. The affair was hugely damaging and I am determined to be a trustworthy, faithful person from now on.

So basically I have zero self-esteem, I don't value myself very highly and it seems I am by nature deceitful and manipulative. I realise this has to do with the childhood abuse but I honestly don't have the first clue how to sort it out. I know I am a good person and reasonably attractive, my DH loves me and tells me I am beautiful etc, but for some reason this is not enough. As we have got older, I have realised my DH is quite like my dad in some ways, which is hugely damaging to our sex life now I am no longer in denial about what happened. I have tried to be as honest with him as I can about that so we can still have a physical relationship, and most of the time we can. My poor DH, he is so lovely and I am an total train wreck of a person. I absolutely loathe myself :(

I have also realised, as my eldest DC approaches school age, I sometimes act in an emotionally manipulative manner, just like my dad does! I cannot bear it and I do all I can to change my behaviour. I have told DH so he can help me. But am I doomed to be like this as I learned it from him as a child?

At the moment I still try and have a relationship with my dad, for my mum's sake. I make an effort with him, allow him a foot in the door back into my life, then hate myself, and him, and withdraw again, and feel like a hypocrite for allowing him in then blocking him out again. He always tries to control me and the situation with his huffy, manipulative emotional tactics, like a child! I do love him as a dad on some level, which makes it all so terribly painful. (I am very careful with my DCs around him too so they are not at risk.)

Please help me. I have read a lot here and I know I am not alone trying to deal with this. What kind of counselling should I have? Good books to read? Who should I speak to first? I am so sick of feeling like less of a human being and acting in ways which are so dangerous to those I love :(

You poor, poor thing

I know this is possibly what you don't want to hear but I strongly urge you to cut your father out of your life. And your mother.

You do not have any responsibility or duty towards them, quite the opposite.

They were and are monstrous parents.

The world will not end if you end your relationship with them.

Also I would not let your father anywhere near your children - so could you use this as your 'excuse' to cut ties?

Others will come and help you, people with first hand experience.

You are NOT a bad person, you are someone who was abused and horribly let down as a child.

One thing - what do you mean your dh reminds you of your father?

Your parents are suppose to love and protect you. You father abused you and your mother turned a blind eye.

That's not easy to come to terms with, especially if you're trying to maintain a relationship with them both. Proudnscary is right. You should cut them both out of your life. Sounds like you were groomed by your dad, and some of his grooming still works on you which is why you haven't completely shunned him. You're displaying "beaten dog" syndrome. You want to be petted by the hand that abused you. Recognise that and then turn your back. Look after the family you have now the way your parent should have looked after and protected you.

Oh love . If it is too scary to cut them out completely why don't you say to yourself that you won't see them for a set period of time and see how you feel.

Wrt help, your GP might be able to refer you for counselling on the NHS. I was treated for depression recently and where I am the level of intervention they refer you to depends on your circumstances. If you have a good gp it would definitely be worth going to talk to them.

Thank you for responding. I know this doesn't paint my mum in a good light but I don't think she really knew. And she has been a very good parent to me and my elder brother and is a great grandparent to my sons. I think her fault is she is very trusting and thinks my dad can do no wrong. Even after all that was brought to light, it's like that never happened. She won't even allude to it.

I would love to cut my dad out but I irrationally worry my immediate family would think I am a liar, as I have worked so hard most of my life to make us seem like a close, normal father and daughter. I have enabled him to get away with it as I was so scared and confused :( How can I turn around now and say I don't want him in my life? And I still want to see my mum, I couldn't bear not to be in touch with her.

I should have clarified, my DH is similar to my dad in looks but only in very general terms, tall, slim, dark hair. I tend to over-think things and got a bit hung up on whether I married someone who looks likes my dad IFYSWIM I wonder if it's just seeing him in the role of father to our DC that affects me. I don't want it to though :(

My DH is very emotionally intelligent, honest, straightforward, what you see is what you get. The total opposite to my dad (and me at my worst, really). He loves me and wants to help but doesn't know what best to do.

Toxic parents by Susan Foreward has a good section on child abuse. She suggests for counselling not to go down the route of Freudian type psychoanalysis. You need a counseller who is experienced in dealing with child sexual abuse.

SwanFace I'm going to share my experience with you. My father abused my sister and I. I told became loud and rebelious and I told everyone who would listen, but no one believed me. My sister turned shy and mute and became the people pleaser in life.

I cut ties with my brothers who didn't believe me and with my sister in my 20s. She was still in denial and I was the liar of the family. I was emotionally scarred and unstable for years.

I woke up one day and realised I had married my father. My husband not only looked like him but was a violent alcoholic like him too. So I got out, but I went from the frying pan into the fire because I didn't take time out to sort the trauma of my childhood out. It was only after my second marriage broke down and I was being housed by the homeless department that my sister found her voice and admitted what had happened, and we started legal proceeding against my father. The investigation killed him.

My sister and I have since broken ties again. I can't live with her betrayal and denial. It's taken decades to get my head around it, and to get well, because I didn't seek professional help.

Don't do that to you. Go to your GP and ask him for a referral. Abuse does a heck of a lot of damage. It is like a death. You never get over it, but you do learn to live with it in a healthy way.

I wish you everything of the best. I understand where you're at.

Had to reply to your post, what a terrible situation for you. Try and get some counselling - doesn't really matter which type. You could try Relate for starters. Have a look in the yellow pages. Keep looking until you find someone you feel comfortable with.

Your family dynamics sound very complicated (which is not unusual) and I think you may need time to sort through and identify how they work and how they are affecting you. The clarity that comes from doing this can help relieve a lot of anxiety although it can make you feel quite sad to see it all laid out initially.

I would cut contact right down if not at all is not possible. You are not an inherently deceitful person at all, you have just learnt survival tactics for an abnormal situation that many people don't have to deal with and your brain is applying them elsewhere unnecessarily.

You are also very self-aware to understand the need for validation from other men - you would get a lot from counselling it would help you to overcome this. See this as the point at which you get some well deserved help and turn a corner in your life. Sending you lots of luck and strength.

Does your father have contact with your DCs or other grand kids? He shouldn't be free to do this to other DCs.

Are you having counselling? Have you told your GP?

Hi, I'm a childhood sexual abuse survivor too and relate to everything you're going through.

This thread might help.

I've found inner child therapy and ptsd help to be the most effective and Rape Crisis offers specific help to survivors of childhood abuse.

There's quite a few of us on the thread and it's a really friendly place for anyone who's been through this.

Both your parents have utterly failed you, your dad abused you and your mother denied you a voice to be heard. It was not your fault that this happened, they failed you and they have done you great wrong.

You are well within your rights to cut them off.

I would also have a look at this website:-
www.napac.org.uk. It is for those abused in childhood.

Napac are brilliant and really helped me.

Damsel and anyone else affected are also welcome.

Thanks for the link. I've book marked it

Hi Swan. I'm so sorry you have to deal with this. It's a very hard process.

If you'd like, please feel free to join this thread. Everyone on it has experienced similar things to you and will understand what you're going through.

You are not a deceitful person. The behaviour you describe is classic survival behaviour of abuse survivors. If you read the different parts of the thread I linked you'll see a lot of survivors have gone through exactly the same things.

I know you're not ready yet, but you need to face the fact that your mother shares some of the blame for what happened. There is no way she didn't know what was going on. She would have at least suspected. She would have seen when you were a teenager that you were struggling. You told her what happened and she did nothing. She is continuing to let you down and turn a blind eye. That sort of treatment from a parent is just as damaging as outright abuse IMO as it sends you the signal that the abuse doesn't matter, and that people who should care about you won't protect you.

You need to get to the point where you can cut ties with your parents or at least reduce contact with them. But that will take time.

In the meantime please feel free to join the thread, you will be very welcome.

How are you feeling?

Hi, As someone who was also sexually abused by her father your post resonates. My family know about what happened to me and my mother still lives with my father and again it is something that has never been discussed at least not in a positive way. From my understanding this is, sadly, not unusual. The best thing I have done, and would recommend, is to find a very good therapist. I would suggest someone who is a psychoanalytical psychotherapist and who is trained to work more than once a week. Someone who can work with the unconscious stuff that is affecting your life now. I am in my late 40s and I cut my father out of my life about 5 years ago, not easy but for my own sanity I did it. Abuse buggers up our boundaries and view of ourselves in all sorts of ways. Pm me if you want.

thank you AKissIsNotAContract for the book recommendation, I will check it out.

Thank you for sharing DamselInTornDress that is so awful :( I also told my brother and he has been very understanding and supportive but I don't think he really believes me, as he admitted that he would not stop any future DC of his having unsupervised time with him although he would warn he was watching him. That says it all really.

I can identify with the 'beaten dog syndrome' - even now, if I can convince everyone around us me and my dad are cool, I feel like I've done well and will gain his favour. I despise feeling like that now as an adult, because of course I should not be trying to gain his favour or cover up for him. It's just a life-long habit :(

I know what you mean about never getting over it. I feel that too and I just want to do my best to live with it. I spent so long minimising the damage in my own head and in denial, I am so sad it has taken until my 30s to really, properly acknowledge the damage this has done me.

"You are not an inherently deceitful person at all, you have just learnt survival tactics for an abnormal situation that many people don't have to deal with and your brain is applying them elsewhere unnecessarily." LuzLuz this is very helpful, I've never thought about it like that before.

Thank you for the napac links and the abuse survivors thread - I'll have a good read through tonight once the DCs are in bed.

"You are not a deceitful person. The behaviour you describe is classic survival behaviour of abuse survivors. If you read the different parts of the thread I linked you'll see a lot of survivors have gone through exactly the same things." CailinDana thank you, this is also really useful to know.

Right now I feel so emotional. Rereading my post makes me cry. I read the OW thread on here this week and recognised so many damaging behaviours which led to my own affair, which I so deeply regret and realise I was just looking for attention. I feel so angry that what my dad did is at the root of it all. I feel very angry at him and I am determined to be free of it and the way it affects me.

HarlotOTara from reading here I have also realised that so much is done to minimise and ignore abuse within families. It is truly horrifying.

I don't want to see my dad as being in his company is very difficult and it makes my skin crawl. I don't even at the time consciously think of what he did but his presence, the sound of his breathing, his voice, it all just makes me feel horrible. I can never look him in the eye.

I used to get such an unpleasant, disgusting feeling around him when I was young, I couldn't verbalise it or really make sense of it then but I can now. I know I will have to take the step to cut him out my life eventually but just now it feels insurmountable. I know if I tell my mum I don't want to see him she will say "after all he's done for you!"

And now I feel really disloyal for saying bad things about him. WTF!

You will get free of it Swan. You've already started on the journey by recognising the effect it has had on you and by saying that you won't put up with it any more. It won't be easy and you will need a lot of support, but you will get there.

The anger you feel at your father is very healthy at the moment, use it to keep your energy going.

Sorry if you've mentioned this already, but does your DH know what happened? Is he supportive?

The mixed feelings toward your father are normal by the way. Of course you love him and crave his approval, that's what everyone feels about their parents. The key is to realise that your father is never going to give you what you want and that by wishing and hoping for it to happen you are wasting precious energy and happiness.

Swan,
I can identify with the feeling disloyal for saying bad things - I have done it for years and my therapy has helped to stop identifying with him. The problem with incest as opposed to abuse from outside the family is that we usually love our parents very much so when they abuse us we have the constant fluctuation between loving them and then hating them and feeling guilty - it is a real mind-fuck. At least you can hate someone from outside of the family - I am not denigrating the damage and pain caused however. I really loved my father as a little girl and I realise now that I disassociated from the abuse (very common I think) so split off the daddy I loved from the one who abused me - even now I still sometimes think 'did I make it up?'.
I am finally beginning to grieve what I have lost which is painful but necessary. My dh is wonderfully understanding but it has taken its toll on our relationship and on other relationships too as I am so distrusting of people. There was a time when I couldn't even tell anyone I was so ashamed.

My DH does know and has been very supportive. I know I can talk to him about it but I don't tend to that much, I don't want to go on about it. He finds it hard to be around my dad.

CailinDana it's strange isn't it, intellectually I know I don't want or need his approval for covering up for him, but it is such an old, ingrained habit I catch myself doing it.

I had to move back in with my parents for a month do to renovations at home this year and it was extremely insightful; I can now spot my dad's patterns of behaviour and how he tries to control and manipulate me to act how he wants. I was very glad to move back home and get away from him again.

HarlotOTara yy to the fluctuation. I think because the abuse either never got really bad or stopped as I got older, I was able to have a semblance of a proper father-daughter relationship, especially as I was so in denial as I got older. So I do have positive feelings for him but it is such a head-fuck.

I definitely disassociated from the abuse and actually thought I'd had a brilliant childhood with a great relationship with him. There was that one, very vivid undeniable memory of him abusing me and I reasoned that he must have actually thought I was my mum, as she had put me in their bed during the night when I wet the bed. It always gave me a horrible feeling so I tried to never think about it :(

The other memories, inappropriate sexual behaviour in play, night terrors, unable to fall asleep on my own, wetting the bed, hating being alone with him and what he might say, all of that came crashing in when I realised.

So your therapy has stopped you identifying with him? Can you explain that a bit?

I understand you don't want to blame your mother, but she has failed you too. What mother could stay with a man that abused her child? Could you? I really hope you get some help. I agree with others who say your gp is a good starting point.

Yes I think I will speak to my GP this week. He knows my dad though, I am so paranoid he will not believe me, or guess it was him. I will ask to see a different GP I think.

I am really struggling to make sense of my mum's involvement. Did she know? She tends to be very naive and trusting, and especially where my dad is concerned. I think if it were occurring now, when people are generally more clued up on the abuse red flags, maybe she would realise and do something. But then, I don't know what she did or didn't see back then. It's so hard thinking maybe she knew :( What mother could NOT see that? Really?

I'm pretty sure the parents of 2 of my childhood friends suspected something was going on with me. But they made me feel like a freak and under scrutiny so I would never have said anything. Thinking about it now makes me cringe.

HarlotOTara yes I have problems with boundaries too. I had none when I was younger. I'm a bit better now at building them and respecting those of others. My dad still tries to break my boundaries in lots of little ways, it's so exhausting.

Think of this way Swan - if the parents of your friends suspected, how could your own mother not know?

Gosh,you lovely soul,you've had a tough time

Another survivor here (complete understand)

Pyschotherapy has helped me dramatically.I used my weekly hour as a safe place to vocalise,it's so comforting (and strange tbh) to have someone point out that your childhood was littered with abusive parenting,I mean I knew but didn't fully believe it..iykwim? I also had a very very similar teenage hood to you.

I do recommend reading 'The courage to heal' by Ellen Bass & Laura Davis but do be careful as it can be triggering.

Moomenny I do know what you mean. Thank you for the book recommendation. I have tried counselling at various points since I was about 17.. I have never sustained it. I Told a college counsellor when I was 17. Then ever went back to see her. Told my best friend when I was about 14, then backtracked and told her I'd made it all up :( so many times I have tried to get it out and deal with it. Now I want to really do it properly.

CailinDana that is food for thought. When I think about it, whenever I have tried to talk about my anxiety and panic attacks to my mum, she always talked about it in quite an accusatory tone, as in "WHY do you have problems like that? What's the matter with you? I don't know what could have caused that!" Especially around the time I was 21, when I had a complete breakdown due to the panic attacks, ended up on anti-depressants and beta-blockers, then had cognitive behavioural therapy to help me get better. During this time my mum acted like it was a personal affront to her that I had problems like that, didn't want me to tell anyone I had MH issues.

I was really volatile in my teenage years, dropped out of uni, the drink, the drugs, the men (I am so ashamed to think of how promiscuous I was) and moved in with a BF at 19 just to get away. All in total contrast to my brother, how was stable, sensible and finished his degree and stayed on the rails.