relatively minor childhood sexual abuse

[tulipsaremyfavourite]

Is there such a thing anyway? I have a memory of an incident when I was abut 5 of my dad trying to get me to touch his erect penis. I can't remember whether I did or nor but I remember not wanting to and running out of the room feeling confused and frightened.

I am fairly sure this is the only abusive incident that happened up until the age of 10 after which there were many more incidents of horrible non sexual abuse ie verbal, emotional and psychological which are causing me ongoing problems to this day over 30 years later.

I have always kind of ignored the incident when I was 5 because apart from that I always thought my dad and I had a good relationship and that he loved me at least until it all went wrong when he had some sort of mental breakdown when I was 10 and turned angry and aggressive and nasty towards me.

But I'm now finding myself no longer able to ignore the incident when I was 5 and seem to dwell on it all the time. I've never talked about even though I've had years of counselling for the emotional abuse.

I am very sorry to hear about this.. In my books it is not a minor incident to be honest! You are right, it is not something to be ignored and I hope you can start talking about this now and processing it. Wishing you all the best.

Sorry pressed post too soon. Does that incident mean I'm completely wrong about the years when I thought my dad loved me? Would an otherwise loving, caring dad do something like that in a moment of madness? I just don't know what to think. Apart from that he really genuinely seemed to love me (unlike my mum), that is until he suddenly began to hate me because of his untreated mental illness.

lastexit thankyou. I know thst if it happened to my DD with my DH i would not consider it a minor incident either. Perhaps it's minor to me in the context of other stuff that happened which left me literally paralysed with fear whereas this incident made me feel scared and confused but not petrified.

i think one incident doesn't constitute a relationship. you wrote he was mentally unstable, so maybe that showed itself in that incident.

we keep cross posting... i wish you a lot of strength for your process of thinking about all this. you must have had some horrible experiences.

I think your instinct is right that there is no such thing as minor sexual abuse of a child by a parent.

Have you had counselling?
The thread here for survivors of childhood sexual abuse could also give you lots of support, and a place to work out your feelings about your relationship with your father.

If he broke trust to such a degree when you were 5, and than was consistently abusive to you from 10 onward, it is likely that he has never been able to treat you as an individual human being worthy of respect, and that this just expressed itself in different ways at different stages.

I'm sorry you are going through this. It is devastating to grapple with the thought that we were not loved as we should by the people whose responsibility it was to care for us.

lastexit thank you for your kind words.

HotDAMN thank you for posting. You have said what I was beginning to think myself. That my dad never truly loved me all along. It is devasating to realise this but I feel strangely able to cope with it, mainly because I get so much love support and security from my DH.

Perhaps I decided to ignore that incident for so long and chose to see it as minor so that I could hold on to the belief that my dad did love me for a while. At least until it was impossible to believe that any longer because his behaviour to me was so bad.

I don't think my dad is capable of feeling love. He is too damaged. Even after the worst years of abuse were over and his mental health seemed to improve he still would say some incredibly hurtful and cruel things to me.

But he could also be really kind and nice and truly caring. It's so confusing. Although most of his caring was shown through money ie being very generous financially as a way of showing love. But he did also very rarely show in an emotional way that he cared. Unlike my mother who was never warm, loving or soft, she was always detached and seemed constantly annoyed with me just being around.

So i suppose in those circumstances, as my dad at least didn't seem annoyed at my mere presence, I took that to mean he loved me.

God what a mess. I have a lifetime's worth of issues to sort out, and I've already spent years going to counselling. Just wish I could see an end to it. Just when I think I've finally got the last of it, another layer of crap seems to miraculously appear. Sorry. Am just so fed up. And to cap it all, my parents think they were the world's most wonderful parents and cannot understand why I want nothing to do with them anymore!

It is devasating to realise this but I feel strangely able to cope with it, mainly because I get so much love support and security from my DH... Just when I think I've finally got the last of it, another layer of crap seems to miraculously appear.

It could well be because you are in a position of security that you are now able to tackle this issue (whether your dad ever showed you real love between 5 and 10). It's a drag, but it's only by lancing that boil that you'll be able to put it all to rest [well mixed metaphors there].

There are plenty of books and online resources that can help you work through this on your own, if you don't want to return to counselling. Try the first page of the Stately Homes thread for a list of links.

Hello hotDAMN again I think you are right. That this issue has come to the forefront now at a time when I'm feeling strong and secure enough to cope with looking at the incident and all it's implications a lot more closely than I have done until now.

Other things also never really fitted my theory that my did love me unconditionally until age 10. But I managed to believe that theory by ignoring the age 5 incident and putting all the abuse down to his mental illness and his breakdown when I was 10.

But before age 10 I witnessed plenty if nasty aggression and bullying towards my mother and it has all along been hard to reconcile the caring dad that i thought I knew with the nasty person he was to my mum.

And he was still very cruel and nasty many years after his breakdown which did make me wonder if he did ever love me at all. But again I put the nastiness down to the mental illness still lingering even though it seemed as if he was past the worst of the breakdown which made him unpredictably angry and aggressive.

Once he started hating me and destroyed our relationship because of his abuse he seemed to replace me with my youngest sister and doted on her like he had once with me. He seemed to take a dislike to my middle sister as soon as she born saying she was just like my mother whom he despised. Funnily enough though my middle sister has grown up to be just like my mother so he was kind of right about that.

The strange thing is that despite the abuse I still have some vestige of feeling for my dad whereas I have absolutely none for my mother. She could drop dead tomorrow and I wouldn't care. There must have been some sort of genuine bond between me and my dad for me to feel this way even now after years of abuse and cutting ties with both parents 6 years ago.

tulip Often things only seem to come to the surface when we are strong enough to deal with them, or when we think that we will be heard.

Come over to the survivors' threads - we don't bite

tb yes you're right. I know that from experience, have been on this journey a long time now. This issue is a sad reminder that this a lifelong journey. This is not the first time I've mistakenly thought I'd reached the end because I had been feeling really good for some time.

I have occasionally posted on the survivor's threads but didn't want to post this on there for various reasons.

tulips no incident of childhood abuse is minor especialy if its still affecting you 30 years later mine ended nearly 30 years ago at the age of 12 and I'm finally getting myself sorted out

dotty i know you're right. So sorry you've been through it too.

It just seems so strange that there was only this one incident of any kind of abuse towards me in 10 years. It makes me think it was a moment of madness on my dad's part although he was verbally abusive and aggressive towards my mother all that time so he had problems long before the mental breakdown.

I'm just glad that I've finally acknowledged to myself that it did happen instead of just ignoring it and feeling it was lurking there haunting me.