"I have no idea what happened, all I have is my own observations and gut instincts."
First, thanks for sharing your story. In reading through it I think that the sentence above is the summation of your post and is asking a question: "Is there more?" The answer is that if there is, you will remember. But I don't see that as "the" resolution to your anxiety.
You have a wonderful memory. Very explicit and it also contains the feelings that you had at the time the events happened. Let's assume that what you have related is "all" that physically went on between you and your father. Do you need more? As you read over what you wrote, do you find that within "normal" (whatever that is) and "acceptable" limits of an opposite sex parent? That's for you to decide but I think you already have a treasure trove to work with.
As growing children in a two parent family we have a tendency to accept all parental behavior as normal. We rationalize in order to survive. Then when we become an adult we forget to go back and recognize that maybe some things weren't normal. I believe that's where you are at now and I think it's a wonderful beginning to a healing process that you can initialize. In fact by your post on this board you have begun a healing journey.
You had a fixation on your father's mouth. I had a fixation as a small child on my father's waistline. I remember when I was at an age when my eye level was at about his crotch I had very uncomfortable feelings. Some of that was because his waistline included a belt which he would rip off and lash with, with very little provocation and I didn't ever know when that would happen. But there was more to it than that. I was in terror of his fly area. I never learned why until I was an adult and memories began to emerge.
You don't have to "go fishing" for what happened to you. You have some fabulous material to work with right now. The only question I see remaining is what do you want to do with it? You are obviously not only sane, but intelligent too. I'm a guy, but I have read "The Courage to Heal" and have given copies of it to former long-term partners to try and help them deal with similar issues to what I have dealt with. (Isn't it amazing at how we hook up with partners who have similar backgrounds?) This book has loads of bad press because one of the authors is a lesbian and many decry their background or lack thereof, while others hate it because in one place and one place only it makes a statement "If you think you've been sexually abused, you have been." Ignore that sentence and use the rest of the book. It has many personal stories of healing and can provide you guidance in deciding on a road you wish to travel.
Thanks for having the courage to post.
"I'm currently training to be a sexual assault nurse examiner, that's what the acroynm SANE stands for."
You're still sane!
Memory, memory.... Think I've posted on here before on my opinions about that. Yes memories do come out 20 years later and in my case almost 60 years later. It's when they are ready, unprompted. I did a load of reading about false memories and the False Memory Syndrome (there is no such thing, it's a contrived label that is not a therapeutically accepted syndrome). If you're in that area, you know that there are decent counselors and lousy counselors. There have been many counselors who have told their clients what has happened to them. That is totally unacceptable. So is hypnotic regression in the hands of anyone but top notch practitioners (as MD, or PhD) and I'm not too trusting of them of them either. So, memories can be and have been implanted and we went through a rash of it about ten years ago. With all the adverse publicity surrounding the implanted memories it set back those who have never forgotten, by many decades. It discourages the abused from coming forward. I have both never forgotten memories (many) along with terrifying repressed memories that rose on their own.
In my state there is a statute of limitations on recovered memories, which is three years after the memory has been recovered. I personally know an individual who sexually molested three of his daughters for several years and when the first one came forward as an adult and told about the molestation, nobody believed her. That is, not until her two younger sisters told that they too had been sexually abused by the same father. The guy was never ever charged with anything. It is so difficult to get charges let alone prison time. I think that the extended family was too embarrassed by what had happened to go to the authorities and I think that if they had done so they would have run into the statue of limitations. We need children to come forward as soon as they are old enough to talk. We need education in that area but there are elements in our society that want all sex education of any kind suppressed.
Many thanks to you in your chosen field. It's still an area that is widely ignored for both male and female children.
"Wow that sounds weird, but it's true. Having felt "safe" around my dad for a few years now, it makes it all seem like a big illusion at times."
I understand what you are saying, and perhaps your years of feeling safe contribute to it seeming like a big illusion from time to time. From my perspective in reading what you wrote originally is that - you have an excellent memory. Yet as children while things are taking place we are forced to rationalize and accept what happens in our home as normal, and then looking back from an adult perspective we (at least I) wonder if the memory is somehow exaggerated. We get different programming. As a male I was programmed that I wasn't supposed to feel pain so as an adult with this common male programming if someone were to have told me that I had a painful childhood I would have called them a liar. Yet both parents beat me and my brothers with a readily accessible razor strap and when my dad was in a hurry he didn't go for the strap he went for his belt. I didn't really hide those memories, but I kind of put them on a shelf and told myself it wasn't really as bad as I remembered it to be. No, it wasn't as bad as I remembered it, it was worse! It didn't get that way for me until I did some work on it. I'm an old guy and I didn't go into counseling until PTSD from early childhood hit me like a rock about 15 years ago. Then when I started talking about things, feelings - tremendous feelings - came up with what I was saying. They had never done that before. In between counseling sessions I typed out page after page of childhood memories along with my own commentary, as fast as I could go - and 10 years ago I was tested at 93 WPM so I can type fast. The tears often rolled down my cheeks as I keyed the things in. I didn't worry about spelling, grammar, foul language or anything else, I just let it all come out. It was something the counselor recommended and I also recommend it to anyone who has been through childhood difficulties. You don't ever have to show it to anyone, it is just for you. What it did for me was that I had the memories rattling around in my head - always, but it didn't seem real to me either. But putting it down on the computer screen forced me to admit that things actually happened to me. Not just sexual, but other things too. In order to escape the pain of my childhood I created more pain by joining the USMC and experienced combat - in the trenches of Korea. After that I also survived an air disaster (bailed out of a fighter jet at a very low altitude - at night) which killed the pilot. My programming said that none of that hurt or even caused me any fear, and I buried all of that too for several years until I went searching for me. While it was buried, much of it did seem like it had been an illusion. I told myself many times that I couldn't have survived what I had been through - I never had a physical scratch on me from those events. But it was no illusion. Go with your memory. Write it out. Let all the emotions that you have buried in your reality emerge as you write. I lived alone when I eventually did mine. If you live with someone let them know you want time to yourself and get your computer out, or do it in long hand, and find a spot and shut the door and spend significant time writing what you remember, in your own style, your own punctuation, your own name calling, and whatever comes up. Keep a good supply of Kleenex or paper towels nearby. It can be a huge catharsis and if not, at least it will help with the illusion issue - I know that for sure.
I will add one thing at this point. I was sexually molested as a child. As an adult not yet old enough to drink, I served in combat and experienced all the tools of war around me and at me in all their deathly horror. My terror when the engine of our fighter plane exploded and caught on fire is indescribable. But you know what? I'd take Korea and the fire and bail out a dozen times over, rather than go through just one of those childhood molestation experiences again. Anytime. A person who has never been molested cannot really understand that gravity and life-long trauma that the molestation of a child causes that person.
I have been thinking, and have concluded for now that yes, the incidents I told you about are horribly inappropriate and were scarring, but those (and multiple incidents like them) probably were "it." The question is, is this abuse? Molestation?.......???????
Well, it took my sessions with a counselor to learn that many of the experiences that I had in childhood were molestation and sexual abuse. Prior to counseling I had never put that tag on them either. What you will learn as you progress is that molestation isn't just being touched by a hand. It is also an invasion of your own personal space on a spiritual level. There are some things that I don't like about that expression from the sixties, but it is so true - we each have our own personal space and others do invade it. The lasting effects are not just from being physically touched, but they are also the invasive energies left there by the molester, and I'm going to call what you experienced molestation. I'm not trying to push you in that direction but I know what the several counselors I've been to would call it, so I'm going to use that term. When molestation is presented as a routine or normal activity by the molester, then we who have been molested accept it as normal and hide the invasion. Does that make sense? You are sprit and so is everyone else. When someone invades your space on a spiritual level you have in you, their energies which to you are very uncomfortable and you will feel better in general, if you clear those spiritual energies out of your space that are not yours. Counseling is one way to do it. I used counseling and I also used (continue to use) spiritual techniques in my meditations to do it. Your question above is one of the reasons I earlier suggested The Courage to Heal because it would answer your question for you. There are some differences of opinion as to what constitutes molestation, but there is no doubt in my mind what you experienced.
If there's more to come out, when will it, and why????
You may think about it a bit, but don't worry about it. I think you've got enough on your plate to keep you busy for a while. If there is more it will come out when you are ready for it. There is the old and true saying that "God will never give you more than you can handle" and Mother Teresa's response to that was "I just wish he wouldn't trust me so much."
If you don't know why you chose your current field of work, I do. And good for you. Not only will you learn about yourself but you will be providing support to others who really need it.
Best to you