Re: My story: suspected abuse coming out (long!)

"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