Abused by my Father - my story

My name is Peggy I am new to this group. I am 34 years old and within the last year, I have come to the realization that my father sexually abused me when I was very young. Why did it take so long to figure this out? About 5 years ago, my older sister stopped all communications with our mother for no apparent
reason.

Then, 3 years ago, my sister was supposed to be coming to stay with me for the birth of my third child. Her visit would mean that she would be seeing our mother. My sister asked if I wanted to know why she had stopped talking to our mother and I said yes. She told me that my father(not her biological father) had sexually abused her when she was a child and that my mother knew about it the entire time but chose to look the other way. This, of course, upset me greatly.

It killed me to think about it so I just didn't. With a new baby with health issues for me and her, it wasn't hard to put the abuse in the back of my mind and forget about it. Apparently though, my subconscious continued to think about it and slowly but surely, bits and pieces came back to me.

About a year ago, the fact that my father had sexually abused me also, became very clear to me. At first, I thought maybe I was just imagining it...a sort of sympathy for my sister. When I got through that denial, I became very depressed and went through a sort of mid-life crisis...I just wanted to disappear and questioned everything about myself. That lasted for about two weeks and when I came out of it, I wanted nothing more than to drown myself in alchohol.

I didn't however, and to this day, I have not had a drink. Shortly after I came out of the mid-life crisis, life became very busy when we had to quickly look for a house and move then the holidays came around and life stayed very busy for several months. I stayed so very busy that I didn't really have time to think about the abuse but it definitely was affecting me.

Life finally slowed down in January and I started thinking all over again. I finally made an appointment to talk to my Pastor. In the meantime I told my husband. He had known that something was wrong but he didn't know what. After telling him, I knew that I wouldn't be able to tell my Pastor...I wasn't sure that I could tell anyone else but I knew that I needed to get help so I told my best friend who just happens to be my Pastor's wife.

She then filled him in on everything and that made it easier to talk to him because he already knew. Talking to them both really helped me. My pastor got me a referral to a therapist. I have been seeing my therapist for several months now.

Therapy is not easy. I did not like having to tell anyone about this and I am having a hard time talking about it. I have three young daughters. I am constantly fronting a positive mood when they are around no matter how I feel at that moment...it is very tiring. My two older girls knew that something was wrong with mommy. I explained to them that mommy had some emotional problems
that I was talking to a doctor about but that they had done nothing and my problems had nothing to do with them.

My love for my girls is the only thing that has truly held me together all of this time. I truly love my husband but I honestly don't think my love for him would have kept me from disappearing... my girls need me... hubby would have been okay without me. He had a hard time understanding my desire to disappear and drink at first... he thought that I wanted to run away from him and our girls... I finally made him realize that it was the pain inside of me that I wanted to run away from... he has been very supportive and wonderful since then.

I don't know whether my mother knew that my father was abusing me. My husband and I also suspect that one of my two older brothers was also abused by my father. My brother has always had very odd and quirky behavior that everyone attributed to his high intelligence. However, after the abuse revelation, I
realize that his behavior is most likely because he was abused. I don't know if I will ever be able to discuss the abuse with any of my family.

My father died when I was 12. I absolutely idolized him and held him right up there next to God until my sister revealed her secret... The pedastal came crashing down upon me that day and rocked my world... but my world turned upside down the day I realized that my father had abused me too.

Anyway, this turned into a very long ramble and I don't even know if it will make sense to any of you if you even made it through this far. I have to admit that I am scared to hit send even though this is completely anonymous.

So far, only four people know about this and I can only look one of them in the eye.(my hubby). I know that I have nothing to be embarrassed about but I still feel ashamed, weak and stupid.

Peggy