Very personal stuff.

OK, I am starting this post off by saying that: 

1-I am not looking for sympathy or pity.

2-I am not ashamed of any of my feelings about what I am going to type.

3-What I am about to type is a part of who I am and cannot be changed, but the people responsible are not a part of my life anymore.

4-This subject is on my mind because I started class today (abnormal psychology). Otherwise I normally don't think about it too much.

5-This is VERY personal and has some...uncomfortable things in it.

I was three months old when my father started molesting me. Being that young of course I have no memories of the actual events but I was told that was about the age I was when it started. By the time I was about three and a half I was being raped. Again, I have no memories of these events, I actually have very few memories of my childhood at all. Most of my memories begin when I turned 14. When I was between 7 and 9 my father was caught. I am unsure of my age at this point, no one in the family really talks about it and I don't remember most of it. Once he was caught, my older sister and I were removed from our home and placed in a "secret" rescue home ran by the state. I do remember that at the rescue home there were not a lot of workers and kids ranged in age from infant to 18 years old. Part of the initiation among the kids (for females) was to run the "gauntlet" (as I call it) or to "be with" the leader. We were there, from what I understand, for a couple of months until my father found us and took us. Once we were found again by the police we went back into my mother's custody and my father was sent to prison.

Both my sister and I were ordered by the courts to have psychological counseling until we were of legal age (18). I remember a couple of sessions where I would not speak with the lady and my sister was sitting there telling all of the things that happened to her. I will say that, because I was the quiet child, a lot more happened to me than to her. She kept her virginity until she chose to give it away. I remember at one point being afraid that she was talking because I was threatened that if I told on him he would kill everyone in the family. From the reports my mother received about me I made no effort to talk to anyone about what was going on, I was detached from reality, I was bi-polar and I suffered from "fugue" states. When I read the reports years later I have always wondered what fugue states were and if I really suffered from them as a child. With my memory being so full of holes it is hard for me to say. 

There are a couple of times where I remember being at one place and then the next thing I know it is a couple days later and I am somewhere else. Or the most extreme thing that comes to mind now, I was at the mall with my father, watching some kids with their father, the next thing I know I was in school and it was a couple weeks after I was at the mall. I asked my mom about my lapse in memory and if I acted any differently when I was "away" and she said it was like I was someone else. I was a quiet child and she said that sometimes I was so outgoing and so talkative that she thought she had the wrong child at times. I have no memory what-so-ever of anything that happened in the lost time. I don't remember leaving the mall, the weeks in between or anything. I asked my mom how often that happened and she said that I would have "mood swings" like that a lot up until I was about to start Jr. High.

Today I had the chance to speak with my teacher, she has a doctorate in abnormal psychology and I wanted to ask her opinion about my "fugue states". I explained in brief detail what happened to me and what the reports said and she said that it was more likely that I had/have  Dissociative identity disorder (it used to be called multiple personality disorder). I am not sure how I feel about that or even if I believe that it is something I have/had.

I could go on for days about all of the different emotions I have gone through in my life trying to realize that this was not my fault, that I was a victim. Oh the anger and resentment that I had to overcome in order to forgive my father-not his actions but him as a person. He is a part of my past and in the past is where he belongs. Anyone who goes out of their way to hurt someone and to make them feel like they are worth less than what they are worth, deserves to stay in the past.

I sometimes wonder if it even happened at all, if the few memories I do have of the events are true or something made up in my mind as a result of people telling me it happened. Some days it is so real that the emotions are so raw that I don't know how I can move forward, most of the time I feel like nothing ever happened. I sometimes need my husband to reassure me that I am worthy of being loved, that I am important and not just someone to be used but I do not think he understands. I think that for people who have not gone through something like that, it is hard for them to understand the emotions and needs of someone who has gone through it.