Why the "My bad sex wasn't rape" editorial is so utterly, utterly vile.

[Hekate]

237. Shame is the hardest. It affects every single aspect of my life

It affects every relationship.

Did a lot of therapy in midlife -- could probably still be doing it but decided to do something else with the money, so it's been awhile. Reading through this thread makes me think it would probably be of benefit to go back, but the depression ironically enough gets in the way of putting forth the effort.

About 20 years after the year-long molestation I opened Pandora's Box and started to tell. I was 32. It was not a rewarding experience. My mother never liked me again. My brother wanted to know if I had been brutalized and when it seemed I had not, basically didn't want to know about it ever again, and was angry at me for hurting our mother. My sister was my ally, but not going to do my battles for me. More than one person outside the family advised me to not "claim to be a victim." I stopped telling. I'm now 65.

My mother's shame issues were if anything more corrosive than mine. She actually caught the SOB molesting my daughter (age 3 y.o at the time), whom I had thought would be safe until puberty. And she, my mother, did not tell me. I had to tell her because my little girl told me. And, like I said, she never really liked me again. My relationship with my daughter is less than optimal to this day. Shame about that, so to speak. It was -- bizarre -- but you have to come from a dysfunctional family yourself to get how it works.

Anyway, the writing I did at midlife on Persephone, Demeter, and Hekate was good. Had a lot of material.

Hekate