selfdelete

[chervilant]

46. This:

I remember having to sacrifice my humanity--by remaining silent. By remaining an object. I remained a nothing--to ensure that the abusers were never caught. So I remained a silent, nothing object, because my abusers were my parents and I wanted their love. I was trauma bonded to them. They were all I knew.

My abuser was my older sister's ex-husband, who was in his mid-thirties when he started perping on me. I was 9-10-11--I can't remember a lot, or how it started. Huge chunks of my childhood are missing. (There were other abuses--my dad was an alcoholic.)

I still have family members who blame me for the abuse. This is ironic, since this child molester abused my two baby sisters, a fact I didn't discover until I was in my late twenties.

I have established firm boundaries with most of my family. I recognize that they are as damaged as I, but I am the only one who has pursued recovery, and they even hold that against me.

I've done advocacy for survivors of relationship violence for better than thirty years now--my way of making lemon meringue pie out of the lemons of my childhood. Each time a survivor graces me with the details of their experience, I gain more insight into my own recovery. It's a very selfish advocacy...

Thank you for this very powerful post. Iceberg family, indeed.