INCEST - Diary of an Incest Survivor Part II

What follows is a continuation of INCEST - Diary of an Incest Survivor Part I, diary entries extracted from the spoken and written words of various incest survivors spanning several decades. The diaries are condensed into one week. I have taken the liberty of creating one woman (I could have chosen a man) to represent a composite of many victims. I have also taken the liberty of using the most prevalent incestuous relationship - that of father-daughter. Though victims range in age, the focus remains on one of the least reported incestuous phenomena - adult-onset incest.

Please read Part I first. This is Part II:

Friday

Coming to grips with my situation is difficult. I am frightened always. Nobody knows what it feels like to be molested by a father when she is an adult. Nobody knows what it feels like to be accused of behaving provocatively when no intention whatsoever was made to appear in any way sexual to my father.

My father thrives on humiliating me. What better form of humiliation is there than to molest your adult daughter and force her into a state of helplessness and fear.

I have no support system. I can find nobody whose abuse began as an adult. I can't imagine how my mother feels, knowing that her husband has a sexual attraction to his own daughter. I don't understand why she stays with him. I'm confused, because I still love him. He's my dad. And I still love her. She's my mom.

I wonder why my sisters and mother talk to each other and exclude me from their conversations. Don't they realize I need to talk about what has happened to me?

I wonder, too, if I caused my brother to leave the country. I can't help thinking that everybody is ashamed of me.

My body reacts to every fear now with a numbing sensation that begins with a tingle in my fingers and my toes. It emanates upward toward my heart and settles in my brain. I feel nothing except scarred.

My dentist tells me I must be very stressed; I have ground my teeth down so far I need caps on all of them. I don't feel stressed - I feel numb - but I can't sleep at night. I toss and turn. I'm gaining weight around my midsection. Maybe he's right.

I hear about the cycle of abuse and I wonder, if I have a son, am I destined to abuse him too? I worry about that.

Saturday

I pray for the ability to forgive my dad. My mother suggests I seek professional help. I try, but I hate having to dredge up all the disgusting negative feelings over and over. I'd rather live my life as I am, forgetting when I can and however I can. I drink alcohol, I smoke pot, and I swallow pills. Drugging myself helps to relieve the pain.

And then it doesn't. I've lost control of my life too many times and in so many ways. I drag my only daughter from coast to coast as I run in frantic circles trying to build a life that is in shambles, piecing together a brain that is scattered in so many places I wonder if I'll ever find all of me again.

I try to hold onto whatever I can, because I can't lose more of me than I've already lost. I quit everything that causes me to lose control. And now I am so in control, I think I'm responsible for the weather. At least that's what the man who became my husband insists, complaining that I cause the sun to hide behind the clouds every time I go outside when he wants to tan. I retreat to the house. I don't want to upset him. He's probably right. Even God doesn't want to see me.

I can't get over the shame I feel. I can't look my father in the eyes. I'm afraid to be in the same room with him. It doesn't help knowing he has psychological problems. The idea seems too crazy to contemplate but I can't help wondering if he might kill me too.

And then sometimes I think maybe killing myself would be the way to end this relentless pain. I can't stand living in this nightmare anymore, feeling so separated from my family, but feeling helpless to do anything about it.

My family members forget about me from time to time. They skip my birthday or bypass landmark events that hold special meaning for me, like the day I got my degree. It hurts but I understand why. They can't deal with the trauma of incest either. I remind them too much of their own pain. Better to sweep me under the rug and pay attention to me only when I force them to trip over me.

Sunday

Family get-togethers frighten me. I can tell everybody feels obligated to invite me, and that they are uncomfortable around me, because they criticize me and sometimes make fun of me from the moment I walk in the door.

I struggle with headaches knowing that I will have to be close to my father and remembering that I will be subjected once again to condemnation about a variety of issues from my sisters and my mother. They tell me my children are doomed to failure because of the way I raise them, that I live in squalor, and that I am a lousy role model as a parent.

I almost believe them. I'm changing, but they can't forgive me for past mistakes. They look upon me as a failure. They cannot see that I am striving to achieve balance in a life where the scales are tipped so far apart that I may never be able to achieve equilibrium.

Will they ever see the strides I've made? Do they understand how difficult it is for me to attend these family functions? The incest and everything associated with it are indelibly etched on my soul and affect everything I do. They are ever present.

At some point, I realize that in order to move forward in life, not only do I have to forgive my father, but I will also have to forgive my siblings and mother as well.

I write my father a letter, explaining to him how much I would love to have a nurturing healthy loving father-daughter relationship. He doesn't respond. I didn't expect him to. I just want him to know how it could have been. I want him to know that I still love him.

My mother has a different relationship with my sisters than she does with me. My brother keeps in touch only through email. He never attends family get-togethers. He has formed his own family.

None of them understands me. How could they? Why should I expect them to?

Afterword

Nobody understands that events that took place forty, fifty, or even sixty years ago still affect an incest survivor on every level. How could anybody understand the negative effects of incest unless she (or he) was intimately involved in it? The aftermath changes victims in ways that nobody can imagine. It alters their perceptions and it trashes their souls.

Victims always hope for the ability to release their pain and let it go. But pain goes beyond just the victims. Incestuous incidents affect everybody closely related to them as well. Though family members and friends may not admit its diffuse influence in their lives, loved ones are still in its grip; it still affects them even if they aren't overtly aware of it.

Despite the age of onset, many victims still long for the father-daughter, brother-sister, or any of a number of relationships they were robbed of having. Others leave family members behind, never able to salvage even the hope for a relationship with people who were supposed to love them.

Many victims feel ostracized and persecuted because members of their families cannot cope with the constant reminder of events that occurred - events that disrupted the family - events they are constantly reminded of simply because of the victim's presence. They believe that, if not for the victim, the incest might never have occurred.

As far as the cycle of abuse is concerned, except in the minds of people who adore statistics, it probably doesn't exist. Everyone is born with freedom of choice. At some point abusers give themselves permission to cross that invisible line between being morally responsible and being morally corrupt.

Drowning in a well of despair, some victims retreat into themselves. But support groups and various web sites devoted to victims of sexual abuse can help victims feel cleansed and renewed.

Numerous web sites devoted to helping Victims of Incest are listed below. These organizations and web sites offer help and healing to people who have suffered at the hands of sexual abusers.

Healing is a process that begins with cleansed wounds. And cleansed wounds begin with forgiveness, for themselves, for their abusers, and for the people they thought would support them - but who disappointed them by their lack of support. The roadblocks that prevent victims of abuse from moving forward are the mountains of pain they hold onto because they want the abuser to remember the pain they caused and they want the abuser to pay for the pain they caused.

Sadly, abusers rarely, if ever, think about their victim(s)' pain; abusers think only about their own pleasure derived from the abuse they perpetrated. Victims don't do themselves any good by hanging on to the pain. They don't do themselves any good by using the abuse as an excuse for not moving forward in life either.

Many victims, because of their compassion and empathy, want to protect their abusers, because as is most often the case in incest, they love their abuser. But they fail to ask, "Who protected us when we were being abused?" Not only do they carry the pain of their own abuse, they carry what they perceive to be the pain of their abuser(s) as well.

If you are a victim of incest or criminal sexual assault, and you can't forgive your abuser, begin by forgiving yourself. Change your focus from thinking you are a victim of incest or sexual abuse to one of being a survivor of incest or sexual abuse. If you are reading this article, you are a survivor.

As one entry in the Victims of Incest web site states, finding your V.O.I.C.E - (Victims Of Incest Care Enough) allows you to admit you were abused - and if you are far enough along in your recovery - to also offer other victims of incest your support - because you care enough to reach out.

Here are links of web sites devoted to helping victims of incest and abuse become survivors of incest and abuse:

Victims of Incest offers "support, comfort, and empowerment to victims of incest." Whether they were children or adults when incest began, VOI asks victims to share their experiences. Victims can remain anonymous.

Survivors of Incest Anonymous is another web site devoted to helping victims survive the trauma of incest and, as the name states, incest victims can remain anonymous.

Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network (RAINN) is the "nation's largest anti-sexual assault organization."

National Sexual Violence Resource Center "serves as the nation's principle information and resource center regarding all aspects of sexual violence."

An Abuse, Rape and Domestic Violence Aid & Resource Collection

National Institute of Mental Health Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) Guide

The National Center for Victims of Crime