Abused by grandpa as child. Can't get over it. *TRIGGERING*

I'm sorry for grammar errors... It's 2 AM as I'm writing all this. I want to share my story because I want others who can identify with me to feel like they're not alone. And above all, I want them to know that things like this are NOT their fault.
It is absolutely not your fault. You should never ever have guilt over something that happened when you were so very young and helpless.

I'll try to make this as short as possible and stick to the point of the recollection. If you've been through something similar or have any suggestions on how I can finally get past this and into a healthy, functioning romantic relationship with my boyfriend, please comment. Thank you so much for reading.


When I was 5, my grandfather locked me in a room with him while I was watching cartoons. Obviously, I was oblivious to his intentions. He put me on his lap and fondled me between my legs. I remember the day very well...I just thought nothing of it back then. I knew absolutely nothing about sex and all I knew about my privates was that I used them to go to the bathroom. I thought he was just showing me some odd form of affection. He asked me not to talk about it to anyone because girls who can't keep secrets are bad girls and grow up to be liars. He said this SO nicely, though, I obeyed him and didn't think it was anything bad.

This went on for several weeks and I started thinking it was strange. But again, it didn't seem so different from getting a bath from a family member, so I had no reason to be creeped out.

I turned 6 and he kept doing it...maybe once or twice every month or so, when I'd go to my grandparents' house. One day, he stopped doing it through my pants and started going much further. I didn't know what to do and I thought if I asked anyone else if it was okay, he'd spank me. (kids got spanked when they were bad in my family. pretty normal, i think)

When I was 7, something in me started to change. When he'd put me on his lap, I'd struggle a bit, or tell him no. He'd just laugh a little and say it was okay. I didn't really know it WASN'T right, I just didn't...want to for some reason. My stomach would knot up when he'd touch me and one day he started to hold me down a little. I told him I had to go to the bathroom and he let me go. I didn't return to the room and mom picked me up. He didn't do anything to me for a while though... and at that point, I didn't know he was doing anything bad, but just knew I didn't want him to do it.

The next time he got me alone, I was almost 8. It was Thanksgiving and everyone was at my grandparents. Most of the family was outside catching lightning bugs and having desert on the porch. I had eaten FAR too much though and felt sick, so I went back inside to watch cartoons on my grandma's TV upstairs in their room (the living room was occupied.... football). After about a half hour of cartoons, the door to the room opened and there he was. He'd been drinking, but he wasn't the violent drunk type so he didn't seem menacing or anything. Just clumsy. I said "Hi grandpa" and he sat down on the bed to watch cartoons with me. He had a beer bottle with him.

For some reason, I wasn't suspicious of what he might be there to do. I was too young to know that what he'd been doing was sexual, so I guess I just dismissed it and hadn't thought about it anymore. I just thought of it as "rubbing" and I didn't like him "rubbing" me. It made me feel weird. I wish I'd thought of it at that moment, but I was absorbed in watching The Rescuers Down Under, so I just laid there on my belly with my legs kicking in the air.

My grandpa started doing it to me again. This time, I rolled over and said I wanted to go play outside with my cousins and asked if he wanted to come too. He said no and told me to lay down. This part, I remember very clearly. I said no, I wasn't tired. And he said, "I'll make you tired."

Those words will never leave my head. "I'll make you tired."

Even at 7, that scared me. I started to get up without his permission. He pressed me down like I was a bad child. Then he got up and locked the door. I stayed on the bed. I don't know why. I think I was scared of a spanking. Anyway, this time he said something about having to take a look at me so he could make sure I was staying healthy. I told him mom does that so I didn't need him to. But he didn't say anything else and just ripped my pants off. He told me to be still so he could look at me (as if he was just giving me a health examination), and over the next several minutes, he raped me with the beer bottle. I fought because it caused discomfort and pain, but it was more of a "disobey your elder" kind of fighting than an "oh god, I'm being raped" fighting...because I had no clue what was happening to me.

(There were other occasions here and there, before and after the beer bottle incident, but I don't see a reason to describe anymore of it. He stopped all of it when I was 9.)

Anyway, four years later (when I was 12), I learned about sex for the first time. I heard a group of dirty-mouthed girls talking at my middle school and I chimed in to see what it was about. One of them said something about her older sister getting raped and their family was going to get money out of the resulting court settlement. I knew "rape" was considered a bad word that I wasn't supposed to say, but I never knew what it was. So I asked the girl who was talking about it. She said rape was when someone is forced to have sex with someone else against their will. I confessed that my mom hadn't talked to me about sex yet and she said it was how you make babies. I said, "I know that much, but I don't know like...what it is. How it's done."
Thankfully, she wasn't a particularly mean girl and her friends didn't make fun of me. They explained all of it to me. It was very simple and primitive, the way they said it (using kid words like "butt" or "private part"), but I got the picture.

Suddenly, I knew that if someone touches you 'down there' or tries to put something in you, that's part of sex. And I already knew sex was a bad thing unless you're a married adult who wants to make a baby (that's how I was taught as a little kid). And by then, I knew that if a child was ever involved in sex-related activities, it was a VERY bad thing. An evil thing. It meant something evil had been done to you. It meant something evil had been done to me. By my grandfather. By someone who hugged and kissed me my whole life. Someone who gave me Christmas presents, took me to amusement parks, and "loved" me. Someone my mother trusted my life with.

I froze. It was like everything in me suddenly knotted up. I became physically ill and had to be sent home from school. But I didn't tell a soul.

Needless to say, I wouldn't allow myself to ever be alone with my grandfather anymore. I can't really explain why I didn't ask him about it or tell him I knew what he did once I had learned from the girls at school. No, I didn't make a sound about it. I just crawled into myself, a little piece of me poisoned from the realization and slowly creating a bigger wound as months went by. A year later, my grandfather had a serious stroke and died. I was 13. I was asked to sing at his funeral and I refused. No one ever knew why I said no. Know one knew why I just stood there, staring into his coffin without shedding a single tear.

After he died, I forced myself to never think about it again. I tucked it away somewhere. A little rotting hole inside my head that I just tried to ignore. I rewrote my own history. I actually made up bogus memories of me doing other things to cover over those horrible events that sickened me.

I didn't allow myself to have friends or crushes on boys because I didn't want to trust anyone ever again. I HATED physical touch. I couldn't sit through any love scenes in movies. I started having night terrors and began sleepwalking. My mom started to worry about me, because I seemed to have no memory of my life before I was 9. I'd also tell her lies, make up memories until she started to realize I was confused about reality. She just couldn't figure out why.

When I reached 18, I hadn't thought about what happened to me in a long time. I'd been dating a boy for a few years, but we were both very old fashioned and had never done anything physical other than kiss. I'd grown very in love and attached to him, though....when he left me, I was absolutely devastated. Suddenly, I had a horrible sense of abandonment by the one man I'd ever let myself love and trust. And I just lost it. The depression was immense. At one point, I started feeling suicidal, but that seemed strange to me. Losing my first boyfriend made me want to die? Was I that weak? Then I realized there was something else wrong.

I don't remember exactly how it happened, but the intense depression I went through somehow triggered the memories of my grandfather. All of them. They came at me full force, invading my head for the first time in years and years, and I got very sick for about a week. Then I just couldn't take it. I wanted to carve it out of me, but I couldn't. So then I wanted to kill myself. I realized there was only one way to save myself. I was about to turn 19 and I finally, FINALLY told my mom. One night I just sat her down and told her I was sorry I'd been so depressed and faithless and weak. And then I told her everything.

Her reaction was heartbreaking. I can't even describe to you what it's like to see a mother, who loves you so much, just break down like that. She couldn't believe it. She blamed herself for leaving me alone in that house. She blamed herself for not knowing. For not guessing what might be wrong with me. I told her to stop. It wasn't her fault.

And then she looked hard at me and said. "No, it's not YOUR fault. Do you hear me?"
I nodded, but for some reason she knew that part of me actually thought it was my fault. Somehow.
So she repeated herself. "It wasn't your fault. It wasn't your fault. It wasn't your fault."

And then I cried. I cried and cried and cried.

And for the first time, that rotting, gaping hole inside my mind, that hole filled with poison that had been eating at me my hole life, started to close up just a little bit.

I'm 21 now and I still have trouble with what happened to me. I still have extremely graphic nightmares and react badly to anyone touching me. But I fell for a wonderful guy about a year ago and we've been dating. I decided that since I felt like he really loved me, he would need to know what happened to me. I knew one day he'd want to do a lot more than kiss and hold hands, so I needed him to know why I might seem cagey, skittish, or unwilling to do things in the future. He's the only person, other than my mom, who knows.

He's been amazing about the whole thing. His gentleness and endless patience really makes me feel like there might be some hope for me. I'm hoping that as our relationship grows... One day, I'll be able to take down all of these physical and mental walls I've built. And at some point, I hope to truly heal.

I just wish I could push a button in my heart and instantly fix it. I feel damaged, misshapen. Jaded. Dirty, even. Like I'm poisoned and I'm scared it'll bring down the people who love me. Especially my boyfriend. I just want to get out of this and make it go away. That's all I've ever wanted.

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Dear Anonymous,

I am so sorry for what you have gone through. As I was reading it I felt so sad for you and also scared. You must have been so scared of what was happening. I have had some bad things happen to me and I have found therapy has given me the braveness to talk about what happened tho it is still very much a work in progress. I am so glad your Mum was supportive, mine told me it was culturally different where I grew up! It sounds like your Mum and Bf are really supportive. Maybe they could help you with getting the courage to see a therapist? Wrt having "normal" relationships, I don't have an answer, tho my GP has suggested if I find someone who is supportive maybe psychosexual counselling might help. This might be something to talk to your boyfriend about?

So sorry you went through this

Cracked

We'reREAL, I am so sorry you were so badly hurt

Thank you so much for responding. Last night, I was having lots of the nightmares and just couldn't calm down. I thought I might have a break down and started searching google to see if there was some site i could go to for advice or instructions on how I could take steps to calm myself and stop feeling sick. I was in a bad place.

We'reREAL wrote:You impress me how you were able to clearly just lay out what happened to you. I wish I had that chutzpa. I come to the board this morning to ask for help and just sort of paced back and forth and as usual know that there is no way I can do that because I don't have the guts to lay it out in clear terms because it involves things that hurt so badly.

Sometimes when I'm at my weakest (having a horrible episode), I'm already having to think about it so much, it makes it somewhat easier to just let it out and talk about the details. However, when I'm just trying to act normal and not think about it during the day, It's much more difficult to think about (or accept) what really happened. I usually see no reason to "talk about it", especially details because I'd rather just force it down to some part of me that I don't think about. In the back of my head.

But last night, I couldn't stop crying. I had to get up to vomit just to get the twisted feeling out of my stomach and that made me worry about whether I'm just leading my boyfriend into a relationship filled with negativity and fear on my part, and he'll never be truly satisfied. That just isn't fair to him. I realized I must fix this. So when I found this website, I decided that the only way I could get real help with fixing myself and making this relationship work (we love each other so much...it just has to work) was by writing what truly did happen. Obviously, there was NO need for me to share every incident or how many times they happened, but I did put down the important ones. Maybe being so honest about what went on can help some of you understand the things my poor boyfriend does (just normal, sweet things) that set me off and trigger me to go into a terrible rut where I don't want to be touched and have to just curl up in a corner alone. It makes me feel like I'm damaged goods or like I'm weak and incapable of loving anyone. I don't want him to see me like that anymore.

Thank you so much for the advice on seeing a therapist. I'm working my way up to being able to afford one, but my real issue is that I just don't know if I could bring myself to talk to a stranger about it. It's not as difficult talking to you all because I'm able to remain anonymous. But to look at someone face to face and talk about what happened seems impossible to me. It was very very very difficult to tell my boyfriend and I already trusted him. I've never been to any sort of counseling or therapy in my life and don't know if I could handle it.

While I'm here, I might as well ask a question that's been on my mind for weeks. Will I ever be able to let a man have intimate physical relations with me? Well to be blunt, I mean sex. Obviously, I'm a virgin... and I know sex should be a pure and loving act, but even though I feel very much like our love is pure... when I think about it, I involuntarily close up and feel slightly ill. That EVIL man was the only person who ever touched me like that and certainly the only person to put anything in my body, and I'm scared it'll be the same as it was when he did it. My boyfriend told me not to be scared because it's not like that. He said it'd feel totally different with him and he'd never push me into anything and will wait for however long it takes for me to be ready. But I honestly feel like I won't ever be ready. I already become a little freaked out when he just puts his hand too close to my breasts or starts touching my body a little to much. And if he went anywhere, anywhere below the belt, I know I wouldn't be able to handle that. It'd probably send me into an episode (hugging myself, rocking back and forth, shaking, wanting to throw up, crying and being scared of nothing, etc). Will physical love and marriage ever be possible?

CrackedGirl wrote:Dear Anonymous,

I am so glad your Mum was supportive, mine told me it was culturally different where I grew up! It sounds like your Mum and Bf are really supportive. Maybe they could help you with getting the courage to see a therapist? Wrt having "normal" relationships, I don't have an answer, tho my GP has suggested if I find someone who is supportive maybe psychosexual counselling might help. This might be something to talk to your boyfriend about?

And yes, thank god she was so supportive. Thank god. I couldn't talk about this AT ALL until I talked to her. I was on the verge of ending my own life and was so desperate, I felt I had to force myself to have the courage to speak about it. And then she gave me enough strength to tell my boyfriend. Thank god for her. I might not be here if it wasn't for her.

Dear Anonymous,

I am very messed up when it comes to sex, but I hope with time and a supportive partner in the future things will change. I think this is a big bit where therapy can help. Wrt getting therapy, I am currently getting mine from a rape crisis type place and that is free. I am not sure where you are but there are charities that it might be worth looking into about therapy so it would not cost you, or would cost you less. Finding here has also helped me. You can be honest and not judged. Anyhow, I am thinking of you

Cracked

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We'reREAL wrote:anonymous,
I really hope that you will be able to get to that point with either your boyfriend or some other guy at some point-- you have to believe that .
We have to have some hope that it will get better. I wish I could say more but I'm less than 2 days out from an event myself and am kind of reeling but wanted to help.

I'm so sorry to hear that...I don't know anything about what's happened to you, but I hope you'll find a way to escape from it. Let me know if there's anything I can do or say that would help.

I hope my guy and I can get to that point one day too. I have a deep fear of disappointing him and leaving him unsatisfied all the time. I think my biggest problem is not knowing what 'real' sex is like. I can only hope that my imagination is far worse than the reality.


Thanks to your posts, I'm now searching for a low cost/free therapy center that might help me. Unfortunately, most of what I'm finding is group therapy, which is just totally out of the question for me...

i think you paddle up the head of your grandpa with a baseball bat! he deserves it..what a sex maniac old guy!

Dear Anonymous,

How are you doing? Have you had any joy with the free/cheap therapy search? I know what you mean about group therapy tho I do know someone who found it really good. Wrt relationships and marriage. I feel so much for you as it is something I struggle with too. Inc the freak outs, tho before the rape last year mine were after a very quick orgasm, since then I have been nowhere near anyone so don't know but certainly find with any arousal I get pinged back to being a young child having stuff done to me. This all means I have lost good relationships. I think you are going to have to find a therapist as I can't see anyone responsibly helping you without having that specialist training. For example I could try and translate what my therapist says to fit your situation but I would prob get it wrong, it would make things worse and you would not have the therapeutic relationship with them. If there is no individual therapy do you think group therapy is better than no therapy. I did do a group thing for bipolar and that worked out better than I thought it would. Sorry I am rambling a bit but I am just trying to figure out a way to get you help.

Hugs if you want them

Cracked

It's very sad that happened to you and I'm glad you said something to your mom. I do hope things get better....
I am sure you can be in a good relationship it just might take a bit more effort than most other relationships.