I’ve recently started reading up on body art about healing with mental health or past trauma. Even found several for survivors of sexual assault and child abuse. These were touching and inspirational tattoos that really makes me want to get my own for my past trauma. I’m not that big on body art, even though I already have a few tattoos and a couple of piercings, but none them have any major significance to them other than I like how they look. I’ve never been so invested in getting one done that I would get one with some deep meaningful story behind it. Maybe it’s time I do. I’m not entirely sure what exactly this survivor tattoo of mine might be yet, but if I do get it done, I’ll likely be making an entry on it here. If I feel especially proud of it, I may just share a picture of it here, if I’m able to.

While talking to other survivors of childhood molestation, most of them tell me their experiences have led to them having a high sex drive. I have never had that problem. My experiences have nearly made me asexual, so quite the opposite. But one who knows my full story recently asked me why do I think I didn’t end up having a high sex drive. They expressed their surprise considering I had been molested in such a “one-sided fashion” so many times. That being me constantly receiving oral sex from my father, of course.

I didn’t really have an answer and I still kind of don’t, other than I just didn’t turn out that way. But I’ve spoken with my therapist on this before and she’s told me she’s talked to other survivors of abuse who ended up not having little to no sex drive and she’s also met those who were completely unaffected by their experiences. Again, I guess it just affected me differently than usual. In a way, I count myself lucky because I understand how having high sex drive can be terribly problematic for many. Especially those living with shame for being unable to help still fantasizing about their molestation. I feel shame just for having enjoyed it at some point. I don’t want to think about if I still fantasized about mine.

One theory I have as to why I’m not very sexual now is because of how many times it happened. My dad went down on me countless times and of course I would still experience the feelings of sexual pleasure even when I wouldn’t enjoy it. Maybe the amount of times I felt it has left my mind and body drained of any further sexual desire. I’m not sure if that that’s how it works. Probably not. Like I said, just a theory. But I think I lucked out in some way by not being very sexual. I feel that would really get in the way of opening up about my experiences.

Had my first session in two weeks today. I went over how I still struggle with self-loathing on how I was willingly partaking in being molested for the first several years. She pretty much just said everything she’s already told me before, just said more thoroughly, if anything. Not that that’s a bad thing. It actually helped hearing it from her again. I felt silly feeling better about it just from her saying what she’s said to me all over again and she just said it’s easy to forget when one has a lot of pent up shame and guilt. That it just doesn’t go away so easily even when you understand full well that you’re not at fault for how things went, that I may forget again soon, but she’ll be there to remind me. I suppose that makes sense. I just have to practice cutting myself a break and getting these lessons to register in my mind.

When reflecting on my molestation, I usually get stuck on the fact that I enjoyed being molested by my dad for more years than I didn't, which brings on my self-loathing issues. I’ve talked about this before, but I’m going to talk about it again because I need to vent. Maybe it will help.

First, I really hate the fact that being molested was a source of happiness for me before. I remember one time when I was 8, I entered some school raffle to win a toy I wanted, but I didn’t win and I became pretty upset. My dad ended up having me alone and offered to help me feel better, by giving me oral sex, of course. And it worked. After I climaxed, I felt so happy like that was just what I had needed.

There was another time when I was 9, my mom was gone that weekend for something and of course, my dad ended up doing it to me I think the most times he had in a single day at that point. I think it was four times. I really hate to type this, but I remember just being over the god damn moon because my body had felt so good, I couldn't even lay still after he did it the last time for that day.

I'm cringing to myself just from typing this. I can't stress how much it gets to me, how much I hate that I enjoyed it. I won't dwell too much on the negativity I feel for myself, but I'm still very much struggling with feelings of shame and self-loathing and I don't know how to overcome it. Lucky for me, therapy is back on this week, so I'll get to go over it with my therapist and let her know how badly I'm still struggling with it. Hopefully she herself won't be at a loss on how to help me since we've gone over this before and I'm still dealing with it.

The topic of my dad molesting me never came up outside of when he would do it. It was always either directly before, during or directly after. We never talked about it any other time that I can recall. My dad would get pretty vocal and talk to me a lot when he was molesting me daily when I was 15. So much, that you’d think he would have been awful chatty with me about it. Yet, it was just somethIng we wouldn’t talk about when it wasn’t taking place. It’s almost as if we both just silently agreed to forget about it, much like how it was during the years after the molestation had ended. It makes me wonder how common this is. Of course, an abuser doesn’t want to openly discuss what they’re doing around others for obvious reasons, but I wonder if it’s something the victim silently agrees to as well when they can’t bring themselves to tell anyone what happened. Do all molesters and their victims just not talk about it outside of when it occurs?