Hello, at the time of writing, I'm 23 years of age, Male, from Asia. This is not my first time posting on this forum. My earliest posts I could trace back to were in 2016 (I was 16), but I won't link to them or my old account.
[Trigger Warning: Rape, Sexual assault, Domestic abuse]
Something had been bothering me for a long time, but instead of making excuses for my behaviour and running away like I had done before, I decided to go through my memories and try to figure out what led into that kind of behaviour. My emotionally abusive mother had died almost 11 months ago and lately I've been working through many of my issues.
In the process of going through my childhood memories, I realized that I had been denying something for as long as I can remember - my father had raped my mother on at least one ocassion and there's no more sugarcoating it. I'm done downplaying it and denying it to myself.
Okay, so here's what happened in a rough order.
I've shared the bed with my parents until I was 15. (Don't know why; they hadn't encouraged me to sleep in a seperate room or anything - even though we had a spare room.)
I think I was first woken up by their sexual acts when I was 9. I remember being all confused and disgusted and all that; would be waste of time to detail all my feelings. Anyway, after that it became a regular occurance - sometimes I would be woken up by their noise and movements and other times I would stay up voluntarily and fake sleep to satiate my curiosity. Pretty sure this was before I had started showing symptoms of puberty.
About the rape part - Well, one single event stands out in my mind. It was most likely when I was 10 or 11, but could've been a year earlier or later (I determined that from what I remember about the scenery and other events in the morning).
I think I was woken up very early in the morning with the sound of grunting and muffled crying. I think I saw silhouettes of dad on top of mom and I remember mom pleading/threatening in a muffled voice "If you don't stop I'm going to shout for help". I think I heard her crying too. I don't think that had deterred dad.
Yes, it really felt sickening to process and write all that. I was too young to understand. If I remember correctly, I just pretended to sleep, being confused and afraid that they would get mad at me if they caught me awake or something. I also think she took me to school in the morning like she did everyday as though nothing had happened. Now that I think about it, that must mean it wasn't an one-time occurance (even if it had been, it was still unforgivable as my current self understands).
Well, that is the only time I've witnessed full-blown rape. Sure, I didn't witness actual penetration, but that hardly changes anything. You would have to be even worse than a monster to abuse someone after being pleaded to like that.
Now, what were my thoughts at the time? Well, nothing. I was too young to understand. I remember being curious about sex and all, but I didn't know what rape was (should be obvious, I was like, 11), so it didn't really strike me as disturbing until recently, even though I (vaguely) learned about the concept of rape around 12 or 13. You know how kids always idolize their parents? I did that too. After all, they are my parents and therefore must always be good, right? Well, now I realize that is not the case.
I'm going to elaborate more on my thoughts and feelings, but here are some other ways my entire family was messed up:
1. I have never seen my parents get along in my entire life. Fighting and verbal abuse is all I remember. In fact, if I ever saw them having a calm discussion or spending time normally together, it would strike me as odd.
2. All those abuse ended up being funneled unto me. Look, you might hate your spouse, but it's not my fault. IT'S NEVER MY FAULT. You can't blame me for thier faults and take things out on me. (I'll create seperate threads about them, this is not the right one.)
3. That was not the first or the last time I had witnessed sexual activities among them. From what I can decipher from my childhood memories, I don't think I ever saw mom give 'proper' consent, maybe just tolerated it and that was probably the usual. Who knows how many times she'd been raped and abused in other ways? In fact, I think I saw her being enthusiastic with him only once (when I was 13/14) and THAT striked me as strange.
I no longer know what to feel. I'm just glad that I figured out those things were wrong on my own. I have never raped someone or anything, but I did some pretty bad things too; the things I said were 'bothing me' at the beginning. I'll make a different and more appropriate thread later.
I think understanding what I had witnessed explains a few things, like why I have an uncontrollable anger and repulsion towards my father and don't want to do anything with him. I never told my therapist about it, because I feel like the society will just point fingers at me for being overdramatic and ruining the life of a retired 'gentleman'.
Anyway, I just wanted to share; I'm not really looking for advice on this matter. Father has never sexually assaulted me (instead has been overprotective about sexuallity, must've stemmed from guilt but that doesn't undo anything he has done to mom and who knows whomever else), so I'm not in danger from him. I have plenty of reasons to get away from him and this is just another one added to the list. He's quite old and has chronic illnesses and I'm a college undergraduate. So whether I find a job first and move out or he succumbs to his illnesses first; I willl get away from him naturally either way.
Again, thanks for reading. I hope it will help me put things into perspective of myself and anyone who might be in a similar situation.