Feel guilty not knowing it was wrong until much later

**TRIGGER WARNING**


I don't know how this works, first time posting here.
I have an unimaginable amount of guilt for the sexual abuse I endured from my father. For as long as I can remember, I honestly just thought I was just normal. I don't remember when it started but I do remember that it just always was. It ended when I was in grade 9 (so 15) and I remember being so confused why my dad didn't want us having sex like we usually do almost every night or whenever we were home alone (which should have clicked that it was wrong since my parents were together at the time). For some reason I always just somehow knew to keep it quiet. Looking back I think he just normalized the abuse so much that I didn't even feel a need to tell my mom or other people. Penetration started around when I was 12 and we had sex on an almost daily basis until I was 15. I'm in my 20s now but I struggle with the guilt of somehow not knowing it was wrong and how even I initiated it sometimes too. It's left me in a very confused and depressing state and makes it impossible to date since my dad is still the only person I've been with (which absolutely now disgusts me). I don't know if anyone here has similar experiences but I just really needed to vent that out.

Hello and welcome!

If you look through this forum enough, you'll see you're not the only one in that pretty much exact sort of situation. I'm very sorry you had to go through that.

From others here, your story isn't unusual- which I think ought to tell you that you're also not a bad person for this- you're not the one who did this, you didn't start it, and you weren't the adult in the situation. It doesn't matter if you enjoyed it, sometimes initiated it, whatever- as you say, it was normalised.

I know you already know all this, but it's good to hear it from someone else.

Kids just don't react like we might as adults, and you can't judge yourself by something you were groomed into as a kid.

Thank you so much. After posting, I viewed everyones elses stories and shocking released I'm not alone unfortunately

Sam95 wrote: I'm not alone unfortunately

Hardly.

One of the more recent stories similar to yours would probably be Chels91. She had a quite long thread here, and also blogged for a while:

sexual-abuse-incest/topic219988.html
blog/Chels91/

If she were still engaging in the forums, she'd have already responded to you. I think her story and journey will resonate with you.

Was going to check out her blog but unfortunately I don't have the "permission" to. At least thats what the link says and I'm unable to message people so I don't know what that's about

You're still a new member. Eventually those restrictions will be lifted. However you can read-only the blogs by being logged out- so logging out then following that link will let you see them.