pain embedded deep!!!!

[yolester]

sometimes i think there are two versions of the sexual felony perpetrated against me. the revisionist history i like because forgiving my perpetrator makes everything all shiney and clean, and the truth----my father perpetrated forcible acts of abuse and perversion on me as a 4 year old that changed me adversely forever. just dont want to accept the truth that my father is a nazi monster who should get the death penalty and that i am damaged goods. still, i feel emotions of forgiving and love toward him that seem pretty real. cant make a lick of sense out of it. am i crazy?????

 

[mark250676]

Yolester,
You've been through a massive trauma in your life at an age where you would have had hardly any coping mechanism's. All that's happening at the moment is your body and mind are trying to cope and process what happened. Revisionism is just one mechanism but as you move through the process others will come and go. I've moved back and forth through many in my years, hatred of my perp, hatred of myself, hatred of my family, depression, mania, trying to deny the impact the abuse had on me etc etc. So to answer your question - No I don't think you are crazy - Your coping.

 

[Jaysen]

Yolester, you're not crazy and you're not damaged goods. I still love and miss one of my abusers. Even though I know it was wrong and even though I had some very bad times with him... I still feel this way.
Jay

 

[roadrunner]

Yolester,

The most important thing you need to hear has already been said above, but bears endless repetition: You are NOT crazy. I like how Mark puts it: You are coping.

And you are not damaged goods either. You are YOU: not more, but not less either. What your father did to you reflects upon and shames him, not you. Please, don't let yourself be defined by someone else's crimes.

Can I press on that point a bit? So often we find ourselves resorting, as adults, to ideas and strategies that we learned as abused boys. Those old lessons, no matter how false they might be, still stick with us and can follow us into adulthood.

There is also the very simple fact that every boy needs his dad. Even if he has been betrayed by his father, he will still feel a need for his attention and love.

Jaysen hits on an important point too. Quite often an abused boy confuses the abuse with care and love; he thinks the abuser is looking out for him, and he may be grateful for the abuser's attention and affection.

That can get pretty wild bro. The man who abused me was a sadistic rapist of young boys, but you know what? When he was caught and chased off I felt terrible. In the weeks after that I wondered why he didn't want me anymore and I felt rejected and abandoned. It just goes to show that abuse has a lot to do with intense emotions, not logic and rational behavior.

There's of course a lot to talk about here Yolester, and I hope you will feel comfortable doing that here. Also, are you seeing a T? A good T would be a great help in dealing with these mixed up feelings.

But the bottom line is YOU are okay; it's what was done to you that's crazy and fucked up.

Much love,
Larry

 

[yolester]

i think you are on to something here. boys need their dads so deeply. i like to forgive, i think, so that i can nurture the illusion of a loving father. cant have that if i hate him. maybe this is so much psychobable or an oversimplification, but there is something very uncomfortable about the way i think i feel about my dad. as if some circut protection system in the emotions were giving me an indication that something was wrong. i frequently have dreams about retaliating againnst him violently and mortally followed by deep sadness at what i had done. to answer your ?????, yes, i see a T at the VA who is an expert in PTSD and abuse issues. you are right about a good T being so helpful. we brought up the possibility of a group today, but dont know how i feel about that. will sharing with other survivors maybe help me??? how can dad be both the ruination of my life and the emotional support that is all i have????? thats the thing right there, he may be a monster, but hes all ive got.

 

[roadrunner]

Yolester,

One point to bear in mind is that YOU and no one else get to decide what you feel about your father. You should approach this problem based on what YOU need and what YOU feel. What others have to offer by way of ideas and suggestions may be useful to you, but you are the one who has to put it all together and decide, for example, whether forgiving him is what you need to work towards.

What I mean is there's no template that you should follow. This is another area where working with your T will help you a lot.

Much love,
Larry

 

[shadowkid]

yolester, this thread is one that i think i have some experience with ,yeah when your dad is the bad guy it really sucks in lots of ways .the only answers i have are what i found to be true with my dad . number one ,do you think if you forgave him he would change? probably not ,but the guys here tell me that forgiving can help you change and i guess thats good. i learned that no matter how much i want it ,or how many ways i tried i could not make him into something that i wanted him to be. a real dad. i tried everything ,i accepted blame for things that were his fault ,i punished myself for things that i had no blame for ,as a little kid i just knew it had to be me ,dads didnt just hate their kids for no reason . i found out that all i was doing was setting myself up to be hurt everytime i gave him another chance to be human . which is exactly what he wants .its so hard to understand like even animals take care of their young. one thing that really helped me understand how much he was hurting me was when i found a card i sent to my dad i guess i was about 13 and had just been through my perps trial.i sent it from my first foster home .my gran must have kept it ,but it was the one thing that let me say ok enough i will not give anything else to this bastard who has no heart. the card was one of the hardest things i have had to deal with .it was just a note ,yeah a note from a kid who was so alone and so lost that it breaks my heart to read it . basicly it said ,dad can you please come get me? i dont like it here ,i'll be good i promise and i'm sorry for everything. a 13 year old taking the blame for something he didnt have the guts to admit was his fault. dont let your loyalty for him make it possible for him to keep hurting you,if you forgive him do it for you not him ,cause if hes like my dad he dont care anyway ,he thinks he has nothing to be forgiven for.i think that loyalty for family is something we have like instinct ,but you know what ?the reason we keep giving them chances is because we were good kids who loved our dad even though they didnt love us back,we were ok dude its them that are screwed up and you know what ,a kid cant change an adult ,a kid shouldnt have to set an example for the parent ,if he was as good a dad as we were kids then none of this would have happened. also my dad never responded to my letters ever dont know if he even read them ,but i'm glad my gran kept them cause they help me see that he was the problem not me adam