My dad repeatedly raped my sister when she and I (male by the way, probably why I wasn’t raped) were growing up. My parents had divorced and we lived with him. I don’t know why I never at least questioned what was happening. I occasionally saw them lying together in her bed, and hell, when we would play with our stuffed toys she would sometimes have them have sex (I never questioned this, I somehow came to the conclusion that everyone just knew about sex but me?). She had basically told me “where he had touched her on the doll” and I didn’t notice.
After high school there was a blowout when she wore a slightly low cut shirt to a restaurant and my dad noticed the waiter occasionally glancing at her. I stood up to him when he kicked her out of the house because of that (I didn’t understand why he felt that was an appropriate reaction/punishment), and was promptly called a “bitch” and kicked out as well. We went to live with our mother, but after a while my sister voluntarily went back to live/work for him (!?!). Another blow up resulted in her moving to live with our grandmother, but my sister would still go back to him.
It was only two years into college that she finally told me about what had happened all along. I talked to her about it (more importantly I listened to her… I think that was more important…), and helped her open up to our mother and grandmother about it. Somehow though, she came to the conclusion that she “forgave” him, though my mother didn’t, and my grandmother (his mother) apparently talked to him and didn’t disown him or anything… I’ve never forgiven him, I haven’t talked to him since I found out (2 or 3 years now?), and regularly fantasize about beating the living shit out of him, permanently crippling him (He always told us he would rather us pull the plug on him if it came to that. I would pay to let him live in suffering), and cutting off his testicles (fucking animal).
At least we got our sister to go to Mexico with my mother’s family, and she has even started up her own styling salon (so proud of her). But she still talks to our father, and asks him for financial support on occasion… (btw she has told me that he no longer touches her, at least).
We haven’t even looked into whether we could send him to jail because my sister still loved him, and I don’t think she wanted to admit what happened publicly (It took her forever just to tell me). Apparently though, he believes that if a certain amount of time has passed after the crime, then he is untouchable by the law, and repeatedly threatened my sister (don’t know how) not to tell anyone until that time had passed (which by now it has, but I doubt his understanding of the law on this?).
As for me, I (26yo) still live with my mom and step dad. I can’t hold a job, have seen counselors and psychiatrists for depression (yet here I still am), and have flunked out of two colleges (the debts payments are being covered by my grandmother, who made my father help pay for them. I don’t like “owing” him, but I can’t pay for this myself, either.) I also worry because my masturbation fodder was always about anime girls (which typically appear to be really young). I would never touch a little girl in real life (I’ll kill myself first), but if it was fictional I figured it was okay. Until I learned about my father, that is, and now I’m scared I might turn out like him. However, it’s hard not to masturbate. I’ve never had a girlfriend, though I’ve always wanted one (or shit, just someone to hold me for once in my fucking life).
I know I’m starting to sound selfish, but the thing is I don’t have anyone to talk to about this. It’s not like I can go around telling people about what happened to my sister (to anyone who knows her/could figure out who she is). My grandmother still loves her son, and my mother herself had been raped in childhood, I can’t bring myself to remind her of stuff that undoubtedly hurts her beyond belief.
The thing is, this whole ordeal hurts me too. It hurts me to think someone I cared about was being molested in the very place I lived, and I managed to do nothing about it. It hurts me to remember my dad calling me a bitch as he kicked me out of the place I had lived in for 11 years. It hurts me to think these horrible, violent thoughts about him. It hurts me to think I might turn out like him. It hurts me to not understand why she still goes back to him, to wonder if she is incapable of leaving him. It hurts me to feel so damn lonely and depressed. It hurts me to think that my childhood was so much more fucked up than I could have guessed (I constantly have moments where seeing things in this new light completely changes my past, i.e. the low cut shirt thing.) It hurts me to not have anyone to talk to about it. It hurts me to see myself incapable of keeping a job and flunk twice out of college, what am I going to do when my mom can’t take care of me anymore, roll over and die? It hurts me that everyday the only thing I can be bothered to do is wake up, walk over to my computer, and hide on the internet until the day passes away and I can return to sleep. It hurts me to know that the closest women in my life were used and hurt so pathetically, and that the perpetrator got away scot-free each time. I’m tired. I’m so tired.
…questions:
-I live in Texas in the U.S. what legal routes could we take if we were to try to convict my father? FWIW the rape was repeated over the course of about 15-8 years ago (she can’t seem to remember distinctly when it started). What if she might not want to confront him? What if he finds someone else to use?
-What should I do about my sister and the fact that she still interacts with my father. She claims she has forgiven him, but it was far too quick to have been normal. She is insistent on christian forgiveness, and maybe it is the only way she can handle the situation, but I need to get her away from him, don’t I?
-Am I going to turn out like him?
-When am I going to stop dreaming about killing him?
-Should I confront him?
-He continues to attend family reunions at my grandmother’s house, and my grandmother is okay with that. I haven’t been able to visit my cousins and uncles/aunts because I can’t imagine being around him. Should I just go, or should I tell my grandmother to finally tell him to leave?
-Why can’t I hold a job, or pursue my studies in things I actually like?
-How do you escape internet addiction? masturbation addiction? self imposed solitary confinement?
-Who in my life should I be able to talk to about these things if not my close family?
-Was I subconsciously blocking out what was happening when I was younger because I didn’t want to deal with the situation, or was I really too young to have been able to tell? Was I complicit in what he did?
-Is she going to be okay like this? What is her life going to be like now that she is dating (and having protected sex) in her new life in Mexico? Is the fact that she has invested her energy into a career a good enough sign that she will be fine (from the point of view of this situation)?