A lot has happened since my last post, and most of it has been to do with the recovery of traumatic memories.

When I posted my story I believed it was my brother who assaulted me as a child. I now know that this is not true - what actually happened was far worse and I guess this is why my mind wanted to believe it was my brother, because I knew I could forgive him for it without much trouble (mostly because I had no strong anger towards him).

Well, in counseling I explored for a long time the different possibilities as to who could have abused me... there was never any doubt that I had been abused.

Eventually we realized that the most likely person was my Dad. So we began exploring my feelings about my father, and my memories of my childhood in relation to my father. We found that I had a lot of fear, anger and pain when I thought about my Dad. I had some really twisted ideas about a father's disciplinary role too.

I believed that my father represented God and therefore he had the right to do whatever he liked to me, all in the pretense that it was making me more like Jesus. I believed that in order for Jesus to make me clean, God spied on me and had to punish me every time I did anything wrong. I believed that I was evil, disgusting, deceitful, rebellious, troublesome, wicked and disobedient, because these were the things Dad called me all the time. I felt scared all the time, because I was terrified of God's anger, knowing that he saw every little thing I did. I was always looking over my shoulder expecting to be punished, and I prayed under my breath all day at school, desperate for Jesus to forgive me so somehow the punishments would stop. I tried to live as perfectly as I could, and felt immense shame when I did wrong.

I began having flashbacks to the ways my father had enforced these warped ideas.

Dad would bath me by hand, licking me all over  to 'cleanse' me. When I asked him ! why no one else bathed me this way he said that it was his right as a father and representative of God, to do these things. He also raped me on a regular basis, about twice a week. This began when I was 5 years old and continued until I was about 8.

The first few times it was just a variation of our normal punishments; he thrust a ruler up inside me instead of smacking me with it. Often the rest of my family were also in the house, but we were taught to be silent in punishment - otherwise we'd be smacked continuously until we stopped crying.

I can remember four distinct incidents of these rapes with astonishing detail. One was in my Grandmother's house at Christmas time, and I have always been able to remember the events surrounding this incident, but they just puzzled me. But now I know why I was sitting in the bath at midnight watching the blood mix with the hot water pouring into the bathtub. Now I know why in the morning Dad told Mum that I had been sick during the nig! ht, and why I only felt really really hungry.

Another incident occurred in my bedroom, on the lower bunk of my bunk bed. I remember this really well because as I moved, my hair got caught in the springs on the lower side of the top bunk, and great chunks of my hair were ripped out.

I also remember one occasion on which tried to force me to perform fellatio on him, but I choked so badly that he never tried it again.

The last incident I remember was the worst. There was a lot of foreplay, and then Dad violated me anally. I got hurt really badly this time, and ended up spending 3 days in bed, slipping in and out of consciousness. I remember thinking I was going to die, and then later having to tell myself that I was actually going to live! Dad told Mum that I had fallen out of a tree and was just in shock, and she actually believed him, though I was feverish and ached all over.

Well I've confronted my Dad about the rapes. He's denied everything, but all the counselors! he's spoken to have seen holes in his story and his behavior especially. Mum believes me too.

I told the Police about this stuff, and they've just finished their investigations. We'll soon find out whether charges will be laid.

My big struggles at the moment are my schoolwork (I'm doing my final year) and my relationships with my family. I've refused to have any contact with my father, and he'll probably lose his job because of the allegations. My dreams are still full of him chasing me.

I've moved out of home, which is good, but it also makes things a lot busier and gives me more responsibility. In counseling my goal is to forgive my father and 'move on', even though all my emotions are screaming for revenge.

Well I guess that's where I'm at.

Feel free to email me at christiani767@hotmail.com

:)Ruth