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I know I just barely posted, but this is all i'm capable of right now, so i'm back. i might not even post this, i might just end up deleting the whole thing depending on how it turns out.
i was doing alright yesterday, i was willing ot do the work necessary for healing, i was willing ot be patient wiht myself. but then. my sibs and i got a load of brainwashing about how we have so much to be grateful for how we have no reason to be anything but happy. a few years ago (shoot, even last year!) i wouldn't have thought much of this talk, but last night it set me off so bad.
(this is gonna be pretty much a rant, so feel free to stop reading here)
It's all just extinguisghing our fight responses and feeding our inner critics. the more we are taught that we have no reason to be anything but happy the harder it is for us to heal, because from what i understand, healing means feeling the emotions that resulted from the trauma so you can process and slowly move forward. but those are not happy emotions. they're sad and angry. I can't even get myself to say that i feel "angry", it feels like a swear word. sure, we've always had a house and food and gone to school, but it's all the little things in between. making us feel guilty for bothering F with our hunger or our desire to be on time to class. blaming us for the cost of school. telling us that everything in your life is our fault when really it's the other way around. plus innumberable other things i can't even count. subtle things, that are hard to realize the terrible damage they do. when i first realized i was being abused it was hard to see the manipulation, the gaslighting and all the other crazy making, but now i see it in every interaction. everything is about how we are wrong, he is right. we are less. we are dependent. we are so lucky. (i know that we are lucky, and I am grateful that we live comfortably, but using our comfortable living situation to guilt us out of our emotions is not ok) we can never do anything right. we're stupid, he is smart, we need him to save us and help us. He has our lives perfectly planned out so that we can continue paying homage to him forever. and then we're so ungrateful and bratty and mean if we decide we want to do something normal like move out when we start college or...anything. Nothing I do will ever be right for him. He loves me inasmuch as i fulfill his vision for me, his needs. MY needs mean nothing. my desires, my dreams...all nothing.
i'm terrified i'll slip back into the cycle. he'll offer up that i can just keep living at home in the fall, how he'd love to spend just one more year wiht me. it's the same thing as work that i jsut posted about. fawn response will take over and i'll be trapped forever. i'm trying not to feel hopeless, but it's really hard.
i'm feeling so overwhelmed, everything around me seems so noisy.
Sorry for posting again, just needed to let off more steam. I think i'm done for now.

I can't decide where exactly to post this, but I love it and think it's super important and applicable to everyone here.

"It's not your fault and you aren't less than enough. you aren't what they did to you. you aren't the person that grew in all crooked and bent under the pressure of what happened to you. you aren't the awkwardness that came from being stepped on and over-pruned. You are the spirit that survived. You are the deep roots that continued to grow beneath the surface even when you were outwardly rejected. you are the life that went on despite being mowed over time and again.  You are the beauty that remained, waiting patiently for the right time to bloom. And now, because you held on even when the world turned away, your strength and compassion are the kind that know no end. You, my dear, are so much more than enough. you are exceptional--because you survived, because you beat the odds, because you are a warrior, a self-taught healer, and because you have become a beacon of hope for others who suffered like you"
--Cristen Rodgers

  to everyone

Thank you so much for posting this tea! I love it! Super helpful!

Thank you Wife2 and Blueberry.  You are both so kind
It was a hard flashback, one that I've been dealing with for a while now but was just brave enough to post about. I had a midterm i had to take that day, which kept me in something kinda like the present enough to focus.
Blueberry I'm so sorry for what you have gone through also  I hope that we can get over and rightfully attribute that shame eventually 

Sooooooooooooo...last night i was really sad and angry at all the things that have been taken away from me. even to the point where I don't think i have a personality, just like a codependent robot. I was trying to just let myself be upset and grieve the things I lost, the things taken away from me. I think I did an alright job of feeling it and working through it (still working through it) I realized I don't have to grieve all the losses right now, jsut as they come up and I can start with the little things. I can mourn all of the activities I missed out on, that's not too hard.
But the thing is: F is trying to take away my job!!!  Hearing him say how he really just wants me to come on vacations with them this summer and how family time is most important sent me into a full on EF. i felt so threatened, and i'm so afraid i'll just be like oh ok, whatever, i don't care. I'm so afraid i'll be weak and let him take that too. He just wants little joyful that he can control and manipulate forever. He will cry his manipulative tears. I'm so upset. He talked to me about it and how he would 'rather i didn't work' and "he'll just keep paying for everything' and not to tell my mom about it, he'd talk to her. (probably cuz if i talked to her he wouldn't be able to manipulate her to his side......)
it's making me so upset and scared. i can't let him make me quit, but i'm so afraid i'll jsut act in the way i've been trained to.

i'm sorry this is so incoherent, i'm really not in a good place right now. I'm pretty flashback-ed plus my body aches and i'm getting a migraine  ugh

Hi sparki
I understand this:

violence within my christian family home, a family that was looked up to as an example.

So so well. Sorry I wish I could write more, but not feeling my best right now. Just wanted to let you know that I absolutely understand an outwardly "good" Christian family that is so just wrong when no one can see.

[(triggers ahead!!!)]

thanks Wife2  Thank you for that reminder and helping me to see reality (can't think of the right way to say that)
This really stood out to me:

YOU didn't come up with sexual ideas before age 13 without it coming from SOMEWHERE. Whoever didn't protect your childhood innocence, THAT is the owner of the shame.

*Giant exhale*

That is a SUPER important realization for me. (triggers ahead!!!)
When I was eight I had what I now consider like a flashback. I was being orally raped (in the flashback). I was eight, and it's not like that's just something eight year olds imagine (i really hope..) it was complete with like feeling it in my mouth. lots of fear, but then a TON of shame that I had just thought that.
Now i realize that people can't know things unless they either are taught it or observe it. Which at least is comforting in the sense that I didn't have a "dirty mind". It was an awful flashback that I really couldn't control.
another giant exhale.
that was hard to write...

I had forgotten I did this until I read this post. I always thought that I was being watched through a vent in the ceiling when I was bathing.. (I can't take baths anymore. I know for lots of people they're relaxing, but bathtubs trigger me out of my mind)
Even now if I'm changing and my phone is on my bed I turn it over so the screen is facing down. I know that no one is watching me through it, but...for some reason I still do it.
Thanks for this post Absent  it really helped me

I know I said I was gonna come back yesterday, but by now most of what was on my mind then has passed and been replaced by new stuff that's weighing on my mind more. So now I'll write about that.
I can't decide whether to put this here or under sexual abuse where more people will see it, but I'm not too sure about it yet, so I'll put it here.

**tw**

Yesterday I got triggered by my own body. Just like seeing myself brought feelings of shame and revulsion. That's not a new thing for me, I'll just have weeks where it's bad and happens a lot, and others where I'll be fine. but yesterday when it happened something else came up, something i did when I was younger.
Between the age of like 6 or 7 and 10 or 11 I was like (i can't think of the right word...) Seductive? I wanted attention for my body. In third grade. I wanted to be "sexy" i wanted to show off and for people to see me like that.    I don't know, but I'm pretty sure that's not normal. I didn't do anything like super inappropriate, but I did things that were kind of inappropriate. (Man there is a tight ball of shame around this). I used to dance a lot and be quite flexible. I went to a private school where we had to wear skirts. I'd stretch and do things that exposed my entire leg  in a place where everyone could see me  and how flexible I was and what good legs I had.
I can't believe myself! I am so embarrassed for how uncomfortable I must have made everyone. I don't know if this behavior was a result of sexual abuse? If i thought that that would make people like me and pay attention to me? (I was EXTREMELY anti-social and like unhealthily introverted... I guess i still am, but I think it's more healthy now)
And what confuses me is i'm not like this AT ALL anymore. Something changed from me thinking i was pretty hot stuff when I was little to now cringing whenever I get looked at and hating my body and feeling disgusted and ashamed of it.
I'm pretty emotionally detached as I write this...
I can still feel shame coming through the cracks. Intense shame.
Maybe that is normal and I'm freaking out over nothing, but I have no idea. Maybe I'm just making a big deal over nothing.
I don't know. I'm getting kinda mad at my inner child for this behavior. I'm trying to tell myself that yeah i am accountable for those things, but they came from hurts and I wouldn't have acted that way if my history had been different. It's not working really. 

  to you too Wife 2

Thank you jd  I hope that you can also recover and heal from your repressed memories. *hopefully* (unless something goes very very wrong which is entirely possible) I should be living on campus by fall. At which point I hope to go as LC as possible, because healing while still stuck in it and just getting more hurts piled on everyday really slows the process.

Thank you both for caring about me 

I have things to flush out today, but am not feeling strong enough at the moment. I will come back later. (writing the commitment to come back helps me.) I want to write the stuff but can't right this second

Wife2--
That probably is smartest and safest for now. It's hard, and not cuz I want revenge or anything, I just want people to understand me and why I am the way I am. i don't know.. I really should put a lid on it, at least irl... I'm super grateful to be able to come and let off steam here though! especially when people really understand

Blueberry--
Thank you for your support  it really means so much to be heard and understood. I'm sorry that you are still enmeshed also it is such a battle.
As far as SA goes, other things have happened too. I just don't know if it was him too. I only have small fragments of memories. Maybe some day I'll get them out here, but i'm not strong enough yet.

Anyway, thank you both for reading and for your support 

I'm so sorry Hope. I'm so sorry that such awful things happened to you. You didn't deserve any of that.
I'm proud of you for writing it and getting it out. I have not been brave enough, but you're courage is inspiring

I feel so sick when I think of the impact of this on my life, and how I've kept this in for so many years - but there were reasons for that - it's complicated.

But - I feel it's good that I am finally 'talking' about it - with someone - with you - anyone who is reading this.  My partner knows, some of my friends know, and I did talk to a therapist once - and she helped me to make the break to be estranged from them.  That was a big step and I'm glad I've done that.

This makes me tearful and upset, but I am glad I've finally written it down.

It's alright to be tearful and upset, and to mourn and to grieve. Take your time with it, go as slowly as you need.
I'm thinking of you Hope. Please take care of yourself 

So yesterday I was at church. I've spoken to my religious leader about the garbage  in my home. He was understnding and sympathetic and wants to help. except...he contacted the religious leader that is over my parents who then contacted my mom.  I was pretty worried and concerned. I know they mean well and are trying to protect me and my siblings, but calling F on his abuse is going to put all of us in danger, without a doubt. So i talked to my leader later and asked him to tell the other guy to NOT talk to my dad about ANYTHING. My mom can and will keep it a secret that it was mentioned to her. But yesterday I was having SOOOO much anxiety that they were going to talk to F and that life would get a million times worse for me because I "told". It was terrifying. But I got home and nothing was wrong, no one talked to my dad, giant sigh of relief. i don't know, I realized that maybe I need to be more careful and specify to people to NOT get involved. I know they want to help, but "helping" is only gonna cause more pain. The real way to help is give my siblings (and me i guess) legit reasons to be out of the house more often. In a way that it's not obvious that's what they're doing. i don't know, I'll probably just stop now

Luna,
I just want to echo jdcooper and Three Roses. I am so sad for what happened to you. It wasn't your fault, and you did not deserve it. I am so so sad for all that you endured. You are strong for posting it 

thank you all for your replies 
I'm glad I'm not the only one!

That reflects negatively only on your caretaker(s). It's not your fault.

Thank you for this mourningdove. I sighed with relief when I read that. It isn't my fault, but I have to take accountability for fixing it now.

emotions usually seen as positive weren't allowed either, no, they were ridiculed. 

Wow... I'm so sorry Blueberry. 

all of yours are as valid as anyone else's.

That is super good advice, thanks Candid. That's something I need to remember. I don't have to bury my feelings while taking on others' "stuff"...I don't have to be an emotional dumpster either

one thing that's helped me with not dumping neg. emotions on people has been to write them out, like in an anger journal or a letter that i'm not gonna send.

That's a good idea sanmagic, I'm gonna try it.

Thank you all again 

I have a really hard time with this. I swing between keeping all my emotions inside and using the people close to me as "emotional dumpsters". There is no in between for me. It makes me really sad, cuz I know that it can turn manipulative, which I don't want to be at all! I'm scared that I'm gonna turn out like F  I'm terrified that I'll turn manipulative I know I'm not doing it intentionally, but... I don't even know how to healthily express my negative emotions. In my childhood I was taught that I wasn't allowed to have negative emotion, so things build up inside me until they explode. I don't know what I'm saying here, but I realized this and it's scaring me