I had my first therapy session today. Finally admitting everything that had happened felt so good I don't want to have to wait for over a week to continue telling my story. I have this urge to write everything down and get it out of me.
I don't remember when he came into my life but I do remember looking up to him so much as a little girl. Mom always talked about how he was so generous and kind to take us in when he didn't have to, how he worked so hard to support our family, how much he did for us, how I had to love him and respect him and be obedient to him to show my gratitude. And I did. I don't know if that's because of her influence or because he was the father figure I had never, ever had but had always desperately wanted. I really just wanted to be loved by him.
He would get home from work late, hours after my mom would drink herself to sleep. I would stay up and wait for him because I'd be starving and I knew he'd bring me something to eat or cook something up for me. After dinner, he'd have a few beers as he hovered over me doing my homework at the kitchen table. He would help me get ready for school the next day. I have fond memories of those times, and I feel guilty about it even though I know I shouldn't. I was just a child.
It was a stark contrast to what I was used to. I grew up being neglected by mom. She couldn't take care of herself so she couldn't even begin to think about caring for me. She just left me to fend for myself so when he came along, he was the discipline I needed in the middle of all the chaos that was my life. I had always wanted a family like the ones I saw on TV and he was the closest thing I ever got to one.
There was almost nothing inappropriate going on then. I've always wondered what made that change. Thinking back, there were all these little things he did that I think were signs of what was to come. He used to kiss my neck, my feet, lick and nibble on my ears and ask me how that felt. I remember thinking it was so odd he would do that, it never felt like anything special. I really didn't like him doing it but I never told him that. He was very distant, harsh and disciplinarian and those were the only times he would show me affection and I didn't want that to stop. I remember he would usually just watch me bathe but sometimes he would scrub me down himself. He didn't let me sleep with panties on, he said it wasn't good for me.
The real abuse started when I was thirteen. I started experimenting with makeup, doing my hair, dressing nice. Things every preteen girl does. He hated that. He said I was a whore like my whore mother and would end up like her so I wasn't allowed to wear anything remotely provocative or do my makeup. I wasn't allowed to date anyone. He even changed his work schedule so he could be home earlier and make sure I wasn't out all day. As a teenager, that naturally made me want to rebel so I did all of the things I wasn't allowed to do.
One of the times when I got caught, he told me to take my pants off because I needed to be spanked. He had always used spanking as a form of discipline, it was nothing out of the ordinary. His request for me to take my pants off was new, but as I was wearing a thong that day I thought he must have somehow known and that I had been caught red handed. I didn't want to take my pants off, not only because I was ashamed of him, but also because I didn't want to make my punishment worse once he discovered what I was wearing underneath.
He shoved me down on the couch and forcefully took my pants off as he held me down. It's weird to think back because I remember being ashamed of the sparse pubic hair covering my vagina more than anything else. For the longest time I struggled with this because I thought that my embarrassment at not having a perfectly bare vagina meant that on some level, even then, I wanted him to find me attractive. I had already started exploring my sexuality back then, I was regularly watching porn and masturbating. Being exposed like that felt like a really weird mixture of wrong and exciting.
He forced me over his knee and spanked me. When he was finally done, I went to pick up my pants and put them back on but he wouldn't allow it. He made me go up the stairs half naked and I didn't understand why.
I thought if I just pretended like everything was the same as it always had been, things would go back to normal. But that incident, I think, gave him the confidence to escalate.
From that point on, he became harsher than ever. He always found some reason to punish me and I had to take every punishment half naked. It was just an excuse for him to touch me. His hand kept straying down and I remember trying to keep my legs closed but him always pushing my thighs further apart. When he was done, he would rub and massage my ass to "soothe" me and tell me he didn't want to hurt me but I had to learn what was right and wrong. He would call me his good girl and rub down towards my lips with just the tip of his fingers, as if he didn't really mean to. One day I was so wet he could feel it just by doing that. I felt him spreading my wetness all over as he told me not to move and just stay still and look at the window until he told me I'm done. I froze, thinking I was the most disgusting girl on earth and that he would go and tell or show my mom or something and that I would be thrown out of my own home. Instead, I felt him fumble with his pants and then a quick and frantic movement followed that was soon over. Again, I had watched enough porn by then that I should've known better but I was not able to put two and two together. Or maybe I just couldn't accept what had happened.
All of that happened with my mom in the next room. She was less than a year away from killing herself so she was already checked out by then. Most of the abuse I suffered at that age happened with my own mother just a few feet away.
One day, he caught me masturbating. I was doing it in my bed, under a blanket, when he entered my bedroom. He must have seen some movement under the blanket right as he came in because he threw the blanket off of me. I was completely exposed to him. He went absolutely crazy, I was afraid he would hit me. He yelled at me, calling me a whore once again, demanding to know if I was still a virgin. For the first time he took his belt out and spanked me with it, I was sobbing so loud. I still don't know why that wasn't enough for my mom to finally come check in on me. At some point he just put his belt away and slipped one finger inside of me. He had been spanking me from a fetal position and pushed me onto my back and started to feel up my breasts with his hands. I was just frozen in place, I had no clue what to do. I don't think I even had any thoughts. When he took his finger out of me he saw there was blood on it and wiped it off on me. I think that was what saved me from being raped that day.
After that incident, I told my boyfriend at the time what happened but he just kind of shrugged it off so I did, too. My step dad didn't show up at our house for a few days and when he was back I was afraid he would do something but he just acted like normal. It made me feel crazy, like I was taking issue with something that was perfectly normal. Like I was being oversensitive and weird for being bothered by what had happened.
Some time after that, I was at my first house party. It was my first time drinking, too, and I drank way too much. I couldn't stop throwing up and I called him to come pick me up. He took care of me that night, didn't even yell at me or anything, which solidified, in my brain, that he was a good step dad and I was rotten for misinterpreting what he was doing to me.
One night, I had fallen asleep next to my mom, in their bed. I didn't hear him come home but I woke up at some point during the night to them having sex in bed right next to me and the oversized t-shirt I slept in being pulled all the way up over my body. It was so humiliating and disgusting. I stayed up pretending to be sleeping that whole night, until he had to leave for work in the morning.
I finally accepted he was a deranged pervert the day he paused spanking me to be able to slip his fingers between my lips, down to my clit. He was the first person to make me orgasm other than myself and I kept so quiet and tried so hard to hide it but I couldn't help moving and then I just started crying as soon as it was all over. He brought me up and held me and kissed me all over for what felt like eternity. He made me sit on his lap, right on his erection and pressed my ass down against him. He told he how much he loved me, how I was his good little girl and I felt so miserable I wished I could be dead.
I'm not sure I can talk about the incident that happened after that on this subreddit. If anyone read this far and is offended by it let me know and I'll remove it. I want to talk about it anyway as it's one of the major things I struggle with that I am now trying to fix through therapy.
I know that he raped me because I was only barely fourteen and he had groomed me for almost my whole life. But it wasn't one of those forceful things. That only came later. The first time we had sex (the first time he raped me?) was a few weeks after we had buried my mom. I was crying, missing her and feeling so lost. I had been crying that whole time but he had ignored me for the most part. That day he sat down next to me and took me into his arms and it's like some weird wires were crossed in my brain. I don't know why I did it, I guess I'm in therapy to figure that out. But I am the one who climbed on top of him that day. I am the one who put his hands on me. He immediately took control and before I knew it, I was completely naked, he had me on my back and he was between my legs. I regretted it and tried to push him away but he forcefully spread my legs and pinned them down in a way that hurt me. He attempted to enter me but I was so dry it was really hard and probably hurt me so much more than it should have when he had finally managed to force himself inside of me. He came inside of me and got up, walked out of the room and left me there on the bed, feeling more numb than ever.
For a while after that, he would act normal during the day but come rape me in my bed at night. I had enough of it and tried running away from home but he forced me to come back. He told me he loved me and that I would never find someone who loves me as much as he does or that could make me feel as good as he does. He would ask me whether my boyfriends I ran away with could fuck me as well as he does and embarrassingly enough, I used to agree with him and say I needed him. He moved us away from all of my friends and his acquaintances so we could start over as a couple.
For a while I believed him when he said we were meant to be. He got into telling me all of the sick thought he had about me when I was just a child and would only ever get me off if I played along and told him I always wanted it, too. The mental abuse continued until I finally got away from him for good but if I am honest, the times where he forcefully raped me were rarer than when I willingly had sex with him. I was enjoying it to the point where I had to talk about him and what he put me through to even get off with any of the boyfriends I tried to keep without my stepdad finding about them. As you can imagine, I didn't have a lot of normal relationships.
I don't know if I'll ever be able to be as honest with my therapist as I am here. It feels good to get it all out.