intro of sorts
so, for starters, I am naturally long-winded. Sorry–I talk a lot in my head.
I hate how every story I have is so complicated. I’m going to try to simplify this one right now, and I suppose my motivation for posting, though not clear to me, is for a bit of acknowledgement that I’m not so very unique…
the basic basics are that I was about 7 or 8 when my father (much later revealed to me as being my STEP father) began raping me several times weekly for many years–maybe until I was about 14 or so, and then I think semi-regularly for a few more years after that, I believe until I was about 16 or so.
Every year of my life (i am now 32), that part of my life gets cloudier and cloudier as far as ages go, but images in my head and memories in my body don’t seem to fade much. I’m married, have been for 10 years.
I’ve had a number of self-destructive indiscriminate sexual experiences over the years, and yes, that includes the fact that this means I’ve cheated on my husband. Usually, alcohol is involved. I managed to put myself in a situation where I was raped one evening, being the total genius that I am. For about 3 or 4 years, I’ve managed to keep myself out of situations where I have come to know I am vulnerable to this type of behavior.
But now I’ve messed up, badly. I let myself become part of a drunken night spent with a friend and her boyfriend–which seemed fine and relatively “safe” early on, but after much time and many drinks they began to mess with each other’s heads and somehow I became involved in some sexual play that ended up with my friend (who is also a survivor, and is prone to self-destructive behavior) giving her boyfriend permission to have sex with me—a question he initiated, and a decision I really don’t know if I had much of a part of–I can’t remember.
I recall them discussing something, and I lost track of things and I remember laying there and trying to figure out why my friend had left the area and why her glasses were still there. She also does not remember very much, and now everything is confusing. I know I should have never allowed myself to get into the situation in the first place because of my past history, and I know I could have found some way to get out, but I didn’t want to disappoint anyone, including the fact that I thought, at the time, that she wanted me to do it…
Honestly, at that point, I felt more like an observer to the entire thing. Now, she is angry she let herself be in the situation, angry at her boyfriend for initiating everything, angry and distrustful of me (although she admits on some level she knows she and I are similar in our disassociative nature). I will not put myself in this situation with her again, but more than anything I am afraid she won’t be able to fully trust me (and hell, I can’t trust myself—but that’s not entirely the point).
I want to maintain a friendship with her– I just don’t know if this is going to happen, and given that I have a hard time making friends in the first place–especially those that I can speak candidly about my childhood, I really want to be able to get past this. Intellectually, I think she can get through this, but the fact that her very good friend has had sex with her boyfriend is a bit much emotionally for her—I HATE THIS.
It was not about him at all–I have major boundary issues, and wanted to make her happy and being trashed, I thought I was doing just that (I REALLY HATE how this sounds running through a sober mind and through sober fingers.) Even more, I can’t believe I’ve let myself put my marriage in danger again–I haven’t even begun to explore this in my mind, as everything is still so surreal, as this only happened 3 days ago, and I can’t grasp it very well yet. I don’t really want to grasp it.
Everytime my husband leaves for work, I think about how much he’d hurt if he found the degree to which I’m damaged and keep damaging myself. It’s easier to focus on my potential loss of a friendship and pretend that my being a cheating wife is something happening to a whole separate part of myself.
thinking of you.