My father raped me before I started school. I did not remember until very recently, in my early adulthood. I have always remembered only his brother molesting me when I was in middle school. My mother knew about his brother, but does not know about him. She did nothing during all of this because he abused her too.
When I was a teen, I started acting out. I got arrested for shoplifting and started stripping for money with a fake ID. My father physically abused me, as usual. When I finally fought back, he locked me in the house and started verbally abusing me until I believed that I did not deserve to exist or fight. He blamed me and sometimes his brother for the “failure” and “prostitute” that he saw me as. He and my mother often said that I would be better off dead.
I did not want to die, so I left home at eighteen and cut off contact with him or my mother. I do not even talk to my siblings, because they believe him when he tells them that I am a bad person who hurt him and my mother. For the longest time, even after leaving him, I believed him too.
Eventually, in flashbacks, the truth about my father came to me. I know that no one in my family would believe me if I told them. It took me a long time, after all, to finally believe myself. Needless to say, I have stopped acting out. I think that an adult caring about my story is all that I have ever needed. After all these years, I finally see that the adult can be me.