Writing exercise #6

Contradicting Myself and Fighting The Rationalizations~

(the voice that battles me in my head between rational thinking and irrational thinking)

You know you wanted it.
I told him I didn’t want it. He didn’t listen.  None of them listened...

I went to him even when he didn't ask. I am at fault.
 I loved him and believed him when he said he wouldn’t do it again. I didn’t know it was abuse.

I'm just over-reacting and being emotional.
He raped me. For years. I have every right to react this way

 If he’d sexually assaulted you, I think you’d know for sure what happened, not suddenly “figure it out” years later.
If I hadn’t been sexually assaulted, I wouldn’t be wondering about whether or not I’d been sexually assaulted. The thought wouldn’t even cross my mind.


He didn’t mean to hurt me. He was trying to love me, maybe he just didn't know how.
That’s not love, that’s abuse. I am not/was not responsible for showing him how to love properly. I was a child.

He didn't always hit me. Or always threaten my life. Stop whining and complaining. There are women out there who have *really* been abused.
 He threatened my emotional life. He bruised my faith. He punched my feelings of worth and shoved around my sense of self. All of that is STILL abuse.

He didn't mean to hurt me. He loved me.
It doesn't matter if he meant to or not, the truth remains that he DID hurt me.  You do not rape and beat someone that you love.

I still care about him. How sick and messed up can I be?
He is family, and it's okay to still care about him. Abuse involving family members is very complicated and it's natural to have confused and conflicted feelings.

Most of the time I didn't say no or fight him, that's like telling him it was okay.
I was only a child and he was manipulating me. I was confused and didn't know how to say no to him.

I must have wanted it. If I hadn't led him on, he wouldn't have done anything. I was a tease even at 4.
No matter what I did, he should never have acted on it. Even if I tried to do a strip tease, He was not supposed to act on it with his daughter. The fact that he did it is wrong, and I never wanted it. I wasn't capable of wanting it. I was a child.

I didn't tell on him. How can I be mad now?
He told me not to tell on him, or it would be all my fault that the family was split up. He manipulated my emotions. And on top of that, he was my daddy.  You are supposed to obey your father and trust that he wouldn't lie to you or do bad things.

Other people have been through worse. It could have been worse. So it's not really a big deal.
It was bad enough. I am entitled to feel violated. Trauma is trauma - pain is not a competition. 

I can't remember everything that happened, so I must be making things up as I go.
I dissociated as a survival mechanism. Just because I can't remember, doesn't mean that it didn't happen. Just because the details are fuzzy doesn't mean that it's not true.

I should be over this by now.
There is no time limit on healing.

I must just be doing this for the attention.
If I wanted attention I would be telling everyone. I can barely talk about this.

I made him angry
So what? It doesn't make what he did okay

I am just imagining it.
I remember what he felt like when he touched me or made me touch him. I can still feel the weight of his heavy body on my child sized one. I can still smell his breath. I can still feel the ropes that bound my wrist. I can’t be making those feelings up.