Anonymous Story: my first admission

I am nearly twenty years old. My abuse started when I was about three years old, and lasted until I was around nine, I am unsure of specific dates. It has been nearly ten years since I have seen my abuser, Im sorry I am focusing on timings of such, I tend to heavily focus on this as every day of these ten years has been a struggle. I watch documentaries on Netflix with my housemates unbeknownst to them I relate with these other victims, watching them actually has helped me to realise that I don’t want to be that 60 plus year old woman who still has not dealt with or admitted the sexual abuse I have been through. I see the way this crushes people’s lives and I am determined to not let this happen to me, it scares me so much. How can something that happened so early in my childhood affect the way I live the rest of my life, and could I have stopped it from happening? That’s the thought I have whenever I feel an urge to finally admit to my mum what has happened; was this my fault and do I have the right to condemn this person of such actions? There is also no right time to talk about abuse. It is a taboo subject that no one wants to hear, why should I put someone else through the uncomfortable act of listening to my trauma? It’s not like they can do anything to help me.
There’s always this focus through charities and other organisations that help abuse victims to release what happened to you by sharing your story but I don’t get how that helps, sharing it just open’s up another deep and painful tin of worms. I have told one person about what has happened to me because they too have been through a similar experience, makes it easier to share I guess, but telling anyone else would just be embarrassing.
Yesterday, I had a wave of anger come over me, induced by alcohol, I could not focus on anything else but facing my abuser. I was determined to get him to acknowledge what he had done to me, I did not expect an apology but I deep down hoped it would lead to that. It did not. The response I got from my overly polite and apologetic messages was that it was my fault and I should have said no. here I was again, letting him dictate my life and how I felt. Because when that person says it’s your fault it confirms everything you have felt about yourself. It confirms you are worthless and being dramatic, which I am commonly known as to my family. Another reason why I cannot discuss this, would they believe me? Probably not. I question every aspect of my personality, do I act this certain way because of what happened to me? I am very good acting dramatic over unnecessary things to distract from the actual issues I have inside, no one would suspect a girl who cries wolf to actually have seen that wolf.
I am not even twenty and these actions have affected the whole of my life so far. I have never had a boyfriend or a deep intimate connection with a boy, I lost my virginity to a neighbour because it seemed okay because I knew him I suppose and he made it clear he was attracted to me physically. I think when you go through something like that at such an early age it gets marked into you that these acts are purely physical, never intimate, so why should this be any different now? My mum has noticed my flippancy towards sexual relations with boys, and it upsets me that she judges me, she just thinks I’m a slut. But she doesn’t know why I sleep with random boys often, she’s never asked, I resent her a bit for that. I guess I just chase that feeling of normalcy with someone, I want to feel that intimate connection that everyone talks about, but all I ever feel is empty. Maybe one day it will happen, so I keep trying.
I think the reason I have taken nearly ten years to acknowledge and reflect on this myself is because for a very long time I was actually in love with my abuser. In my childhood he was very close to me, in fact possibly the closest person to me emotionally, he was my best friend, my brother (not biologically) but he felt that way to me. When I was nine, he was distanced from me, his family moved away. Maybe this was the best thing to ever happen to me but at the time I felt distraught, and spent the next few years into my early teens fantasizing about being in love with him and how we would be reunited. I even used to tell my girlfriends at school that he was my boyfriend and we were making it work long distance. It was all a lie, I wanted to feel like I was special and that he loved me too, he did not and even resisted contact with me for numerous years. But even to this day I still feel love towards him, I recognise what he has done was wrong and that it has damaged me greatly but I still can’t detach from that feeling of adoration. I don’t know if I ever will, I don’t know if that is normal, a lot of things I have read or watched about this portray victims hating their abuser and feeling angry, I just feel immensely sad. Sad he didn’t do these things to me out of love, but of something else much more solemn, which I will never know.
I have felt deeply sad to the point of trying to kill myself on and off since I was about fifteen. I can’t say depression, because I have never been diagnosed by a doctor. I refuse to talk to someone about how I feel because I would then have to explain why. Instead I pass it off as teenage female hormones; everyone empathises. I use alcohol to supress my feelings a lot, my family have started to notice a lot more now I am older, but I started young, stealing alcohol from my mums cupboards. I don’t want to be that typical stereotype who uses alcohol to cope with the feelings left from sexual abuse but I am yet to find something that helps as much, even if it is just for a few hours at a time. I search for things that make me happy without every actually feeling happy. I buy material things for that short lived buzz, but then comes the self-hatred again. I think that’s what a lot of people don’t understand, the self-hatred, I think I hate myself more than I could ever hate him. It’s hard when all you see in yourself is the complete opposite of what everyone else sees. I see a very ugly person, a sad girl that no one could love, why would someone possibly want to love a person as damaged as me. Im constantly seeking approval from men about my appearance, I get a sort of high from boys telling me Im sexy or attractive, never pretty though. Maybe if someone called me pretty, my joy wouldn’t feel so semi-permanent.
So my goal now is, to find a way to live a happy life. One where I feel I can love and be loved, where I cannot focus on the past but instead the future. To have a passion for life, and to never lose that passion. I don’t want to live chained to that experience; I cannot erase it but I don’t want it to dictate the rest of my being. I don’t know if any of this is possible, but I will truly be a victim if I never try.