The Day I Told My Dad

2015, September - 42 years old

The month build up was insane. My heart was heavy, my mind was overloaded and my mood was futile. It was all driven like a tidal wave of my own internal desire to have my Dad know about my abuse. About the life I led that changed me forever.

I could not seem to get a breathe and the more I tried the more anxious I became. It felt all too familiar. That same old scenario - ‘the unknown outcome’ playing in my mind over and over. The world of ‘what ifs’. That same fucking world that sent me crazy. Always and I mean always worrying and thinking of the ‘other’ person. What will they think, what will they say, will they believe me, will they support me, will they still love me...that unknown territory that I needed to explore in order to free the secret...

It would be one person at a time!

So I’m now 42, my Dad is 65 and on the 12th September 2015 I finally told my Dad that a family member sexual abused me for a period of 8 years from age 3 or 4 until 11 or 12.

This secret has been the bane of my existence and telling my Dad was one truly difficult hurdle to overcome. I’ve wanted him to know for all of my life and waiting so long has been a road of torturous hell. I’ve longed to blurt it out and have even made attempts to tell him without the support of other family members. This monkey on my back called ‘secrecy’ spewed from every corner of my life and hovered like a dirty cloud and threatened to pour heavily on my soul. So I kept my mouth shut....

It was to protect him you see...of what he would do to my perpetrator? Would he go to jail for killing him or bashing him? This was repetitious dialogue and after a while you just accept it and then start to agree! Ironically this notion protected the very man that did this to me. This Paedophile went unpunished and unnoticed!

The lead up to telling my Dad was one of the most stressful times of my life. I was feeling ever so fragile and my strength was running close to empty from the prepping process. Talking to my husband and a few close friends about the myriad of possible reactions resulted in a minor breakdown one afternoon after talking to my sister on the phone. I rang my husband who works interstate and I could not speak. I sobbed and I sobbed and I sobbed in the corner of my kids room! I could barely breathe and I felt so mentally weak. I’d reached a peak of vulnerability and I had no choice but to surrender the fall. It was a very sad and low point in my life. My children were in another room so I knew I had to call on all of my survival tools and get it together.

Turning up to their house that morning was masked as a visit for a cuppa, yet my insides flipped with repulsion and my lips remained closed even with my brain trying to open them with the sequence of my prepared words. Forty five minutes later, it finally came out. The look on his face is one I will never forget. I felt the sadness pour into his soul like a gushing rapid and there was nothing I could do to rescue him. His pain was evident and from this today forward I knew he would never be the same man.

His little girl was damaged and he was helpless. He cried for me, he was sorry for not being there to protect me, and for not doing more. My Dad was overwhelmingly full of support and reacted exactly as I hoped for. He was so sorry initially and as the days wore on he felt the anger I anticipated. My Dad has two daughters and he was the type of man who took us to watch our favourite Rugby League team - The Illawarra Steelers at Win Stadium and would bur up at other male spectators when they swore. He would say, ‘excuse me I have young daughters here’. Mind you, we were 15, but that didn’t matter to him. It wasn’t the right way to carry yourself around females, young or old.

He thinks Paedophile's are scum of the earth and to be completely honest, he is renowned for the odd tear and a ten minute verbal outpour of such a crime when he sees this kind of thing on TV. For this to be one of his daughters was a monumental stab in the heart.

From this day forward our lives would take on a different path. Fresh pain was sprouting from every corner of our family and the quest for self healing began.

My Sister and Mother sought professional support, my Dad acquired some kind of positive aura that I’d never seen before. He was less interested in debate and defending the really small things. He was more responsive to people around him and it was a refreshing adjustment. Dad was also talking to Mum a lot and vise versa. It was imperative they had each other and kept the conversation going.

For me, I needed some distance. It was heavy and I imagine it will be for a long time. There is so much going on. I’m informing extended family members of my abuse, which sounds easier than it actually is (for all involved) but it’s a scary thing to do, especially when they idolise the perpetrator. I’m trying to catch up with my closest friends and disclose everything to them before the website is ready. It’s fucking hard. It’s tiring and it’s a new challenge because I’ve been so private about my life up until now. I want to do the right thing by all but I can only do what feels natural and mentally available to me at the time.

So I continued to write and set up this website, and stress out, and be cranky, and flip out at nothing, and bite my husbands head off for ridiculous things, and drink too much beer and wine and vodka, and do less exercise than I wanted to, and procrastinate with my writing, and slacken off with eating healthier than I could, and become more and more tired without listening to anything my body is telling me.

In summary, I’m a fucked up mental case who tries to pretend she’s not. I continue to bullshit my way through the, ‘so how are you going?’, ‘what have you been up to?’ conversations! So today I’m just trying to keep my head above water.

At least I’m still eating shit loads of broccoli.