I just found out my dad molested my sister 30 years ago, family in shambles
I found out yesterday that my dad molested my sister 30 years ago. The abuse went on for 3 years. I also found out my dad was molested by his mother (my grandma) and she was also raped and abused by her father, so it's been generations of awful people apparently. I am beside myself right now. I had no idea any of this happened. My family has its problems, but we have always stuck together, spent holidays together etc. My dad has had his issues, but he has been a (seemingly) good dad and provider for our family, so I had no idea he was capable of this. He was always the "good one" in his family. My mom and my other sister are also shocked and devastated. Our family is now falling apart and my mom plans to leave my dad and sell the house we all grew up in. There are no words to describe what I'm feeling right now. It's a mixture of anger and devastation. I feel like I have lost trust in everyone and everything. I really wish I didn't even know any of this. I'm angry that I even found out. I feel like this burden is not mine to bear and that him teling me was him releasing his guilty conscience on me. I know that may sound selfish of me but the back story is that my family has been one drama after the next my entire life. I have 3 sisters and it's just drama all the time between them. I feel like my mom and I are the ones who always have to carry the load for everyone else's crap and I'm exhausted. I've always been the responsible one who never caused problems. I've always had to be the rock. If things are going bad in my life, I handle it on my own, instead of trying to drag other people down. I would rather just handle it than take it out on others and hurt or worry the people I care about. I've wanted nothing more than to live a peaceful life. On my own I do my best to be a good person, do charitable work, and lead an emotionally stable, healthy, drama-free, happy life. To be honest, I don't know how I turned out as normal as I have given the circumstances and all the pain and fighting that has gone on in my family (which now makes sense in light of this new information). I love my work and friends, but then I carry this massive burden with my family and now with this new information it is absolutely unbearable. I just want to disappear. I feel like I don't even have a real family and that no family is better than this f--ked up situation. I am devastated beyond words. I feel bad for wanting to get away from everyone, but I don't think I can take much more and live a healthy, happy life. I feel like I may be better off cutting ties and distancing myself now. I want to be there for my sister and mom, but I can barely handle my own pain right now, I really can't take anymore. I feel like my family has brought me nothing but pain and anxiety my whole life and it's apparently mulitple generations of bad people. I feel like it's cursed. I truly feel at this point I am better off alone and even having that thought is making me feel guilty and awful. I'm so angry, hurt, and exhausted. I don't know how to process any of this and I go back and forth between numbness and crying. I just needed to vent as I have no one to turn to right now and this is information I would never want to get out to anyone, including my friends. I am so devastated and humiliated. Thanks for listening....
(edited by @sujaypai by moving from the Forum Discussion category)
@hellofromtheotherside Hugs Hello. That can be very terrible thing to happen and know about. I am so extremely sorry for the horrible pain that you are going through knowing all of this and also taking the things that you and your mom had to always put up with. I can understand the dichotomy you face between having to stand for your sister and mom (who have themselves a lot going through with this revelation and directly affected by it and the trauma that this abuse brings with it for a long period of time) as well as to take care of your own pain and seeing the family which was knitted together come down into shambles all of a sudden. I hope you gather all the strength and I send you more strength to bear with this pain and for the entire family that has to bear the consequences of this abuse and also for your sister who is probably going through the ordeal daily. Take care of yourself and your mom and sister. If you need to talk to us you can always pm me.
@sujaypai thank you for your response. Given it's been 3 days now, I'm still in a lot of pain, but I am less angry and more looking for a way to move forward and heal. I realize cutting my family off is not the solution and that I need to be involved to start the healing process. I am really struggling to get work done and lead a normal life right now. My business and everything else is suffering due to my anxiety and depression over constant issues in my family and this new information has hit me especially hard. It feels like I'm going to lose everything right now. I'm losing my will and motivation to get anything done. I am going to see a therapist. Thank you again for your kind response.
@hellofromtheotherside Well It's been a year since you posted this so I am not sure you will even see my message or not. I also had a very similar experience. It's really hard to type it out. It's clear in my mind but to spell it out is rather difficult. I am 53, I found out in about 1998 that my father had had sex with my 2 year older sister from the time she was 10 until she was 15. My sister had apparently suppressed the memories of that time until one day she saw him hugging her daughter. Lot more detail to that I won't get into, but in that instant she said the memory came flooding back. She was talking to me about it like I knew what had happened and I had to stop her and tell her I had no idea what she was saying. She then just came right out and said what he did. My sister and I were very very close growing up. So I can see why maybe she assumed I knew. I immediately went to my father houses and confronted him. And he admitted doing it. At that time I was active in a church and fully believed that if he and my sister had worked it out and he and his God had worked it out that all was okay, but it wasn't. They have covered over their pain but mine had just began. It's been 20 years now since I found out. The news quickly spread thru our family and all but one of my mother's siblings have not spoken to her or my family since. I went thru a terrible divorce shortly after all of this happened. My ex-wife chased me in a vehicle and ran me over on my motorcycle with her two children in the car. It was very difficult time. She was diagnosed afterward in the mental hospital as being bi-polar.
I left the USA in 2001 and took a job overseas in the Middle East. I have not been back. I did try to go back and talk to my sister one time but it was just too painful. I choose these days to not dwell on it. I call my parents every now and again just to say hi, but we have never sat down as a family and talked about any of this. I also was abused but I am sure not in the fashion she was. All of my childhood now is tainted, I can't ever think back and feel the same as I did before I found out what the truth was. I remember lots and lots of whippings and growing up you don't know that is not normal as it's all you know. I know realize I was probably between him and my sister as we were so close and he took his aggression out on me. For sure she got the worse end of his attention. I am not sure what his life growing up was like. I know it was also dysfunctional to some degree. I never would have thought this would happen to my family, but it did. I do still think about it, I choose to share it with those that will listen. I am not going to continue the pattern of abuse. I have made a new life in another country and I will for sure never go back to that state again. I am sure my way is not for everyone, but I just did not see staying there to fight with them to sit and go thru therapy when in their minds they have already resolved everything. It's just not worth it to me. I was messed up for a long time after that and my bad divorce. I lost my job, i had no place to stay other than my car. I used up all my credit cards trying to find another job. I went to each of my Aunts and Uncles and cousins just asking to sleep on a sofa for a while, but not one person was willing to help me, not one. My one Uncle did tell me that everyone knew at the time how my father was treating me and mistreating me but not my sister. Thanks for stepping in family. As I said I was also active in the Church at that time and I could not get one person to listen to me when I reached out for help. Seems impossible but I lived it and I know it to be true. I had been gone from my ex-wife