i feel guilty...i dont even know how to feel...

I constantly feel guilty...guilty for existing. Even though I've done nothing wrong. I don't want to be a burden, an inconvenience, a nuisance, even to people I hate. I feel like I don't deserve to be in existence a lot of the time, and I think I know why I feel this way.

Back when I was 12, after I was sexually assaulted by my mom's boyfriend, i was taken care of properly by the police and did what i could to help them stop the man who did it to me. I had no problem telling the people what happened to me, and the case was solid against him.

However the person who needed the most convincing is my mother, the Queen of Denial and of being completely absorbed in herself. She constantly questioned me, despite reading the case files, trying to find anything that didn't sound right to help him out. To 'find-the-truth' in his favor. She harassed me for details, and became angry at the woman who sheltered me in her house after I ran away from him.

(My mother had dragged me back to the house with her and confronted him about what happened. The woman told the police this, and my mother was upset that it made her look bad...except, the woman told the cold hard truth, and my mother couldn't accept it.) I remember the experience...it was terrifying, being interrogated by her with him in the room. I remember crying hysterically, saying to myself 'noone will believe me, noone will believe me...' As if I had done something horrible.

I don't remember much of the case itself, but I remember going to court and going to therapy mostly. I realized after some time, that the therapist would tell my mom what I told her. I know this is her job, to let my mom know how I was doing after the assault. All it did was provoke my mother and make her bombard me even more with questions about the rape. After a while, I just started talking leisurely with the therapist, avoiding the affair altogether because I knew my mom would come at me in the car, probing me, making me feel more and more like I was the suspect and not the victim. And finally she found something.

There was no complete penetration, but the lawyers said there was.

What I mean to say is that, it didn't make it pass/through the hymen. It was just pushed against it, and didn't go fully in.

Unfortunately, being 12, I had no idea how describe this correctly, so I'm assuming the lawyers did what they could with what was told. Plus, I do not know if this made a difference. I would assume not, but its always made me question myself because she made it seem like it did.

Either way, once my mom found this little inconsistency, she RODE it. Contstantly badgering 'what happened? Did this happen?' And me, dismissing it with 'nothing, just leave me alone.' She told me that it gave him a few more years on his sentence, and if I would go to the lawyers and clear it up, I'd be doing a good thing. 'God would not want you to put someone in jail for something they didn't do.' I believe that's how she tried to persuade me. Pulling down god as if she was religious. I ignored it. I had no idea if it was true, but at the time, I was done with everyone and everything. Plus, she was (and still is) seeing/talking to him. So I gave it no credence.

Then, I found out she married him my sophomore year of highschool. Her excuse for marrying and still speaking to him is that when she asked what happened, I would say 'nothing.' To dismiss her. She read case files. There was biological evidence. I was hysterical. Did she honestly think I crafted that story, the bio evidence, and acted that way? She still might. She may never fully believe me, because her heart won't let her. And that's what is going to lead her to move in with him once he's out.

I keep thinking, every day 'I shoulder have been labeled a sexual assault victim' or 'I should have been clearer,' even 'maybe if I had been raped in a complete way, a way that was satisfying to my mom, my feelings would be validated, and I could count myself as a rape victim.' I have to prove I was the victim. Despite the paper they gave me saying 'I was a rape victim survivor.' I wasn't sure if i was. (Also, I'm not sure what it was for so...yeah.) I feel guilty deep down like I've done something wrong. I feel guilty because I feel like my mom has a reason to suspect me of lying. I feel guilty because the one person who is supposed to stand by me has her doubts based solely because of her heart.

After being treated like a suspect and not a victim, by the person who you have no choice but to trust, you start to question what is and isn't valid about you, and do you even deserve to be where you are. You feel filthier than you did when the assault happened, and you told the police to keep your PJs because you couldn't bear to take your butterfly sleeping gown back. Guilt becomes you, absorbs you, makes you sick. You see blood on your hands that isn't there. Feeling guilty when you can find no wrong eats at your self-esteem. You hate yourself. You feel like a piece of trash, and you start to wish you didn't exist.

I'm 19 now. I will be 20 in Feb. I'm still living with her. I think of this every day. It messes with my own image of myself, and at times I'm surprised I've been living this, thinking this, for about 8 years. Even now, I'm not even sure of myself.