PAST JOURNAL ENTRY: July 25/26, 2005

Geoffrey,

As we discussed, I told my husband tonight about my bruising, but not the extent of how. I told him that this is why I've been so secretive. I also told him that I've been having flashbacks. He asked if he could do anything to help and I told him that even though during these times that I want to push him away that I really need him to hug me. He told me he really liked me letting him in and trusting him more. However, I'm feeling badly and wanting to bruise [automatic reaction to talking]

The question "why" keeps running through my head. Sometimes, followed by "what did I do wrong?" It is really difficult to accept that I couldn't do anything. Also, difficult to comprehend how my mother could know and not do anything. [It wasn't why me, but why do people do these things.]

Actually, she just hurt me more. I keep remembering how physically painful everything was. Feels like a part of me is just screaming "why?" I even remember the feel of the carpet on my skin. I keep thinking that I just wanted my step-father to like me. I don't know why that was so important. Maybe, I thought he wouldn't hurt me anymore if I could just get him to like me. I thought he hated me and sometimes thought my mother hated me too.

Beginning with last week and especially last night, I keep having flashes of my step-father and his father being on top of me in his bedroom. I want to talk and I don't want to talk. But, the flashbacks are becoming progressively louder, more vivid and there are more sensations. I think, waking up in a panic last night had to do with remembering my step-father being on top of me.

I didn't sleep very well last night and woke up extremely tired. It was good that I didn't have anything until 10 am and 10 minutes from home, so I could just do documentation and not have to interact with anyone. I think, part of the difficulty in sleeping has to do with having told my husband. Still makes me feel anxious and bad.

I'm really wanting to bruise today and I am trying really hard not to do so. I've been having some of the same flashbacks and new ones of being at my step-father's parents. I really hated going there in the summer with just him.

If my mother came, it was sort of okay. But, the summers were bad even spent several nights at a time including a week stay at a time. I really didn't want to stay. I remember being scared of my step-father and his father. It was kind of confusing because his father paid attention to me and he played the game and stuff I wanted to play, so I sort of liked him, but he scared me.

I didn't hate him like my step-father. Kind of confusing to me. But, I remember his father touching me. The house was usually really loud and lots of people were in and out all the time. I remember the smell of the incesnse which was being burned most of the time. I remember that was the first time I burned myself with the incense when no one was looking.

I remember his father being relatively quiet and passive and that he didn't work...don't know why. However, his mother was really loud and bossy. She did psychic reading usually in their bedroom and she seemed to talk non-stop. She wasn't able to work due to some neurological disease. It was fairly easy for his father to come into my step-father's room when I was taking a nap or sleeping, as know one noticed he was gone and it was so loud I don't think anyone ever heard him with me.

He was gentler than my step-father, so sometimes, I think, it wasn't as bad. And, in someways, it wasn't. It didn't hurt as much and I wasn't scared that he would harm me. I kind of liked him and thought he liked me. [My journals are telling my story as I remembered things. It was only until much later that I remembered the real truth...I couldn't handle it then.]

Feels like I need to talk about this stuff. But, it makes me really anxious. And I start to question if I'm making things up or that you are not going to believe me or that it isn't okay to talk. I've already talked about some of this before. [Again, my own thoughts and feeling and what I was told projected onto my therapist. However, every bit of it felt real and was automatic thinking.]