I am going to be forthright. I was violently sexually abused from age four to sixteen by my mother. It significantly destroyed my childhood and teenage years. It has significantly affected my adult life. My youngest ‘brother’ is 99.9% likely my son.

I don’t wish to go into gritty detail at this time, but she assaulted me two to three times a month for those twelve years. Hundreds of times. I could not get the abuse to stop, and fighting back made her assaults ten times worse. I constantly fantasized about ending her life to make the abuse end, but cowardly never took action.

I told a youth pastor and two teachers about the abuse, but none of them believed me and two of them punished me for the awful things I was saying. I realized my mother was right- nobody would believe me- and locked all my trauma in a vault. I figured I would take the shame and evil to my grave.

But two years ago my brothers started having children. I felt that it was imperative to never let my nephews suffer the same abuse. Exposure to their grandma might be dangerous. I finally disclosed to my family.

Revealing these sins of the past has made the last two years a struggle. All the evil and rage she poured into me back then is no longer imprisoned in my forever vault.

I am currently doing intensive complex PTSD therapy, and using EMDR methods to try to reprocess the trauma. Of several approaches, EMDR has been the only one that has begun to break through my walls. Reprocessing ‘lighter’ traumas has gone well however trying to reprocess the darker and more violent traumas has been very little progress if not setbacks.

The desolation, worthlessness, shame, and anger I feel has spiked. Matricidal rage and self-destructive fantasies are at an all time high. I have been without appetite for a while and eating is a struggle- I am losing an unhealthy amount of weight.

Lukewarm platitudes from friends fall flat. My family tends to not want to talk about this ugly stuff and I don’t blame them for that. Even genuine and empathetic help from my closest friend and confidant is not reaching through my desolation. And why should it? Healing is my responsibility- not any of theirs. I used to see a hopeful light at the end of the tunnel but I am afraid the darkness I am trying to face is winning.

How did any of you get through your darkest, most isolating, or most desolate times on the way to recovery?

Thank you.