as a teenager, I was a victim of word incest

"I want you. I want to make love to you. It's normal, all dads feel that way …" These are the words I heard as a young teenager when my father secludes me in my room, sits next to me on my bed, hand on the upper thigh and begins his long monologue. I am no longer there, complete dissociation.

That day, part of me died …

"Come on darling, come give your darling dad a kiss." And these are the words that, a few days later, accompanied this image of my father in the living room, lying on the couch masturbating. I had never kissed a boy, it was the first time I saw a penis… I go two days to my best friend, I run away.

I continued to live, to grow up, under the same roof as my attacker, my father.
The incest of words is also trauma. The incest of gestures, WITHOUT penetration, is also psychological damage.
So when it starts with words, you need serious and immediate support. Something I haven't had the chance to have …

Traumatic amnesia, you know?

It is a tsunami of both body and mind, which comes in flashes. And I am living it today, alone and isolated with my two dependent children.

But it actually starts long before the flashes. It takes a long time to understand what's going on inside us. Three years ago, everything was already preparing in my head.

Our body tries to send signals to our mind.
I remember, every time I hugged my mom or my big brother, I had a strange feeling. An unpleasant tickle in the vagina that I experienced as an intrusion. My body stiffened.

And then there is this erased childhood. No memory until the age of nine. The complete void. My childhood memories were built through family photo albums.
And a year ago, my first flash. A memory comes back to me. I was so stunned by these images… I felt them with all my senses. And then I understood that as a little girl, other things had happened to me, far more than the incest of words.

Today I sometimes wake up in my vomit. I have phantom pains in my vagina, as if I had been cut with razor blades. I have insomnia. I vacillate between bulimia without vomiting and a complete loss of appetite. I leave in tears, until exhaustion. I have dark thoughts.

I'm trying to decipher all of this as best I can, but it is very complex. The images are monstrous, violent and raw. I can't say the words yet, for fear I won't be able to escape it.

Then after these flashes, in the wake, you have to continue living your daily life when you only have one desire: HURRY.

Shhhh …

As a teenager, I had the courage to tell my mother everything (before the amnesia was lifted). I had hoped for the mother lioness. In exchange, I got the ostrich mother.
Incest destroys, but silence kills. For me, this is an abandonment, a total rejection. She never asked any questions. She never wanted to know if I was okay or why I was bad.
For years, I tried to open a dialogue. I made calls for help. A failure.
My mother’s silence was like a second wave of incest.

"I always had my doubts about your father … You know, I never left you alone with him" : a phrase from my mother when I was thirty, a blow with a club. I couldn't understand how such a gentle and motherly mother could leave her child in such danger. Because in the end, alone with my father, I was …

After my first flashes, I told her "Mom, I know everything." She turned her back on me.
One after one, my inner circle abandoned me in my pain… My family, my husband, a lot of friends. People shun ugly, it makes them uncomfortable. We're angry, but people call us crazy. We trivialize, we minimize, we de-dramatize.

I heard phrases from it that devastated me:
"You tire us out."
"Stop your cinema, you don't have cancer."
"You are selfish. We all have problems."
Those around us must give us this time, because looking into this evil allows us to give meaning to our existence.
You need a support team, a solid environment.

Knock knock, is there anyone?

I've been knocking on doors for two years to be followed. I did everything, even voluntarily interning in a psychiatric hospital for several days to try to find quick solutions. We take two small steps, then we take three giant steps back …
I'm not blaming anyone. It’s the fault of the system at a national level. I have met many good people over the past few years who are doing what they can, with the means at hand.

But between retirement, overloaded schedules, health situation and medical desert in rural areas, I struggle to find suitable and regular psychotherapy.

I was followed for a year by a psychiatrist at the CMP before I could see a psychiatrist because the waiting list was very long and you have to go to committee.

I had a psych date that only lasted fifteen minutes, after six months of waiting. "All that for this !"

I've been prescribed antidepressants, sleeping pills, anxiolytics, and even antipsychotics. All preventing me from going about my daily life, because the brain is cloudy.
In two years we have never said the word "incest" during my sessions. The word is replaced by "childhood" or "past" or "what happened to you with your father."

"We'll see that later" I am told when I speak of incest. In two years, no psychologist or psychiatrist has yet wanted to bring up the subject. And none were specialized in trauma and sexual violence.

In over 20 years, no one told me yet "you are a victim", neither within my close entourage (family and friends), nor with the medical profession.
"Madam, if you only make (suicide) attempts, we will stop taking you seriously", an emergency doctor told me one day. Do I have to kill myself to be heard? We need to train the medical profession for more empathy.
I tried to find a talk group to meet other victims. There are none near my home.

Help

I don't know where to hang in order to move forward. I have no more support branches left.

Help me. For my children … To show that a rainbow exists behind the storm. May light emerge after darkness! And that my fight does not end in a huge mess.

To keep fighting, I need two things:
1) Find a psychologist specializing in traumatology and traumatic amnesia in the Vosges (or elsewhere, by video)
2) Help to start a lyric group in the Vosges
If you are a victim, join me! (Write to me at [email protected])

Together, we are stronger. !

To see also: "In France, a child raped by an adult must prove his non-consent": associations wind up against the Schiappa law

What the law says about sex crimes against minors under 15

• Sexual impairment: it is an act related to sexual activity, with or without penetration, without threat, coercion, surprise or violence. When it is inflicted on a minor under the age of fifteen, the perpetrator faces seven years in prison and a fine of 100,000 euros. In cases of incest, the penalty can be up to ten years in prison.
• Sexual assault: this sexual act is without penetration. Committed on a minor under the age of fifteen, the penalty is ten years in prison and a fine of 150,000 euros. It is heavier when it comes to incest.
• Rape: this act concerns any aggression with penetration committed by violence, surprise and constraint. If it is inflicted on a minor under the age of fifteen, the perpetrator faces twenty years in prison. In the case of incest, the penalty is also heavier in this situation.