Well it makes for good TV.

Sorry you had to go through that, man. At least my **** of an excuse for a father confined himself to his daughters. Hell's burnin' awaitin' his black soul. Or it would be, if it existed. Hopefully it does.

Chester had been molested too, apparently. So was my best friend growing up. Daily. It is so horrifyingly commonplace and no one wants to believe it. (It's especially infuriating how sometimes the kids aren't even believed because the abuser is ''Such a great guy!'' or active in church or golf friends with the town sheriff or whatever.) Really makes me want to round them all up and saw off their hands one by one. I'm sorry, Mord. :c

You're exactly right about how common it is. It was a daily occurrence for me. Either sucking cock or being beaten mercilessly or being made to clean the house all night and not get any sleep for school the next day.

As for the church thing...yeah. My mom played the piano in church. And she would cry and say Jesus this and Jesus that. And all the while, she was enabling my abuser.

( note: the keyboard on this ancient laptop is dying, so various keys keep not working. I'm not drunk. )

Yes, the enabling thing seems just as common. Or just outright ignoring it and pretending everything is fine because acknowledging it would mean allowing their gossamer-thin facade of normalcy to unravel and they'd have to--god forbid-- pay attention to their child and stop coddling the abuser. I was shocked when I learned that my friend had been raped for years (I didn't have a reason to suspect since she never let me stay overnight more than once; she always wanted to stay over at mine for obvious reasons), as I couldn't imagine how her mother had allowed it. Boggles the mind. She was active in their church too; they were all very religious. It crushes me; out of all the people I'm close to, I know more people that have been raped or molested than people who haven't. I also recall reading recently in some studies that ANY trauma endured before age 22 or so [I don't remember exactly] affects us just as severely as childhood trauma.

It also bothers me how elementary and middle schools did the absolute bare minimum when going through the mandatory class talk explaining what to do if someone touched you inappropriately; I see very little discussion about the grooming process that often happens years before the abuse occurs, or the years of manipulation and gas lighting that occurs during and for years after. Oftentimes that manipulation seems to extend throughout the entire family so that everyone is controlled and the abusers always have the upper hand. (Obviously you all know this already, I'm just ranting because I've seen so much that could have been prevented. There's also the problem of children sometimes being granted little autonomy over their own bodies--often just in small ways like being forced to hugged people that make them uncomfortable-- and being treated like objects almost and, as a result, developing a very poor idea of what's okay and what isn't which then of course ends up muddling kids' understanding of consent later on etc etc it's quite a mess)

I had to stare at that wolf eating snow for a long time because your post is so long.

I remember at a party towards the end of high school, a brother of a good friend of mine excitedly asked me if I knew about Mumford and Sons. I was trying to figure how to put my thoughts on their garbage juice runoff gutter muck music delicately when this cute girl in the group chimed in that she loved them and I said they were good and I've never felt so dirty.

That's been weighing on me for a while.

Damn, this thread just got dark.

I told those fudgepackers I liked Michael Bolton.

This is the first time reading an MB thread has made me feel sad :(

I just don't even know what to say so I'll say nothing.