How do I survive?

I've decided to start this blog because I have thoughts sometimes that don't quite fit the mold. My perspective on relationships, work, people, life often seems to be just a little off normal.

Why is that? Well, the fact is, I'm a survivor of sexual abuse. I have gone through years of abuse by my brother. I don't even remember when it started, I was so young, it was just always there.

Then when I got older, I had another three incidents. All stranger rapes. Well, kinda. One was by a girl friend of mines guy friend who I had just met. The other two attacks were complete strangers.

This sounds much and bad, and yeah, I guess it kinda is. But because I had already gone through the years of abuse under my brothers hand (and always heard complaints from "the help") about my father violating them, it always seemed to me to be a normal thing that happens to all females.

I always thought that there was something wrong with me because I wasn't able to handle it. I was depressed, felt worthless and weak and was so closed off, yet other females around me seemed fine. So why could I not handle this treatment. All women went through this . . . didn't they??

Only much, much later did I realize that this was not happening to all other women. That this was not a "normal" thing, and that my idea of "normal" was very wrong.

But what now? Now that I knew that, what was I to do now. Now that my mind saw things differently, now that the damage was done and I realized the truth, how was I supposed to go on with my life, dealing with my family, how was I supposed to find a way to move forward and get past all the pain, the destruction to my body, self esteem and perspective on human relations.

This blog is my attempt to do just that and to talk honestly about my life through the eyes of a sexual abuse survivor.