early childhood sexual abuse
i was sexually abused by two of my cousins as a child and my abuse was swept under the rug when i came forward. i remember being told that dss would take me away from my mother if i wouldn't take back what i said (keep in mind, i was four years old the first time this happened. at that age, one has no ability to rationalize these kinds of scenarios). i remember my mother blaming my father leaving porn magazines laying around. i rarely saw my father the first few years after they got divorced and my first memories of sexual knowledge did not come from looking at a magazine. i remember specifically being told not to tell my father when/if i saw him. what i do not remember is the therapy my mother supposedly sent me to (which of course, proved that i was not molested! hooray! she isn't a failure of a parent after all, right? because the therapy sessions--lack thereof, just so we don't get lost here--should also exist to vindicate her of any possible wrongdoing, right?).