From: slh@gtech.com (Sandy L. Haddon)
Subject: Ode, Lydia and Erin Sue
Organization: GTECH Corporation, West Greenwich, RI
Date: Fri, 9 Oct 1992 21:14:44 GMT


.>Ode writes:
.> I *must* face it, I must face it and I have to write it down here and now.
.> 
.> I *LIKED* the sexy things he did to me. Though I didn't know anything
.> about sex, and had no idea what the word sexy meant, he made me feel
.> so good in ways that no one else did. Some of the things he did to me
.> then are among the things that I love having done to me now. This guy
.> knew how to push the right buttons. If he had been a normal guy who 
.> liked women, he'd have been the most popular guy in town. Instead, he
.> used all his talents on me. And I loved it. I think sexuality is
.> instinctual, and I was responding to that instinct, even though I was
.> a tiny little girl. 
.
. Then Lydia writes:
.Oh god, the chord this struck in me!  I too could have written this -- and
.I still can't forgive myself for having enjoyed it and gone along with it
.for six or seven years.  And I can't forgive myself for sometimes
.remembering some of what was done to me and *still* getting aroused at the
.memory!  What my father did to me was wrong and sick, and I enjoyed it -- so
.what does that make me??
.
.Oh hell, I thought I was past this....
.
.					Lydia
.					anon-1024@twwells.com
.
.Then Erin Sue wrote:
.
. This struck me so hard! I like the sexy things my perp. to me.
. He made me feel so good, too. The whole paragraph could have been 
. written by be.  Why do these peolple do this to   kids.  I must
. stop before I start crying in front of my friend at the next terminal.
.

Hello Ode, Lydia and Erin Sue,

I am sorry that you are feeling so sad.  I would like to validate that
each of you have said it felt good.  You are all exactly right!  It did
feel good which is part of the reason it was such an awful thing to do
to you.  It left you confused about your role, robbed you of the right
to explore your physical sex and sexual feelings on your own and in your 
own time.  The perp.s stole your childhood from you.  In addition, I read 
each post to say that each of you are in a lot of pain right now.  You 
have a right to your pain and your grief.  You were abused as children, 
you were taken advantage of at a time when you didn't have the knowledge, 
strength or ability to protect yourself.  You were led to believe that
this was not abuse by people you should have been able to trust for 
accurate information, so even if you could have defended yourself, you
were set up so that you could not protect or defend yourself.  This abuse 
came from people that you should have been able to depend on for protection.  
You are blameless and did not cause this to happen.  Sometimes, you were not
old enough to know this for what it was and in my own case, this was not
the only type of abuse that happened.  There was a lot of other types of
dysfunction going on so that, in my own case, the set up was even stronger.
I was in great need of time, attention, love, caring and all of the other
things that every child needs and deserves to grow up with and I didn't
get them.  In my own case, I was the perfect target.  I wonder if any
abused child isn't manipulated into being the perfect target.

I hope that you can each find a safe place and some comfort for yourselves.  
For my part, I'm thinking about you and my heart goes out to you.

Ode: 

Thank you for your original post, I am a bit overwhelmed at where
to start.  It was a wonderful, clear look at some of your past that
takes a tremendous amount of courage to look at, let alone go public
with on this newsgroup.  I think you are right on about this perp., I
have a hard time discerning what was or was not abuse in my life so 
I go by the following: Use is abuse.  When I was used by anyone to get
for that person whatever it was they wanted or needed, it was abuse.
You have a lot of insight about the things that happened to you.

Lydia:

I hope you can go easier on yourself.  Physically it felt good, that
has nothing to do with the insidious way that these good feelings were
brought to you.  You were just a child.  You did NOT ask for this
person to come and do sexual things to you.  He violated you, you did
not violate him.  He betrayed you.  You enjoyed it because it felt good, 
you were a human child being sexually stimulated, that feels good.  
You were not wrong to feel good.

When I cannot forgive myself for something in the past, I feel worse
than the original feelings that go along with the onset of the memory.
Whether I remembered this memory before or not.  I have found that
the times I was witness to things that did not x-abuse (fill in the x
with the different types of abuse) me, (but since it did happen to me 
before I witnessed this, I knew how it felt), I was relieved and glad 
that it was NOT happening to me.  At some point, since I didn't feel 
what I thought was "bad" (I was not in pain, I was glad), I felt immense 
guilt for this.  I felt good at a time when I was witness to x-abuse of my 
sister?  It was a very human thing to be relieved and glad that I was not 
feeling this x-abuse.  Where I got into trouble with the guilt stuff was
that I was somehow beating up me for feeling "good".  I was not recognising 
the fact that the abuser caused the situation in the first place.  
Does this help?  Does this make any sense to you?

Erin Sue:

I hope that you can find a safe place to cry, let it out.  It needs to
come out and keeping it in only hurts you.  

I used to think that if I need to cry, I was unacceptable to myself.
Now I think that if I need to cry, I need to cry.  Just like I need
to feel safe, I need to laugh and I need to be hugged, rocked and told
that it's going to be ok.  

One final note:  It is a priveledge to know such courageous people.
People who face their past and work on feeling better.  It helps a lot
to know that I am not alone.  Ode, Lydia and Erin Sue--you are not
alone.

Warm wishes all around and them e-hugs to those who want them.

San :)