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Its the middle of the night here, and again its just me and the moon. I don't know what the answer is to how i am feeling, i don't know if i can describe how i a feeling, and there is no justification for how i am feeling.

I feel sad, i feel empty and i feel so, so alone.

There is nothing particular that is making me feel like this, no torture flashback, no nightmares tonight, just that stomach churning anxiousness that once it wakes you up you have to bolt out of bed straight away.

I don't know what i am anxious about, nothing has changed. It's Sunday tomorrow, and there are things going on with friends if i want to be involved, or i can spend some time alone, there is no presssure, so no anxious feelings about that.

I have had a massively challenging and busy week at work, but i got through it okay, done what i needed to do, i have another really busy week this week, but thats all okay.

I have some absolute fantastic friends, they don't know about the abuse stuff, and i dont want to tell them, its not that i dont trust them, but i dont want this massive grey cloud in our relationships, i know it wont help me, i will just feel pressured by myself. I have a sister whom i love dearly, two fantastic nephews, my parents, as dsyfucnctional as our family is, i love them, they are just people who made some mistakes when bringing up kids, my mother didnt and still hasnt acknowledged her mental health issues and my dad, well, you have to love him, everything is so black and white in his world, and frustrating as it is sometimes (alot of the times) he makes me laugh. There may have been some physical and emotional abuse when i was growing up, but you know, i'm not saying it was okay, but they did the best they could at the time.

As far as the abuse goes, maybe my feelings right now are because of a very slight shift in thoughts...I can acknowledge why the abuse continued and i know that at the time i didnt feel i had a choice.

The threats that were used to me were real, and i guess in any childs head threats that feel real and and you can see taking form and absolutey life threatening.

I was reading a few pages from a survivors book and one of the most common threats made to children was that if they told someone they wouldn't believe them. I see myself lucky on this account, right from when the abuse started right up to my grand old age of 36 this has never been a concern for me, and i do think i am lucky because of that, it must be soul destroying to have the courage as a child or adult to disclose the abuse to someone and not be believed.

There was never a question of whether i would be believed, i guess i didnt really know that there was that option, it was never used as a threat against me.

For me it was the fear of someone finding out. Somehow, and i cant really recall how/when/what was said by me, but my main abusers picked up or knew about how dysfunctional life was at home for me, they knew how my relationship was with with my parents - mainly my mum - and they focussed on this - i guess looking back it would easy for adults to pick up on this, but at the time i thought i was so streetwise and strong.

The first threats, on the first couple of occasions of abuse were that they would tell my mum what i had been doing - let me just say that again - that-they-would-tell-my-mum-what-i-had-been-doing. That was so real for me and that was enough to keep my silence. The thought of the punishments that would lay ahead of me if my mum would have known i had been "doing stuff" was unbearable. It never crossed my mind that these people were adults and what they were doing to me was wrong, illegal etc. I can recall quite clearly the main abuser telling me with a smurk on his face, imagine what your mum would say if i told her you had been to my house and you had been touching my cock.

Breathe......

That fear was massive, i imagined him telling her, i imagined her going so fucking crazy and me getting a beating i would have never recovered from. The punishments i had for things far far less were enough for me to know this was so real. You dare not tell my mum if you were injured, injury meant you were doing something wrong. Injury meant more trouble at home, more hassle, more belts, more not being spoken to, more ridicule, more arguments, more put downs - so you didnt tell. I recall being 5 years old and i broke my arm (it was a a bad break and actually crushed all of my elbow, requiring a specialist surgeon who wasnt available and a wait of 12 hours with no pain killers because they couldnt give me the pain killers if i was going under the anasethetic), i recall me and my sister sitting on the corner of the road not knowing what to do, we knew how much trouble lay ahead of us, i remember my sister who is two years older than me being cross with me for putting us in that situation, but we didn't know what to do, how could we run home and tell mum i was injured? We sat fro what seemed like hours - i have no idea how long we actually did sit there for but it my memory it was a long time. We eventually decided that we couldn't tell mum, and we went to a neighbours house - who in turn took us to mum. I dont think i can share the rest of this story right now, but it may put into context why i feared my abuser telling my mum i had touched his cock.

It was a no brainer really, they had my silence, they knew my fears and as things progressed they never needed to use that threat anynmore, the fear of him telling my mum i had touched his cock was enough to silence me, so the fear of him telling her i had it in my mouth didnt even need to be spoken about - and on it went.

I covered up so much so my parents didnt find out. Take out the fact that it was so dsyfunctional at home, but because of that, i went to extra lenghts to ensure she didnt find out - and others helped me...or thats what i thought....and it was a genuine thought....some secondary abusers who were also involved through the main three...helped me. There was this woman who was at one of the houses i had to visit...its too long to go into and it fucks my head so i wont right now, but she used to buy me new pants - so when my pants were bloodstained  - my mum would never know because this woman gave me new ones and she threw away my old ones, she even used to buy exactly the same ones - to help protect me........It was so fucked up, but in my 9 year old mind this woman was like an angel been sent to me. She used to touch me and do stuff to me, but she didn't actually hurt me, she used to say really softly "this isn't hurting you is it my dear" - i couldnt say it was, because it wasn't. She would finish whatever she was doing to me, she would always want to dress me afterwards, then she would check if i needed any new pants, did i have enough cream left to put on my bum if it was sore, did i need any medicine...

So my mum, even it had not been so dsyfunctional at home would not have noticed much.

My fears as well were around protecting my sister, every now and again he used to say he wanted me to bring my sister to his house - if i achieved nothing else throughout these three years, i managed to keep her safe and away from him.

My other fears were of being caught by my parents going to these other houses i had to go to. Some of them were right across the other side of town and i wan't allowed to go that far, i got to know every alleyway and short cut across the town to these other houses through fear of my parents seeing me. I actually dont know what i was more anxious about, the fear of being caught by my mum in a part of town i wasn't allowed in, or fear of what abuse lay ahead of me in these houses.

Fear played a big part of my life as a child, and i'm not sure how i managed it so well, but when talking to my counselor about stuff, fear is the only emotion i can get to, i dont know how else i felt, i just remember the fear.

I'm thinking now that i have managed to get this out here that maybe i can talk to my counselor about all of this, i don't know. I really struggle to understand it, i dont know if i understand it enough to talk about it, or maybe thats why i need to talk to her about this, so i can understand it a bit more, i dont know if there is anything to talk about with this, it just was.

Well, it's nearly 6am here and i'm going to attempt to get some sleep, hopefully my head will stop spinning with this stuff.