I’m not sure why it is difficult for me to not accept responsibility in some way for what he did and what my mother did/didn’t do.

I feel without power and control yet if I wasn’t responsible then I am powerless. Why is that so hard to accept?  I can’t let that control go but I also see that perhaps I didn’t have it to begin with. But I don’t think I fully believe that. It’s so conflicting, I look at a photo of me as a 7, 8, 9-year-old and see this small skinny person that surely was vulnerable and with little real control over happenings, yet remembering what I as that small person felt, and what I feel now, is both powerless and responsible.

I think as I got older and the more aware I became, it felt like the secret was growing all the time, and my actions contributed to that secret and I became more responsible over time. I have always wondered why I didn’t say anything, why I didn’t just say the words, even a few simple words to someone. I could have done that, kids do speak out. He didn’t threaten to kill me or anything extreme like that. I know he said things to  keep the secret but surely there would have been someone/a number of people over the years that would have heard me?

Ok, so when I offered to suck my teacher’s penis when I was 11, was I not taking control, being the opposite of powerless. I was in trouble and that’s how I chose to manage the situation? That seems like a level of control, so why is that same control not applicable with my father? At least from some point.