I was a victim too.

Although I wasn't a direct victim of sexual abuse, I'm learning now that being a witness to it may have been a big part of my own lifelong pain. My sisters abuse by my stepfather (who's still my stepfather), began when she was 4 or 5 years old. I was 6-7. But my story of abandonment starts earlier than that.

My biological father was stationed overseas in 1961 while active duty Army. As a photographer dad was assigned to the division commander's (two stars) staff. So when the General snuck back to the base just 3 days into a two week field exercise, dad was able to take advantage of the CO's distaste for sleeping in the mud, and grab a hot shower too. Unable to find his wife and 9 mo. old son, the obvious thing was to check the usual babysitter. When he found me there he also learned that mom had dropped me off so she could make a quick trip to the "store" immediately after he deployed to the field three days prior.

Emergency leave and a flight to the states later, I'm in the unquestionably loving arms of gramma and grampa.

When time came to start school, the decision was made that I'd be reunited with my now divorced mother and my diaper clad sister. Mom remarried and a grade level or so deeper into my education, the previously mentioned abuse started.

Back to dad.

And so it went. I didn't go to one school for two full years until my junior/senior years in high school. I went to five different schools in the 7th grade. I quit making friends and preferred to spend my free time alone. My sister didn't have to move as often because my mother needed her to protect the stability she had found with my step dad. Had she allowed me to stay with them, I became a potential threat to that stability. Fully aware of the molestations her husband was guilty of, my mother allowed my sisters nightmare childhood to rage on. I had to go.

The final blow came when my childhood sweetheart, my one true love, left me for her one true love. I was able to get some closure with that in 2007 after finally mailing the letter that I would have forever regretted not mailing. She called me a few months later.

It was then that I realized I had spent my life living in those memories and waiting for the phone to ring from my past.

I'm about to turn 50. I never married or had kids. I allowed my heart to be crushed, so I ran away from every potential loving relationship that came along after high school. I'm cross addicted, and I'm being treated for depression and hypertension. When a friend pointed It out, I realized that in ten years, I hadn't even moved the furniture around in my living room. I guess I wanted things to be the same for a while. I lost my job in Sept. '08 so now, after 11+ years , I'm about to lose the only stability I've really ever had, my home.

I thought I was done. Suicide started to look like a viable option.

I'm here for help.