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Ask Amy: Abuse survivor deserves validation

Amy Dickinson, Tribune Content Agency on

Dear Amy: My parents divorced when I was seven, after my mother had an affair with one of my father’s employees.

He was much younger and a registered sex offender, but my mother moved him into our house immediately.

He started commenting on my breasts at a very early age.

When I was 14 he offered to give me lessons on sex. At age 16 he was relentlessly commenting on my body, and when I finally had enough and yelled at him to stop, my mother grounded me for being disrespectful.

At age 17 he exposed himself and performed a sex act in front of me.

I left home at age 17. I told my mother that I was very hurt that she never told him to stop the sexual abuse.

 

She screamed at me and said that I am “too sensitive,” and that I was never sexually abused because her boyfriend (now husband) never actually touched me.

I’m 50 years old now, and I have had difficulty with intimacy my whole adult life.

My mother blames me for turning her life upside down because I tried to hurt myself when I was 10 because I felt so terrible and dirty.

I attempted suicide at age 16 because I felt like I was destined to be her husband’s toy.

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