Thread by @sturdyAlex

THREAD By DM, wants to be anonymous:

"My father severely beat and tortured me (physically and psychologically) and made sexual overtures for the first 19 years of my life. And he got away with it." 1/ #STFUSaturday

"I was 15 when I finally told a therapist who worked in the guidance department of my high school just a fraction of what went on. She said the school staff suspected abuse but couldn't pursue it unless I said something (this was in the US in 1990)." 2/ #STFUSaturday

"The guidance department feared my father would retaliate violently for reporting him, but instead of removing me from my home, they suggested I plan an escape route on bicycle. I asked what I should do when he tried to plow me down with the car. No response." 3/ #STFUSaturday

"The social worker they sent didn't listen/got my account of the story wrong, didn't take me out of the home because he didn't see bruises, and told my father he could hit me with an open hand (this was the law then; it was legal to beat your child this way)." 4/ #STFUSaturday

"He was supposed to make an unannounced visit to my home and never showed up.

My father backed off until I graduated from high school, figuring I'd have no avenue for protection, not that I ever really did." 5/ #STFUSaturday

"When the first post-graduation incident occurred, it was potentially life-threatening (he tried to stab me with a screwdriver before throwing me into a table) and I called the police, frantic." 6/ #STFUSaturday

"The police dismissed me until my sleeves fell back and revealed my father's handprints bruised into my arms. Still, they didn't arrest him because I wasn't bleeding.

I had a trusted doctor, and I told him there was physical abuse and showed him the marks." 7/ #STFUSaturday

"My doctor said my father had bruised the bone in my hip and offered to testify for me if I pressed charges. While I was considering it, my father died. So he'd gotten away with it.

I never told the school or the authorities the full extent of the abuse." 8/ #STFUSaturday

"What was worse, my mother was part of it. She used my father as her henchman and arranged for a beating whenever she wanted to control me, which was frequently. She'd often lie and cover for my father, too." 9/ #STFUSaturday

"At 46, very few of my friends know there was abuse, and I haven't told them anywhere near the full extent of it. I'm finally at the point where I'm being fully honest with a therapist, but my history has impacted every aspect of my life.

That's my story." 10/10 #STFUSaturday