Signed, X

I'd left working in the bagel. 

I got accepted to Columbia for a master's degree in computer science. 

 

They had a flier saying if you were sexually abused we'd like to interview you for psychological research. 

So I'm sitting in the interview, and I'm sobbing and crying as I describe what happened to me.  And when I left to the interview, I thought, "Oh my god.  You are really not well.”

And I made a conscious decision to go back to therapy.

 

I asked the person running the research to recommend somebody. 

I said, "Can you recommend a male therapist?  Because if I have a problem with males, I need to deal with it from that perspective." 

 

I went twice a week for 4 years. 

I did a lot of work of trying to rediscover who I am and try to work through the blame of myself.

 

*

 

Right after around a year—I think I was 27—I started having the feeling that I need to confront my dad.   

One day, it dawned on me that the right thing to do was actually to confront both of them. 

Because if I confront my dad, he might not do anything about it. 

If I confront my mom, she might not do anything about it. 

 

I called a meeting.

I said to my dad, "I want you to tell mom what you did to me when I was young." 

And he said, "I didn't do anything to you." 

I said to him, "You know you did something to me, and I'd like you to tell her what you did." 

He kept denying it.

I said, "Do you remember when you used to come to my bed at night and do this and this and this?” 

My mom was so angry. 

She started yelling at him. 

And he kept saying, "I didn't do any of this." 

And I said, "You know you did that." 

And I kept describing it. 

I kept describing how I used to tie my pajamas and all these things. 

And he said, "You were just dreaming it.  It was at night.  You're making it up." 

And then he said, "Your therapist put it in your mind.  You know it never happened." 

And I kept saying, "That's what you did." 

 

My mom was very adamant that he's not staying. 

And the next day he asked my brother to arrange a flight to Israel. 

And he just left. 

 

*

 

I felt this is my responsibility to take care of her.

So at first it was all about letting her talk about it—letting her ask me any question that she'd like to ask. 

Making her feel comfortable, that it's not the end of the world that it happened, that I'm much better, and I'm healing. 

And really making sure she doesn't do anything to herself. 

 

I actually found out my mom suspected that he was doing that when I was 16. 

She went to my sister, because my sister and my mom are very close in age. 

At the time my sister was already married. 

My sister said, "Have her live with us." 

And my mother said, "How am I supposed to tell her that she should live with you? 

I cannot tell her that I'm suspecting something like this."

She didn't know what she was going to do. 

Her mom died when she was 7 and her dad died when she was 13. 

And she had a step mother that destroyed her: beating her and making her feel like nothing. 

She got married when she was 17. 

I understand why she couldn't do anything. 

 

*

 

After three months she went to Israel to see him. 

She says he admitted that he did that. 

And of course he blamed her. 

Because she wasn't a good enough wife for him. 

So he had to do that. 

He couldn't go to a prostitute. 

He had to destroy his daughter's life. 

 

And then my dad had a stroke in Israel.

She needed to go there to manage things.

It was very important for me that I would help her go through the process. 

He went to rehab and a few months later passed away. 

I did not fly to the funeral.