Dear Dad,
I have never confronted you. I have never told you about the pain you have caused me. I have never told you about the years of therapy the abuse caused by your hands has put me through. I have never once uttered all the words I am about to write; but I feel it is time to tell you and the world what hell you have caused me. It is not fair that I spend all this time trying to find self worth, while you sit in a jail cell still blaming me.
Do you really think for one second I asked for it? Do you honestly feel that I am the one who needed the “lessons” in life on how to be sexual when I was only twelve years old? Do you honestly think that the only one suffering is you because you sit in prison? Well how dare you!
There is a certain amount of power a father holds over a daughter, even without sexually abusing them. There is a selfless love that a father should give a daughter that gives her the tools to not only love herself, but to love those who are in her life. You fucked up all of that for me. You took away any innocence I should have known and replaced it with horrific memories that I have never figured out how to erase. You are the hell in my nightmares and the chaos in my life. You are a disgusting individual.
You took away my childhood. Because of your selfish needs I can only recall nights filled with your hands in places they never should have been, and yet I am certain there were times in my life that I actually enjoyed. You robbed me of learning what sex was at an appropriate age and because of that I turned to sex as an adult to feel normal and wanted, rather than sustain healthy relationships. It took years to understand that a man could love me without sex; it never should have been that way.
You should not have been my first sexual experience at all! I should have been a “normal” woman having her first experience be with someone I thought I loved not my father. Why was it so hard for you to stay off of me? What in your sick mind made you think it was okay to screw up my life like this?
There was nothing that was bestowed upon you as a child that gave you the right to do it to me. As a survivor you should known how hard it was to feel normal and accept yourself for who you are instead of what the abuse molded you to be. And yet, I became your victim and you became my worse enemy. You had no right to rob me of my childhood.
Statistically, those who are abused, will abuse again but there is an inner strength within us all that can stop this viscous cycle. Why did you not have that power? I look at my own children and I wonder how anyone could ever see their own child as a sexual object. How could a human being think for one second that an under aged individual is something worth preying upon. This is not the way the world was meant to spin and it will stop here. The cycle of abuse ends with me in our family. There is no reason any child should ever feel so worthless, powerless, empty and filled with guilt all at the same time.
Sadly, it was hard to turn you in. After ten years of healing from the incestual abuse I realize that the challenge was turning in the parent I wanted, not the parent I had. I wanted the dad who I could laugh with, cry on his shoulder when a boy broke my heart, and the one who would be there to hold their grandchild close to their heart. But you will never be that dad. You will never be what I only know from Hollywood and what my friends have.
I hope that you someday realize what you have done to my world and truly own it for your own sake of healing. However, I have finally come to terms with the fact that I cannot control you or anyone else for that matter. I cannot expect something out of you, no matter how logical in my heart it may be. Still, I hope you find within yourself a place to realize you did this. You put your hand in my vagina when I was only twelve years old. I did not ask you. I never wanted the abuse. And yes, because of you I will never know a healthy childhood, but thankfully I do know how to be a healthy adult.
I am proud of the family I have created with my husband. I am excited to call myself a good mother and a good wife. Despite the years of abuse, it didn’t take away reason or logic and you certainly didn’t rob me of the ability to love. I am a giver. I will turn this horrible childhood into something positive. I will share my story in hopes of helping just one person come forth and turn their abuser in. I will talk until no one is left who has yet to hear my story. I will overcome all you bestowed upon me and I will be OKAY!
I AM OKAY!
Tiffani Wampler
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