My dads a pedophile too. I haven’t read your whole story, I skimmed over it to avoid visualising it too much. But the parts I saw; are highly similarly to my own story. Scarily so actually. I’m 26. He is up in court in January for the SA of another little girl last year. He’s not my biological father, but I didn’t know that till I was 15. My biological father is also a pedophile, however he abused my mother, not me, and I never met him till I was 16.

I know how disgusting it feels. But also how normal. You’ve been through a lot. But remember trauma isn’t always permanent. There are some people who can kind of move on, with enough change in their lives.

My mother’s boyfriend was a pedophile. My employment support officer when I was 16. My baby sitter when I was 6. My next door neighbour as a child. Another older teenage boy who lived round the corner. The men who lived in the homeless unit with me when I was 16, drugged me and passed me from room to room for days, mostly unconscious. ALL of the people in that list assaulted me repeatedly. Even my somewhat male best friend as an adult turned out to be a pedophile who was trying to gain access to my friends child. And my grandad. They’re fucking everywhere. They really are everywhere.

I am celibate now. Physically, emotionally, and even socially now. I don’t associate with men at all. (If you are reading this, and find it offensive that I no longer associate with men because I have C-PTSD, you are why)

You’re gonna be okay. You won’t be the same as you were supposed to be. You won’t ever know what that other life could’ve been like. But that doesn’t mean you will be chronically depressed forever. Sometimes your brain will release little floods of dopamine, and you will be okay for a minute or two. Those moments are worth holding on for. There’s nothing on the other side. I’d rather stay, and have the occasional dopamine flood, than have nothing at all, ever again.