Things were never easy for me as a kid. From as early as I can remember, my father — a narcissist with a nasty temper — ruled our home with an iron fist. He seemed to relish his role as master of the house and the power it gave him over its occupants, particularly my siblings and me. Corporal punishment was doled out often and in varied forms. For any given infraction you might get a spanking, a slap, a punch in the face, a kick in the stomach or a hairbrush thrown at your head. I was absolutely terrified of him. So when I was 12 years old and my father started instructing me to get naked for his viewing pleasure, it never occurred to me that that there was any option but to obey. That was the beginning of a near-constant campaign of sexual abuse and harassment that I endured for the following 5 years — until I left home for college.

It started out slowly. I don’t remember the exact time of year — only that I was around 12 at the time. My dad started drawing me baths when my mom was out of the house. He would instruct me to undress and get in while he would sit and watch from the nearby toilet seat. I didn’t know precisely what was going on but I did know that it felt wrong. I had heard about this, hadn’t I? About bad looks or touches from adults — was this what was happening? It was confusing and scary but I didn’t dare say anything about my concerns. Instead, during these baths, I would contort my arms and legs to cover my private parts and I would get through it as quickly as possible. I have no recollection of how long the baths lasted before things escalated.

One day, as I carefully exited the bath — awkwardly covering myself to the best of my ability — my father stopped me and said reproachfully, “You know that I would never hurt you, right? Why are you so nervous?” Setting aside the ridiculousness of that statement, given that he had hurt me a great deal over the short course of my life to that point, I immediately felt a wave of humiliation wash over me. I remember feeling so stupid for suspecting that something untoward was going on. That bath happened in the morning and the shame of my foolish assumptions stuck with me for the rest of that day. I felt like I wanted to crawl into a hole and never come out.

That night, my mom was at work (she was a nurse who often worked the night shift) and I believe one of my siblings had a friend sleeping over. We were all getting settled in the living room to watch a movie: “Hero” with Geena Davis and Dustin Hoffman, a largely forgettable film that will forever be burned in my memory. My dad pulled me aside from the rest of the kids before the start of the movie. I was mortified, expecting to be chastised again for so grossly misinterpreting the bath situation. But that’s not what happened. In my father’s hand was a loose fitting pair of white cotton shorts. He whispered to me that I was to put them on, without any underwear, and to return to my seat with my legs spread and the fabric on the shorts pulled aside so that he could see. I think I stood there stunned for a moment. He said, “Remember what we talked about? I will never hurt you. I just want to look.” So I did what I was told — it was the only thing I thought I could do. So many thoughts raced through my head as I sat there that night. I hadn’t got it wrong at all. In fact, I’d vastly underestimated his nefarious intentions. Those baths were so uncomfortable. I never imagined that they would come to represent only the very mildest form of what he had in store for me.

What followed in the immediate aftermath of that night is largely a blur to me. I know that within a very short period of time, the demands for visual access to my body became near constant — whenever my mother was out of the house or even just out of eyeshot. He would often call me out of bed late at night and make me get completely nude. At some point in these early days, he started to masturbate while he looked at me. It was clear that he got a thrill in doing so and in forcing me to watch. He would show me pornographic magazines and videos and talk to me about sex acts that I had never even heard of. Remember, I was 12.

Soon, things started to get worse. Anytime he had the opportunity, he would enter the bathroom as I was showering. I suppose he didn’t like the way that I would cry, protest, and attempt to cover myself so he also drilled a hole in the wall outside the downstairs bathroom in order to ogle me without my knowledge. I always knew though. I would exit the bathroom after my shower and see him standing creepily by the wall as if he wanted me to know he’d been watching. I would often wake up in the middle of the night or early in the morning to my father trying to remove my shirt to see, and sometimes touch, my breasts. I felt in a constant state of terror while at home where even bathing and sleeping had become unsafe.

At some point, when I was 13 or 14 years old, I started to push back. When my dad would corner me and insist that I “give [him] a show” I would refuse. This only led to relentless harassment — he never physically forced me to do anything but he would plead and cajole until I just couldn’t take it anymore. At this point, when I would give in to what he wanted, I might be left alone for a day or even two. Those moments of respite became so precious to me that I would do almost anything to achieve them — to have just that brief period of peace. Still, I always resisted. I often felt determined that I would make it stop no matter what. Then he would pile on the pressure and when it was no longer bearable, I would relent. If I was being particularly difficult, he would use every bargaining chip that he had: I wanted to go out with my friends? Well cooperation is a two-way street, he would say. I got caught doing something that would normally result in punishment? It could be our secret if I played ball. Sometimes he would give me money. This detail is particularly shameful for me — he sometimes gave me money and I would usually take it. Every time it made me feel dirty and disgusting and as though I was somehow complicit in what was happening to me. But no. I never invited or encouraged my father’s attentions in any way. I was a child. None of it was my fault.

As I stated above, part of what highly aroused my dad was forcing me to watch as he masturbated to my naked body. As he would so eloquently put it, he wanted me to see him “blow a load.” A few times he ejaculated onto my body. This is notable not only for the horror of the act itself but also for the intense anxiety it induced. I read an article at some point in a teen magazine about a girl who was a virgin but had gotten pregnant when her boyfriend ejaculated onto her. I had very irregular periods as a young girl. It was not uncommon for me to go 2–3 months, or more, between them. In hindsight, I’m sure extreme stress played a factor. Whenever I would miss a period I would start to panic. I was tortured by the thought that it might be possible that I was carrying my own father’s child. I have vivid memories of sitting up in bed late at night, repeatedly punching myself in the abdomen as hard as I could, willing anything that might be growing in there to die.

Every time that my father “bothered” me over the years, I would become extremely, visibly distressed. I usually cried and begged him to leave me alone. Several times I remember telling him, quite truthfully, that I just wanted to die. None of this deterred him or even gave him a moment’s pause to consider the affects his actions were having on me.

I can’t fully explain why I never told anyone. I never had any doubt that my mother would have believed me and protected me, had I confided in her, but I never did. In fact, I was rather determined that she never find out. I think I felt like I would ruin her life — ruin the whole family — if I came forward with my story. I had an absolutely amazing group of friends in high school and I couldn’t tell them either. I couldn’t bear for them to know how dirty and damaged I really was. It wasn’t until after college, after my parents had divorced, that I was able to start opening up about the abuse.

I’ve been out of my childhood home for more than 20 years, and have not had a relationship with my father for more than 16. Still, the pain and trauma of the abuse is something that is with me every day and probably will be for the rest of my life. Maybe it’s the rise of the #MeToo movement or the fact that my own son is now the age when the abuse started for me, but I’ve been feeling especially angry lately about everything I went through. I chose to write this story because, while I’ve been able to open up about the fact that I was abused, I’ve told these details about the things that actually happened to almost no one. To do so now is scary as hell — I was raised to believe that private things should be kept private and I come from a family where uncomfortable matters are never to be discussed. But I feel that it’s important to get it out and to (hopefully) see that the world doesn’t come crashing down and that people won’t see me differently for what I’ve endured. I’m working hard to take the shame off myself and put it on my father, where it belongs. He took so much from me — my childhood, my innocence, my ability to ever fully trust a man. It hurts me that he’s faced no consequences for his actions, aside from the loss of his relationship with me which he was never really interested in to begin with, beyond whatever role I could fulfill for him sexually. I have no desire for revenge but I’d like to feel like some justice has been served, like I matter and the incredible pain I experienced matters. I may never get that. All I can do is tell my story and hope that it will bring me peace.