Recently I've pieced together some memories that have haunted me my whole life.  Abuse was never talked about in my house, actually nothing very serious ever was.

But I've got these memories of brushing my teeth at my uncle's house, using a cute little footstool and I remember a gold door knob.

I always wondered what was wrong with me.  I never felt good enough.  I suffered from very low self esteem, self worth most of my life. I think I might be emotionally needy.  I was always very scared to leave my children with anybody other than my mother and for the most part I never did.

My parents were 15 and 16 when I was born.  My brother came along two years later.

I remember being nine years old and I was sitting on the couch with my grandfather.  I was telling him about my softball game I'd just came from.  I still had on the blue uniform shorts.  My grandfather scooted closer to me.  And it was kind of weird he began touching me between my legs.  And he continued touching me and rubbing me.  I was sorta scared and confused.  Then he stood up and grabbed me by the arm and begin to lead me back to his bedroom.  It wasn't really a bedroom, it was a place where he stayed in back of the shop because my grandparents were going through divorce.  So he continued to pull me by the arm through the office lounge area and tried to get me into his room, but by this time I was struggling and wiggling to get loose.  As he was trying to pull me into the bedroom door I got away from him and ran out back to tell my parents.  My dad was working under a truck on one of those boards you lay on with wheels and my mom was there with him.  So when I began to talk to my mom, my dad rolled out from underneath the truck.  I dont really know what happened next.  My dad jumped up and I suppose went to confront my grandfather but noone ever spoke to me about it again.  Recently I said something to my dad about that day, and he said something like, he'd forgot all about that.  But I never did.

And more recently, now that I'm 48 years old I am piecing together other childhood memories that have always been with me, but I never put much thought into it or wondered about it.  Something kept nagging at me; and these are not recent memories but they are older memories that I've had for my whole life but they keep surfacing.

I've got memories of being very little and in a dark room.  There is someone in the room with me doing something to me but I don't remember what or who.. then I recall the silhouette of a woman opening the door to the room where I am.  There's light behind her so I can't see her face.  But that's not my most disturbing memory.  I know something happened but I don't know what.

I also have memories of masturbating at 6 & 7 years old.  I remember while doing so, I would think about the grown-ups at my school having their mouths between the legs of other grown-ups at my school.   Why does a 6 year old masturbate and fantasize about grown ups having oral sex??

I remember being at my uncle's house.  I was there wearing white pajamas and I guess I was four or five years old.  I was in the bathroom going to brush my teeth.

I remember a sweet little stepping stool right in front of the cabinet of the sink.

and I remember a man being in there with me.  I remember turning to my right.  Then my memory goes, but I distinctly recall a gold door knob.  I remember reaching for that gold door knob and I also remember thinking, "If I could get out that door and over the fence I would be ok."  We lived on the street over from my uncle and I was little and I was fast and I was pretty good at flipping myself over the fence.

Then I remember standing in the hallway feeling traumatized, just crying and upset.

The rest of the family (I'm assuming it was my aunt and her kids and some other people) because I can't recall the face of the person who was in the bathroom with me that upset me.  So I'm standing there scared and upset and somebody says to me, what's the matter.  I struggle to answer and say, "I want to go home."  The man that was in the bathroom with me mocked me, and said, "She wants to go home, ha ha."  But just by the other memories and what I know of my uncle and the way he treated his step daughter, I know it was him.  My aunt called me over to her, she could see I was upset and she held me in her arms in front of the tv where the rest of the people in the house were.

It wasn't until the past few weeks that I've been able to actually realize what happened to me, and I don't understand why I didn't "get it" before, as I consider myself extremely intelligent and I have a pretty good memory.

I recently tried to speak to my parents about it and my dad almost seemed angry that I would say such a thing.  Mom never said anything.  She always told me how great everything and everybody was.

So that's what I know.

I don't remember how much access my uncle had to me and my brother.  I want to ask my mom about it, but I think she'd get mad (although I don't know why)

But I do remember reaching for that gold door knob.