Sunday, 26 April 2020

How to help my girlfriend who was abused by her step dad when she was younger.


We’re both 20. We’ve been together almost a year. It’s a great relationship and she’s great. Very much in love with eachother.About a week after we met she revealed to me that a year or so prior she had been raped. She had some therapy and I think she is mostly okay. I was the the first person she slept with sober since and we are fine having sex now with no issues despite a couple of times at first where she had some issues with it.About a month after that we were very close and she revealed to me something she had not told many other people. She was abused when she was 10 by her old step dad. Her mum broke up with this guy around when she was 11 but not related to that. The guy is now dead. Thankfully I suppose.We have not talked about it much since then until this week. I wasn’t going to bring it up and thought it best to let her talk about it when she saw fit.She has talked to a therapist about it but I don’t think extensively and it seems like it’s definitely still affecting her quite a lot. She has had issues with insecurity, depression and suicidal thoughts over the last several years. I have suspected that the abuse is still affecting her a fair bit for a while.She had been worrying about a lot of things for the last week and had seemed very worked up. She has some other worries at the minute too no doubt, but she told me last night that she had been thinking about what happened to her with her step dad. She went into slightly more detail for the first time since she originally told me. This was also the time last year she told her mum about what had happened to her, which was quite rough apparently, and I think it being the same time has brought it up again.She said she feels like it ruined her life and that she feels worthless sometimes because of it. It seems like she thinks it had made her broken and ruined. She also told me that I should be with someone who had had a perfect past unlike her. Obviously hearing all this was really hard and I did my best to reassure her. We agreed to talk about it again soon. I think we will but I won’t force it obviously.I will likely suggest she maybe see someone again if she wants to but I want to do my best to support her and help her with these thoughts. I love her and I want her to be happy. I know there won’t be an easy fix, but I am wondering what I can do to help and how to help her if we talk through it.

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