When I was an infant, my mother married a man who she knew to be a pedophile. He and his son, 7 years older than me, molested me regularly for over ten years. My mother witnessed and participated in the abuse.

When my stepfather turned himself in due to guilt and depression, he had to move out of the house due to an automatic protective order. She moved with him. I hardly saw my mother for the next two years while their attorney used every maneuver possible to delay his trial and try to get a favorable plea bargain. My mother pressured me to keep her role in the abuse secret. She tried to guilt me into writing letters to the judge asking that my stepfather not go to prison.

My stepsister, who lived with her mother most of the time, became concerned I was being neglected. She told my mother than she needed to put my well-being over pleasing her husband for once. My mother made up some story to convince me my stepsister was evil and forbade me to have any contact with her.

My mother never could admit that she had participated in the abuse and tried to convince me I was crazy or that my stepsister had filled my head with lies. But I always knew the truth and that those horrible memories were real. The last straw was when I enrolled in college after dropping out of high school. My mother told me I shouldn't bother and that I would just fail. Well, I didn't fail. Straight A's. I told my mother my grades my first semester and she basically took credit for my success even though she wasn't supportive at all. I realized that she was just plain delusional and she would never be able to admit to her failures as a mother.

I decided to finally disclose to my extended family everything. Nobody believed me except my mother's stepmother and my stepsister. I'm still close to them. I was estranged from everyone else for over ten years.