Thanks for your input guys I was kind of afraid I was going to get in trouble with someone for this post. Rather typical of an abuse survivor, isn't it? Mum's the word (sorry for the pun).
Well you all have brought forth and put into words more than I was able to. Thank you for responding because it really helps to gain some clarity. It is so hard to unglue yourself from this kind of experience, since it is not a one time occurrence but many years of abuse, and during one's formative years to boot. And so it's quite a task to remove yourself enough to say "This is what happened" and "This is how it affected me". It's tough for anyone to be objective about their early life, I think, and things are so very distorted for those with abuse in their past. There's the murkiness that can happen about what actually happened and how- I had things brought up by a sibling years ago that I had completely forgotten about that were done to me. There is that kind of ongoing discovery. And the light bulbs that go off with them. These things are not to be forgotten. Sweeping them under the rug is a good recipe for addiction, as many here are living proof.
It is not self pity to examine these things, to feel them, to mourn one's losses. Again I will say it is no less profound than the literal loss of a parent. But we get all the extra baggage with it, and the judgement, the being misunderstood and alienation. It is a very lonely life to have a childhood destroyed and be then thrust into adulthood with adult responsibilities. Personally, this has fueled a very existential fear in me- I have always been very afraid of death as I feel I have never lived, never had a carefree moment in life. The loss of childhood, and it being replaced with many years of fear, chaos, violence, threat and rejection- by the very people who are meant to protect you, help you to grow- is a thing that cuts to the very marrow and is just as slow to heal, if ever. It is truly a Rubik's Cube of a dilemma- just when you have one thing figured out, there's another plane that's a jumbled mess that needs fixing.