You know when you have a bit of lightbulb moment... (ref: rape, might be triggering)

[ThisIsDedicatedToTheOneILove]

When I was 17 a boy tried to rape me.

I'd gone out with a friend to support her meeting another 17 year old boy. She had arranged to meet him in the pub.

I went with her. He turned up with a mate. She and this boy went outside for a chat and didn't come back. I stayed till closing thinking she must just be chatting/snogging for longer than she realised. I made crap conversation with a boy I neither knew nor liked for an hour or so and, at closing time, we left at the same time. My friend was nowhere to be seen. Boy offered to help me look for her. I didn't really want him to, but he insisted and I only really wanted to look around the back of the pub and then dragged me into a concealed space and tried to rape me.

I got away but his intentions were very clear. I was terrified.

Anyway.

I've never blamed myself for it. I was angry with my friend for abandoning me; she and the boy had just decided to go on to a different pub without saying anything.

I didn't say anything to my mother. Difficult relationship and she firmly believed women were at fault for pretty much everything; rapes; DV; affairs... she really bought into the women provoke/men can't control their impulses bollocks.

Anyway.

I had to tell her about 6 months later because I had a huge panic attack/flashback in the summer holidays and couldn't leave the front door. I was suddenly overcome with terror about leaving the house and walking around in the safe area I'd always lived in and knew so well.

She, predictably, told me it was my fault: shouldn't have been out; shouldn't have been with a boy I didn't know (the world was full of boys I didn't know, I couldn't avoid them all!); shouldn't have been in a pub underage (maybe, but I wasn't drinking alcohol); blah blah blah.

This morning, I had a bit of a lightbulb moment. My son is now the same age I was when it happened.

I cannot imagine, for second, telling him or any of his friends that they were responsible for something like that happening to him. I can't imagine doing anything other than doing everything and anything possible to make things better.

That's all really.

I'm trying really hard to work through some of the stuff from my mother. All the worthless stuff and not good enough stuff. And I'm really just trying to discredit her voice in my head at the moment.

She was wrong. Wasn't she?

[MrsBertBibby]

Of course she was.

[MrsBertBibby]

Having your own kids really puts the parenting you received into perspective, no?

[NameChange30]

Yes she was wrong. I'm sorry she made you feel you're worthless - you're not.

I suggest you check out the Stately Homes thread and read "Toxic Parents" by Susan Forward.

[ThisIsDedicatedToTheOneILove]

Yeah. It's taking a while though...

[LizKeen]

Yes she was wrong. She sounds horrible to be honest.

I was raped at 15, and until last year I blamed myself for getting into the situation that allowed it to happen. I carried that with me for over a decade. I couldn't even tell my parents because I knew they would have been the same as your mum.

I had counselling which helped to reframe how I viewed what happened. It helped me accept that I was groomed and that it wasn't my fault.

You are on the right track in discrediting her voice. She was wrong about this and chances are she was wrong about a lot of other things too.