Advice on how to deal with this TW: accusations of child sexual abuse

[NameChangeCliche]

Name changed for obvious reasons. I don’t know where to even begin with this and I apologise for the length in advance.

I’m looking for some advice on how we deal with my granny going forward. She’s 96 and lives in a nursing home because she couldn’t cope taking care of herself any more, but health wise she’s in very good nick for a woman of 96 and not expected to die imminently (or more imminently than any other 96 year old). Her mental health has always been an issue; she was diagnosed with bipolar in her 40s and had problems with barbiturates and other drugs before this. She also has a more recent diagnosis of BPD. She’s not schizophrenic but was suspected of being for some years.

My grandfather died 20 years ago, when I was around 25 and my mum (his daughter) was around 50. My mum has two siblings, an older brother and younger sister. She is married to my dad and they’ve had a long and happy marriage which produced me (middle child) and my older and younger sisters. I’m married and have two teenage daughters.

My granny is very sexually “open” is the only way I can put it. Her and my grandfather were nudists for a while in the 70s and 80s and did lots of nudist holidays and stuff. Nothing wrong with that, but it’s relevant. Even now in her 90s she talks about sex more than is normal in polite conversation and often brings things round to sex. It’s a bit of a family joke that she can make anything you start talking about somehow about sex.

When I was about 10 in the mid eighties my grandparents split up for a while. They ended up getting back together and a big part of their getting back together was that they had a lot of very intense therapy, including sex therapy. They were very open about this with their adult children (I didn’t find out about this til later, obviously). They had a quite dysfunctional sexual relationship, largely because of my granny’s until then undiagnosed vulvodynia).

My granny had a poor relationship with her own father who was very domineering and had a bad temper, but no history of sexual abuse or anything (this is relevant. Also we believe this is true as much as we can believe anything as my mum has outright asked my granny if she was sexually abused at the time of hers and my grandfathers sex therapy/vulvodynia diagnosis. She said she wasn’t and never experienced any sexual abuse or sexual violence).

My mum and her brother have been clearing the house that my granny and grandad lived in to sell it to fund my granny’s care as her savings have run out. In the house they have found literally scores of diaries and notebooks where my granny has been collecting “evidence” of supposed sexual abuse within the family. This includes times and dates of things she’s “observed” that “prove” various men in the family have been sexually abusing the children, some girls and some boys. It starts in the mid 1950s with “evidence” of my grandad sexually abusing my mum and aunt, all innocent things like tickling, having baths with the kids. But under the “evidence” she writes, in very graphic language, what she thinks the men’s intentions behind these innocent things are. These diaries start again in the 70s when me and my siblings were born and follow the same pattern of innocent things being listed as evidence of sexual abuse, this time by both my grandfather and my dad (her son in law) and then graphic language underneath saying what she feels the men’s sexual intentions are towards the kids. There are similar lists and times and dates with the explicit stuff underneath involving my cousins and their dads. She then starts these diaries up again in the 00s with my kids, my sisters kids and their dads.

None of these men were or are sexually abusive; none of us were sexually abused. It’s all in her head. It’s some of the sickest stuff I’ve ever read in my life and it’s freaked us all out hugely. It’s also made us all angry because if she thought all of this was true enough to write it all down, why did she never do anything to protect these kids that she thought were in such danger?

As well as this there’s some other stuff where she writes about erotic fantasies and dreams she has had, involving friends, workmates and acquaintances, but also her sons in law and brothers in law.

My mum and uncle never want to speak to her again, in fact none of us do really. We are all horrified and freaked out. But we have no idea what to do- she’s a frail old lady in a care home who can’t just be abandoned, can she? Who do we turn to for help with any of this? I think that my mum and uncle (at least) need to talk to a professional going forward about how they deal with both what they’ve read and how to deal with my granny going forward.

Has anyone got any advice? We are all flailing and hugely upset and disgusted by what we’ve found.

I think you are misunderstanding the nature of these writings, and it is such a shame you all read them. She didn't start writing back in the 50's to 'save' anyone, but probably just to get out her own intrusive thoughts- this may have been suggested by a therapist. She may have known most of the time they were conspiracy theories/not true, but during the delusion/intrusive thought, the person thinks the worst things ever even if they consciously know they are not true and no-one is acting on them.

I think you don't understand intrusive thoughts and have intruded terribly on her privacy in reading this stuff and mulling it over, I honestly would throw away the lot on the local tip and try not to make sense of something that wasn't intended to be read or to be understood by others (the fact she asked for other diaries to be deleted makes it clear that she wasn't up for sharing those thoughts).

Imagine your maddest times, at 3am when you re completely irrational and writing that all out, and then someone coming along years later and saying why didn't she act on that? And this lady had diagnosed bipolar and potentially schizophrenia so her thoughts would have been madder and hypersexual as well as possibly reflecting abuse.

They were not meant for you all to read!

Another typical intrusive thought is killing someone, so mothers in the post-partum period often have intrusive thoughts about killing their own child and feel terrible- it is just a sign of poor MH in this period, they don't really want to do it. Imagine if they wrote that out as a way of coping with the intrusive thoughts, and carried on doing that over the years when they returned. On reading that, their child would completely misunderstand what was going on.

That's why people don't tend to reveal intrusive thoughts, as they are usually taboo, forbidden, or horrific and that's why they are so disturbing for the poor person who usually isn't doing any of the nasty things their brain is throwing at them.

I just wanted again to thank everyone who's given me advice and apologise to anyone I've offended or who thought I'd made any of this up- I promise, I havent.

I've made an appointment to speak to a therapist who specialises in family stuff at the end of the week and I think it'll be useful to speak about my granny to a professional generally; she's been a difficult character all my life and a source of conflict in the family a lot...and this has bought up a lot of weird feelings for me. My mum and uncle are both looking into getting some help for themselves.

Thanks all again, really appreciated.

That’s the best thing to do a there were obviously MH issues. Interesting however your comments that she never did anything if she truly thought you were being abused but you don’t feel the same about your DM not protecting you from your GM who you believe to have abused you all?

I'd be considering if she is the one who is a paedophile. Writing detailed accounts of abuse of children is what stood out to me, and you say you found this alongside her written sexual fantasies. It's up to you whether you keep on seeing her or not, but either way, she's not going to live much longer.