How do you deal with ex-friends in public who believe that your child's diagnosis and treatment for sexual abuse is a lie/over-exaggerated?
For reference, we are in Europe, not in the UK.
In this country, sexual abuse is dealt with by the child-protection agency, not the police. After a lot of intense discussion over a long period of time, we decided against going to the police, primarily due to the fact that we, as well as DC's psych, believed it would be too traumatic for DC, who would be expected to go before the court and talk about the abuse that they have been unable to talk about at all.
It has been two years since we disclosed the sexual abuse to the head of the facility where it occurred. Another parent was with us, whose child had also been possibly abused. We spoke only to the head of the facility, and then never went back. The parent who went with us stopped all communication with us after a private conversation with the head of the facility. After this, every time we publicly saw any parent (friends/acquaintances) whose child had visited this facility, we were deliberately ignored and snubbed. Some were openly hostile and followed us around the supermarket, staring at us.
We suspected slander from the head of the facility, who, I suspect, should have lost their job, and this was confirmed months later by a chance meeting with a parent who was extremely reluctant to speak to us. I doubt this parent believed our story, and we have had no further contact.
Apart from dealing with DC's sexual abuse, who is in weekly therapy for the foreseeable future, this whole scenario has been exceedingly difficult. We had expected a different response from the parents, especially considering that we believe that there were a number of children who had seen/personally experienced some level of abuse (the child protection agency was involved), but we have had zero positive contact. Not a single parent has asked what happened, or contacted us at all. This has hurt so much - we, as a family, lost friendships and relationships we had been building, and our DC lost their best friends. I became somewhat phobic about just going to the supermarket, in case I met one of these parents. One positive thing about corona is, that this past year, I have rarely seen any of these parents, and I really thought I was over it.
Yesterday, however, the kids and I went sledding on a near-by hill and at that small hill were 5 parents who my DC and I had been friendly with. The studied ignoring of us while chatting and laughing together, the avoiding eye-contact - it has made me so upset. I doubt that there was anything I could have said that would have made any difference, and so I said nothing and concentrated so hard on making my responses normal for my kids, and tried to distract them looking at their former friends. However, I couldn't fall asleep last night and this morning when I went to the supermarket, I felt on the verge of a panic attack. I never have panic attacks.
My question - it has been two years and shouldn't it be getting easier? How do you deal with such a situation? Do you keep suffering in silence and hope the feelings go away? Do you confront your friends? Is that AIBU/irrational? I am sick of talking about it with the few friends who do know the story, and DH finds it triggering, and I really do not know what is normal any more. I need help to keep going forward and really, I need a much thicker skin.
So sorry if this triggers anyone today.