To be wary of Uncle

[Chickencuddle]

Hi everyone. Long story short, as my husband would say I have a weird family. My parents were abusive. My uncle was very strange....but dont know if classed as abuse.
He used to show me lots of secually explicit videos and make me watch. Pausing parts to comment on sexual body parts etc. He would always ask me if I had a boy friend and comment on how im too ugly for a boyfriend. Ask me if I kiss boys etc. This is from every young age.
He would also speak about explicit subjects in great detail and ask me questions on it. I was very uncomfortable and hated it.
But other than being a bit inappropriate he didnt do anything wrong. We didnt see him that much but when we did see him he always made me uncomfortable.
I haven't seen him since going into care. Im pretty sure my parents told everyone I lied and that they are innocent etc.
So he has recently contacted me about my grandma being seriously ill and it may not be long I said I would like to see her and he said he would ask her. He then came back to me and said she would like to see me. (This in itself is annoying as I have seen her and had contact with her and she always wanted to speak to me so why wouldn't she now)
But fine. I asked for details so I could arrange to visit her. She has been taken in to a care home abd I dont know where as he won't tell me. I live in NI and they live in England so will need to arrange flights etc. He jyst ignored my messages and then after 3 messages came back saying he would have to check how she is.
He did this and said she is stable but any infection she gets she won't be able to fight and shes losing weight and not eating etc. I again asked for details so i can visit and he didnt reply. I messaged another 2 times (over space of maybe 5vdays) and he came back with an annoyed text asking me to leave it with him as there are other people to consider and arrangements to be made. I apologised and said I didnt realise and I will leave it with him.
Im so torn as this man was strange but didnt do much wrong. But also sided with my abusers but also maybe didnt know.
Im being formal and polite but not wanting to be over friendly. I know his mum is sick and I should probably feel compassion which I kind of do byt I also feel angry that im in this position and unable to jyst go see her as he is preventing that. I dont know. Thoughts?

OP, I’m so glad you’re still here 💐

I think about you often and wonder how you’re doing.

Your uncle definitely sexually abused you. Nothing physical needed to have happened, it was still sexual in nature and still affected you in a negative way. No child should be exposed to sexual material/acts and I’m sorry this happened to you.

His not telling you things is him controlling things. He could quite easily tell you where his mum is but he’s choosing not to (because he’s a horrible person). He doesn’t need to speak to you or spend any time with you, he could quite easily just text you the name & address of the home. 30 seconds of his time. That’s it. The fact he’s not demonstrates what sort of a person he is. He knows you want the information and are concerned about your gran and need to arrange flights to see her. A normal person would have told you by now so you could make arrangements.

If you know where she usually lives you could start calling care homes to see if you can find her. Might take a while but at least you’d feel like you were doing something.

Take care of yourself xx

Im just so tired. So tired of having all this baggage

"But other than being a bit inappropriate he didnt do anything wrong:

Your radar for what's ok is way off. He was part of the abuse. You can't trust him. Block him.

He abused you don’t give him any power, go to SS to find out information about nan and report him to the police for historic abuse.

Tell him to give you details of the care home and that you will make your own arrangements. tell him that if he is unable to provide this by return then you will be unable to visit your Grandmother and will not be responding to any further communication from him.

How have things been? How are your DC getting on? The fact that you’re being a mum to your babies and showing them love and how wonderful a place the world can be after everything you’ve been through shows how strong and amazing you are.

You may not believe that, but we can see it from a distance and the things you’ve been made to endure over the years are more than most of us could ever even imagine.

How is your counselling going? You will need help to see your way out of things because of how you have been brought up. You don’t need to do everything at once, just take one step at a time.

We can only carry so much and when things get to much to carry, it’s ok to put some things down. For now, you’ve been made to deal with your uncle who you probably haven’t thought about for years so that will have opened up all sorts of things. The reason you’re confused about speaking to him again and why you’re wondering if what he did was wrong is because there’s a part of you that instinctively knows it was wrong but your upbringing meant that you’ve been told it was fine. When our parents/people in authority tell us as children that something is ok, we believe them. We all have an instinctive safety net to keep us from harm, but when we’re exposed to things that take us beyond that safety net we get a warning to protect us. If you’ve got an adult telling you to ignore that warning, it impacts all of your life as your instincts are reprogrammed. Your subconscious is shouting a warning but your thinking brain is telling you everything is fine so you go through life constantly on edge and constantly on guard and don’t know why. If you’re then surrounded by people telling you you’re the problem, it’s a recipe for a lot of unhappiness.

Keep posting, sweetie. There will be someone here who can help. Xx

Thank you for your kind comment.
Im struggling a bit at the moment. I just feel so exhausted from kind of battling mentally against everything all the time. I want to put it down like you said byt dont know how. For instance im awake now after a bad dream and have been for past hour and half. I can't go back to sleep ky mind qont shut off. Im on the waiting list for counselling and even qhen I get it ive no idea how ill fit it in to my life with everything. Who is going to take the kids while I go? I work while they're at school then I pick them up and there's noone to take them. But cross that bridge when I come to it. Kids are what keep me going and I'm so grateful for them. They're the only thing that matter really. I worry about if im doing a good enough job all the time.

You don’t accidently talk about sex to a child. This is what happened to you when you where a child and before you knew this wasn’t normal or acceptable so your mind this was normal but it isn’t.