DD getting older has made me lose my head

[Moondreamers]

I have long since dealt with things that have happened in my life in my own way, and it's worked for well over 20 years. I'm happy, DC are happy, it's just me. DD1 is a an age that I clearly remember being now, and I see how young she is and so how young I really was then when I was her age (14), and it feels like the things that I've minimised all my life as "things that happen in relationships", aren't that at all and it's fucked my head.

When I was 14 my BF at the time, kept me in his flat for 2 days, wouldn't let me leave, took my clothes and my purse, kept me on his bed and waved knives over me, cut my stomach and called me disgusting, and and accused me of sleeping with his friends. I took the injuries and I wasn't scared, I didn't fight at all, because I had had sex with one of his friends. My BF was 22, the friend I slept with was 19 or 18, either way he was younger than him, a bit older than me. People came to the flat at the time over the days I was there, but I didn't say anything when people knocked on the door, so I have always thought I must have somehow felt "safe'(?) as I didn't alert help when I had exactly 5 opportunities over 2 days to do so, when people could have helped.
I feel like I'm attention seeking because I'm talking about something that was now over 20 years ago, but never bothered me as much then as it does now, but now I keep looking at my teen DD and I'm fucking petrified to let her out. I haven't had a particularly 100% life but I think I've always been a bit of a victim, even though in my head I've been extremely resilient.
Now I don't feel very strong and I'm reflecting back that I didn't see my life outside the goldfish bowl. I was a kid, being abused by a disturbed adult man.
I flit between wanting to report this, and feel repulsed by myself as he was a repugnant human being and I don't want the association with him ever in my life again.

I don't know what I'm asking really, I think- could this happening years ago make me ill now (even though it's been totally buried and GONE for years);
And also - if I sought prosecution for it, and had to explain what this incident was doing to my MH day to day, could I lose my job?

You poor thing that sounds absolutely horrific.

I don't have much advice but wanted to let you know that that was a horrendous situation and I'm not surprised it's still affecting you. Potentially it could have caused PTSD or any number of other MH conditions.

The main thing I think will be to seek treatment of some kind - perhaps you should visit your GP? Or can you afford private counselling?

You can then work with a therapist to decide if you should take it to the police etc if you are string enough.

But the main priority needs to be sorting your health out.

I think it’s really common for things that you’ve buried for years to re-surface when your DC reach the age that you were when it happened to you. Because now you look at your DD and it brings it back into your mind.

Please see someone and start getting help. What happened to you was absolutely horrific and not your fault in any way.

FusionChefGeoff thank you I don't know if I have anything diagnosable (if that a word idk) because I feel like a fraud as it happened over 20 years ago.
The man is presently in prison (or was half a year ago) for a drunken assault on a passed out woman younger than me (not sexual assault). Saying what he did to her would probably be outing to me, but it was a violent physical assault and I saw in the local paper that she had injuries, I didn't have anything except stupid cuts of my stomach.
What makes it mad to me, is that the girl was about 5 when what happened with me happened, so since I've read about what happened to her, I've looked up how long adults who take children without consent are in prison for, and tried to work out whether if I had reported it then, if he wouldn't have had the opportunity to do it.
I KNOW it's not my responsibility and I know I'm not responsible for what other people do, but I look at my own DD and she's as naïve and useless as I was, but thinks she's a mini adult.

Younger than me = me now (30s)
She is in her 20s now but he is 40s.
It just seems so young to be in that position. It keeps panicking me that people are in that position around dangerous people when they are vulnerable or incapable. I want to stop thinking about it, but I can't.

I think it’s really common for things that you’ve buried for years to re-surface when your DC reach the age that you were when it happened to you. Because now you look at your DD and it brings it back into your mind.

Arapaima I think it is seeing how really young 14 is, and it's broke my heart because I feel sorry for me. Which is the most self indulgent thing anyone can probably say ha ha

I don't mean, I feel sorry for me in the sense I feel pity for myself as I don't, all things considered I have done fucking well in my life.
But I see how young 14 is and I am reflecting on how ill equipped I was to handle myself, how little I could do, how clueless I was and I'm seeing how much it actually changed me now where I didn't before.

It's not your responsibility at all.

It's also not something you should be blaming yourself for at all. One of the reasons that child abuse is so heinous is that children are vulnerable. They are vulnerable for a whole load of reasons but one reason is that they are young and simply don't have the life experience to judge situations and boundaries. They necessarily rely on the adults around them to model acceptable behaviour, acceptable relationships and acceptable boundaries. Children who don't have that modelled adequately are more at risk of abuse precisely because thy just do not have the experience to recognise abuse.

That is why we have a whole raft of safeguarding in institutions dealing with children, too. We can't leave it to children to recognise and articulate and report abuse - we have to do it for them - because quite often, those most at risk of abuse are precisely those least likely to recognise it.

You recognising this as abuse is a testament to how far you've travelled. As a previous poster said, it's quite common to suddenly remember and gain insights about things as your children hit crucial ages.

Personally, I think it's partly because you are so geared towards loving and protecting and parenting your daughter and all of a sudden, you are both able to see where you weren't adequately parented/protected and where you need to parent yourself. The positive way to view that is that you have developed enough as a person to be able to parent yourself.

I do think it would be incredibly helpful to you if you could find a qualified person to examine this with. Yes, I do mean a counsellor with a some kind of expertise in this area.

But, honestly, the fact you have recognised this - however horribly painful - is a testament to how much stronger you are now and how you have grown. And i suspect it indicates you're pretty good as a parent, too.

I am so sorry this happened to you as a child. It was vile and completely unacceptable.

I think it is seeing how really young 14 is, and it's broke my heart because I feel sorry for me. Which is the most self indulgent thing anyone can probably say ha ha

But that is perfectly okay and healthy and actually in a way what counselling would help you to do. To heal yourself through tapping into that care and love you have for your child and turning it inwards to love and soothe yourself and your inner child. It’s not self indulgent in a bad way it is self saving and good for you and so so necessary.
Once you have that love for yourself and feel stronger you can maybe talk to someone about what to do next that is best for YOU.
You’re not going mad or anything bad at all. You are a normal person having a normal reaction to something you now recognise was harmful and traumatic to you.

Exactly. When your DC are little, 14 seems nearly grown up. But as your DC get older you realise that a 14yo is still a child (my eldest DC is 12). You were just a child when this happened to you

HI Moondreamers, I just wanted to say you sound very strong and resilient. I also think it’s normal to kind of reassess these types of experiences as you get older.
What happened to me wasn’t as bad as what happened to you but I understand where you are coming from. I was in a relationship with a 19 yr old when I was 13 it was coercive, emotionally abusive and I now realise I was “groomed”. I never saw it like that until I watched the Rotherham documentary and it was around the same time as my niece and friends kids reaching that age and realising that they are just children!
I had so much shame for a long time about te relautonship but now I feel quite angry no-one protected me (parents and other adults as i met him through a youth club).
When you are 13/14 you don’t realise you are a child, it’s only with hindsight it becomes clear.
With regards to what you do now, some kind of counselling or therapy sounds like a good idea initially. And you certainly shouldn’t hold yourself responsible for this mans actions.
All the best to you

because quite often, those most at risk of abuse are precisely those least likely to recognise it.

This makes sense to me as I've been abused by people older or more important my entire adult life on reflection thecatinjapan. Ive put how I feel down to a mid life crisis and my children getting older, but I keep replaying all the times when I was so young and really naïve, but people kept fucking taking the things that made me happy and destroyed who I was (a very soft, warm girl who would bend backwards to make someone happy, I still am), and turned me into someone I didn't want to be in my head.

Exactly. When your DC are little, 14 seems nearly grown up. But as your DC get older you realise that a 14yo is still a child

That's exactly it and I'm having trouble with, I said this (what happened when I was 14) to DDs Dad, and why it now makes me feel overload at the thought she would meet people like I did, he said "I remember you back then...you were no angel".
And that has floored me. I was 14

Moondreamers My guess is that you've managed to create something quite different with and for your children. I suspect you've managed to have that loving relationship with your children (they love you and you love them in a non-abusive way) and you've managed to love them without abusing them - which is a really important part of modelling boundaries. You've already made the world slightly safer for them, just by doing that. That is great parenting.

It's dreadful that something was taken from you as a child but you have done something incredible in creating it for yourself as an adult. You are incredibly strong. You are also already incredibly gifted at building something better for your children and creating young people who are able to navigate life's more difficult, even dangerous, elements - even while being open and courageous enough to take advantage of its opportunities.

Your challenge now - and it is a challenge that adults who have suffered abuse face - is recognising what your knowledge and feeling brave about it. I suspect you will also begin to feel quite strong emotions of grief for the child you were. It's a real challenge - both for you as a person and for you as a parent.

I do think having a long-term relationship with a trained expert, who can listen over time and help you find the positives in your experience, would be amazingly helpful.

I do feel real anger that you were betrayed and abused, along with real admiration at your resilience.

Your DD’s dad sounds like a prince. Wtf?

Hmm. I'm guessing you're not with your dd's father any more? Good on you if you're not.

Thank you thecatfromjapan for that. I try in everything I do to be the Mum that on reflection I needed, I explain things in the purest form to them because I feel like if i was armed with the fierce self respect I try to give them, I wouldn't have let myself be so hurt.
Also my girls (14 & 11) can use words and express feelings freely that i couldn't relating to the body, and they aren't embarrassed in the slightest. It's more me that gets embarrassed (but never show it obviously). I love that they can talk to me, but it also makes me sad that my life was a total car crash. When I realised that what my girls do by being open isn't exceptional, it's actually normal, it made me realise that I just didn't have the mental equipment to deal with what got dealt at the time.

It doesn’t matter if you were an angel or not. No 14yo - in fact no one of any age - deserves what happened to you

Thank you Isadora Arapaima and Peachpearplum for your lovely and understanding replies. I NC for this to a programme I remember watching with my DM in the 80s.

Do any of you know, if I see book a private psychiatric service will it appear on my NHS records?

Yes I am still with DD1 dad, we had this conversation about 2 hours ago as I needed to say how I feel about things back in our home town (we don't live there). He said that the information is too much to deal with, he knows the person it was, from back then when we were all kids. He said "I always thought he was a bit of a weirdo, but not like that", and then said "this family is getting too complicated for me".
This is fine by the way, on the grand scheme of things being rejected because of past shite is pretty usual I think. I really don't mind. I mean it, I don't :)

I think partners do find this hard to deal with. Still don;t think it was very great, though - but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and hope it was shock and needing time to process. You keep an eye on him, though he needs to be in your court, with your back, and he needs to tell you how great you are, how you didn't deserve this - he needs to tell you this especially when you are confused and doubt yourself.

You deserve nothing less.

I don;t see why visiting a private counsellor/psychiatrist/psychologist would appear on your NHS records. That said, your NHS records are private and you could probably access properly accredited help via your GP.

If you go to a private therapist they won’t pass on info to hour GP if you don’t want to.
Psychiatrists I’m not so sure.
You can certainly choose what they pass on. I’ve been given letter to GP to read before they were were sent. This was to inform GP of medication that the psychiatrist prescribed and was then on a repeat from Gp. It was medication the GP can’t prescribe.

You would probably hugely benefit from therapy.
You were a child, and probably more naive than your daughter today because it was a different time back then.

You are not self indulgent, the fact you feel sad about the 14 yo you when you look at your daughter is a great sign that with therapy you will be able to heal yourself.
You didn’t have anyone looking after you then. You can look after yourself now.

Thank you Mellifera for that, I'm going to look into private therapy and go from there if needed- obviously I know therapists can't prescribe medication, but tbh that may not be the answer I am looking for, I've done fine without it for the 20yrs prior to now, so hope I can just progress to the point that I understand how I feel. If a therapist thought I needed medication I guess they'd tell me, and then I could cross that bridge if it comes to it.

I do think I am a good parent on the large, but doubt myself a lot. I don't have family except v.elderly DGP, so had to teach myself how to be a Mum really- I was winging it on auto pilot for a while I think, I didn't know how to do anything- my DC were the first babies I'd ever looked after. But they are happy, polite, warm and kind; youngest DD was grown in a plantpot of empathy I think- she goes out of her way to befriend new children in their school because "If they're new, they probably won't have any friends yet, I don't want them to be lonely so they've got me" . DD1 thinks I talk bollocks and just don't understand how she feeeels, and she wishes I was like her BF's parents as they let her "do what she wants" (sure they do 🙄) They are open with me, far more than I ever was- I was too embarrassed to tell someone I had started my period, and so binned my underwear until I had none left so had go admit why then
They are growing up faster than they are maturing, if that makes sense...DD1 in particular, which is why I'm ill worrying, that if she's late home I am a wreck, worried that someone will hurt her or put her in a situation she can't handle. There's too many people who see vulnerability and prey on it.
I have explained to them (age appropriately) that while of course you need to be alert to danger, a person who has the means and inclination to hurt is far less likely to be the dodgy looking guy on the street corner, and more likely to be a person who says they care for you, and they depend on the fact you love them, that makes them secure in the fact you'll stay around. I've said that nobody who truly respects you would make you feel frightened, in danger, insecure or unworthy of - and anyone who doesn't respect you is not worth your time.
I just wanted to say this because I didn't want anyone to think that just because I'm a bit of a wreck and didn't have an emotionally consistent upbringing myself, that that's all internalised and has not impacted on my ability to be a stable and loving mum to my own children. DDs are happy and that to me means I'm doing something right :)

Thank you so much for everybody's kind posts, and for taking the time to help me in the right direction. I really appreciate all the kind and helpful advice - you're all lovely, and more insightful than I am! Thanks again

Don't want to sound patronising, but you sound like you're doing a great job looking out for your dd. Your dds are obviously doing brilliantly if they can talk about all of the stuff going on out there. Bringing children up is scary - something happened to me at university I don't talk about to my children, but something v similar happened to one of dd1's close friends. Made me think I should be more open but it's so hard to start, especially when you've got over the being a victim bit. My experience was nothing on yours - I was older and probably far more resilient. I really respect your getting with life so well.

You may find some useful help here www.mind.org.uk/information-support/guides-to-support-and-services/abuse/sexual-abuse/#.WpbdvySnyf0