Support thread for survivors of childhood sexual abuse.

[CailinDana]

I was severely sexually abused as a child. I have spent the last few years trying to come to terms with it and I'm slowly getting there.

I have found that a huge barrier to dealing with it is the lack of space to talk about it, how I feel and what I think. It's like this horrible painful scar that I have to keep covered for fear of offending other people. It has been a massive source of shame.

I don't really feel like keeping it covered any more. Yes I was abused, in a horrible, horrific way, but I'm still a good person and I'm still capable of being happy.

I'm hoping this thread will be a place for people to open up about things that happened to them. A fantastic, caring poster on MN spent hours yesterday "listening" to me and it has helped me immensely. I would like to do that for other people.

Nothing is taboo. Say as much or as little as you like. Say what you think and feel even if you think it sounds batty. I will bump this thread regularly so even if you're not ready to post now, it will be here for you at a later stage.

Thank you so much all.

The abuse suffered by my DC was horrendous, prolonged and hidden for a long time afterwards. The after effects are staggering.

I am so sorry that so many of you suffered future abuse of your trust when your parents let you down. If there is anything at all I can do - any questions you would like to ask a "parent" please feel free, here or pm.

I can't discuss our case - yet - but any small gesture from me to you would be willingly given.

If there is any comfort to be drawn from the abuse we have all suffered - it's in helping each other.

Milly, any of those things could happen to any child growing up. So it's good to be aware of them as a parent anyway. I can't answer that but would councelling for you individually and/or as a family help?

Also learning about flashbacks etc could be beneficial to you helping her if she has any. Long term therapy could also apply to anyone. I hope you don't take the blame on yourself, you acted to protect your DC.

My sibling left my DN's with a peado between visits from SS! abusers find a way!

totu: I'm worried I'm in that situation know, I love my DH so much, he tells me he thinks I only married him for a safety net?
that I'm not attracted to him but he knows I do love him, he says that I'm very attractive and knows he isn't ,, ?
he says this is why we dont have sex much, I always thought it was down to my abuse? he says he doesn't think it's that it's because I'm not attracted to him?
I'm worried in case he's right, I do love him, and I am attracted to him sometimes, but I thought that was normal? isn't it?
we met aboard ten years ago, and we enjoy spending all our time together, we are good together it just the sex thing, ?
I feel so confused,
of what I thought I want and who I am lately,,

I've spoken to one woman whose mother comforted her after she was raped as a child. Her mum told her that what the man had done was wrong and cruel, that it wasn't DD's fault in any way and he had no power to change her future. She made her hot chocolate and sat on her bed until she fell asleep.

There must have been further conversations but she was adamant it didn't feel like an ongoing issue. She says she grew into her sexuality at the same pace as her friends and her first sex with a boyfriend was her first sex, as far as she was concerned. Her rapist was reported but she didn't give witness. The reason she was talking was that she was considering whether to go back to the police in adulthood. I don't know what she decided.

Plink We both had 12 months of family therapy straight after her disclosure but she then decided she?d had enough. We dealt with a brief period of self harming in that time but she didn?t want to talk about it and would avoid the subject in very inventive ways ? her counsellor was great with play therapy and stuff but since she stopped going she hasn?t brought the subject up at all ? I have had to refer to it a couple of times but it makes her very uncomfortable but I am at the ready to arrange more counselling as soon as it seems necessary.

I have been having counselling almost continuously since then but RL support has been patchy at best. I don't talk about it with many people because there have been two different reactions to deal with, both of which feed my own guilt. The first has been "...and you didn't have any idea?" There has only been one person who didn't ask me that question.

Initially I would go through a long explanation as to how he did what he did and why I didn't see it but then I started to realise that the question was less about me and more about them needing to believe that in the same situation they would have been able to prevent it or stop it straight away, because before this happened I believed the same thing. It's one of the reasons why I think there has to be much more open conversation about child abuse and how and where it happens. We can't keep leaving children with the responsibility for their own protection while we carry on merrily thinking that we've had 'the conversation' with them.

The second is not so much a question but a belief in how people think they would react if they were in the same situation - rage. People find it hard to understand why I wasn't instantly so enraged that I wouldn't take some sort of physical action against him. I know before this happened I had imagined that if someone had violated either of my children I would have instantly become so violently angry that someone would have to restrain me - the reality was very different and that is difficult to write here.

The shock and disbelief were so overwhelming that rage was the furthest thing from my mind - I simply couldn't reconcile the person that I thought I knew with the images that my daughter?s disclosure were creating. Of course rage has caught up with me with a vengeance but the guilt that I feel for not feeling that I wanted to grab a knife and run him through at the time has been all consuming.

Garlic thank you for sharing that - my desperate hope is that this is how she will view it. Definitely when it first came out it seemed to be just something that had happened to her - she had no concept of 'child abuse' as such, but everytime there is a reference to sex on tv I sneak a sidelong glance at her to look for her reaction and wonder about the connection she will make at some point (or maybe she has already and I am being ridiculously naive yet again).

If you don't mind me answering Liver I think you're right and it is down to the abuse, women aren't attracted to men the way men are to women. He's probably feeling insecure through understandibly not knowing the effects of abuse. There are some books that can help couples but I forget what they are.

Jasmine I have a similar very early childhood "snapshot". Being in bed with my father with me sitting next to his lower body, could be entirely innocent in that I noticed he was different?

Milly DD2's friend was abused at 13 luckily her sister a year younger got it out of her the first and only time it happened she wasn't raped but everything else happened and it would of happened to her sister if she hadnt said anything she had lots of counselling she'll be 17 next month and she is an amazing young lady she is quite nervous but getting there.

Liverlass I never wanted my sisters to beat themselves up the way they did one put it down to childhood curiosity as they where closer in age but the other one it carried on believe it or not until she was about 20 but she blocked that out. I am 8 & 9 years younger than my sisters he's 12 and a half years older than me it didn't occur to them it would happen the terms grooming and p** didn't exist back then and you certainly never heard about it happening very often like nowadays. It hurt me so much that they where upset as I feel like I've caused all this pain for myself and them.

had a really long, supportive message then but mumsnet went weird, I better get back to RL :)

Dotty thanks. My DD wasn't raped but he was escalating the abuse (could have been the next time if she hadn't told me - I can't bear to think of that possibility). When we first started the counselling I said to the counsellors that i wanted to know why it took her so long to tell me (we think it was about 3 months) . Their response was they wanted to know how come she told me so quickly. Sometimes I feel like my head will explode with all the what ifs.

I know that some people here have experienced much worse than my DD. I feel desperately sorry for the shattered innocence but if feels very inadequate to just say I'm sorry.

Milly even now I think that if my mother acknowledged what happened to me and talked to me about it it would help to heal me. The fact that you have actually done something to help your daughter means a huge amount.

When I told my parents years ago another thing my dad said was if you'd told us we would of told him to stop I was a child tbf I never told my dad how young I was but the age I was when it stopped he also told me I knew right fron wrong what about him he was 24 at the time. When I told mum 5 years ago that I was 4 her answer was your dad would of killed him but she never said how she felt now she has denied ever being told that hurts so much. How can she be so cold.

Cailin my own mother would have reacted very differently to me in the same situation I'm sure. My upbringing was a morass of EA/physical abuse & neglect (I may head over to the stately homes thread at some point!). I did call her about something unrelated and at the last minute decided to tell her what had happened to DD. She burst into tears & hung up & I wrote to her apologising for upsetting her - that's conditioning for you!

As a mother myself now I can't understand mothers who don't do everything in their power to protect their children.

I'm so sorry that you are still not getting the mothering that you need and deserve.

This story represents what I expect of all men if they are given the chance

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2120995/GP-sex-patient-claiming-therapy-abuse-suffered-child-SAVE-marriage.html

God that story is awful Karma.

Even though my DH has never given me any cause to worry I still believe in the back of my mind that he will hurt me some day. It's terrible and I wish I didn't feel that way but I can't help it.

The counsellors told me that denial is one of the strongest self preservation mechanisms.

The police told me that there are more parents who disbelieve and dismiss than react and protect. The first detective I spoke to asked me what I'd done to protect her once she disclosed - I had to convince him that I wasn't complicit in the abuse. The statistics of cases that are investigated compared to prosecution then conviction are not only appalling but also heartbreaking for the fact that each statistic is a child that is being violated.

They do say that survivors of childhood abuse are more likely to be re-victimized. That's rather scary.

That is scary Karma but I can totally see why it happens. I think if I hadn't met my DH so young I would have ended up in abusive or dangerous relationships.

Karma funny because you say survivors, for years I said I wasn't a victim but I made myself one didn't I the amount of trauma I suffered without any physical pain was unreal I have NEVER hurt so bad in my entire life.

I can honestly say I didn't know it was possible to feel this much pain, for so long and still be alive.

There are times I can't breathe.

On the surface - I am a loving, caring, mother, with sunny, happy small DCs and some big ones.

But on the inside I am a screaming mess, who has just learned to put on a good mask.

A lot of the problem for me is I KNOW how my dc feel, I don't even have to imagine - and I feel their pain more than I ever felt my own.

I know this happened to the DC and not to me - and then I feel so selfish - as if I am making it about me instead of them.

Other times I just feel numb - like I have no feelings at all.

Jane :( It is an awful awful thing to have to go through. No one should have to deal with such shit and it just makes me so angry that there are people in the world who just take what the want without a second thought to the lives they affect.

That's it for me too Jane - it feels selfish to be suffering when it's my DD who was abused.

One thing I struggle with is my vulnerability. I expect (and demand from myself) that I will be as functional and high-achieving as someone who grew up in a functional family, had loving parents and wasn't sexually abused. I get very angry with myself and feel ashamed when in certain ways I just can't "keep up" with what I consider to be "normality."

For example, I've been really successful career-wise but on the other hand I've never once had a proper relationship with a man, lived with a man, been married etc. It makes me feel like a huge failure.

I can relate to the feelings of failure Karma although I've largely put them behind me now, apart from the odd blip. My feelings of failure surround my career - I did about as well as you could possibly do at school, got a first class degree and postgrad and yet I've never had a job for more than a year (I always end up quitting) and now I'm a SAHM. I've had to accept that I can't live up to my version of "normal" and that has been a relief, while at the same time being quite sad. I do often wonder what I would be like if I had had a normal upbringing.