paedophile or not?

[gbuk]

When I was 11 I was sexually abused by my grandfather. I never told anyone as I didn't think they would believe me and I would be blamed for causing trouble. Over the years I have heard family saying how my grandmother stopped sharing a room with him in middle age, they had no real relationship so rarely spoke to each other, and indeed he remarried within weeks of her death. The abuse has had far reaching consequences for me emotionally and a large, no, HUGE, effect on my life and behaviour when I was growing up. This actually needs a whole other thread.

Anyway, I am now in my 50's and after a cancer diagnosis, am trying to make sense of my life and how I got to where I am now, so I've been trying to face my demons, one of which is the sexual abuse. It seems (though I dont understand why) very important to know if I was abused by a sexually frustrated man because I was available and vulnerable or abused because he was a paedophile. The abuse happened when my grandparents stayed for visits and he used to take me for a walk into the countryside without my grandmother or any of my siblings. It was over 40 years ago and feels like yesterday.

Paedophile love. Sorry. Have you thought of having some counselling for this?

I'm sorry for what happened to you.

Any sexual contact between an adult and a child like this and the adult is a paedophile. Sexual frustration is no excuse.

Paedophile, without a doubt. You were an innocent 11yr old GIRL, he was your grandfather. Many many people live in sexually frustrating relationships and don't then look to relieve themselves with a child.....the very fact that he chose a child to be sexual with, makes him a paedophile. I am so sorry you went through that, and wish you all the best; posters better qualified than i will come along soon in terms of how you go forward with this x

If he was sexually frustrated he could have sought out another woman unfortunately he was after a child.

If he hadn't been sexually attracted to a child, he wouldn't have viewed you as in any way 'available', because it wouldn't normally occur to an adult man to think of a person that age in sexual terms.

I'm sorry that you are having to deal with this. Are you getting some kind of help in working through the way you feel? I don't know specifics, but I have no doubt there will be organisations, both physical and online, which can help you to work through how you feel and how it has affected your life.

A sexually frustrated husband does not have sex with the eleven year olds in his family.
I'm sorry, your grandfather was an abuser, perhaps an opportunist, perhaps a paedophile.
If you haven't contacted anyone for help? I found this www.supportline.org.uk/problems/child_abuse_survivors.php#adult but I don't know if its any good or not.

It is horrific enough to be sexually abused by an adult but even more so when the abusing adult is a grandparent and therefore someone that you should have been able to totally trust.
As many others have said, being sexually frustrated is no excuse whatsoever for sexually abusing you. He abused your body and abused the trust that the family would have had in him with you.
Sadly, if he was abusing you then he could well have been abusing other children that he had contact with and whom he knew would never utter a word.
I truly hope that you can get some help and advice. Having a cancer diagnosis is more than enough for one person to deal with. I hope that you don't totally overload yourself emotionally if you start, at this particular time, to try to make sense of that awful period in your life.

There is no way that this was just a matter of a sexually frustrated man.

Even some paedophiles will balk at abusing their own grandchildren.

He clearly targeted you and used the fact that he was a trusted family member to gain access to you.

He was clearly a very, very disturbed man.

I am so sorry this happened to you. I think you should definitely have some counselling. How could you possibly work through this alone? Sending you love. Do you have some RL support?

OP So sorry you went through this.

Decent men who are sexually frustrated have a wank.

A man who chooses to sexually abuse his granddaughter (and make no mistake, he chose to do it) is not sexually frustrated, he's an evil fucker.

So sorry, I hope you find the peace you need and well done for addressing this, it is never too late to find peace. Yes, He is a pedophile. You were 11. Imagine if it was your 11 year old. He was a very very very wrong and bad person to do that to you. At 11 you needed a bedtime story and teaching a new board game or whatever, but not that. He was a bad man. Big hugs and good luck for your health situation x x x x x

I am so sorry

There is another thread and this topic and interestingly enough it says that's not everyone that abut sea young children is a peado (although clearly vile) so I get the query

I think you need to do what you can to bottom this out .

Wishing you the very best op

If anything, I'd think your grandmother sleeping in another room would have been a consequence of his sexual preferences and not the other way around. I hope the woman he married didn't have young children.

"The abuse has had far reaching consequences for me emotionally and a large, no, HUGE, effect on my life and behaviour when I was growing up. This actually needs a whole other thread. "

Of course it is crucial for you to try to make sense of something that has had such an impact on your life - I completely understand the importance of your need to know if these were the actions of a sexually frustrated man or those of a paedophile.

I would call anyone who abused a child/young person a paedophile, whether they deliberately sought to abuse or the opportunity arose is neither here or there. They abused you, they were an adult and you were a child.

Please don't blame yourself or the fact that your grandmother slept in separate rooms for him being sexually frustrated. Women don't owe men sex or vice versa. I don't even see your grandmother sleeping in a separate room as being related to what he did. He chose to do it, he was an adult and (this is crucial), he knew what he was doing. Sorry to say that but his actions were deliberate.

He took advantage of someone younger, innocent and vulnerable - a child. It is despicable behaviour. I am so sorry that you have had your life impacted in such a traumatic way and I hope that you can come to terms with it, it was not your fault and I wish you all the best. Your diagnosis cannot be easy to come to terms without having this to deal with

gbuk, it looks like you are almost ready to face your abuse. This will be a roller-coaster ride.

Can you manage to phone NAPAC? napac.org.uk/

You can phone free from a landline or mobile: 0808 801 0331

If you don't feel able to phone yet, keep talking on this thread.

Thank you, thank you all so much for the supportive comments, links to follow and most of all for believing in me. As I said, my cancer diagnosis has been a catalyst that has made me want to finally understand and confront the life I have lived so far and the type of person I am.

The abuse stopped when I was 12, my parents had a fall out with my grandparents and they stopped visiting, but I always felt abandoned by my parents with this (even though they didn't know). I had never received affection from them, I have no memories of being hugged or kissed and I was never told I was loved. They made sure I was clothed, fed and had a roof over my head and that seemed to fullfill what they thought a parent should provide. Sex and relationships were never a topic of conversation and they were never interested in knowing about school, never sympathetic with the usual teenage friend problems, that sort of thing.

I've never liked me, always believed I was a bad person and been deeply ashamed of so many things I have done. I need to find some peace, some way of forgiving myself. I've read a few threads on here and am starting to see that what I took to be a normal upbringing was anything but, and part of me wants desperately to confront my parents about this and several other painful things (the abuse included) but they are now nearly 80 and I know it would rip my family apart. I can't do it. My grandfather has been dead for almost 25 years, he cant answer to his crime now and I would just end up in the wrong again in everyone elses eyes. I am only tolerated, not really liked by my parents and 2 of my siblings (the 3rd sibling hates me), but I don't want to risk being completely on the outside.

Sorry if I'm waffling, but it has helped enormously to post this, so thank you for reading

Leave your parents out of it. They will most likely not have anything helpful to say, I would even guess they will pile on the guilt or make you doubt yourself. They don't sound very supportive and I would even suggest going nc while you tackle your past.

Have you had therapy? Being abused as a child has serious consequences for the development of self esteem.

You can go back there to your 11 yo self and tell yourself you did nothing wrong, you didn't provoke it. It was a massive assault by a family member (as so often the case), someone you trusted.
You got no help when you needed it, because your parents were indifferent or you felt they didn't care so you didn't tell them. Often children like you are picked by paedophiles because the chance that you would tell is small. And also the chance of a loving parent noticing something is wrong.

You need the help of a properly trained professionial. Believe me, it is never too late to get help.

I do hope you can access some proper support for this - it's clear that your childhood in general as well as the abuse has affected you and stayed with you, which is totally unsurprising. Maybe if you can talk around it with people who understand, you can reach a place where you no longer think there's anything that you need to forgive yourself for, and where you can come to terms with your feelings about your parents - either to feel able to confront them, or to no longer feel the need because they no longer 'matter'.

I am so sorry; what a terrible thing to have to suffer with.

I have no experience, so please forgive me if this doesn't make sense, but is it possible that your grandfather might have abused his own child too, which might have messed up your parent? This might help to explain (not excuse) some of the lack of affection in your childhood.

Oh goodness me. I found it so sad reading your post

Others have answered your original question already, but I just wanted to add that your grandfather was undoubtedly a paedophile - not your fault and not your grandmother's fault - nobody else's fault. His fault. He chose to abuse you. I really hope you find the professional support you need through the links that others have posted.

I was about to ask the same question as claraschu - could your mum/dad(which ever was the child of your grandfather) and/or your siblings/cousins/others be victims too? We have all seen via high-profile media cases that abusers can have many victims who all think they're the only ones... until one of them finds the courage to speak out - then someone else does... and someone else... Hard to believe that a paedophile can limit his abuse to one child for a fixed 2-year period of time, isn't it? Why stop there? There were no consequences for him - no prison sentence - so where was his deterrent?

Do you know what caused the fallout with your parents? Is there a chance they found out - about him abusing you or someone else - and were trying to protect you? Didn't talk about it because at the time brushing things under the carpet was seen as the best way to handle "difficult" situations like these and it was best to leave it at that? No hugging and no kissing because they might lead to memories and questions that they'd rather not have to answer? Or because they've also been abused? I'm thinking of the possibility that your mother was abused by her dad, your grandfather, and that your father wasn't able to show you any normal affection because your DM equated father/daughter relationships with abuse. No affection = no abuse.

If I can speculate like this based on the limited amount of information I have, you must have a thousand whys and what ifs to contend with. I think in your shoes, I would rather risk upsetting my elderly parents in order to get some answers than never mention the abuse again and miss my chance. Of course, that's my opinion and you should do whatever you feel will bring you closer to making sense of what's happened.

Whatever you do, please know that you are not a bad person. Your grandfather was evil and he betrayed you and your family's trust in the worst way imaginable. You didn't get the chance to have the childhood you deserved. You are well within your rights to explore the impact that has had on your life.

I think you're being incredibly brave to confront this now.

I am so sorry for what life has thrown at you. And I wish you strength for the future in thinking about these things and with your cancer diagnosis and treatment.

This really stood out to me,

'I've never liked me, always believed I was a bad person and been deeply ashamed of so many things I have done. I need to find some peace, some way of forgiving myself.'

You are not a bad person, you are a lovely person who has had some really bad stuff happen to you. You have absolutely no reason to be ashamed. Of anything. You do not need to forgive yourself for anything, there is nothing to ask forgiveness for. I really, really hope you can find peace, loads and loads of peace, and I hope that that one day you do like yourself, because I bet you are a truley lovely, totally totally fab person. Stay strong, keep looking for your peace, because it is out there somewhere.

Hello gbuk, well done for reaching out for help, it is a major step!
I identify with a lot of your post. I was sexually abused by my cousin, 10 years older than me, from when I was 7 until I was 12. He groomed me and used me!
All through my teens I became very rebellious and troubled. It has affected my self worth so much, I have done councelling which has helped but I still feel not totally healed!
When someone is molested it is as if their protective invisible virtual envelop around the body is ripped, that fragile shield is forever broken. It is very sad.
I don't know if you have read or seen the Northen Lights or Golden Compass by Philip Pullman? It's fictional, in it some children have an "intercision" an awful procedure where they are cut off from their "demon"(their soul in fact) For me it was a perfect analogy for what I experienced, and after that it felt as if I was not whole!
I have tried all my life to put back together the pieces of the puzzle, but that fragility and wound will always be there somehow.
I told my mother 20 years ago and she didn't want to know or acknowledge how it affected me, she was only concerned by how it would cause devastation for her sister, the M of my cousin. Not wanting to disrupt the appearances of things, she even carried on inviting him to major family occasions, this has hurt me doubly, the sense of betrayal has been horrible. Now quite recently I told my cousin's sister and she has been fantastic, standing by me and shaming my mother and others. It's amazing I had more or less lost faith in my family but she is quite exeptional and I love her for being so brave because yes to talk about abuse within the family destroys that family! But for the sake of the youngs it is necessary. I only regret it took me so long to confine in his sister.
It's up to you if you talk or not to your ageing parents but I agree with Slim I think it might be your last chance and if you don't you might regret it.
Good luck. You are innocent you know. I wish you the best xx

One of my closest friends was sexually abused by a family member as a child so I have some experience of the effects this has on people. Watching that vibrant, clever, kind hearted and special woman go through 30 years hating herself has been very painful for me. Hearing what you said about not liking yourself and thinking you are a bad person tugged at my heartstrings. The mechanism for it is very simple. When people who are supposed to love, protect and nurture us DON'T do that, we feel it is our own fault, as if there is some flaw in us that has made someone else behave like a monster.

I hope one day you can take a step back and assess that and ask whether you believe it is really true.

Monsters are non-discriminate. Paedeophiles and abusers are equal opportunity. They will bring harm to anyone in their wake.

All you did to bring this on yourself was to be born.

The choice you have now is whether or not you let one evil person destroy your life for a single day more. Please don't choose to do that. You sound like a lovely, intelligent, humble and sweet woman in your post and you have just been through something awful.

It was never your fault.

Please go and get some counselling. My friend has been to many therapists and only in the last year has she found one that "works" for her, so don't be afraid to keep looking if after the first session you don't feel a click. A therapist rightly placed can help you through this.

Also, my friend's mother reacted just as Daisy's did....