Support thread for survivors of childhood sexual abuse

[cailindana]

I started a thread some time ago as a support for people who suffered sexual abuse as children. It went on for quite some time and I think people found it helpful. It fizzled out for various reasons but I'm thinking now is a time to get it going again.

I was abused as a child, by two family friends. My family entirely ignored it, and when I tried to talk to my mother about it she basically told me to shut up. It affected my life massively as a teenager and led to some self-destructive behaviour in my twenties. But with the help of my massively supportive DH (without whom I don't know where I'd have ended up), MN, and some really great friends, I feel like I've dealt with it to a large extent and it no longer has such a hold on my life.

This thread is intended for people who want to talk about their experiences with abuse - either themselves, or those they love. You can share as much or as little as you like. You can just come on and say you're here, you don't have to contribute anything. This will be a safe space to chat to people who understand what you're dealing with. Hopefully it will help.

Hi everyone. Cailindana suggested this thread to me after I made a post in 30 Days Only. It's here: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/thirty_days_only/2428400-Did-smacking-set-me-up-to-be-sexually-abused-Long-sensitive-triggering but it's very long - in a nutshell I was abused from about age 6-8 by my aunt's now ex-husband (so he was my uncle by marriage but I really hate calling him that). It started with tickling games and 'accidental' touching, and then escalated. He engineered a situation where I was left alone with him for a day and I never even thought that my parents were wrong to do that until I read the responses on the other thread. (I was threatened with not going on an outing and he offered to stay with me so my parents could go. I never thought they were wrong in that as they knew and trusted him. He also used to come and 'say goodnight' to me. Our families visited each other quite a lot and he was good at finding ways to be alone with me.

I made the other thread because it has occurred to me that my parents unintentionally primed me for the abuse as my dad used to make me pull my pants down to be smacked. The day of that outing when I was left alone with him, he told my parents he had taken my pants down and smacked me. I discovered years later that they were unhappy that he had undressed me and hit me but they didn't tell ME that, they acted like they were fine with it, and continued to allow him to be around me. I think he was quite manipulative and charming.

What I've realised while talking through this on the other thread is that nobody in my life protected my body or taught me to protect my body. It was not treated like a big deal that this man had removed my clothing. The abuse stopped when he and my aunt separated. Otherwise who knows how long it might have continued for.

I'm currently on the waiting list for some counselling. I'm only just waking up to all the ways in which the abuse has affected me. I don't know who I would have been if it hadn't happened.

I've not kept up with the whole thread cailin sorry if you have mentioned it before but are they bio family? I've NC with my mother and barely talk to my father as they put me in a really unnessacary (can't bloody get that word right! ) vunerable position and they have a lot to answer for. I too look at my dd and just get so scared at the dangerous people out there. I have terrible dreams which I'm hoping will ease with my therapy. What you say really resonates with me.

I've done self parenting. I visioned myself and spoke to me as a child. It kind of helped a little. Both sets of my parents where shite!

Hi toomany we spoke before on PM under another username

Hi Coldtea, I also worry about the people out there who might hurt my children...

Innocent for a long time I just didn't think about it and assumed it hasn't really affected me but lately I've reached a point where I've had to start looking at the fact that it has cast a shadow over my life.

I had a boyfriend in my teens who forced himself on me and I was in an abusive relationship in my 20s. I was triggered into starting to address the childhood abuse when I read an article about rape that said childhood sexual abuse is a predicting factor. I kind of had to stop ignoring it after that. My 30s have in fact been the first decade in which nobody has attacked or abused me.

I have a sense that the way I feel inside isn't actually the way I am supposed to feel inside.

Really glad you joined the thread freckles.
What way do you feel inside?

Cold, they're my parents and my bullying psycho older sister. I am very low contact with them.

cailin why are you going? I just can't have people like that in my life anymore.

too yes me too, I had a step uncle sexually assult me as a one off years later and the same bad history with men. It's only since I've been with DP that my brain as allowed me to start thinking about it because the first time in my life I'm in a safe happy place.

What really worries me is on this forum people accuse you of screeching pedophile on every corner when your on a topic of safe guarding children. It actually really shocks me. our children are at risk all the time. The statistic prove that. And then there are the ones that don't even report it - like me so the numbers must actually be too low

I have other family in the same place that I want to see, so I put up with seeing them. It's only one week a year.

Cailindana how do I feel inside? Like I'm somehow not a proper person, somehow. I don't know if that makes sense...

Thank you so much for your support btw. You said some very insightful and helpful things.

Cold I'm so sorry to hear that. Interesting what you say about being able to think about it now you're in a safe and happy place. I think it's been the same for me. Thing is, it feels like it's making it an unsafe and unhappy place and poisoning things now I'm in a good place in my life, that it's creeping up and ruining it.

Cold yy re the risks. I find it especially frustrating when people say they don't want to teach their kids about abuse etc as they want to keep them innocent. Partly because it's so fucking stupid (I know I didn't have language to explain what happened to me or know what it was or what to do) and also because I am frustrated and jealous at the assumption that they will stay innocent as these people evidently take childhood innocence for granted. You can give age appropriate information without scaring your kids or ruining their lives!

I feel guilty about not reporting. But my abuser is the father of my (male) cousins and I worry about how they would be affected if I were to drop this bombshell. (They don't see him as he didn't really bother with them after the divorce.) I don't even know why the abuse started when it did. If I was the first person he ever abused and that was simply when he started doing it; if it was something about me, or something I did, or something to do with that particular age; I just don't know. I think I'm right about it starting then...

This may sound ridiculous but it's bothering me that it didn't start as soon as he met me. I feel like I must have done something to make it start. Although another possible explanation is that maybe there was a period of grooming before that? Is it possible that he took time to get me to trust him and was intending to abuse me long before he did?

cailin good luck sounds like your going to need it

too I know what you mean. It's not like it's on the fore front on your mind every day but it's like a heavy sack of bricks on your back which you carry round letting it skew how you react, how you cope with things, how you build friendships. I only ever had one friend at a time and could be quite lonely sometimes but I could be quite cruel and bullyish so I'm not suprised they didn't stick around. It's only in my late twenties I did a lot of work to change how destructive I was and try a nurture friendships. Don't let it take over you any more. Im sure you can fix things in you, I'm quite positive I can

Oh god too you did nothing to cause it! You were a small child! He was probslly grooming you so you wouldnt run of and tell. Please don't think you could have enticed him. You don't make anyone in to a pedophile. They just are.

BUT can I just say how fucking amazingly brave you were actually trying to tell your parents.

Another thing that really stuck with me is a poster said to me when I posted about stuff years ago. I'd posted that three seperate men over the course of five years had abused or asssulted me and i couldn't get my head around how could anyone be that unlucky.

Apparently it's not unusual at all. She said predatory people can spot vunerable people mile a mile off,

Cold It sounds like you've done some incredible work. And however you were before was not your fault.

Cailin It is totally freaking me out to think that the abuse was inevitable once he decided to do it. I can't handle the idea that I didn't cause it or have any control over it.

And I keep thinking that it wasn't that bad anyway and I shouldn't be so affected by it.

Sorry I just confused you and Cailin!

I have also heard that about predatory people. That it is absolutely not luck. But people talk about sexual assault and rape as if they just happen once in any person's life when sadly that often isn't the case.

I'm so sorry about what happened to you.

I feel bad about the fact that I tried to tell. I don't understand why I feel like that.

too I felt that too for a very long time (about my long term abuser not the other too. I had a really bad time when I confessed to DH about it because he was incredulous that I felt like that. He used out little girl as an example and asked would I blame her? That's when I seen myself as a very young child and it put me in a bad place. The GP gave me anti Ds and a give me the referral. I didn't take the anti d because they just made me feel detached.

Finding your way through this is going to be like opening a can of worms but Its got to be done for your own well being

Not feeling like a real person, minimising the whole thing - these are common to all of us. It feels like you're all alone in your own head, but be reassured that your thoughts and feelings are a totally normal human response to the trauma you've been through. That, I think, is an important thing to get your head around, Too.

It's late, bed awaits, will I be able to fall asleep without any horrible images tonight? Fingers crossed.

Goodnight Brid, I hope you have a peaceful night.

Wishing a peaceful night's sleep to all.

Thanks freckles you too

Freckles I think it would be useful for you to explore why you feel bad about the fact that you tried to tell - can you give a guess as to why that is?

How did you sleep Brid?

Reading that it was brave made me think it was somehow wrong or weird. I don't know if that even makes any sense.

I assume I was trying to tell, I don't entirely remember clearly.