Turns out I was a victim of child abuse

[gurglehiccupsquint]

I've recently been given a role in safeguarding at my children's school. All the training has made me realise that I was groomed twice. One was a music teacher who told me I had to wait until I was 16 when I tried to flirt with him as a teenager. He caught me in a car a few days after my 16th. I ran away.
The first and worst was a priest. We snogged. He felt my boobers. I thought it was normal. I was 14. I thought I was grown up. He was a family friend. It could have been much worse but he told me I wasn't allowed to go out again with my previous boyfriend because he was also in love with him. (!?!)

Anyway I was according to the boys at school 'frigid' but then later at uni I spent most of my time trying to pull blokes thinking that was the most important thing. Did quite a lot of meaningless sex. Probably irrelevant.

Stopped that. Finally married my perfect man. We have 2 kids. My husband is lovely and knows.

I'm relatively fine. I am on a very mild dose of antidepressants and I attribute none of that to those experiences. But I am suddenly very startled about how normal I thought it was and it has only just rung alarm bells!!

Mums, it's super hard to talk about these things. My advice would be to make sure you and your daughter can talk about boy things. Be quite cool if you can. I adore my mother but there was NO WAY I could tell her boy stuff. To me all of that was boy stuff. By no means was my mother at blame in any of this. But maybe just try to be a bit more cool about boy stuff. Relax but be vigilant.

I think you grew up in a different era. Times have changed and girls are more aware, as are the high profile cases in the news recently. Girls are also taken more seriously than before.

I'm sorry for what you have been through but it really isn't about being a cool mum and being relaxed about "boy stuff".
Boys get abused too.
It's about teaching children that they have bodily rights and integrity and how and who to talk to if anyone tries to violate them.
Starting with the underpants rule when they are small and keeping it age appropriate as they get older.

I think you are very brave to share your story and I want to thank you for the reminder to make sure my daughter feels she can talk to me about anything.

DS had a chat at school about underpants ... he came away with the message not to touch girls knickers, DD had the same chat about childline, which was ridiculas as you cant use the school phone ... so thats cleared that up then.

I'm not quite sure I understand. Are you saying that you have only just recently realised that these situations were concerning? Did you want to talk to your mum about them at the time, did you try talking?

My first kiss was aged 13 with a 19 year old man and I was raped a few months later by a 17 year old lad. There were others too, men in their 20's and even 30's actively pursuing me at 14 or 15 years old. I don't think I behaved any differently from my friends and other girls the same age but I was incredibly naive about my personal safety. I'm 40 now so this would have been late 80's but it shows these predators have always been around think we are just more aware of them now thankfully. My DD will have nowhere near the level of freedom I had when she's older that's a certainty and I will try my hardest to build the sort of relationship with her where she can be open with me.

I suffered abuse as a young teenager. I was groomed by my teacher from the age of 13.

I'm pregnant now (at 29) and I hope my son/daughter won't ever be put in that situation. It's taken me a long time to get over - counselling and funnily enough, hypnotherapy has done the trick! I believe society's attitudes have changed massively now. This teacher is still teaching (!!) and my school handled it very badly. People are more aware of these things happening now and I hope that my child will be able to come to me for help and advice and to talk about all that awkward stuff!

I was groomed, first by the head teacher of my primary school, then when I was in sixth form by the head of my secondary school. He would pick out one likely candidate to target from each year's new intake. Things weren't good at home at the time and I thought he understood me. He's never been found out and is now an OBE.

My mum was sexually abused and used to talk to me about abuse and grooming on a regular basis. I still didn't feel able to tell her because my relationship with her generally wasn't good, and she was very intrusive in her approach. When the primary head made his move on me though I knew what he was doing and knew to run away, and that was thanks to what my mum taught me. It didn't help with the more sophisticated approach of the secondary head unfortunately. I wish I'd known more about grooming techniques; I might have seen through him, who knows?

I think it's only now that I have realised that it was so wrong! I was brought up in a fairly strict environment as a young un and didn't have the open relationship with my parents that I now do.

I'm hoping I can balance overwhelming protectiveness with trust and am already talking to my daughter (and son, now, of course, thank you Knuts) about self respect and trust. Thanks for the advice.

Also I know that there were no safeguarding governors in the 80s and it was just one of those things. Adults and children are much much more aware thank goodness.

Big hugs to those affected. Xxx