**Contains distressing content**Could I ask for the perspective of children's SW - what should have happened?**Thread title edited by MNHQ**

[something2say]

Hi. I'd like to ask for help from mumsnet, relating to the question of what should have happened for us back then? I'm a professional helping people flee, but today I am asking as a previous victim as it's a bit of care I didn't experience and I would like to think about what it might have looked like and how different life might have been.

So I'm the middle child of 3, older sister younger brother. Our parents were divorced dad was running his own business and having affairs, our mother was very abusive.

She hit me the worst. I regularly had big handspan sized bruises to my thighs, back, I had black ones on hard areas, she bit me and left marks, she spat in my face, she banged my head against the wall holding my head by the hair. She kicked me, stood on me, hit me with things. She pushed me down the stairs often, higher each time.

She wouldn't let me wash myself. We had to run up and down the stairs with only our knickers on, she said we were fat. She used to wash my hair and rinse my head by holding my head by the hair and holding it under water, up down up down, and I would drown in the water, sometimes cold. I was then not allowed a towel to dry and used to stand naked drip drying with bother and sister coming in going 'Mum, she's covering herself up!'

So it was like that, for 15 years.

I would like to know what would have happened to us if that were today. I have been out of contact for years, but recently my sister had a baby and we are back in touch but she still acts like I was wrong to leave the family and is off with me about it.

I would like to know whether children with scapegoated siblings are helped to see them differently and how this is done?

I have escaped and built up a life I love, but whenever I have contact they are just the same. I am loathe to cut contact again as I hurt my sister when I do this, but she hasn't done any work and I keep saying, it would be different if it had been caught. If it had been caught, the lie that I deserved it would be turned on its head.

My mother experienced DV from a war broken step father who rampaged round the house drunk after being a POW in Burma. So she was abused herself. But she has thoroughly taken it out on her children, two of whom still see her, one of whom protects her.

I hope people don't mind me asking this. I've been helping ppl escape abuse for years and I recognise the value in the services we provide one another and I think in this regard I wish I'd had a social worker and I wish I knew what they would have done for us.

I don't have any input I'm sorry other than to day your post really upset me and I'm sorry you went through that. You deserved better than that as a little child. :(

If services would have known about this, they would have reported it to SW. SW would have spoken to you and your family and a medical would have been undertaken by a child protection paediatrician. They would have found non accidental injuries. SW would ask your parents to consent to you residing with another family member or going into foster care whilst further information was gathered. If your parents didn't consent then they would have applied for a court order to move you. A police investigation would then begin and you and your siblings would have a joint investigative interview with police and social work.

I'm so, so sorry this has happened to you. I hope you're getting the support you need

Wow thanks. That's a great start.

A medical would have uncovered a lot of injuries I'm sure. But I got such a hiding for telling a teach age 5 that I put my shoes out of the mud's way to save them getting dirty as we got one slipper blow per spot of mud at night after school. So we would have been too scared to tell - how would you get around that?

My brother and sister would stick up for her too.

Thanks for your reply. I wish that is what had happened.

Somethingtosay so sorry you had to endure that level of abuse, its despicable. Sometimes when we look back at things they cant be judged by todays standard. Yes abuse is still abuse but yrs ago child protection was not as stringent as today. I grew up middle 70,s 80,s and was hit or smacked regulary, that was seen as a parents right in disciplining their child. I have a ds and would never dream of hitting him as disciplining. Doctors at hospitals, teachers at schools were not that educated on child abuse, like today so alot would believe parents etc plus as you had siblings i bet your mother would say oh you were clumsy cos the other kids weren't abused. Im nc with my dm (who had her own problems with alcoholic parent) through EA i do think of how i would have turned out if id grown up in a normal world, but then again having that experience you are able to empathise and help others breaking the cycle. I try not to look back only forward its the only way cos i cant changed what has happened but i can change the furture.

I had a similar background and although social services knew about it nothing was ever done. Your sister will have her own issues and will be very invested in the denial, I wouldn't expect that to change.

This is beyond awful. How long ago was this?

You say your mother was abused and attribute her actions to that.

What's interesting though,is that you (also a victim of abuse ) have done precisely the opposite.

Really sorry you had such a bad start In life.You too sprout.

My sister is invested in the denial too, not least of all because she helped sexually abuse me. So when she puts me down for having left, I bring this up and she goes ballistic at me.

Is it even worth saving? She says 'I haven't got time for this, I've got XYZ going on.'

Sprouts21 I'm sorry to hear that - can I ask what happened with SS for you then? Did you tell them what was going on?

Everyone colluded with what was going on. The black eye 'because I brought the book up into my own face' etc.

Beerandpopcorn, no I have gone on to be the opposite, to work in the field actually. But it does happen, where abused ppl act it out towards others, and she did hate me.

It was many years ago incidentally. I'm just dealing with a new outbreak of it because I'm in touch with my sister because she had a baby, and periodically she acts like 'back then' and I stand up for myself - and then she says I'm the out of order one and refuses to engage. She won't talk about what she did to me, what she was a part of. Hence I was asking what social workers would have done for us had it come out today. Whether it will make a difference to her attitude I don't know. I mean I could have died under the water or going down the stairs, or after the head banging, any of it really, and then it would all have been soooo different. As it is, I am the black sheep they hear from periodically, and for me it is always the same - shit.

Thanks for the responses and sorry for having to have the title changed.

I wouldn't keep in contact with your sister if I were you (though I know it must be hard), in fact if your sister sexually abused you (have instead that right?) I would report her. She could be a danger to her own children, now she's having them.

What happened to your mother, has she passed away?

I'm so sorry you were born to a psychopath like her.

The scale goat, collusion thing is very common among abused children (towards the worst abused one) isn't it?

*Scape goat

I have escaped and built up a life I love

I'm so delighted on your behalf.
If it were me I'd report your sister (and any other siblings) for her part in what they did and I'd not try to include her in your life, just concentrate on living a happy life with good people around you.

Sorry for what you went through. If it would help you could still report it to the police now. It may help to speak to someone in authority about it, or you may feel youhave closed that chapter now.
But with regards to your sister, unless she is willing to accept that she did wrong and work through t that she didn’t know any different as she was a child, then I think you need to go NC for good now.

I’m not a SW but from experience your mother probably would have lied to them and nothing would have happened.
I grew up with an alcoholic mother who would neglect us and beat us if we dared to cross her when she’d had a few.
My grandparents called SS out of concern and nothing ever came of it. She lied to the social worker and my grandparents knew she’d been drinking that morning.

I have little faith in the system I’m afraid but this was about 27 years ago so I’d like to think that things would be better these days.

Wow....there are no words OP. What an awful thing to read....let alone living thru it. I'm happy you have a good life now, and its such a credit to you that you stay in touch with these awful awful people

This is so sad :(

Similar happened to me on a much smaller scale and my sisters don't like me brining it up either. Its very hard being the one that got the brunt of things and then growing up feeling like you are a trouble causer for not sweeping it under the carpet

I am so, so sorry that you were abused so horribly. There is no excuse for it.

I'm not sure what would have happened if you'd reported this at the time, but it's not too late to report it now. This in particular stood out for me:

My sister is invested in the denial too, not least of all because she helped sexually abuse me.

Horrific. And she now has a baby of her own? Please, think very carefully about this and if you can bear to, report your abusers to the police. God knows what her child is going to go through.

So so sorry to hear your story and please never doubt what you experienced was severe abuse.

We reported someone we know to social services a few years ago, their child was suffering from leukaemia and disclosed to us that they were regularly assaulted by their mum. The child was covered in bruises which we photographed and reported to SS immediately.

SS took allegation seriously at first and went into school to interview the child, but child did not tell them what had happened and instead said that the bruises had happened playing sport (plus because of the illness they bruise easily) so nothing came of it.

I was also a witness to a teenage boy violently beating his 6 year old brother on a London train station. Another passer by and I went to stop the assault and raise the alarm, police were on the scene within seconds. However the 6 year old immediately said that his brother had not attacked him - he had just fallen over. Luckily there would have been CCTV.

Unfortunately the fear and conditioning can be so terrifyingly strong that children cannot admit what is happening to them. You may have felt you needed to protect your mum, and that's understandable.

I am so sorry that was your childhood - I am so glad you have found happiness - its a testament to your strength of character to build a happy life after the upbringing you had. I'm sorry I don't know how to answer your question except to say you need to protect your own happiness in whatever decision you make. Also remember, family does not have to be blood related. I know plenty of people that build a little family around themselves full of love with people who are not related to them. Good luck.

Those survivors of Japanese prisoner of war camps were so horrendously damaged that many of their children barely survived their upbringing.

They'd be around my age now, mostly born in the decade after WW2. I know of three who committed suicide , and others with severe MH problems.

This isn't to begin to excuse what your mother did to you, but to give it a bit of context.

I wonder how many survivors of more recent conflicts are passing on a legacy like that.

Ps, you're amazing!

If it turned out like my situation, they would have asked you repeatedly if your dad was hitting you, and if you said no, they'd have blankly accepted whatever your mother told them, because Mother's Don't Do That.