To be very concerned that this woman has children (trigger C.S.Abuse)

[Thechangednameoftheday]

Name changed for this for obvious reasons.

When I was twelve years old I made a friend, through a mutual friend, who was sixteen coming on 17 at the time.

No obvious problems at home and she came from a good family, supportive parents etc. Relatively nice life. I mention this incase anybody wonders whether she was vulnerable.

I however came from a single parent family, absent father and poor motherly parenting provisions. I was a bit of a lost soul. Damaged if you will.

The 16 year old (I'll call her J) would often go around with older guys (20-30) and would encourage me to tag along, drink and take drugs. It was commonplace for her to sleep with the men, often at her initiation. I firmly believe there was no grooming involved, she knew what she was doing and didn't receive payment or any incentive to go these things. She pursued these people for a 'good time' and enjoyed the lifestyle.

I looked up to her and began imitating her behaviour, drugs, drinking and having sex with older males. J encouraged this.

J would tell some of the men I was older (15) and tell me to do the same, but for the most part they knew how old I was.

As I got older I distanced myself from J because I felt increasingly extremely uncomfortable about the lifestyle, still just a child myself I was aware enough to know it was wrong. I developed other, healthier friendships.

I was friends with J from 12 years until almost 15 years old.

Now as an adult I reflect on this period of my life with sadness, shame and disgust. I stumbled across J on social media today by accident, she came up in our mutual friends, and I'm left with alot of conflicting emotions including anger toward her and confusion as to why she would have encouraged those things when I was just a little girl.

I couldn't fathom replicating her behaviour, when i was 16 I looked at a 12 year old as a young child and despite my own past would have reported anything of the sort to the police, not encouraged it.

My DM knew about some of this, useless as she is she didn't encourage me to report it. She is what people would call 'slow' and just didn't seem to get that you need to protect your daughter from things like this. I think she thought it was all my choice, which it was, but I was caving to peer pressure and at such a young age don't have the capacity to give righteous consent in the first place.

J now has children of her own, as do i. I feel uncomfortable about somebody with her attitude toward underage sex (which I now acknowledge as child abuse) having children.

I feel it's too late to do anything about all of this, it was years ago and I have no proof but I'm left with scars that pop up every now and then like today.

AIBU to feel this way towards her? At 16-17 can she be excused as just knowing no better? Is my anger misplaced? fwiw I am angry at the males too, but she was my friend.

When I was eighteen I was hanging around with a 14 year old. Now as it happens neither of us were sleeping around however both of us were drinking, taking drugs and going out to clubs etc. Did I feel at all responsible for her as a minor? Errrrm no. If she had been sleeping around would I have tried to stop her? Probably not.

I imagine she didn’t feel you were her responsibility. She obviously wanted a co-conspirator in her lifestyle and you were willing and I assume looked older? She probably thought your mother should have been deciding what you could and couldn’t do and if she was okay with you gadding about then you were pretty much free to carry on unabated.

I wouldn’t say she was at fault. I would be looking at the older men who slept with you and your parents who obviously weren’t parenting you.

OP what you went through was awful, I think what I'm struggling with is that you've stated a few times that you're listening to other people's opinions, but I don't think you are. When people are saying you don't know she wasn't groomed, you have replied several times insisting she wasn't groomed, and that you know what grooming is. Well, you were groomed and maybe she was in a different way to you. Then you say she was a bully, but also that you looked up to her. I think it's understandable that your emotions are mixed on her role in all this. But to be concerned that she has children - I don't think you need to be.

Now you've written about it on here have you thought about having some counselling? What happenned to you shouldn't have happenned, and maybe now is the time to try and talk about it and work out how to live with it from here. I really do feel for you. Seeing her as a mutual friend must have really stirred some things up. But maybe it's worth dealing with what the men did to you, not her role in it. Because you don't know why she did what she did, no one really knows what goes on behind closed doors. I hope you find some sort of peace with all of this at some point.

gwenneh

It sounds very much like you want to blame her for your behaviour since you feel badly about it yourself, when in reality, both of you were children.

At 12, you certainly weren't in a position to judge what emotional or abuse issues she might have been experiencing. You still aren't in that position now, having had just a portion of the facts when you were a child yourself.

So yes, YABU.

^
Agree with this, with bells on.

She may have been older but she wasn’t responsible for you, she clearly wasn’t in a good place herself to be behaving like this in the first place either.

I’m puzzled why you are concerned that she has a child?
Things change when you grow up.

" OP, it sounds like you're angry that she's not in her 'box'. You decided long ago that she was a horrible person and now she's a mother herself and seems to be doing well, you're...well frankly jealous! Block her, ignore her and get on with your own life. Be thankful that you never had the horrors she went through.

Are you serious?

You trusted her and looked up to her, so of course you feel angry.

She was older than you, but she was still an easily manipulated child compared to the men who you ended up company with.

If you could go back in time and meet her, she would seem very young and vulnerable to adult you.

There is a tendency/phenomenon on MN, when the original poster is angry, to immediately jump to the defense of the person they are angry at. Maybe the older girl was abused. But maybe she wasn't. Maybe she was a deeply unpleasant 16 year old thug who groomed a 12 year old - and some of you are being very disingenuous acting like there is no difference between a 16 year old and a 12 year old - into having sex with these men for her own reasons. Perhaps they were even paying her and the OP was too young to notice.

But ganging up against a 12 year old victim of sexual abuse and asking her to empathize with the woman who put her in that situation is disgusting and shameful.

Tensixtysix the OP was being abused at 12 by men in their twenties is that not a horror?

Yes, I agree that often girls in this situation want and need a co-conspirator, they do not intentionally try to groom girls but it is almost like magnets - damaged vulnerable girls tend to attract other vulnerable damaged girls. They don’t want to be alone and will seek out other girls to join in with them. I can very much see how this looks and feels like grooming, although I deep down believe from my own experience it is not the same intention or purpose, but it feels that way. I have been groomed and assaulted by a man and they would try to become your friend with no care for your wellbeing. The line is so very blurry. The difference is a groomer is the person of power, who wields it over their victim to abuse them. It does not sound like this girl was intentionally trying to abuse you or have power over you, but to join in with her activities which she believed she was part of. It’s really hard once you are in this situation to see what is normal, when the men around you are manipulating you emotionally and sexually. A lonely vulnerable couple of girls being abused by older men is a very sad awful situation, the real anger should be directed at the abusers with the power.

In reference to my previous post, I'm an ex police officer. I met far too many young women who had similar experiences to you. I also met many Js. My post is based on my work with the victims and the offenders.

These men prey on girls and boys who want love, care, attention or excitement. They teach them all that they, the men, are the best thing for them, that no one else will care for them or look after them. Even if it is interspersed with violence, fear and terror, the children will keep going back to the men. This continues as the children get older - even into early 20s.

OP, have you ever sought counselling for your experiences? It would be such a valuable thing to do, and help you work through the big issues, not least of all trust, friendship and how you can protect both you and your children in the future

The reason gangs are on the rise is because it appeals to lonely children. They feel like they have a home and a ‘family’.

I think you do not need to empathise with this woman at all, it is simply looking a situation from another/new angle to enable you to move on from how you feel about her

Be thankful that you never had the horrors she went through.

Is this projection?! Did your reading comprehension fail you? The OP was manipulated by an aggressive 16 year old into having sex with older men at the age of 12 and you're asking the OP to have sympathy for her because apparently she had it so much worse, even though we don't have that information.

You've made up your own backstory for her...

OP it is normal to want to blame a fellow victim. It's understandable. It's so much easier to think of how bad this one, relatively powerless girl was, instead of turning your face towards what sounds like multiple adult men who were the real perps. If they were all guilty, the real criminals, then life becomes much scarier and more difficult to manage. Because you may start to look at other men in your life and see those perps and it can tip you into terrible feelings. This girl is distant enough from you that it's safer to hate her, I think.

J was 16 and in a chaotic lifestyle. At that age, even though legally she may be accountable for her actions, the fact is that the vast majority of 16 year old human beings are not able to understand the consequences of their actions. That's simple neurology. Ask any psychiatrist.

She may have just wanted a friend with her. She may have felt lonely and desolate and you were fun, didn't judge her, etc. and, in her very immature mind, that made it ok.
She may have been destructive and nihilistic.
She may have had all sorts of deep seated issues where she just wanted company but also wanted to show she was in power, she could commandeer others to do chaotic things.
She may have wanted to add to the chaos to show herself she had control.
She may have wanted to impress these men, to win their favour and respect.
She may have been told by a man she trusted, years before, perhaps around age 12, that "age was nothing but a number". He may have said that to her to groom her... she may have absorbed it as the truth, as normal. So she may have had no conception that she was being deviant in her behaviour with you.

These are all incredibly common things in grooming.

I do think you aren't sure what grooming can entail, and that's understandable because you are dealing with your own sense of shame and regret, so you're focused on your own experience.

The thing is though, the men in the situation were the actual criminals. You girls were very young and in a chaotic, shit situation with parents and other adults turning a blind eye.

I want you to know, REALLY similar things happened to me and I completely get how upsetting, confusing, horrifying, unfair, etc. it all feels. I'm really sorry this happened to you. You didn't do anything wrong. The men and your parents were the ones who did wrong. xx

The replies get worse and worse on here! The poster was groomed and abused at 12. She hardly speaks about it in real life and yet shes expected to have all this empathy for the person she trusted??

You are definitely directing your anger. You do need to seek some counselling. No one on here is an expert. or from what I've read got the first clue!

OP, I think what you went through is awful, and from such a young age. I get what others say about how J may also have been groomed, but I don't get the levels of anger being directed at you. Those posters are BVU to behave like that towards you.

Elsewhere, there are some posters with good advice and take on your post (eg MaryPeary, onefootinthegrave and brendasumbrella in particular). I would try to take the good from those posts, and be kind to yourself

You're getting a hard time here OP. I hope you can heal in time.

I think you do not need to empathise with this woman at all, it is simply looking a situation from another/new angle to enable you to move on from how you feel about her

Good point, excellently made.

I agree with MaryPeary.

Please understand however, that people can respond to abuse and neglect in their lives in different ways.
Some will become vulnerable.
Some will become defensive and cautious and try to stick to the straight and narrow.
Then there are some who will treat others the way they have been treated - it may give them a sense of power, a sense that nobody can hurt them, or help them cope with feelings of anxiety or powerlessness.

I do not believe that a teenager who came from a loving home would be such a bully, would knowingly expose someone younger than her to danger, or indeed lead the life she was leading even without dragging you down with her. Somebody somewhere taught J to protect herself by bringing a substitute along and throwing that person in harms way, or sweetening a No by offering the alternative. Maybe someone did this to her at home?

I think you should call the NSPCC and talk to someone there about J's past and the fact that she now has children.

J didn't sweeten over time toward you. There is no reason at all to believe that becoming a mother might magically give her a personality transplant, different instincts where young and vulnerable people are concerned, or a moral compass.
I would therefore be concerned about her children.

A call to the NSPCC wouldn't be about 'going after her' or revenge. It would be done in order to put her children on the radar. They may well need this.

Do you happen to know if the children all have the same father? Does she seem to have a steady relationship?

I also strongly urge you to look for a counselor or therapist to talk about all that happened to you when you were young. You seem to have managed to get back on track and to be leading a healthy life, but please don't let shame hold you back from taking a proper look at all you went through, with the help of a therapist .

@Thechangednameoftheday I’m really sorry for what you’ve been through. If you’ve never had any support to process what has happened then seeing this woman on SM is bound to be triggering, and discovering that she has children almost the same age that you were is bound to be triggering also.

It’s natural to wonder about how her behaviour as you know it might impact on her family.

It’s also natural to feel a whole range of emotions as some of your past has suddenly been dragged into the present. You might find that things that you’re feeling now are harder to suppress than in the past and some counselling or support could be really helpful to you.

It’s a difficult thing to reflect on this girl’s behaviour at the time through adult eyes. You are thinking about her behaviour in the context of a normal 16 year old, but as a child yourself it’s likely that there were things going on for her that you just didn’t see. That doesn’t mean that what she did wasn’t wrong, but it does provide context.

I think you are getting a hard time here as well. It’s perfectly possible for this girl to both be a victim and also be part of your abuse, by making it easier for you to be in the unsafe situations that she herself was also in. I guess people are saying see the victim she was too. You did trust her, and she did not look after you. But you trusted her.

You also trusted your Mum and Dad would keep you safe, and they didn’t. And that those men who made the choice to sleep with you, they did not keep you safe either but they directly abused you. These are the people who abused you or let you down more than this girl.

However I imagine you trying to process this is not a straight forward clear thing. Anger will pop up and in a way, this girl as your only friend, when you had no one to turn to, she was someone you really invested in.

I’d get good counselling to work through it. Those men who abused you have not been bought to account. They did it. They should be bought to justice.

I hadn't considered counselling for this no, primarily because I suppressed it all out of shame and it's painful to talk about. I couldn't tell you why I thought MN would be a good place to offload, I regret that big time.

Just because I haven't been able to instantaneously change my feelings after reading replies telling me I'm wrong doesn't mean I'm not listening. The way I feel is based on years of unprocessed trauma, stemming from the experienceexperiences of a child.

It is entirely possible I could go away from this thread and over the coming days/weeks have a change of perspective, but it's a bit shit to pile on me because that change of perspective doesn't come straight away. Can a therapist change somebodies thought processes on childhood trauma in one session?

If I weren't so upset I would laugh at (trixies?) suggestion that I'm jealous of J because she's doing well in life, what makes you so sure that she is? How do you know that I haven't gone on to lead a successful life myself? What a bullshit comment that was to make.

I could fill another three pages with examples of the horrible things J has said and done during the time I knew her but I won't waste my time because it's very clear that she is above reproach here and all of her wrong doings are as a result of being groomed, allegedly.

Some PP's have brought a very good point to the thread - how do you know she was groomed? I mean, she might have been, but is it not also possible that she wasn't.

Not all shit behaviour and lack of moral compass can be attributed to CSA.

I didn't go on to push 12 year olds into drink drugs and sex even though it happened to me, nor would I try to downplay what I had done if I did.

If she did go through trauma before I knew her then of course my heart goes out to her, except all I saw was a 16 year old who is legally able to have sex - enjoying herself doing that and enjoying getting high. I saw her pursuing older guys, I never saw her being pressurised or manipulated into doing anything she didn't want to do. I can remember many, many occasions where she initiated situations we shouldn't have been in and actively sought out men to 'party' with.

Whatever her reasons for behaving the way she did she had no business encouraging little girls to do the same. Ok so some young teenagers will sneak alcohol to experiment with their friends, but actively encouraging a 12 year old who had yet to start their periods, to have sex, is wrong. Whatever the history.

At 16 you absolutely know not to push 12 year olds into sex.

I saw a thread on here last year where a teenage boy in secondary school was being called a pervert and sexual deviant because he was showing younger children porn (friends of his sibling whom were visiting)

There was uproar towards the teenage boy, no suggestion he had been groomed.

If we forget that J pushed the OP into doing things she should never have done, are people also saying that the OP should see how hard things were when J was a bully?
I mean there are many bullies around, and I havent seen many people saying they are victims themselves (even though they probably are) and should be supported by their victims.

And I havent seen many people addressing the issue the OP raised, mainly that it seems that Justice/judges would still consider such a behaviour to be some sort of grooming, even if J might have bene groomed herself in the first place. So what makes the case of the OP so different?

Lastly, I am inerested by the automatic assumption that J was abused/groomed herself. I mean I can see that someone who is ben groomed wouod behave that way. But does it automatically mean that anyone wo grooms anpother person/a child has been abused/groomed themselves?
aka I think thisis a simplistic analysis. J might or might not have been groomed. t could certainly be an explaination but I doubt this is the only one.

@Thechangednameoftheday, fwiw I agree with some pp that counselling would be a good idea. It is hard, a very hard thing you have been going through.And it is nor surprising that some things will be big triggers for you. You owe it to yourself to tke care of yourself an dgive yourself the suport you would wish your dcs were getting IF they were in such position themselves.

I've got sympathy for you. I look back and feel deeply uncomfortable about some of the things I willingly did with older men as a younger teen and it does bring up conflicting feelings. I wonder why my parents were absolutely fine with a 35 year old man driving their 15 year old daughter back from the pub, or why they let me date a 26 year old when I was 16 and move in with him.

My parents and yours should have done a better job at protecting us, but your friend was not an adult at the time or when she had fallen into these circles and I don't think you can blame her. She's a victim too. It's the men involved who are at fault so try if you can to direct your rightful anger towards them.

OP I want to apologise if you feel you have been flamed. I definitely didn't want to make you feel bad, or that any of your feelings are invalid. You had a rough time of it as a kid, you were abused and nothing will ever change that. You were not to blame.

All that I, and other posters were saying, was that the other girl wasn't to blame either, and focusing on her is not healthy FOR YOU.

The blame lies solely with the men who did this to you, her, and probably others as well. With your parents, who weren't looking after you as they should have done.

I hope in time you can find some peace. Take care.

J has no idea how you feel or how this has affected you now. (Even empathy she would never know about, not that I think you should feel empathetic as I said). So she wouldn’t be ‘winning’ anything more from you if you tried to look at things in a more balanced way. The person who would gain is you.

You need to think about what you want to achieve from this. If you want her to feel your pain and feelings, or whether you really know she is abusing her children. Potentially there is the element that not only do you open up old wounds for you, you do her too and turn her life upside down, and you can’t undo it once you have done it. It’s not a decision to take lightly, and there will be consequences

If you deep down want her to feel your pain, this is not the right way to do it, and partly why some people are describing another angle. Nothing is always as clear at it seems on the surface, and wanting her to know how you feel is really normal.