Any Stately Homes peeps around? (TW: CSA)

[familyfuckup]

I'm sorry this is so long and miserable.

I got a (cheerful) text from my stepsister (DSSis) this morning and I've been in a weird unsettled mood ever since. She and I are sporadically in touch but have a fraught history. DSSis was subjected to horrific CSA by my father. I was largely protected because I lived with my mum and my father and his family made an effort to be normal when I was around EOW. When DSSis told me about the abuse as a young adult I immediately cut ties with my father and his wife and, later, with his side of the family.

DSSis's mother (my stepmother), who was aware of the SA and whom he also violently abused, stayed with my father until he died a few years ago. Both were alcoholics; he's dead now and she's still drinking.

DSSis is rebuilding her relationship with her mum and a bit of spin is creeping into our conversations, that her mum was a victim, talking about us all getting together etc. When I asked if her mum was drinking, DSSis minimised it ('She's cutting down'). It's as though my father is now dead and we can be a family again.

My father was a horrible, frightening person who intimidated adults around him into minimising his faults and crimes. He had five brothers and sisters (two of whom were also his victims), all of them and their spouses knew about him and only one of his sisters took a stand, reporting him to the police multiple times. He was welcomed into the homes of the others, even though I know now that some relatives made sure their children were never alone with him. His wife was taken aside by my aunts and offered help to leave him but refused. I understand it's not cut and dried, she was both a victim and failed to protect her children/actively exposed them to abuse.

I'm 100% uninterested in having any contact at all with my stepmother. I don't want to hear about her life, how she's doing, how she misses me etc. That episode of my life seems like a bad dream. I actually used to have awful nightmares about running into them in public, or about my father looking for me to hurt me.

DSSis and I have been in touch on and off over the intervening 30+ years. I respect her and she's done a lot of therapeutic work to deal with what happened to her. She is very decent. But she and I have our own views about our childhood and family. Sometimes she drops hurtful anecdotes into our conversation, like something our parents said to her about me behind my back. She remembers things differently. I feel like I want to have some kind of relationship with her but I'm not sure if it's possible, it feels too delicate and I already have a pile of childhood shit on my plate, I don't really want to discover more.

I'm not even sure what I'm asking here, I guess Idk if it's possible for two people with this sort of painful history to have a positive relationship that looks forward instead of continually raking through all the nightmarish childhood stuff. I'm not sure how to establish boundaries with DSSis under these circumstances. And worst of all I feel transported back to being a powerless and passive child who just watched and waited.

There is the matter that I was (thankfully) not abused, or not in the overt and horrific ways the rest of them were. I feel like a cuckoo or something. The 'CSA survivor' milieu (books, groups etc) isn't for me. I'm in this weird position where I know a lot about awful abusive predatory sexual behaviour, collusion and victimisation happening around me and affecting many of the people I grew up trusting, loving, relying on.

Aside from fucking up your head this is such a burden, wtf can you do with it?? DM and DH know about it, I don't want to tell friends about it, it's so ugly and stigmatising. I have a long relationship with a good counsellor. I hate talking about it but I guess I'll have to pick it up again.

I have a happy and robust relationship with my very loving and supportive DH (who had a good childhood with excellent parents) and we've discussed but I suspect he thinks I should just draw a line under it all and be done with all of them.

Thanks SH folk.

I'm sorry many members of your family have been through all that at the hands of your father. You too are a victim , it sounds like your mental health and relationships with your family are effected as well and understandably , you are still working through it.
Do you and your step sister have the sort of relationship where you could have a frank conversation where you both acknowledge her experience , but she gives you space to share yours as well ?
Just because she is working out how to have a relationship with her mother , doesn't mean you have to as well .

I agree that you too are a survivor of this. I've actually been trying for a few years to figure out what to call 'us' - those of us who were victimised by families where child sexual abuse was normalised and who have had to cut ties with our families of origin, but who were not abused by these family members ourselves.

Your experiences are very similar to mine. My mum met and married her partner (my stepfather) after he was convicted of sexually abusing his daughter. He even told her on their first date (!!), so she's always known and she is certain he'd never do it again - because 'people can change' and she thinks he's nice (and rich! I'm sure that helped). They've been together nearly 20 years now. I wasn't abused by him (though did experience abuse as a child), but it's destroyed my life more than any abuse every could. It's the sense of betrayal by the people who should have put someone good, who didn't do anything wrong, ahead of someone who is a monster. My mum chose him over us and she hasn't seen her grandchildren in years. We don't matter, nor to her lifelong friends, as she lives in this strange isolated pretend bubble with just him. The stories she tells people about why all of their children and grandchildren have NC with them are complete fictions. I know what she tells people about me is not true, and it's a very similar story about his daughters, so I expect that's all made up as well.

But it's a weird place to be because CSA destroyed my family, but I wasn't the one who was abused, though I'm the only one (besides his daughter) who has ever spoken out about it. Everyone else just plays happy families. Interestingly, I have no relationship with my 'stepsisters' - one hasn't spoken to him in nearly 20 years, but the daughter who was abused does get in touch every few years and they still have some contact. It's weird to me, but I think it's part of the unhealthy, enmeshed dynamic they have, which is all part of the abuse. I do see my mum as a 'victim' of sorts. She has been groomed to accept this dynamic as normal and unproblematic. Doesn't mean she isn't still responsible for the consequences of her actions, all the damage she has caused others and how turning a blind eye may have allowed him to abuse others (which I have been told is the case since they have been together).

The main thing I wanted to say though is that, this doesn't have to be your story. No one owes anyone anything and you can't wish your family was healthy and well and functional when they're not. Only you can decide whether, on the balance of things, a relationship with your DSSis is worth the anguish. I had to go NC with my mum and extended family. I held on for quite a long time hoping she would see the light, leave him, want us to be a healthy, normal family, to keep her grandchildren safe. But she didn't want any of that. And I couldn't have her half in/half out, for my own wellbeing, because while she was still living in that fog, every interaction was gaslighting and passive-aggressiveness and nasty comments about me and my parenting all because she was angry I wouldn't sweep what happened under the rug. I couldn't live like that. I let her go and moved on with my life and I'm the happiest I've been in years without all the drama.

I do think you are right though that there is a missing narrative around the trauma caused to people affected by CSA in families. You don't have to be the one who was abused for it to have a massive detrimental impact on your life, but unfortunately, there is very little support for us.

Thanks for your compassionate reply.

Yes, I'm sure I could start that conversation and she would be receptive. Maybe I'll lay it out in an email though, she surprises me with revelations I didn't want to hear on the phone and then I can't unhear them.

DSSis is very evolved, but she also has her own personal agenda which I suspect is something to do with not being alone, with having her own experience confirmed. But I can't do that, I don't agree with how she sees some things.

I feel like she wants to make it okay for me to disclose my own abuse to her. But then we're getting into recovered memory syndrome territory, as I have no memory of CSA. Yes, some inappropriate things, some traumatic events that I remember clearly, and a lot of shit parenting. But I don't fancy giving her a list that she can agree or disagree with. She wants me to confirm that when she was in her bed and I was in mine that my father used to leave her alone because he was abusing me instead. But that's not my experience.

She also sees herself as someone who wanted to protect and save me but she was unable to (she's only four years older). But I don't remember it that way at all, she was kind of horrible to me in an older sister way.

I need to be more upfront about my own boundaries I guess. I had hoped we'd just rediscover a pleasant friendship but it will need more imposed on it.

Remember everyone has their own story , and it's not a race to the bottom to see who wins out on bad experiences.

Thanks for your reply, this was very helpful. And I'm sorry for what you've been through.

I'm so glad you reached out and told your story as a non-victim victim (substitute your preferred phrase), it has made me feel less alone. I'm going to go back and re-read it so I take it all in, it's so similar to my own situation.

I couldn't have anticipated what a bomb site this would make of my family. After it all came out I never saw my grandparents again. Six siblings in my dad's family, all married with two or three children, so cousins in double digits.

I have three sisters. One is Team Dad, very self-centred and self-righteous (trying not to call her a narcissist because that's a diagnosis I'm not qualified to make, draw your own conclusions). One sister (different mum, lived far away) was a secret until she was an adult, so I barely know her and am not interested in being in touch. There is very little to recover. Just maybe this on-again off-again relationship between me and DSSis.

I should also say I'm an only child - my mother's only, raised in my mother's home. So it's like one part of my life (admittedly made of some bad stuff but also just usual random experiences, memories, relationships etc) has just fallen off. This is good in many ways, it's not hard to separate the two strands and hold one closer than the other.

I think of my dad and his wife as ground zero.

The next circle is people who knew explicitly what was happening and refused to act. My lovely uncles, some with tiny daughters, who heard their wives' and sisters' stories and refused to change anything about their lives. I feel so let down by these men.

The next circle is people who heard about it thirdhand but took my dad's side, acted like nothing was wrong.

The next circle is (sorry) the adult victims who didn't even warn my mum. I was in touch with them for years but when the penny dropped that they were still seeing him and going along with everything for a quiet life I cut ties.

Everyone wants their own story to be the right story but when awful things happen in secret everyone legitimately has a different story. So then people are defensive and/or try to tell you you're remembering wrong, even the blameless people who were children at the time have reasons for pushing their own version.

I'm lucky that my own dear mother, for all her human faults, is my biggest fan and cheerleader. She's met me where I am without defensiveness and she'll always let me be right about my own story. And ffs she got away from him very early on! Eventually my bolshy aunt got away too, although she had been abused, was eaten up with bitterness and had two terrible, damaging marriages. And DSSis worked multiple jobs as a teen, saved money and got away as soon as she was of age. So it could be done, even by people who were vulnerable and at a disadvantage. Which is why I feel so strongly about the ones who chose to stay and pretend.

Thanks again for your reply.

Yes, thanks for that. It's such a weird dynamic. Like if bad things happen to you you have to hear that it happened to everyone in order for things to make sense, or to feel blameless or validated or something.

I'm happy to acknowlege my childhood memories, experiences etc with the understanding that some awful people were present. What I don't want to do is pretend we can go back and see it all clearly now as adults and agree on the details.

Still working it out in my own head tbh, 30+ years on.