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Poll Your Children And Your Abuser

Have you allowed your child/children to be around your abuser?


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on top of that to lose your family has left me totally flattened.
Ms Spock, this is totally devastating for you. It is a fundamental betrayal in so many ways. I think it's very impressive that despite everything you were the one person that had a sense of truth and self preservation. I think it shows a great inner strength for you although I am sure it feels like a hollow victory.

I am not sure how old you were when you confronted this and how it played out. I don't know if authorities were involved or if you told one or all members in the family. I think when members do this and reject the victim they have serious issues of some type themselves. healthy good parents or family will always immediately nurture and care for the victim and take serious steps to protect them. There were obviously very serous deficits in the rest of your family Ms Spock and that hurts a lot.

I am talking about a very different scenario where everyone would be told - all family members, friends, neighbours and so forth. There would be no secret keeping. There would be no alibis given.
Who would tell all family members in this scenario? Would the same family members that chose to silence and push you away have had the capacity to do something like this? If you go back to your situation then how would it be different. If you had social services involved then I can understand it could be dealt with differently if they didn't tell everyone. Then again I imagine their are legal repercussions and social services may need to have a trial and proof before telling everyone in that way. I would imagine it would be defamation of character if authorities started telling family members and neighbours. And how would it go to trial if it didn't go to trial before? What would make family members start doing what they should have done?

The question is how you get a dysfunctional family to do what they need to for the child to be supported and protected. If you tell one person that person does not have the abilities or functionality to take the right actions. They obviously didn't then when you told. To me it is this lack of functionality that would have to change for you not to loose your family Ms Spock.. All other outcomes depend on it.

It happens so often in families when abuse comes out. I think it vividly shows the dysfunction and lacks in these families that it happens in. Abuse is one devastating part of the puzzle but when there is no good parenting either then that creates great lacks and pain for children. There is no one giving them what they need. I find it interesting seeing how much one supportive and nurturing person in child's life adds to resilience. I think it is that isolation and lack of even one person that seems to compound the damage so much.

For me I have started coming to terms with the fact that my mother does not have the capacity to give me what I need. My family does not work that way and sadly I have no power over that. Accepting that felt like a death as it is a death in a way. The death of the possibility of the parent I needed and need.

Happy to agree to disagree Ms Spock. :)
 
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So a good parent who has a healthy attachment with their child
The main problem is how you turn a parent who is not a good enough parent and who does not have a healthy attachment to their child into what you describe here. It would normally take years and years of therapy and often the person doesn't have the capacity to want to do that therapy or be motivated to change. In the meantime they don't have the skills or mindset to be implementing the type of programme you are talking about.

The type of person that would have the capacity to carefully supervise a child will already automatically be doing it.

So when informed, mindful and thoughtful people go back - with plans and strategies.
I think this is one of the main problems I see. These families are unlikely to be mindful and thoughtful sadly.

If a survivor and his or her child has contact with the perpetrator then every thing has to be discussed and on the table - which doesn't happen if the survivor stays away
It doesn't have anything to do with the survivor not being in contact with the perpetrator in my opinion. Everything can be discussed and put on the table regardless.

So a good parent who has a healthy attachment with their child - they simple won't bother
A lot of perpetrators won't go near a child like this but how do you turn that dysfunctional parent into what you describe here? Keeping a perpetrator around has nothing to do with managing to do this. Education is key in helping parents to be better parents and one can teach a child about grooming, especially if the family has intergenerational abuse, but keeping a perpetrator around has no relevance to this.

If there is a contact centre then I can accept that as a possible option. There will be people there that are motivated to make sure the child is protected.

What do you feel about the discomfort of a child that is not being abused on a physical level but is still picking up sexual vibes from a perpetrator that offends their boundaries?
 
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I will never allow my kids near my abusers. In fact that is my biggest fear. I don't want my daughter to go through what they have done to me. At some point I was planning on not to have any kids. But now I feel if I do have kids they will be kept 1000s of miles away from my abusers.
 
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