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Poll Are You More Angry At Your Perpetrating Parent Or Your Parent That Did Not Protect You?

Are You More Angry At Your Perpetrating Parent Or Your Parent That Did Not Protect You?

  • Perpetrating parent

    Votes: 94 43.9%
  • Parent that did not protect

    Votes: 133 62.1%
  • Does not apply to me

    Votes: 21 9.8%

  • Total voters
    214
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Unfortunatly what you endured is all too common.
You will never forget but I believe a good quality of life is possible.
The blaming was also abuse and there is the possibility your mother knew and stewed in jealousy for many years. Pure speculation on my part. I only know what I experienced.
Therapy is important and self-awareness. Recognizing when you are emotionally in the present moment or ireacting to the past is constant work.
We can’t change our past but it is possible to change our present selves.
You will never find a “why” that will lessen the pain.
You can help yourself by recognizing how your justified anger is affecting you & how your past is negatively impacting your current relationships. Including and most importantly your relationship with yourself.
Channel it for good or let it go. Easier said than done I know all too well.

I wish you peace.

Alice
 
I voted "perpetrating parent" but my opinion has changed. I´m now more angry at the "parent that did not protect".

I think as you work through your trauma, your emotions change and possibly the way you feel about the power balance between your parents, and between you and your parents.
 
I'm more angry at the parent who did not protect because she was the one who had been the adult for a while. My father was not in the picture, my brother was the elder of the two of us and the a**hole. But basically if she had minded her kids just one bit and not allowed one to constantly hurt the other by putting the blame on the abused one, she might actually have tried something - anything, really.
 
Both of my parents were abusive but my father was the worst so I have more anger towards him naturally now but many, many years ago I had incredible amounts of anger towards my mother.
 
I am more angry with the perpetrating parent because she left my Dad and abused him and gaslit him and demoralized him as well.

I'm angry at him also though, he did respond by putting me in an adolescent unit for a short while when my symptoms ground me to a very self-harming, avoidy, and self-starving halt but when told by them that I'd likely been sexually abused, he did and said nothing and organized no follow up support after being discharged. Huge negligence on his part. Let me move out into the world, knowing I was very unwell, at 16. He's responsible for the endangerment and hell I've gotten stuck in after that through failing to be the responsible, protective parent, (I'm finally out now, but have another 20+ years of abuse to recover from) Really shit parenting.

He knew she was abusive and all he ever said to me was "Be good for your mother". I was like "what about her being good to me?" No response. Negligence and enabling abusers is still abuse.
 
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I am still struggling with this. I was 7 when my older brother started molesting me. I had two other brothers that never touched me and were older than he. Typical single parent household, Dad divorced Mom when I was 2 because he was a drunk and did not want all the responsibility anymore. Mom had to go back to work to keep everything going. This was the open invitiation to my sick brother who desperately needed to feel power over someone, and unfortunately, I was it. It went on for a while (under a year) when I finally couldn’t handle it and told a older gal I was friends with down the street. She adamantly told me I HAD to tell my Mother, which I was terrified of doing, he had threatened me if I ever told. She (my friend) was so insistent that she agreed to go with me to tell my Mom. What a disaster! Mom was more pissed she was there instead of what I was trying to tell her. My brother stood there saying, “She’s lying Mom!”
It was never brought up again except for being scolded for having my friend there making such an announcement. The abuse continued.
I was scared to death now, my own Mom did not believe nor came to my protection. I knew if I told my father (an former marine) he would have beaten my brother beyond all recognition and same goes for telling my other brothers. Though that sounds like I should have, I knew he would beat me to a pulp the moment we were alone again. So, I stayed quiet for self preservation. I carried that awful feeling of dirty, worthlessness every single day knowing there wasn’t a damn thing I could do, after all, I was a child, I had nowhere to run.
Eventually, the physical became less and less but he was always sure to pinch my rear when I walked by him, a little gesture to make sure I never forgot “who had control over me.” I grew up vehemently hating him but had to pretend all was fine to keep some semblence of peace in the house.
One day, he pushed me over the line with his behavior and it all came pouring out like a flood. I let him have it and called him out for what he did to me. First he denied it, then he tried telling me he had me under hypnosis and it was my imagination. He did try convincing me of that when he was abusing me, I knew it was bs then. Then he actually said, “That’s how you wanted it.” I was stunned! I started shaking in disbelief. Again, I made the mistake of reaching out to my Mother ( now as an adult ) and she assured me she would take care of it. The next day, she told me if we ( my brother and I ) could not work things out amongst ourselves, we could both move out of the house! I felt like I had been punched in the stomach. I had no money, nowhere to go, so I begged an old man who was my current boyfriends landlord, if I could move in with him and he took pity on me and said yes. If he had not, I would have lived in my car before I spent one more night under the same roof as my abuser who just told me “That’s how I wanted it.”
I am now almost 50, I FOOLISHLY agreed to care for my Mom who was diagnosed with dementia. She asked me, I did NOT volunteer. I also knew my brothers would shove her in a nursing home, where she had spent most of her life working as an RN in. Why oh why did I agree to this? I knew I would have to let my brother back in my life with her being with me and my husband but I figured since he was married with a child, he would behave like an adult. Mistake again. He was coming over all the time, extorting money from her for everything from toilet paper to bills that were overdue. I told him to knock it off, she was on a limited budget and she could not afford to take him out to eat three times a week and writing him checks. He ignored me and kept adding on. I finally told him he was finished, I have DPOA and POA and I no longer wanted him on the property ( which I do have that right ) and that sparked the war again. Now I am being called every awful thing, accused of elder abuse, not allowig him to see my Mother ( which I never did ) she THE COWARD will not and never did stand up for me and it’s too late now. He has become a Jesus Freak and is trying to appeal himself as “the good and righteous one” and I am the awful, unforgiving sister that will not be allowed into Heaven because I will not forgive him. He still has never assumed responsibility for ruining my life, owned what he did even though he does admit he abused me but......he doesn’t know why he did it, how God could have allowed him to do such things, he was a stupid kid, etc.etc. I HATE him. I do struggle with my anger towards my Mom because I know she could have stopped it, but never had the guts. Now that she has dementia, he is claiming I have brainwashed her and turned her against him. She does not want to spend time with him and his wife and can’t even just tell him that. Better to blame the scapegoat. I long for the day I never have to see or hear from him again. I am still being harrassed to this very day. Thanks Mom.
 
I don't know... go back and forth I think

This has changed in the last month. It is 100% the perpetrator I'm blaming. He's insane. Of course the other parent didn't do anything -- it would have been dangerous.

She made incredibly unwise decisions, but at least she actually loved us and cared about us. She did her best.


I am still struggling with this. I was 7 when my older brother started molesting me. I had two other brothers that neve...
Wow, that's awful. I'm so sorry to hear that happened to you.

If you want to, you can start your own thread about that -- I think a lot of people here may be able to give you advice or support.

I hope you're hanging in there okay. He sounds awful.
 
I don't have any real sustained anger at either. I think that when I was, it would go back-and-forth depending on what I was dealing with. But I've come to recognize that my father was just crazy and my mom was having her own issues with him that she didn't know how to escape, so I'm mostly not angry anymore.
 
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