My Mom Was Molested, Too?!?

[angel2write]

My mom just told me she slept with one of her uncles when she was sixteen. In her words, he "seduced" her and she never told anyone because she felt equally to blame. He didn't ask her to keep it secret. He flirted her into bed and said they should continue because they were in a "relationship."

She tried to tell my dad about it recently, but he told her to shut up, he had enough problems already. She never told anyone in the family before (supposedly- she's kind of crackers) because she didn't want to "hurt her favorite aunt" or her cousin, who was her best friend. She had sex with her cousin's dad on her cousin's bed. How was this not going to hurt them? What was she thinking? She said he didn't coerce or frighten her at all. I said, "Well, he was an adult authority figure and you were living in his house..." and she stopped me and said, "No, he was just really charming." WTF????:confused:

Then she caught the man kissing another young cousin in the kitchen. She says he "tomcatted around with half the county." She was really furious when she was talking about this.

This whole thing makes me kind of sick. Half of me wants to pat my mom and sympathize and offer support (which I did when she was telling me). And half of me wants to say, "Wait! This is not a get out of jail free card. What happened to you was bad, but the way you dealt with it was worse." You abused and neglected me for years. You abused and neglected my siblings. You isolated us, lied to us, manipulated us, stayed with an abusive man, failed to protect us, and blamed me for the terrible sin of getting molested when I was six. You don't get to pity-mouth now and tell me how sad your life was.

Then I flip back to thinking, well, it was really sad. She was shocked, manipulated, isolated, statutory raped... She deserved support. Her mom neglected her, didn't help her, still flirts with her abuser...

Then I flip again and remember the horrible scene she threw when the doctor said I'd been molested and how she screamed at me and called me a filthy lying slut and demanded to know why I was lying and how many boys I'd slept with.... and I hate her again.

I can't wrap my head around this.

 

[Sqweak]

It's a lot to wrap one's head around. It's such an explosive thing to learn about someone close to you. It's your mother the person who should have protected you was also a victim when her mother should have protected her. Why is it some people who are abused continue the cycle? I wish it wasn't like that.

 

[Kintsugi]

Angel,

I want to tell you something more, or more valuable, but because I relate to this so closely I have few words. My mother told me that she was molested by her brother as a kid in the most vague and provocative way possible after seeing me go into a fit of flashbacks and attempt to break my skull against the corner of my bedroom wall. Months earlier, she suspected I was lying about my brother abusing me. I found out not too much later that she was date raped in college by a Narc trying to get closer to her brother through her. I have no words for that. I still don't know what to do with that.

BUT it certainly is NOT get-out-of-jail free card! Don't let her extract your pity. If anything, I believe that this disclosure should force her into more accountability for how you suffered. YOU have no reason to apologize for her abuse. YOU didn't abuse her. Everyone needs to put blame where it is due, and she has her hands full. Don't let her try to pass that off onto you. It would be just as good in my mind as passing it off onto the six-year-old you were.

(((((((Angel)))))))

 

[ProductOfSociety]

I can definitely relate. While I was a child my mother knew someone was messing with me. My area was red and in pain yet instead of looking more into the situation she told everyone that she took me to the doctor and I was allergic to the soap. For a decade or so I had thought that the only soap I could use was dial. Come to find out she had been raped daily by her father as a child. She had suspected that it was my father doing the same.
My mother made some really... really... terrible decisions through out my life, ones that I thought I may never be able to forgive her for. I was really mad at her for the longest time. Hearing her voice, seeing her face, anything to do with her just made me rage. I had no respect for her and for the longest time we didn't get along.
Do you live with her? If so, I suggest trying to escape. Putting distance between my mother and I really seemed to help our relationship. It made her realize how she drove me away, how she had made so many unforgivable mistakes.
I don't know if you will ever be able to wrap your mind around your mother and the things she has told you. I can only hope that any constant anger you have towards her eventually goes away. Eventually perhaps you two can sit down and have a talk about what has happened and how it has affected you. However, it may not be a while before that can happen. For years I tried to tell my mom why I couldn't stand her and only recently did it get through her head. The only reason I forgive her is because I know she constantly beats herself up over it. Our situations are different so I don't know if you will ever be able to get to that point with her or not.
Just don't let her get the best of you. It takes a lot of energy to hate. It's not worth it, and you may not get rid of it anytime soon but I hope maybe one day that you can.

Also remember that your mothers situation is different than your own, so is her way of thinking.
There is no good excuse for how she responded to you. I know it makes it harder knowing she has been through something too. One would think she would be more understanding but that's not always the case. Just try and not focus on her so much and try and focus on yourself. Don't let her get the best of you with the things she has said or may say. I know it's tough hearing the negative things she may say from time to time, but disregard it. Just remember that you don't deserve that.
In any case, I really do suggest distancing yourself if any way possible though.
=/

I typed more than I had expected.

 

[anthony]

Wow... that is one hell of a predicament Angel.... :ninja:

 

[Froggie]

((((Angel2write)))), my mother was also abused and she made awful mistakes. There was a time were she did get help ... but didn't take it ... I totally agree with ProductOfSociety, I also put physical distance between my mother and me and I never let her keep my children, I just couldn't trust her as she was so mentally unstable ... still is. I do talk to her once in a while and one of my brothers and I are co-responsable tutors with one of her cousins that she chose as the legal tutor. Do I love her, no, I feel pity, that's all. I find MissAntiSunshine has many words of wisdom especially on the transfert of responsability. You are doing good venting this hurt out. Linking arms and burning a candle for you.

 

[Srain]

((((((((((((((((((((((((Angel)))))))))))))))))))))

I'm going to be extremely honest with you, take or leave it but I'm saying this as a daughter of an abused mother and a mother of two sons. Just as I was remembering my abuse from my father and my mother was admitting that she walked in my father doing this to me and walked out "because she was in shock and blacked it out". She threw everything at me, how my father broke her arm, cheated on her with the woman in her house and he ended up marrying, her grandfather molested her, my father isolated her, and on and on. All very true, however, every time I tried to talk about what happened she chimed in about how much she hated my father and what he did to HER, oh and me, deflecting herself.

It wasn't that I couldn't understand or empathized as a woman BUT she used me as her therapist for years. She saw a therapist once! That's it and she was 'fine'. I knew it was wrong but I hung onto her, as the only one that stood with me in the family when nobody else would but the truth is she was the guiltiest and she was my mother! She, above all others was really never even close to being the mother she should have been and she should know better because her mother never was but her mother was severely mentally ill, she is not. She was very aware she chose to DEFLECT my attention and use my emotional concern.She has always used me for her own purposes.

Don't fall for it. Protect yourself. A parent should never burden a child, no matter how old, when they are going through so much. They should be there for their children, own their responsibility, listen, and console. NOT divert with pity about all the woe is me stories about what happened to them!! That's absurd! Your mother is surely old enough and capable enough to get someone else to help her deal with her issues other than you. Suggest she get someone to discuss the aftermath of such an experience but your plate is full. I'd be curious as to what your tdoc says about this.

It's not to say I haven't gone back and forth as to whether or not to tell my kids about my past to help explain my actions when they were younger but with help and feedback the truth is it doesn'y matter when it comes to them, only hey do and what they feel. I go through having to be reminded of that. Most of the time I know that but sometimes the lines blur as I am a child with a parent too. My kids don't need to know, I understand that since my father is dead. They are now grown and have made their decisions about me. How they feel is ALL that matters to me and that is the way it should be. I take full responsibility for all mistakes I've made in the past just as I have always done. Unlike my mother, I have never tried to deflect them by cutting my kids off by throwing out my trauma's as an excuse. I can't imagine.

The only reason it ever came up was 1. my father was alive and a serious threat when they were kids due to my ex's being so naive and brothers being in denial and 2. for them to understand my odd behaviour towards him.

Angel, your instincts and gut are right, go with them.

Rain

 

[angel2write]

All very true, however, every time I tried to talk about what happened she chimed in about how much she hated my father and what he did to HER, oh and me, deflecting herself.... It wasn't that I couldn't understand or empathized as a woman BUT she used me as her therapist for years.

Yeah- it does feel like being "used." I've been my mother's care-taker all my life. My father literally held me responsible for keeping her "happy." She isolated herself so much she has no one else to talk to. When she was having trouble with my dad, I was her confidant. I had to hear about all their marital problems. I was her only friend, and I was forced to be constantly available to "talk" to her & keep her company. I felt like... well, I guess used is the best word. She was never really interested in me as a person, just as a receptacle. And nothing has changed.

Your mother is surely old enough and capable enough to get someone else to help her deal with her issues other than you.

I wish, but at this point her mental and physical issues have caught up with her to the point that I'm not sure she's capable of living alone. My dad is dying and she has late-stage Huntington's disease. My sis and I had a conversation and we've (Thank GOD) agreed that neither of us should try to take her into our homes. We're looking into an assisted living situation. I think I could handle having her in the same town with me now, but not in the same house. If she was here all day every day leeching off of me emotionally I think I would kill either her or myself.

It's not to say I haven't gone back and forth as to whether or not to tell my kids about my past to help explain my actions when they were younger ... I take full responsibility for all mistakes I've made in the past just as I have always done. Unlike my mother, I have never tried to deflect them by cutting my kids off by throwing out my trauma's as an excuse.

I really respect this stand. I really do. It amazes me any time I get on here and read about people making good decisions about child-raising when their childhoods were so much worse than my parents. I think for years I've excused my parent's abuse by saying "well, they were abused, too." But nothing like what you went through. Or even what I went through at their hands. And the decisions they made were so evil... If they were hurt, they did nothing to try and heal themselves. They just went with it. They multiplied the evil to the next generation. And that wasn't right.

 

[SimplyComplex]

Man, I am so sorry. I can relate too. My mom told me and a car load of my friends about how she had sex with her brother when she was 12. I was 13 at the time and truly horrified. I mean, for so many reasons it was just the biggest shock. One of which was she loved this brother and, up until then, had acted like he was a hero. So I loved him too (even though he was a jerk). She told me it was "incest" and abuse and not her fault. Yes, my mother taught a car full of 13 year old girls the word "incest".

At the time, I didn't really think it was abuse. They were close in age and I sort of knew my mom to be a bit...manipulative. And I was more feeling victimized by what she did to me and my friends to feel sorry for her. Recently I found photos of her and her family when she was young, and the realization that it was abuse kicked in. She was very impressionable and aching for attention. My heart broke for her. Seeing the child-like expression on her face, just wanting to be loved and cared about. Truth is, she was abused by many people, many times. And that is so sad.

It doesn't change anything though, does it? Does it change how she then abused me? How she allowed me to be abused by her abusers? That she then tortured me to try to make herself feel better about her abuse? Nope. But I guess it helps me see the bigger picture about why my healing and recovering is so very important for my children. And I have more empathy for her...but still, having her in my life is too big a price to pay for my family. So it doesn't change that.

I think recognizing her abuse as abuse helps me come to terms with the abuse I suffered at the same age at the hands of young men. It is amazing to me still that she was so "ok" with my involvement with older guys at such a young age and didn't see it as abuse, when she felt what her brother did was abuse. But me seeing this pattern will help me protect my daughter, at least.

 

[angel2write]

It doesn't change anything though, does it? Does it change how she then abused me? How she allowed me to be abused by her abusers? That she then tortured me to try to make herself feel better about her abuse? Nope. But I guess it helps me see the bigger picture about why my healing and recovering is so very important for my children. And I have more empathy for her...but still, having her in my life is too big a price to pay for my family. So it doesn't change that.

Thanks, SC. You managed to put this better than I have been able to. It helps.

 

[a3a2]

My mother was also molested by an uncle (as was I-different uncle).

When I learned this, it actually made me angry at her. I felt like she should have understood how I felt instead of laughing about it. Perhaps she laughed about it in order to "normalize" the experience for me. I don't know.

I try to imagine how I would react if one of my children was molested. I know I sure wouldn't be laughing.

 

[BloomInWinter]

What I'd take away from it would be that she is not a person who is healthy enough to be a healthy support or source of validation or healing for anything.

Not excusing her harm to you and others. But a 16 year old girl has NO WAY to meet a predator's manipulations on even ground.

...and at some level, she may have sensed she would end up being abandoned by her family were she to reveal it. As still - still!!! - is all too often the outcome even today.

If she were any 16 year old, I'd feel terrible for what she went through. I'd pity the complete lack of support she went through. I'd understand that her denial wall says 'he was a charming guy' because that was the only reality that allowed her to function, albeit not well.

But the harm she continues to do by not facing her issues...well, if she isn't healthy enough to face the reality of her traumatized childhood on her own behalf in an act of self-preservation... it's a great thing that you didn't wait on her. It's a miracle that you began working on healing your own.

I'm so sorry you had her for a Mom. I'm grateful you didn't have her Uncle.

Hopefully our work in our lives will break the intergenerational curse that is abuse-initiated trauma.

I hope for healing for us all.

I hope for early detection of and mitigation of abusers like her Uncle.

I hope for education for all so that NO abuse goes untreated.

How sad. I'm so sorry.

All my family branches...same story, different forest, still dark and spooky. :(