My Mom Was Molested, Too?!?

[SimplyComplex]

Just a thought to share, maybe a bit aside. I called older guys I "dated" my boyfriends.

I was 12, he was 16
I was 12, he was 21ish
I was 13, they were 19 (passed me around like a football)
I was 13, he was 43
I was 13, he was 16
I was 14, he was 19
Ya get the picture...

I would mention it and my husband would get mad. He never wanted to talk about these guys, ever ever ever. I would assure him it was cultural. And when I went into therapy, I was still saying they were "boyfriends". I had some of them on facebook. I carried a lot of shame about the relationships because they would often use me to amuse themselves in private, but in public show actual disdain for me. I felt like I asked for it, I felt like I did thing wrong and like I deserved it. But I did not see it as abuse.

So in therapy I start talking a little about it, and it starts to click for me. It was not cultural, sexual abuse isn't cultural. I still haven't talked much about it. I don't know why. I have written about one of them that I felt most ashamed by. I did tell my T that, due to dissociation, there are many things about these guys I don't remember...like the extent I was intimate with most of them. Its upsetting. When I start to talk about it, it feels like too much and I put it back away for later.

So I guess all of that to say, I don't think it is totally uncommon for abused teenage girls to look back on abuse cases and think of them as mutual...despite how weird it was. In my case I took the blame and called my self a slut and a ho. In your mom's case, it sounds like she said he was charming. But...it felt normal to me.

 

[a3a2]

Oh, Complex. I am so sorry you had no one to protect you from this. 12,13, 14. Way too young to be expected to protect themselves from such a thing. I am so sorry.

 

[SimplyComplex]

Luckily I learned how to protect myself. I wore a big neon f-off sign over my head from 15-20 :) and it seemed to help. Gaining a bunch of weight helped I think too...so did dissociating everytime any man made a pass at me so I didn't have to respond, I just didn't hear it.

I met and married a great guy at 21, so it worked out in the end...but he is way older then me lol

 

[BloomInWinter]

(((((((SimplyComplex)))))))))

Yes, gaining weight gave me a shield.

Still looking for my sword...

 

[Nicolette]

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.

Angel a very difficult position to be in and I appreciate the struggle you have as I know my mother was abused too (more physically and abused but not sexually that I am aware of).

What I had to come to the conclusion of, is if I had the strength to be a better parent than my mother and try all my adult/parenting life to do better than what she did, why didn't she?! When the abuse cycle was pointed out to me and I finally got my head around it I chose to stop as much of it as I could that wasn't ingrained in me and tried to deprogram what was.

At the end of the day, does your mother's predicament and situation resulting in you being here with PTSD give you an excuse to do the same to your own children because you didn't get the support and upbringing you deserved?

I know I sound harsh but I have lived this reality and someone has to stop it otherwise the pattern of destructive and abusive parents continues resulting in damaged children who know no better and repeat and repeat and repeat.

 

[angel2write]

At the end of the day, does your mother's predicament and situation resulting in you being here with PTSD give you an excuse to do the same to your own children because you didn't get the support and upbringing you deserved?

My answer is ABSOLUTELY NOT. I want... I have tried to do so much better for my kids. And I hate it that I have not always been able to be the mother I wanted to be. I have worked so hard to break the pattern. Started seeking help when I was a teen. My mother has never sought help. And I think I have succeeded in creating a healthy marriage. The jury's still out on the kids. I guess I'll know in twenty years or so how well I did.

 

[Nicolette]

My answer is ABSOLUTELY NOT. I want... I have tried to do so much better for my kids. And I hate it that I have not always been able to be the mother I wanted to be. I have worked so hard to break the pattern.

Good for you Angel! :tup:

My point was to show you how a difference can be made and you have done the same. Well done. So how does that now make you feel about the confusion for the feelings about your mother?

 

[angel2write]

So how does that now make you feel about the confusion for the feelings about your mother?

I don't know if it's the right answer... but I feel angry. :notworthy: I feel really angry with her for not trying to get some kind of help and then helping us. And I feel guilty for feeling that way.

 

[Nicolette]

While I don't believe you have any reason to feel guilty I can identify with that. It is that guilt which can keep someone trapped. Keep working on it as once you can accept you have nothing to be guilty for is when you can then begin sorting out your feelings. It takes time - took me years. Good luck.

 

[BloomInWinter]

In 1960, most states wouldn't allow women to serve on juries, be police officers, lawyers, judges, prosecutors. A woman who tried to receive justice against an abuser would face a courtroom full of white men, with no women advocates nor trained mental health support. A woman's full life would be - and still is, sadly - up for scrutiny and written into the court record. The questions women were asked...Did she wear her skirt too short that day? Smile suggestively? Make eyes at him? Ugh.

Most rapes that went to trial never got prosecuted, and the few that did usually required such physical evidence or outrage from the ER Staff - or both - that it was deemed by most less traumatizing to just 'forgive and forget.'

Mental institutions were filled with 'hysterical women' - many diagnosed that because they insisted they were raped. A male relative could, in most areas of the country, legally get a 16 year old niece committed to a mental institution just on his word....no investigation required. Could lie to the staff and call her his wife and hide her incarceration from the family and make up a lie about her running off....and nobody would ever have questioned it, and the mental institutions would have taken what he said with more weight than her refusals.

Most banks wouldn't allow women to be listed on a mortgage without a husband; have a bank account without a male co-signer; get a credit card or a loan. A choice to stay within a dysfunctional family system was often made for at least in part due to simple economics....'healthiest choice' is a luxury new to our generation, if one can call it that.

A woman couldn't get a job that paid enough to support a household. Now, we're back there, again. Except it's that few single people can...so dysfunctional households are sticking together not because it's best, but it's better than not eating.

The choices our abused Mothers, Grandmothers, Aunts, Cousins had weren't anything close to the choices for reporting, receiving treatment that we have. Yet the choices we have still suck!

Back then, the choice to out a family perp might very well (& DID) lead to women and their children going without food, much less housing, a vehicle, police protection, social standing, etc.

There weren't women's shelters, food pantries, food stamps, orders of protection, aid for childcare and medical care, much less mental health agencies. A woman's health records were the property of her husband or father.

In the US, its only in recent years that men can finally no longer legally rape their wives.

I hope our kids have much better options that we do....and I am so grateful my options are so much better than my Mom's.

*sadness and despair*

 

[Nicolette]

While all you say is true Bloom - a mother still could choose whether or not she abused her children to some extent.

 

[BloomInWinter]

Yes, very true (((((Nicolette)))) & all struggling with ill Moms. Missing mine terribly right now for some reason, though she wasn't able to be supportive.

I'm not discounting personal responsibility here. Just, pointing out that personal responsibility sure gets farther down the track when backed up by supportive communities, laws, service agencies, required fair protection under the justice system, and mental health counselors.

But all feelings about our abuse are valid, and we do deserve to feel them. So I see your struggle with this, ((((angel2write)))) as perfectly normal and valid, and I'm very sad you are going through this pain.

Just wanted to add some info to the questions of 'why' which I struggle with as well.