Sexual Assault Just Found Out My Daughter Was Molested

[illusionist]

A bit of advice Heather..please take it, or leave it, I say it with the best of intentions.

When I contacted the child protection, here in the UK, to report what my daughter disclosed to me, I asked advice on the best way to handle things, as she would say no more on the subject...was to carry on as normal....the best way for a kid to open up...not to change what she was already used to, and trusted.

 

[Heather]

And quite frankly I don't appreciate feeling like I have to come on here and defend myself or my actions with my daughter. I am in constant contact with her therapist, my therapist and the rape crisis counselor. Several times a week and sometimes several times a day. Getting and seeking advice/help for us.

This is very hard not only hard on my daughter But it has been agonizing to go through this.

 

[Heather]

@illusionist that is what I have been encouraged to do with her as well. And I am trying to do that. I let her talk about it when and if she wants to talk about it.

But I will not use her experiences over the past 2 years as an excuse/pass for bad behavior.

And I spoke to her therapist earlier today and explained incident over the weekend and she said my punishment was appropriate.

That she needs to learn was in and is not acceptable behavior.

 

[Heather]

But changes had to be made. There was no way in hell, I was gonna leave her in that school. Having to see Selena on a daily basis. It was making her miserable. I did what I felt necessary to protect my child.

 

[Heather]

There's a lot I could say about certain people's comments on here but I am going to take the advice of others (the members I feel supported by and have helped me immensely). I'm not going to go there and defend myself or engage in the ugliness. That is what the ignore button is for.

With that being said....It's been a horrible night. Nicole woke up around 3a.m. saying she was scared from having another bad dream. I went back to bed from with her. I'd been up since 2 a.m., dealing with my own nightmares.

I laid with her until she was asleep. I still can't sleep and don't see it coming anytime soon.

Nights are the hardest right now. There is no happiness in this house and it makes living very unpleasant, to say the least.

We had a long talk last night about why she feels that I don't love her (only a little) from her point of view. She says I yell at her too much and take my anger out on her.

At that moment I felt like a failure as a mom. That is why we created house rules. One of them was No Yelling. I even put in parenthesis that I would walk away and count to ten before I come back and talk with her.

I need a lot of help with this. I am on the phone where I go to therapy several times a week (sometimes several times a day) trying to get a handle on my emotions.

I've had numerous conversations with my daughter explaining how hard this has been on me and I am trying very hard to do better and I make sure I apologize. I always apologize because my mother never did, not once only made excuses for her behavior.

I realize I need to get a grip because I feel like every day I am two steps away from losing it all together. We are in a crisis but I told my daughter it will just take time and 6 months from now we will not be where we are today. She just kept shaking her head no.

She feels like she doesn't fit in at her new school. So, I am going to to have to talk to the Director and go to plan C. And brainstorm what can be done so she doesn't feel like such an outcast (she is the youngest). I'd really been pushing the assignments and maybe I'm pushing to hard. But I don't want learning to cease just because she is no longer in public school.

So, Tuesdays and Thursdays are the busy days at her new school and I have cut back the amount of work I will be sending with her. I think that I will discuss with them giving her the option that if she finishes her work in the morning.....to let her take it easy in the afternoon. I think she needs that time to decompress. It is all so overwhelming for her. They are wonderful there and are very receptive to hearing and meeting her needs.

I also wanted to take the time to thank @ladee, @gizmo ,@The Albatross and @Casey_03 for your support and validation for my feelings and supporting me through this. It means so much to have all of your support. Thank you all. Hugs to each of you.

 

[The Albatross]

Any chance Heather of getting her involved in a fun activity after school instead of her old neighborhood... Dance? Karate? A sport? Something that puts her in a group environment in, gives her some exercise and diverts her attention toward something new that she may enjoy rather than stick with the peer group dynamics and have adult supervision?

Here it's swim season. I know for these things expense can be an issue... just know that for myself it helped me to break out and away from the neighborhood dynamic... I was in the swim program and ended up in a group that played racquet ball. It was a step up in peers.

 

[Heather]

@The Albatross I am taking her tonight to a self-defense class for kids. She will get exercise, learn self-discipline along with learning how to defend herself. they want a lot of money but there's a two week free trial.

Her school is so wonderful and said if class is too expensive (which it probably is) they will look into finding someone to come there and teach the kids about self-defense....finding your voice and how to protect yourself.

I may also go the YMCA and see about joining...they offer scholarships.

 

[Anarchy]

I'm fairly sure that Heather has me on "ignore"

any chance that someone could please suggest to her to look at Sugata Mitra's Ted talks and "hole in the wall" experiments?

With only a little encouragement, children and teens are well able to educate themselves without school. I'm not suggesting that she pull her daughter out of school, or allow her to drop out, but knowing that her daughter can learn outside of school, may offer some relief.

In one of Mitra's experiments, children in a desperately poor fishing village in Southern India, that had lost most of its men in the 2005 tsunami, taught themselves English and then learned about DNA and genetic engineering to as high a standard as the control group who were in the highest price private schools in Mumbai.

Also, martial arts, such as Karate, Aikido (which is a totally non aggressive art), Silat, Jiu Jitsu s etc, generally charge under $10 a week for teens. At that age, good second hand uniforms are likely to be available too - as the kids grow out of them so fast.

Some of the martial arts are very effective for self defence (a lot of Women's self defence is based around the Wing Chun school of kung fu) and they allow very long term study, and are much deeper than just self defence, so it is likely to be able to provide a social group and interests for her outside of school that can continue into her adult life, and even into her old age. There are martial artists training well into their eighties.

 

[scout86]

I've had numerous conversations with my daughter explaining how hard this has been on me and I am trying very hard to do better and I make sure I apologize.

I haven't read much of this. Pushed a few too many buttons, I guess and I didn't think anything I had to say was going to be found very useful. And this might not be either.

All I'm going to say is, if one of my parents had that conversation with me, (probably even now, sad to say) my go to reaction would have been that it was all my fault and I was making them feel bad by being who I was and I never should have said what ever I'd said and I wished no one else had either and I'd just have to figure out how to do a better job of keeping everything to myself.

In my case, my parents didn't find out about the sexual abuse until I was an adult and I (stupidly!) let someone convince me that telling them was the right thing to do. It wasn't. It was a huge mistake. It turned in to a discussion of how bad it made them feel. No one even asked if I was ok. Ever. My mom actually never mentioned it after that one conversation, but the one conversation was about how traumatized THEY were. WTF was I supposed to do with THAT? I had no idea, at the time. Now that I've had a few years of therapy and understand what was going on better, I know that I should have kept my stupid mouth shut and, if I had it to do over again, I would. (Totally different situation from Heather's)

Someone, back a ways, mentioned checking into the possibility of some kind of residential school. Is that a possibility? It might solve a bunch of problems at once and give both of you a little breathing space to work on your own, separate parts of this.

 

[Anarchy]

I did 7 years in a boarding school
low points included lots of getting beaten up, feeling trapped, powerless and unsafe...
also some vindictive, narcissistic and some sticky co dependant staff. One of whom at least was very likely having sex with kids*.

High points include several sexual adventures (with both sexes), lots of illicit stuff including drink, drugs and home made explosives (nitrogen tri halides were a favourite)

I'm not suggesting that it would be worse than what she's experienced already - but it might not be better than what she's had either.
_______________________
* up to those kids to report if they want to

 

[The Albatross]

I guess it's only natural that we all are coming at this to be assistive from our own angles. I told my parents and nothing happened... had a sexually precocious childhood friend (with three older brothers and who was likely exposed herself to something) and a significantly older female cousin who did stuff to me that I didn't like though my child mind just thought was "too weird" (age 6 through 8) and in my case, I didn't want to "play with them" anymore... my parents were oblivious. I ended up with a strong... very strong fight response and anger issues.

By the time a third friend's older brother was trying his best to take advantage... well I had him on his knees in front of the whole neighborhood (kids) and broke his fingers. He never had the balls to try it again. But.... that set into motion a whole series of events which led me to making some seriously screwed up choices in my 20's and 30's.

Hard to say what is "right" to do, so I just ain't gonna go there.

 

[Heather]

I haven't read much of this. Pushed a few too many buttons, I guess and I didn't think anything I had to say was going to be found very useful. And this might not be either.

All I'm going to say is, if one of my parents had that conversation with me, (probably even now, sad to say) my go to reaction would have been that it was all my fault and I was making them feel bad by being who I was and I never should have said what ever I'd said and I wished no one else had either and I'd just have to figure out how to do a better job of keeping everything to myself. .

And you telling me this helps me how?

I'm not gonna get into defending myself. I AM DOING THE BEST I CAN.