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Supporter Sad - stepdaughter with ptsd from csa

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Anger and bitterness towards the people who didn't protect you is normal, whether they knew or not. I used to mentally try and will people to notice what was going on, but didn't express it. In my childhood mind, adults were all knowing, and should have known what I wasn't telling them. I resented them for it and carried that resentment into adult hood. Even though I knew better as an adult the emotion was ingrained, no matter what my logical mind thought.

All you can really do is tell her you are there for her when she is ready. Trying to push could push her away completely.
 
Hi and welcome to the forum. :hug:

I encourage you to give her space while she heals and try to not pressure her. I know it’s got to be hard being shut out, especially since she’s got a child now.

It’s so easy to say “how could the parents NOT know that their child was being abused?!?” but it’s far from that simple. What I’m trying to say is that she has a lot of anger towards the both of you that she will have to work through.

I’d let her know that you will be there for her and that your door is always open.

I suspect that it’s easier for her to be mad at the non-perpetrating parents (you and your husband) than the actual abuser. I have problems expressing anger myself.....my dad abused me, and I can’t get mad at him easily, so I take it out on his new wife in the form of screaming at her.
 
Hey,
I'm sorry for what you're going through.

As everyone has said, it's pretty natural to blame the people who 'should have known', even if they didn't.
If I'm not prying, do you blame yourself at all? You don't have to answer that. I think sometimes when we're hurting we pile guilt onto others because we assume that they're not feeling it because they haven't expressed it.
Have you thought about asking your daughter what she needs from you?
And, most importantly, does she know you believe her and support her 100%?

Good wishes to you.
 
That was badly put on my part.
What I was getting at was that your daughter may think you don't feel bad about the situation at all.
And then she's trying to punish you because you're involved, or she's trying to communicate how badly she's hurting. She may truly be hurting because she thinks you ought to have known, even if you didn't know.
Am I correct in assuming the "step-dad" was your partner at the time?
Also, you may be wondering why it's come up now.
Things like gynecology appointments can be really triggering for survivors of that kind of abuse.
 
'Anger', true anger, isn't an unhealthy response. Certainly it is dangerous, most usually our acculturated attitudes forbid it and allow expressions of anger only to be permissible in movies or other culturally controlled forms.
 
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@Lynn beth , your stepdaughter sounds normal to me, and she's the age where one starts remembering or recalling abuse and dealing with it.

I was angry with both of my parents for what my bioFather did to me.

I actually did tell my mother what happened to me. I was three years old and said in very distinct words what I had experienced. Instead my mother told me to shut up and stop talking that baby talk. In fact it wasn't "baby talk," it was the very things which I witnessed. It took until last year, 61 years after that first criminal act I saw, for me to hear from a detective that those words would describe a murder by a serial killer with a sword.

So even if a child were to reveal their abuse at the time it occurred to their parent, it doesn't mean the parent would take them seriously and help. Sometimes parents don't want to hear nor believe the truth. Sometimes children think their parents knew or saw the signs or symptoms and the parents didn't. I had the symptoms/signs of PTSD and being abused as a child and my mother and stepdad ignored them.

My stepson, when he was younger, revealed his abuse to me and his father and we took him seriously. He wasn't as succinct as I had been with my words. It caused a huge mess in our lives with a custody battle for him, and it was worth it to believe him and stand by him. In the end, we won custody from his mother. Her husband had been my stepson's abuser.
 
Impossible but how to we help her. She is shutting us out?
By believing her now. By supporting her choices - even if that choice is to lock you out until she can figure out what she needs to in order to move on. By expressing empathy. By offering to babysit while she goes to therapy (which should be happening I hope). By saying you are sorry if she is open to that. By unconditionally supporting her even if that support seems hurtful to you. By not abandoning her. By not judging her.

By providing the utmost of attention and patience with her symptoms and being attuned to how that may be affecting her life while she heals.
 
The ptsd cup explanation

Welcome to the community! We’ve got a really fantastic group of supporters around here :D

The link above is something that is super useful both as a sufferer AND supporter.

My son was very badly abused. Even when I was managing to stop it, I was still the “safe” one to be angry AT (because I’d never hurt him, and he knew that down to his bones). So all his rage at his father? Landed directly on me. Once I could no longer stop it (court ordered visitation, I could stop it once, and then end up in jail for my son to be abused full time / abused part time vs abused full time? The better of 2 evils is still evil ), that anger coupled with broken trust. Which is volatile as hell. Because part of it was earned... it was my JOB to keep him safe, to protect him, and I failed him... and part of it was the same misdirected anger, because I was still the safe person to be mad at.

Being the parent of an abused kid is heartbreaking, gutting, painful, and hard. I know you’re looking for ways to help her, but you will also need support/help for yourself.
 
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Anger and bitterness towards the people who didn't protect you is normal, whether they knew or not. I used to mentally try and will people to notice what was going on, but didn't express it.

That quote resonates so much with me, I did the same exact thing.

My mom only abused me once, and I've forgiven her for that. I have a really hard time containing my anger with her for not stopping the abuse. She did what she could, but it wasn't enough. It wasn't her fault, but my brain and emotions can' agree on how to feel about her. Fortunately my brain wins most of the time when I'm dealing with her, so I'm cordial, but my emotions are torn.

Welcome to the forums, I hope you can find the support and comfort you need. Just remember regardless of what she says, you didn't abuse her, therefore it's not your fault. To me only the abuser holds the blame for the abuse, though that's not always how it feels.
 
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