M
Mesol
I don't have the confidence to post this anywhere else on this forum. I am frightened of being judged, being considered weird. But something happened to me a few years ago which had a massive impact on my family and I. I have no one to talk to about it. Since this happened I have regular awful anxiety attacks. These are getting so bad I think of suicide as a way to escape the emotions and pain.
My childhood was dominated by trauma which was sexual in content. As a teenager I started having sexual fantasies about being abused. The abuse involved my own sexual humiliation by people with power over me. I carried on with these fantasises into adult life. I didn't have any sexual relationships until my thirties so the fantasises became my sexual world. In them I always regressed to being a child. On one occasion I videoed myself. I don't know why, but a therapist suggested this gave me the feeling of being watched and I was trying to recreate childhood experiences. I also tied my self to the bed. I'd never done this before either. The therapist suggested this gave me a sense of being powerless, again trying to replicate events in my childhood. The video clip was only about two minutes, I never watched it, I didn't want to. I thought I had deleted it but by mistake when backing up the video camera I copied the clip on to my work laptop. When my laptop was being upgraded my employer found the video clip. I was suspended and later sacked for misuse of IT equipment. I had to explain this to my partner who had no idea what I had done. I thought she would ask me to leave but after much talking she decided to support me and try and help me. Because of the content my employer notified the police who passed it onto social services because I had children.
Social workers came to the house and said I had to leave because the video suggested I could be a sexual risk to children. This was because I pretended to be a child in the video. We were devastated. Telling my 10 and 11 year old sons I had to leave home was horrific. I will never forget my youngest son's face crumpling and him crying. Six weeks later I had to attend a child protection conference with my partner. It was decided our children needed to be placed on a child protection plan. This was despite their school head and doctor making very positive statements about us and there being no issues about the well-being of the children. The therapist I had started to see after I had lost my job also explained that my childhood experiences were at the heart of my problems. The chair of the meeting was having none of it and suggested I was making it up. She was openly hostile to me. But I was allowed to return home, subject to restrictions.
We had to meet social workers every month and every aspect of our lives was under scrutiny. I wasn't allowed on my own with my kids, and they were not allowed to have friends over if I was there. I was banned from public places where kids go (parks etc. even the cinema). The social workers refused to believe my childhood traumas were relevant to my acting out. Although they never said it they always implied I had paedophilic tendencies. My partner was also under suspicion because she still wanted me, they thought I was manipulating her. We lived in terror of people finding out what was going on. We didn't tell anyone.
The social worker didn't think I should have been allowed home and made this very clear, she didn't like me that was clear. After 3 months the social worker said all our friends with children had to be told that I was considered a risk to children. I was given the choice to tell them myself or they would do it. We tried to get an injunction to stop it but could afford the legal fees. In the end I called friends on the list we had been given, this included some parents I had never met and had never had contact with their children, and left off some parents whose children who had been to our house to play with our own kids, it didn't make any sense. I couldn't bear the thought of social workers just turning up at our friends and saying things about me, and I wanted to look them in the face and tell them I hadn't ever touched their child. I called them to our house one evening, it took handful of diazepam to keep me going and I told them what I had been told to say, that the social workers thought I was a risk to children sexually, and I had made a video that depicted myself pretending to be a child being abused. They were all very shocked and concerned. After I explained that I thought my childhood trauma was the cause of my problems they all said they could understand my problems and were kind and supportive, and disgusted by our treatment by social services. The next evening two social workers went to visit each of our friends at home to confirm what I had told them. They told all our friends that in their expert opinion I had paedophilic tendencies and was very much a risk to children, but I couldn't be prosecuted because the video was 'technically' not illegal. Our friends were strongly influenced by the opinion of the social workers and days later the majority of them text and rang to say they didn't want anything to do with me. That night I took an overdose. Those friends disowned my partner too, even thought she had done nothing wrong.
Social services said I had to be seen by an expert who worked with sex offenders and be assessed as safe before our children could be removed from the protection plan, but they wouldn't pay for it. In the end they were forced to pay and I spent 5 days being assessed by a consultant who worked with sex offenders. In the end he assessed me as not being any risk to children and confirmed that my childhood experiences had caused huge trauma and he suspected PTSD. Social Services had no option but to remove our children from the protection plan. That was four years ago and our lives are still destroyed. We live in a rural village and gossip has ensured lots of people consider me a paedophile. We have virtually no friends and no social life. Our children have since moved up to secondary school so at least have made some new friends. I can't get over the pain I have caused my family and the thought that ex-friends think what they do about me. I struggle to cope with the anxiety and shame and feel suicidal much of the time. I hope to see a therapist soon. We plan to move once the kids have finished school. We don't think it fair they should have to move away because of my problems. My acting out did this to us and I can never forgive myself. Sorry this is so long, I just had to tell somebody.
My childhood was dominated by trauma which was sexual in content. As a teenager I started having sexual fantasies about being abused. The abuse involved my own sexual humiliation by people with power over me. I carried on with these fantasises into adult life. I didn't have any sexual relationships until my thirties so the fantasises became my sexual world. In them I always regressed to being a child. On one occasion I videoed myself. I don't know why, but a therapist suggested this gave me the feeling of being watched and I was trying to recreate childhood experiences. I also tied my self to the bed. I'd never done this before either. The therapist suggested this gave me a sense of being powerless, again trying to replicate events in my childhood. The video clip was only about two minutes, I never watched it, I didn't want to. I thought I had deleted it but by mistake when backing up the video camera I copied the clip on to my work laptop. When my laptop was being upgraded my employer found the video clip. I was suspended and later sacked for misuse of IT equipment. I had to explain this to my partner who had no idea what I had done. I thought she would ask me to leave but after much talking she decided to support me and try and help me. Because of the content my employer notified the police who passed it onto social services because I had children.
Social workers came to the house and said I had to leave because the video suggested I could be a sexual risk to children. This was because I pretended to be a child in the video. We were devastated. Telling my 10 and 11 year old sons I had to leave home was horrific. I will never forget my youngest son's face crumpling and him crying. Six weeks later I had to attend a child protection conference with my partner. It was decided our children needed to be placed on a child protection plan. This was despite their school head and doctor making very positive statements about us and there being no issues about the well-being of the children. The therapist I had started to see after I had lost my job also explained that my childhood experiences were at the heart of my problems. The chair of the meeting was having none of it and suggested I was making it up. She was openly hostile to me. But I was allowed to return home, subject to restrictions.
We had to meet social workers every month and every aspect of our lives was under scrutiny. I wasn't allowed on my own with my kids, and they were not allowed to have friends over if I was there. I was banned from public places where kids go (parks etc. even the cinema). The social workers refused to believe my childhood traumas were relevant to my acting out. Although they never said it they always implied I had paedophilic tendencies. My partner was also under suspicion because she still wanted me, they thought I was manipulating her. We lived in terror of people finding out what was going on. We didn't tell anyone.
The social worker didn't think I should have been allowed home and made this very clear, she didn't like me that was clear. After 3 months the social worker said all our friends with children had to be told that I was considered a risk to children. I was given the choice to tell them myself or they would do it. We tried to get an injunction to stop it but could afford the legal fees. In the end I called friends on the list we had been given, this included some parents I had never met and had never had contact with their children, and left off some parents whose children who had been to our house to play with our own kids, it didn't make any sense. I couldn't bear the thought of social workers just turning up at our friends and saying things about me, and I wanted to look them in the face and tell them I hadn't ever touched their child. I called them to our house one evening, it took handful of diazepam to keep me going and I told them what I had been told to say, that the social workers thought I was a risk to children sexually, and I had made a video that depicted myself pretending to be a child being abused. They were all very shocked and concerned. After I explained that I thought my childhood trauma was the cause of my problems they all said they could understand my problems and were kind and supportive, and disgusted by our treatment by social services. The next evening two social workers went to visit each of our friends at home to confirm what I had told them. They told all our friends that in their expert opinion I had paedophilic tendencies and was very much a risk to children, but I couldn't be prosecuted because the video was 'technically' not illegal. Our friends were strongly influenced by the opinion of the social workers and days later the majority of them text and rang to say they didn't want anything to do with me. That night I took an overdose. Those friends disowned my partner too, even thought she had done nothing wrong.
Social services said I had to be seen by an expert who worked with sex offenders and be assessed as safe before our children could be removed from the protection plan, but they wouldn't pay for it. In the end they were forced to pay and I spent 5 days being assessed by a consultant who worked with sex offenders. In the end he assessed me as not being any risk to children and confirmed that my childhood experiences had caused huge trauma and he suspected PTSD. Social Services had no option but to remove our children from the protection plan. That was four years ago and our lives are still destroyed. We live in a rural village and gossip has ensured lots of people consider me a paedophile. We have virtually no friends and no social life. Our children have since moved up to secondary school so at least have made some new friends. I can't get over the pain I have caused my family and the thought that ex-friends think what they do about me. I struggle to cope with the anxiety and shame and feel suicidal much of the time. I hope to see a therapist soon. We plan to move once the kids have finished school. We don't think it fair they should have to move away because of my problems. My acting out did this to us and I can never forgive myself. Sorry this is so long, I just had to tell somebody.
