After considering how my case of childhood sexual abuse got thrown out because my abuser passed a lot detector test, I was wondering Should I seek out a lawyer?
I understand that I should be radically accepting that I probably will never get justice but with the memories of sexual abuse piling up it’s just frustrating that there’s nothing I can do about it. There’s nothing I can do to get Justice. There is absolutely nothing I can do to get Justice.
Abuse is so hard to prove. Reading up on how easy it is to create false memories, I often doubt what I think happened to me.
In my case, I have kept very separate events and observations of my behaviour as I remember it, and as other people remember it. From that I try to deduce the events themselves, always being careful to label the sources.
When I was texting people about this, I was very careful to not suggest things. E.g. when I wrote my sister, I asked, "I had a crazy nightmare a few nights ago. Did anything weird happen to me as a kid" And she told me that my behaviour radically change. I insisted on being coverd, fully dressed all the time. (I have a picture taken some 6-8 years after the abuse on a summer day at the beach with long pants and long sleeve shirt, while my parents are in summer sun dress, and bermuda shorts) I became very emotionally dysregulated, decreased appetite. All of this agrees with common reactions to CSA.
Found out later that sis and mom later on had concluded I'd been abused, but they never told me about it. They concluded it was a neighbour.
My T. says that memories of this sort of thing almost always mean *something* happened. But turning that into a legal case is difficult.
In my case I have 7 candidates of varying probability. Four are dead. Two are untraceable. One,the one with greatest opportunity, has Alzheimer's.
I accept it happened. I accept that my parents *knew* that it happened. I suspect that my parents covered it up out of fear of scandal. They sent my sister away when she got pregnant. The two most probable people in terms of access were my father and my brother. It doesn't fit in character for either, but I understand that this is often true.
The next most probable is my neighbour 2 houses down. That's what my mom told my sister. But I was allowed to continue to play there. My brother is the best fit. I slept in his room, far end of the house on a different floor. He was 13, I was 3. Raging hormones, and barely socialized. I think my mom knew that and would have been destroyed by the scandal, and decided to keep it quiet.
Later there was physical abuse and emotional neglect.
I became a loner, not good at making connection, not social enough to even try to enter into a relationship until my 40's, and not very successful then. I have never fallen in love. I see all human interaction as transactional. Hell I didn't know there were non-transactional methods until a year ago. I still think those people are deluding themselves and are sloppy accountants.
I accept that it happened. Details will never be clear. But it happened. No point in playing "what if" and "if only" games.
I accept that I am broken. I will never be fully healed. I will always be a bit of a stranger in a strange land dealing with people.
But I do NOT forgive my parents who let this happen. I did not grieve for them when they died. And both of them died miserably and in pain.
