Childhood Why Didn't Anyone Care?

[BuckarooBanzai]

I am often asked these questions by my survivor friends!

While I realize there were probably bystanders who failed to act, I'd like to suggest that there probably were people who tried but failed. Let me offer some real-life vignettes.

As a teacher, I cannot even count the number of times I tried to get a child to safety through Child Protective Services. Every time, though, the child was too frightened to tell the social worker what he or she had told me, or the parents threatened the child and siblings into silence.... In one case, the children wouldn't tell the social worker the truth, because they were afraid of being taken away; without their assent, there was nothing we could do. I cannot tell you how many sleepless nights I endured, or how many hours I cried, let alone the months and even years I continued to try even after the child had left my life. There is one case in particular - it happened seventeen years ago - where I am still watching the situation from afar. There are many people like me who try to help. :(

My adoptive sister was horribly abused by her parents. One day when she was 6 years old, she stood up to her parents; they took her to a mental hospital, told the hospital she was violent and mentally ill, and then abandoned her there. She stayed in the hospital until she was put into foster care and then adopted. When she turned 18, her records were turned over to her. It turns out that the hospital professionals immediately recognized that her parents were lying abusive parents and so they admitted her - not because they believed her to be mentally ill, but in order to save her life. Then, there were piles of documents detailing how the hospital had tried to have her parents convicted for child abuse, and worked hard to have their parental rights severed so as to protect her. She didn't really know or understand everything, though, because she was too little. So, as it turned out, there were many many people working hard to save her.

I could go on and on and on. You will probably never know about all the people who tried to save you, my friend, but I hope you take strength from knowing that there were probably many who did.

Ben

 

[Freedomfighter]

Why didn't anyone care what happened to me as a child? Why didn't anyone stop it from happenin...

Yeah, the answers are tough to find. When a child gets abused like that, and I have been there, then the developmental years are scarred and it is almost impossible to move out of that.
You know I asked myself why many times until I was forced to visit one of my abusers, my father, due to the fact that my poor mom was sick and dying. I had no choice I had to face him again. Boy, what a wake up call that was, I was faced with an abuser that abused my mom her whole life, that insists he did nothing that had anything to do with my abuse and that to this day continues to think he is the greatest thing on earth since sliced bread. Had to watch this abuser as he attempted to get a foothold on me, mentally and physically.

You know what? After that you don't ask the question why anymore. You just realize that it is not in your own best interest to find out why, after seeing how that monster still operates in the exact ways as he did before with absolutely no remorse, with complete disregard to everyone around him, with every second of every day only revolving around him. Well, let me tell you: after that experience I don't want to know why anymore. Just very happy I totally disconnected this time.

I guess what bothers me is the fact that there is so much literature on criminals like that, trying to figure out how their minds work, and why they attack helpless victims. It does us victims no good to know that. They are just dirt and why should we worry about why they did things that were wrong? I am so totally not bothering with such thoughts anymore.

 

[katz]

Why didn't anyone care what happened to me as a child? Why didn't anyone stop it from happenin...

I have the same feelings inside. I have to learn to grieve for my "little girl" inside. She was begging for help back then, and no one was there for her. I had to start writing letters to her to try and convince her that she is loved-for just being herself.
So, the grown up me wrote to her and told her "just what she needed to hear". I even put out a small picture of her, for me to write too. I know that it may take many letters to "her" but keep trying. She needs your love too.

 

[katz]

Why didn't anyone care what happened to me as a child? Why didn't anyone stop it from happenin...

I try to look back and see the good people. I can pick out a few of them. Some were teachers or councilors. I think I even found some neighbors who tried to help. But things were different back then. Children and abuse were "within the family". All of this was done behind closed doors. We weren't allowed to "tell".

 

[Sandstone]

Once again I'm abnormal even here. It never occurred to me, at the time or since, that anyone would have been interested in or noticed me and what was happening. I suppose that nowadays teachers are equipped to ask themselves questions, but back then I and they took at face value that I was just quiet, odd and difficult. I've been asked by a T why my father did nothing to protect me and all I can answer is that it was nothing to do with him.

 

[Hopeful3x]

Why didn't anyone care what happened to me as a child? Why didn't anyone stop it from happenin...

Wow I think these thoughts also I feel like you took the words right out of my mouth, I wish I had answers for you I know people are scared and dumb that's all I can come up with.

 

[Hope1969]

In a strange way I don't ask these questions. In my case nobody could know or help. I don't hold my family as capable people so I expect nothing from them. maybe it's denial but I really believe that they could do nothing even if they knew.

 

[lostforgottensoul]

Whys plegues me constantly. Its until I accepted that I will never know why people missed red flags, why it all happened, why me, that I could move foward. I ask sometimes still and try to understand but truth is, i will never know.

You didnt deserve it. You didnt do anything wrong. You deserve love and Im sorry you didnt get it! :hug:

I'd like to suggest that there probably were people who tried but failed.

I think many in my life (teachers, school counselors, mentors & youth center workers, youth pastors, school police officer) that knew something was wrong and happening but didnt know what and I wouldnt admit it, i was too scared, i was advised where i would go would be worse and i was terrified of being taken away. Its not my fault but of the fault of those hurting me. Its hard to accept that fact.

Thank you for trying to help those abused! :hug:

 

[void]

Why didn't anyone care what happened to me as a child? Why didn't anyone stop it from happenin...

..........and how are you doing today??:hug:

I would encourage you to scream and cry and shout "Why?!!?"....really let that grief and betrayal get processed within you...some of us need to actually 'grieve' it instead of just think about it.
Connect with the emotion....feel it fully...re-frame it and move on.

Everyone knew my Abuser was a monster, they would part like the Red Sea when my Abuser walked across the room....but no one did or said a thing. No one gave a fvck then, and they certainly don't now.
All of my teachers knew....nada.
I comfort myself by the fact that I already had full blown C-PTSD by Kindergarten anyway so it was already too late....so K - 12 was just savage icing on the vicious cake.
Wouldn't have mattered if the teachers intervened.

 

[BuckarooBanzai]

...wouldnt admit it, i was too scared, i was advised where i would go would be worse and i was terrified of being taken away. Its not my fault but of the fault of those hurting me.

Yes, exactly.

It's frightening for a child to admit the truth, for the very reasons you mentioned. In fact, an abused child will almost always choose to remain with the abusive parent rather than risk the unknown foster home. "The devil you know is better than the devil you don't know."

I'm glad you know none of this was your fault. :)

 

[aut555]

Abuse comes in so many different packages, in emotional, physical, that it can be hard for other people to grasp. Maybe its unrecognized, it it's too close to home, and people freeze up trying to help, and sometimes the answer, (child protection services) is worse then the problem. You really struggle on your own with child abuse, and lost of developmental self which you never get back. The hurt child always resides in the back corner of our mind, like the unwanted relative that you have to acknowledge but you can't talk to.

 

[katz]

I thought back and realized that I was in therapy--at the same time as it was happening! I have often wondered about going on line and finding the child therapist and writing him a letter about "that little girl you were counceling back then." It's even worse to realize that he was talking to the ... abuser... at the same time!

I'm really, really glad that the systems have changed enough that we teach other adults how to see if this is happening.

To "Buckaroo"...It took me many years to get my records also.
My doctor had wrote in my medical records--in quotation marks--that "the parents are very out of touch with how their child is feeling." And yet, nothing was done.