agonyaunt | (no subject)

DEAR ABBY: I see a psychiatrist and psychologist for generalized anxiety disorder, major depression disorder and borderline personality disorder. According to my doctors, my psychiatric disorders are a result of the 44 years of abuse I received from my mother, as well as the abuse she allowed others to inflict on me.

Her physical abuse stopped when I fought back at 17. When I was 18, it was the last time her precious prince of a son raised his fist to me because I told him I'd press charges and have him arrested. The sexual abuse had stopped when I was 12, and I realized she'd known what had been happening the whole time. It also ended my wanting a relationship with my mother, but her emotional abuse continued until she died in 2013.

I am being told that, because she's dead, I should just let it go. My siblings backed her because they wanted to be in Mommy's good graces. After years of hatred and abuse, I believed the only family I had were my own two children, but even they are cold to me now. They scold me -- "Your mother's dead. Get over it." How do I explain that when abuse starts before a child can walk, you DON'T just "get over it"? -- BLEEDING HEART IN OHIO

DEAR BLEEDING HEART: I am so sorry for the unrelenting trauma you experienced. Your children may mean well, but they are clueless about what the effects of physical, emotional and sexual abuse can be. I'm not sure your children will ever fully understand why you can't forgive what your mother and siblings did to you without the help of a family therapist, if you can convince your children to accompany you.

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It's not that I don't have sympathy for LW, I do - but I'm betting that the problem between them and their kids is not that the kids don't feel bad for their parent, it's that they want their parent to stop trauma-dumping on them. Which is absolutely fair! This should never have been their job!

And family therapy where LW intends to explain, once again, how hurt they are from their awful childhood is absolutely not going to end well for any of them.

+1

LW I feel for you, but your history of abuse should not be your kids' problem! Especially now that your mom's dead, so there's no practical need to warn them about her! You don't have to get over it, but it shouldn't be something where they constantly know in detail whether you've gotten over it or not, they're their own people and not your therapists.

(Also if the kids are "the only family you have" this is probably not the only time when you've tried to rely on them emotionally when you shouldn't, please find some found family who aren't your kids, stat.)

How do you find family quickly though? I'd have thought it would have to be a relationship that developed over a long time before it got to the found family stage.

You can't do it quickly, but you gotta start somewhere.

In LW's case, I'd ask their therapist to recommend a support group for people who suffered from child abuse. That'll at least give them a sympathetic audience while they also go out in the world and make friends in the more usual way.

That was my thought, too. There is an appropriate way to tell your children that you were abused as a child - and, like

melannen said, there was a real safety reason to do it when Grandma was still alive - but getting emotional validation/support isn't it. (It could arguably be a kind of emotional abuse!)

I think LW needs a support group for adult survivors of child abuse and maybe like a knitting circle or baking class, etc? Something to get out thee and make friends and widen their support circle naturally over time.

Yeah, my mother told me Far Too Much Information about how her father sexually abused her when she was a child. She told me in detail about it when I was between age 10 and age 13. And yes, her telling me in far too much detail when I was that young felt like a form of abuse from her to me. (My entire childhood, she expected me to look after her emotional needs and parent ***her***.)

It was not in any way a safety issue - she told me immediately after he had died (he died when I was 10) and before he died, we were always living on opposite sides of the continent from him (3418 kilometres away, or 2123 miles away).

I think the advice here is correct, but if I were the letter writer I would stop trying to get validation on this topic from the kids and work on it with others. Just have the relationship with the kids in the now. Maybe they don't want to think about abusive grandma any more themselves. The grandma has now been dead over 10 years and while the LW clearly is justified in their feelings, insisting that the kids be on the same page with her about it is not going to work.

I am not minimizing the aftermath of the abuse, but clearly the kids are not the right audience for processing any of this and the LW should stop trying to get them to understand and agree with her and do that work with someone else. I'm grateful the LW escaped and went on to live their life.