In yesterday’s blog entry entitled Processing Feelings toward Those Who were Unwitting Abusers, I talked about my feelings toward abusers who did not know that I was not consenting to the sexual contact. Today, I would like to focus on my conflicted feelings toward more subtle abuse enabling – toward the adults in my life who did not know I was being abused and, therefore, did not stop it. For this topic, I am going to use my grandparents (my father’s parents) as my example.
I have no question that my grandparents had no idea my mother was sexually abusing me, much less bringing me to “family friends” to be abused. I doubt that my grandparents could even wrap their minds around that level of abuse. I have chosen not to share this information with my 90-year-old grandmother because that information would probably kill her.
While my grandparents did not know about the abuse, they had to have known that my mother was not completely sane. The same applies to anyone who had regular interactions with my mother, including my father, other relatives, and people at church. Here are some reactions that family friends who were not part of the abuse had about my mother:
She looks like she knows exactly what she is doing. She just doesn’t know where she it.
Did she do too many drugs in the ‘60’s?
Does this sound like the kind of woman that should be left alone with young children all day? I know — it always gets back to “it’s none of my business” or “it’s not my place.” I always tell people my abuse continued without a break for a decade because of those attitudes by “good” people.
I truly do not believe that any of these people suspected abuse. Nevertheless, parts of me do blame them for not stopping the abuse. My mother was abusive and crazy, and my father was enabling and absent. My grandparents were the only other adult relatives who were actively involved in my life at the height of the abuse, and parts of me resent them for not stopping it.
I still have not fully worked through those feelings. My grandfather is deceased, and my grandmother is very old and suffering physically as her body falls apart. Although I know I should make more of an effort to write to her (she lives in another state), call her, and travel to visit her more frequently, I don’t. It’s because of my anger – Where the hell was she when my abuse was going on? She wasn’t there for me, so I am not going to prioritize being there for her.
I confess that’s an ugly way to look at her, and I am not proud of this attitude, but I am being completely honest here. I have reached a place of accepting that this is a part of who I am, and I need to honor, not squash, those feelings from childhood. That doesn’t mean that I need to be cruel to her (I know that she is safe living with my aunt), but I am also not going to force myself to be this loving, involved grandchild when she was not there for me.
I go through periods of introspection wondering if I will regret not making more of an effort in her last days. I don’t think I will. I have no lingering feelings of guilt about my grandfather, and the same dynamic applied with him. Any reaching out would come from a place of duty, not love, and that feeling of duty simply is not there beyond making the trip to my hometown every couple of years to see her for an hour or two. The abused child in me believes she failed in her duty to protect me and, therefore, feels no duty to step up now.
Photo credit: Lynda Bernhardt
My parents did not have direct evidence that I was being abused. Has someone other than me given them direct evidence they would have stopped it. This is the thing. They would have stopped it to maintain their image. I still would have suffered consequences. It would have been stopped and I would have been blamed and shammed.
There is a real possibility that I will regroup this winter and have some sort of normal life. Although allowing for my feeling and opinion to change I have decided that when I do stop doing well at healing and start doing well at being strong right now I have no interest in my family. I sometimes which I did. It passes.
My mother is old and her health is failing. I will not have my time used in ways that make me resentful. It is OK that I resent being mistreated on any level. I will hold my mother responsible if I have to spend energy to make sure my time is not misused.
Pretty much I have no duty as others did not fulfill their duty. Duty is the family dynamic that they created. There are no duties with my children. We express or love for each other as that is the dynamic we together created.
u shouldnt feel obligated to step up, im glad u dont.
In a weird way i felt lik i should hav lookd after my dad wen he was ill bt its too confusing now, i feel guilt for nt doin it, shame for wot he did and anger at feelin both of these things. Its so confusing!
Take care,
Alice x
I’ve been estranged from my nuclear family for over a dozen years. They can all go straight to hell for not lifting a finger to help me when every single one of them knew what was going on and did absolutely nothing, even when I begged for help. I am totally without so-called “family” — and better off.
Karen,
It is so hard and confusins when people who should have stopped it were oblivious…but exponentially painful when those who should have loved us knew and did nothing!!! I am so very sorry and also so very much understand. Sitting with you in the pain hoping in some way your nuclear family has been replaced by truly, actively loving people who would stop the world to keep you safe.
Ruby
My family looked normal…in fact my parents were pillars in the community. Mom was an alcoholic and worked 60 hours a week. She was somehow oblivious, when I talk to her she looks innocent, she can look me in the eye. But I think she rewrote history in a positive light the minute it happened because the family had to be kept in tact. My dad was a key abuser as were about 6 of our neighbors (they were a cult and nights were terrorfilled). He was also disabled and home all the time.
The clincher is my grandpa lived next door. My sister who is quite a bit older than i and wasn’t abused or taken by “them” loved grandpa and thot of him as her protector. I looked up to him while gramma was alive, felt safe but that was only til I was 5. After that I was afraid of him. Over time I’ve realized my dad instilled that fear. It makes me wonder…had I told him (grandpa) would he have been my protector too. And my heart seems to say…no. Abuse was not acknowledged in my day and in my community. That makes me hurt at a level I can’t explain.
I am refusing bitterness ’cause all it does is eat up my life. But letting go of bitterness doesn’t seem to help the confusion at the inhumanity and brutality of it all. How can any human being ever ever ever hurt a child? Let alone systematically over years and years do to me and you and others, what people, human beings have done? It will never make sense to me.
Ruby
In a way for me it works out if I can grieve the loss what ever it is. Things just seem to work out. This does not mean I am not ever sad or angry again. Not even that I do not think what if. Somehow knowing something was wrong and that it is not my fault puts things where they should be. Or at least where I am happy with them being.
So much of it with my family is a lose lose thing. They really gained nothing. Cost me a lot and they lost. I do not think they really know what they lost or what is missing.
I expect it is easier for me as for the most part my family were not the actually abusers. My sister did marry a person who gang raped me after most of the other abuse was over. It makes sense she would marry a psychopath. Dealing with that has been hard since it came into my consciousness. When ever I am with him I am afraid. Afraid I will take him out. I think he is beginning to fear the same thing.
Whew.. that’s a hard one.
My sense is that trusting your instincts is likely what is best for you personally. Sounds like you are doing that.
Good luck.
Peace,
m
My alcoholic and sexually abusive parents isolated themselves (and us) from all family. They moved several states away, ostensibly for my father’s job before I (the oldest) was born. I’m still trying to accept emotionally that there was no one to go to even for brief periods of safety. There was no one close enough to the family to know about the horrors that were going on at home or about the people my mother was farming me out to. My parents were also pillars of the community and to many I’m sure my life seemed enviable.
My anger and resentment isn’t about the grandparents not knowing or doing anything to stop it, but for having raised children in a way that resulted in them becoming the parents they did. I’ve come to see my parents as victims as well, which in no way excuses what they did, but I know at some level it didn’t start with them.
I can’t imagine the pain and confusion of having someone nearby who could have possibly known or who did know and did nothing to stop it. Just like I can’t imagine (the reality) now that there are people around me who can validate me as I uncover my truth and are helping me heal from things I struggle to accept actually happened to me.
Hi Faith,
I understand your conflicted feelings about this. I have them myself.
I recently have been thinking of this resentment feeling with a new perspective and am still working through it.
Part of my healing process has involved disclosing the abuse to safe people. This breaks the chain of silence that was forced on me by my abusers. Some of the people I’ve disclosed to have included my siblings, I have chosen not to disclose to my mother because, like your grandmother, she is elderly and was unaware of the abuse.
Lately I have been wondering if my resentment may be more driven by the fact that I cannot disclose to her which feels invalidating and stirs up those old feelings of keeping silent. Like I’m protecting her, when I should have been protected BY her.
The difference here is that rather than me resenting her for doing nothing to stop the abuse, I’m resenting her for not being in a place where I can NOW disclose and receive what I need from her.
A part of me wants to disclose so I can receive more healing and validation as well as being parented and loved in a way that I missed when I was young.
Anyway, it’s something that I think deserves more thought on my part and I just thought I’d share it with you to get your perspective.
Anni
Wow. This is a really hard one. My grandmother (father’s mother) was the one person who really truly loved me, and with whom I bonded like a mother. She was the one, more than anyone else, who made me feel loved, and connected to a larger family – to her. In my experience she’s the one true person who never hurt or (at least that’s how I saw it) abandoned me, and always believed in me. And there was something there – I believe that it was only because of her that my mother didn’t kill me, although I have no evidence to articulate why. She seemed to be the only person my mother was ever intimidated by.
But she never intervened – at least not actively, or not that I was aware of. And it hurts to think about that. It feels like looking into the chasm.
The times I was with her (when I was young – my parents moved far away from extended family when I was 12 and my mother had started to decrease contact a few years before that) my mother literally didn’t exist; she was never mentioned. She gave me my only taste of what a healthy drama-free family life was like (other than times with my father when my mother was away – but those were rare, and short-lived). I can trace any healthy relationships I have now straight back to my time spent with her.
I’ve been completely estranged and had no family other than my husband and in-laws for over 20 years. I’ve never found a therapist that didn’t somehow undermine me and/or minimize the threat because of the ‘women don’t do that, and if they did it isn’t as bad as men’ attitude. My grandmother’s memory is one of the only things I have to hold on to.
So, at the moment, this is just too hard to think about and I think I’m going to have to pull a Scarlett O’Hara and “think about it tomorrow”.
But I’m glad you posted about this, Faith. I can’t look at it for now, but at least now I realize it’s there in my back pocket to pull out and examine later.
This a really hard one, my nana asked me if I was over it all now.
My mum didn’t allow me to tell my grandparents when we went to court. My mum didn’t want to burden them.
Now as a parent myself, I have little trust in my mum despite the fact she was not my sexually abusing parent.
She has told me that she was sexually abused by het brother and my nana has indicated general abuse in her history.
It scares me that abuse in numerous forms are historic within my family. As a result I am cautious about all my family relationships with my son.
I watch them all like a hawk!! However, after some therapy I was able to identify non abusing relationships within my husbands family and have worked hard on those relationships.
As a result and not without a lot of anxiety, I have learnt that not all relationships are abusive.
Within my own family I have strategies like mot leaving ny son alone with my mother as my life long experience is that she can’t protect. However, with my husbands family I trust them with everything.
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