orphananny: " Us moms" are all here for each other. We know about 'self-preservation" but the person who molested me schooled me in silence, and the women in my family said, "Just don't think about it. Don't make yourself unhappy." as though I was the cause of my own " unhappiness" And then 'society' silenced me too, for awhile, so I never let anyone know I was out here and that's what "moms" on Daily Strength do for each other...We are there for each other/ we are there for us mom's who thought there was no one else who knew this life from the point of view of a "Mom"
That's really why I tried to write a "book" because no one else wrote for my point of view and until I started writing, until the blogging began I couldn't "speak up" but I could write and thereby I found other women who write/ comment and who helped me understand my own life....We are "here for moms" because we are become the moms we all along hoped to find.

So true. One huge problem is the isolation victims are forced into. I personally was molested by 13 different people by the time I was 13, and then followed by statutory rape consensual as well as not. for my teen years. I was raped three times. The last one was by the father of my middle son, while I was 8 months pregnant with our son. Nobody could relate to my story, and most were troubled by wanting to help and wanting to listen, but not knowing how. They become so uncomfortable with your pain that they have to back away, leaving the victim to feel abandoned. It seems so simple to them, just don't think about it so much they say. You have got to forgive, you have to let go, blaaaa blaaaa blaaaa. None of that helps when a certain, smell, or touch, or song, or color, brings all the memories flooding in at the worst possible moment. For example I was attacked in my sleep a few times, so when my loving husband try's to wake me up by putting his hands on me, I immediately wake up ready to fight, and then the anger comes, and my poor innocent hubby feels very bad. These are the kind of things they don't see or feel, these are not things we can control, this is PTSD loud and clear. It doesn't just go away, it just changes color sometimes. When I explained to my hubby why he shouldn't wake me with his hands he felt very relieved, and try's very hard to wake me slowly.

I think that is essentially the problem with how the " justice system" treats all of us, Children who are 'victimized" are expected to report / stop their own 'victimization" (and then are told by outsiders "victim advocates" that they will be in need of 'treatment' all their lives.) I was told by a person who was supposed to be helping me learn to write my memoir that they were a "therapist' and they could help me. I said "No, I am a writer." I am a person in my own right. For too much of my life I have been told who and how I ought to be. And Victim or Lynch-mob Member is not the person I chose to be. Little "approved" victim/survivor/thriver who got over it Memoirs/ narratives are popular and may be what sells/ what they'd rather hear but that's certainly not "Me" I have felt smothered long enough.

The "system' not only does not understand our "triggers" they way the system is set up (no matter which "side" which sub-set of family we inhabit,) their "solutions' (prison, 'therapy' the registry, How could you not have known? BS ) their rush to tell us what we need (so they can stop feeling discomfort over what they don't want to know in the first place) only sets off and creates more trauma, more "triggers" in everyone of us. T
Orphananny, The fact that you know your triggers and can explain and maybe sometimes avoid them (and you have someone who loves you enough not to wake you up by putting his hands on you) means a lot. If you extend the idea of triggers (and left over anger) to others in your family some of whom may not yet realize what's triggering them so they don't yet know to explain and avoid but, once triggered, some (including us sometimes) just go on and act out / re-enact their own trauma on others. Some repeat and repeat the cycle on and on in your family and mine...After all the silence and harm done to you, no wonder you say you feel so much anger at your son for harming your daughter and now feel so much sorrow over what's been done and is being done to him too in spite of the "help" you tried to find for him.
Somehow the mom's, the adults, all the the men and women involved on every side of this issue) need to stop/ slow down/ end all this cyclical trauma that triggers the land mines and creates so much sorrow down through generations. Tthe only way I know to begin to understand my own PTSD/ land mines and somehow understand and share and somehow avoid our own triggers and stop setting other land mines along the path to real 'recovery' PTSD did just "happen" in Vietnam or Iraq, it happened in our own families for whatever reasons and we need to tell about our land mnes so we don't set more land mines to explode in the lives of other little kids..

I don't know how to begin to deal with this except to break open the silence and begin to share just as we are doing here on Daily Strength. Find courage to tell of our rage and then take the next step and somehow begin to examine and change at least myself in hopes that maybe my grand son's child will be spared, won't have to struggle with all this. down the path.

The fact that you could ask someone you love not to awaken you with their hands is a real beginning. It took a lot of courage. We all wake up far too slowly to what's going on around us. Some of us wake up when we see our own children being triggered into what we tried so hard to help them avoid...

All these issues relating to the victims will continue as long as the politicians etc. refuse to address the REAL problem (known to the victim abuse) and stop looking for the sex offender lurking behind the bushes

Well said. The only way I can think of to limit the pain and fear is to educate others who want to be educated. To remind people that these labeled sex offenders are human, they made mistakes, but they are still loved by some one. I always told myself that if anyone touched my kids I would kill them, then ironically it was my own kids who did the harm to each other. Suddenly you realize these are not just TV monsters these are some ones kids. MY KIDS!!!! It was a harsh reality for me that I couldn't just kick some ones butt and be done with it. Hard way to learn compassion for those that society hates the most. I see them differently now, I feel sadness for them and their families instead of the anger I had from my own abusers. When I see them on the news now, my first thought is (I wish I could go hug their mothers). I don't hide my story anymore, in fact I try to enlighten as many as I can by showing them my face (a real face) ( a real story). When then doctor said its a girl in 1997 my first thought was oh crap how am I going to protect a girl in this world. Little did I know I had to worry about my boys too. I tried to keep them all in this safe little bubble, but I didn't know I would also have to protect them from each other. I am still looking for my super mom cape. I just wanted this to stop with my generation, but it got away from me and affected my grand daughter, and again because it was my own son, I couldn't go kick the monsters butt. The hardest lesson for me in all this was having to be supportive of my sons who inflicted the kind of pain I grew up with, when all I wanted to do is punch them. To love and hate at the same time. I am riding both sides of the fence.

Stranger Danger certainly wasn't the "problem" for me. Stranger Sanger label our families as "monsters" and silences us all Lock all the monsters away, throw away the key and then just lock all the doors and windows "Problem solved" It keeps us all afraid and at the same time distracts us from understanding (talking about and seeing) what is happening/ what triggers and traumas continue the cycle right in our own family and in the families or others. Without that we all conspire with the lynch mob in our shame blame and silence.
I'm not sure anyone could have helped my Father in later life once he was set in his ways but not one even understood how to try. My own husband who was, indeed, strangely like my father was never reported and never arrested and never took responsibility for healing the hurts done to him as a chld nor did he ever "change" and reach out to the ones he hurt...
And what about all the youngsters now being "helped" by adjudicating them as adults and throwing them to the wolves because the lynch mob want to rush to Vengence instead? The internet makes it possible for us to see each other not as dangerous strangers but a members of the same family (dare I say, the family of humans beings) generations all struggling to get better, do better, pass on a better, safer future to the little kids we all love and need to learn to better protect?

Stanger danger, good touch bad touch, ya I went through all that with my kiddos, I thought they were informed. I even had a lady come over when my son was just about 4 years old, she showed him a power point and tried to show him what to do. But it did not cover what to do when it is not a stranger. When it is your own brother who you love and look up to. They did not want to get their brother in trouble so they kept quiet, after all he wasn't the creepy guy in the van asking you if you want some candy. O worry about lynch mobs, they do not know my sons nor what they went through as kids. I wish they would introduce a new class in the public schools called compassion training. If we could teach our kids to support others even when they have made a mistake, well maybe there would be less mistakes made. This is my wish for the next generation.