I needed validation. I think that denial is such a strong force and that it flourishes in situations where abuse has happened. For me, being believed helped me feel like it wasn't my fault. It wasn't something that happened 'between' us. It was abuse! No five-year old can give consent.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that being believed helped me come out of denial. Although my brain new what went on was wrong - I always felt it was my fault. Solely. When people believed me, it was a step closer to me realizing that I hadn't done anything wrong.

Plus, it hurts like heck to be called a liar, which is what is happening when someone doesn't believe. It's no different than being in a very serious car accident and then having everyone tell you it never happened. It couldn't have happened because the car is so nice!

1. So you don't end up losing your family.
2. So predators do not harm anyone else.
3. So your pain is validated.
4. So your family doesn't think you have "problems" for absolutely no reason and shun you.
5. So you can maintain your dignity.
6. So your family will be supportive of you.
7. Because you are telling the truth.

Those are just a few.

Firstly I suspect we are all told by our abusers that we won't be believed if we report them, it becomes part of the power struggle.

Secondly, to believe someone is to validate their experience. To have your experiences, particularly negative experiences, validated by others is a normal part of being a human being. In most situations that validation comes naturally through normal social contact. Sexual abuse is different, here it is hard to get validation because of the urge to cover it up or deny it.

Wanting validation is normal, what is abnormal is that sexual abuse survivors generally don't get it.

If you are dying of thirst when everyone around you isn't thirsty because they have water - the problem isn't you, you don't have a greater need for water than the others, it's that none of it is coming your way.

I don't think I ever even tried to tell anyone. I think the habit of denial and the whole psychological structure that divided my family's world into matter/anti-matter was something I grew up with. There was never any "normal" there. There was no transition from it not happening to it happening. I just think at a certain point it got more extreme and punitive.

It was very important to me to be believed because I needed to know that I was not the one doing wrong. I felt it all along that the abuse was wrong but I wanted someone to believe that it was not my fault. I was told so many lies as a child --- the violator(s) told me so many lies. One of the lies was I was looking for it and that I wanted it and they made me say it while they abused me.
That is the one lie that holds so strong for me. Its important that I be believed.

I was never in any doubt that I was believed by my original therapist or my husband. But I found it very interesting when I met up with my therapist some years later and she had qualified as a Myers Briggs Personality thingy (haven't got the word ATM!) She told me then that because of what I was in the Myers Briggs (I'm an ESTJ) that told her too that I was telling the truth about the abuse in childhood (and all the other abuses as an adult).

It was doubly comforting to know that.

I never told my mother (or unavailable, ignorant father) about abuses in adulthood as they were quite elderly by the time I realised what had happened had a name. ...... D

Many, many thanks and deep appreciation to:

JournalReader
Siturn
Breakingtheshell
donnawanda
Daniwho
Daisymay2

not only for your responses, but because in a paradoxical way all of your responses have finally led to my own answer to the question I posed:

Question: "Why was it important to you to be believed?"
My Answer: Because I mattered.

I don't know if that makes sense to you all but I know it was the answer I was seeking by my emotional response to it...deep, sobbing tears.

Much gratitude goes to you for this on-going shift I'm currently experiencing.

xx
SuzA

When I wasn't believed. When my confusion and fear wasn't acknowledged it made me feel unloved and un-cared for. It took away my sense of security. I no longer believed that i would be safe and protected.

Yes Suza - you matter. You matter very very much. We all matter.

I told 1aunt once. She started screening. I never told anyone else in my family. They all loved my father. I was very depressed. For me, I think they believed hIm because he was always nice to them and they know I'm a little strange. A lot of the time I would rather be alone with books than out playing with other kids. Aren't most kids who were abused moody. I was fortunate that I already had a good support network before I said anything.

You want to be believed for validation, and because it takes so much courage to even tell people. It is astounding when they don't believe you.

When I was rescued by an officer and he took me to the hospital, he AND the doctor believed me. Of course- the officer heard my screams, and the doctor... Let's just say he treated me.
Abuser slapped into a jail cell and viola- that should have been the end of it- right?
I was a child who was just almost nine years old who had been living in the country, on a farm, and had never been exposed to anything at school. Yet I knew words, terms and sexual things that some grown ups didn't know. My grandmother didn't believe me. I was crushed. Completely devastated. She couldn't believe that "her son" could do that. Never mind that I told her a year or two prior- "we don't talk about things like that". She flat said she didn't believe me.

Years later, when she was bedridden and he went after HER- then she believed me. I needed that validation when I was a child, not when I was grown. She apologized to me, and I simply stared at her. I'm not sure if she was seeking forgiveness, or absolution but I could not give it to her. Well- the fact that I was standing there with my beautiful half Hispanic baby boy that she had decided was done to hell because "races shouldn't mix" helped me stay as cold as ice. Was that wrong? I don't know but she should have believed me from day one. That isn't something that should ever be dismissed.