Parents Whose children have been sexually abused Community Group
This group is for parents whose children have been sexually abused. We welcome both Mothers and Fathers. Here, we can offer support to one another. We can vent, cry and lift each other up. No condemning or criticizing allowed. We are here for support. We LOVE (((HUGS))) !
Hello. My adult daughter has recently remembered being sexually abused by her piano teacher as a little girl. This has devastated us all. My husband and I are trying to come to terms with how we could have failed her in this way. My daughter is a psychotherapist who has done lots of work on her own over the years.....not really knowing what she was working on. I guess my question is, what does she need from us as she goes through this? Will she want to talk to us about it? I would think that she would be angry with us....we're angry with us. But she's a kind person who would be very careful not to hurt us or make this harder on us than she needs to. What's our role in her recovery? Thanks for any insights from your experience.
First things first, you need this resource: www.mosac.net. This is a very deep website that will help you to gain a better understanding of what this has already meant for your family, whether you knew it or not. Please know this: you did not fail your daughter; her piano teacher did. It's what manipulative opportunists do best.
Lots of therapists have experienced trauma. It's one of the reasons they are interested in the field. And lots of trauma survivors cannot remember why they are often anxious, sad, angry, etc. It's very perceptive of you to consider that your daughter may have worked through much of her trauma already -- perhaps she needed to do it in this order before she could risk allowing herself to remember.
Because this is actually new to your daughter as well as to you, you will probably all benefit from therapy (your daughter likely has her own therapist already, as required by the American Psychological Association, or by your own country's version of the same, if you're not in the States).
Your role in your daughter's recovery is, first of all, to ask her what she needs. Then, be a listener, and keep the discussion open. Beyond that, in my humble opinion, your focus should be on your own recovery, because you do not have the advantage of having spent years in a sort of a recovery-adjacent process, as your daughter has. I'm glad she's being kind, because it's what you deserve. Many survivors don't tell (even if they remember) in part because they don't want to cause their parents pain. But the pain is inevitable because we love our children. The old oxygen-masks-on-an-airplane analogy applies here: take care of yourself properly so that your daughter will see that you are a survivor, too.