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))) !
my daughter was abused at age twelve by her cousin who was babysitting her and her younger siblings thirteen years ago. The therapist we went to advised us to try to get past it as a family and so for years we went to therapy and she went to therapy but we also went to family gatherings in spite of the pain it caused for all of us because we trusted the therapist to know how to heal us. My daughter still hurts that we put her in the same room for holidays with her abuser and naturally blames us and her aunts and uncles and grandparents for not protecting her. She is right. I was not strong. I listened to others including my older siblings and parents about putting it behind us rather than to myself her mother. If it had been someone outside the family how to behave and protect her would have felt so much clearer. I was torn between my mother and my child. My daughter finally spoke up in college and made a break from my family. She tells me now that those get togethers hurt her more than the initial abuse. I have since gotten stronger myself and although I still see my family of origin, i won't go to family gatherings for holidays because it hurts her and she is my priority. I don't know how or if I can forgive myself for putting her through that.
Since then we celebrate as a smaller family. But, we have lost all of our traditions and I am trying to create new ones for our now smaller family to make holidays feel special but am met by lack of interest and resistance to making new norms. Somehow this makes every holiday so sad.
Yesterday my other daughter who celebrated the fourth with her boyfriends family which has many traditions asked me why we had none.
Just feeling alone today.
This crime has been historically misunderstood by mental health professionals. Freud didn't help when he talked about Oedipus and Electra complexes. The idea that incest is somehow normal or forgivable is just such crap, but a lot of therapists still today see reunification as a noble goal. And family members of the perpetrator seem often to put a great deal of pressure on parents of survivors to forgive and forget, and to make healing the SURVIVOR'S problem, instead of acknowledging the role of their criminal loved one. You were badly guided. Is that your fault? No. But you would not have deliberately hurt your daughter had you not listened to people who must have been very convincing (a hallmark of abusers....). However, you may wish to reconsider spending any time at all with members of your family of origin who side with the abuser. That might go a much longer way than any apology you might offer to your daughter for an adolescence of ruined holidays.
Traditions are overrated. If your younger daughter is unhappy about your lack of traditions, that is a small issue compared to subjecting your survivor daughter to traditions that would remind her of her abuser. Maybe instead of focusing on creating new traditions, you can simply get together in a whole new way each year -- going for an Easter hike, for example, one year, and a day trip to a nearby city the next. Most holidays are about life and renewal. Make the most of life, and do new stuff. My kids are both adults now and they are not so clingy to the idea that "we do Christmas THIS way (only)."
You will find that most parents on this forum have struggled with how to relate to family members who side with the abuser, and some of them will probably weigh in soon.
Do you have a counselor of your own? You might need some guidance about how to bridge the divide between you and your survivor daughter.
Luckily I have managed to maintain my relationship with my survivor daughter although seeing her continuing life struggles makes it very hard not to blame myself.