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Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 11 of 11. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by Medusa on August 25, 2002, at 12:48:26
so yesterday I worked out for an hour and then was in the sauna, and it came up how I really haven't worked through something that happened over 12 years ago. One of my younger sisters was molested, and I've talked about this with various therapists, but they have no idea how to deal with me being so involved in this. I feel really guilty, both for not preventing it, and for contributing to the family situation that was conducive to the abuse. I really beat up on the person who did this, and I think he was taking out his anger on me, by choosing the sister who very much resembles me but was small and he could dominate. I regret not castrating him - and my father, who swept the issue under the rug and still blames me for not forgiving and thus "tearing the family apart" - right then. I'd feel a lot better now, and I was under 18 then and I doubt I'd have ended up in jail, and even if, I'd still feel more like I have a right to the air I breath today.
I don't feel like I deserve to have anything good in life, whether a job or relationship or material. I can't get therapists to accept that I can NOT accept that "it wasn't my fault" (hello, I know this intellectually) and that I'm NOT going to just get over it and move on.
Violence is not the answer (now) and ... but I'm being pretty violent to myself, no SI at this point but plenty of anxiety, which can be a form of violence against oneself, or correlate with it or something.
I don't know what kind of help to get, how to ask for it and insist on getting it, when I finally get back into therapy.
sorry I'm a real mess, and I hope I have followed the rules for posting
M
Posted by judy1 on August 25, 2002, at 13:19:24
In reply to maybe this should be on psycho-psycho - ?, posted by Medusa on August 25, 2002, at 12:48:26
I don't think it matters where you post this, so don't worry. I think my older sister feels a lot like you (guilt for not protecting me) but I certainly have no anger or any negative feelings towards her. She didn't hurt me, she couldn't protect me, all she can do now is try and take care of herself (like you). Guilt can eat you alive, so that is where I would start in therapy. Have you discussed this with your sister at all? Mine won't speak about it and I really feel badly for her because I want her to know I don't blame her, I blame the person who did it to me. I think you really need to understand that from the victim's point of view- and maybe if you understand that you won't hurt yourself so much over what happened in the past. Because the person who hurt me is dead, I write my feelings on pieces of paper and bury them and sometimes plant flowers above so something beautiful can grow in the present over the buried past. I guess that's what you have to keep telling yourself, the past is over, you are not to blame- the monster who did the act is to blame. I'm sorry you are in pain- judy
Posted by Ted on August 25, 2002, at 16:07:49
In reply to maybe this should be on psycho-psycho - ?, posted by Medusa on August 25, 2002, at 12:48:26
M,
> One of my younger sisters was molested...
>... and my father, who swept the issue under the rug and still blames me for not forgiving and thus "tearing the family apart"
<I have a reply which I am sorry isn't very supportive, but I feel I have to say it.>
Where to guys like your dad come from? Must be outer space or a result from too much family inbreeding.
Here's another example:
My secretary at work was repeatedly molested and raped by her father from about age 13 until age 17. She is very open about it. But here's the similarities:
1. He is in denial: "Oh THAT. Why can't we just forget about it?"
2. Her mom is angry and in denial: "That was SO long ago (actually only about 15 years ago). Why can't you just come and visit? Why can't your dad visit his grandchildren?" My secretary has a 9 year old daughter whom she will NOT let her father near for good reason.She has said all she expects from her dad is an apology. It has never happened and likely never will. He doesn't deny his actions, only that it is *his* fault his daughter has spent 10+ years in therapy, suffers PTSD and has panic attacks, won't visit or invite him to her home, etc.
Geez... where do men like that come from?
Ted
Posted by Phil on August 25, 2002, at 19:31:29
In reply to maybe this should be on psycho-psycho - ?, posted by Medusa on August 25, 2002, at 12:48:26
Sexual abuse towards women, especially minors, really makes me mad. I'm not talking kind of pissed off; I would have beat that guy to death if I was in the family. I'm not violent
but like I say..don't abuse kids.
What are your sisters feelings about this? Has she been to therapy? Is she acting out in negative ways? Would she go to a few sessions with you if you thought it would help you? How angry is she?
Is there any way to bring charges against him at this point? If I had a chance to throw him in prison for a few years, I would do it. They really don't like child molesters at all and they'll take payback and he will know the fear and powerlessness he made your sister feel.
I know you've been through this in therapy but would you have stopped him if you knew it was happening? I think you would have died to protect her.
This is a sick person you were dealing with. No matter what you two went through. What kind of a guy molests a sister to make a point? If he has kids now, I wonder what they are living through.You need a therapist that knows this territory.
Please keep working until you realize that it wasn't your fault and that your anger and shame is only hurting you. It's all you can do.
John Bradshaw's book, Healing the Shame That Binds You, might be a book for you to read.I was very codependent with my mother who was an alcoholic beginning early in my life. Her disease was progressing. I was the youngest kid by eight years so I had one on one experience with this insanity way too early.
Somewhere inside of me, I've believed that her drinking was my fault. I'm 49 now, never even very close to marriage, not good at seeing to my own needs, I learned to be concerned about others while at the same time, never knowing how to get my needs met.
My mother was never my responsibility but, really, she was. It's hard to get beyond this; for some, it will never really be over. All we can do is keep trying.
How would you say your and your sisters relationship is now?Phil
Posted by Medusa on August 26, 2002, at 1:00:50
In reply to Re: maybe this should be on psycho-psycho - ? » Medusa, posted by Phil on August 25, 2002, at 19:31:29
> I would have beat that guy to death if I was in the family.
Thanks. Reading this makes me feel better.
> What are your sisters feelings about this?We talked about it some during breaks when I came home from uni, and she used to say things like "I try to remember it's not my fault." She was five!!! at the time of those remarks, three-four when it happened.
We haven't talked about it in the last years. She's almost 17 now. She still talks with the perpetrator, who's still allowed to visit and be alone with the kids. Our youngest sister is 7. Excuse: "he prefers adults." He's almost crashed vehicles with the kids in them. I don't talk with him though, or as little as possible when I can't avoid seeing him. Our father invited him to my wedding - we had a huge blow-out about that.
>Has she been to therapy?No - unless you count the interrogations by our mother, and the sessions with our parents' pastor, in which he decided that the perp was "going through a stage".
>Is she acting out in negative ways?None obvious. Her confidence is low. She's one of the most intelligent persons I know. I hope she gets out of the patriarch's domain SOON - she's applying to colleges but the Patriarch is intentionally screwing with the financial aid forms so that she doesn't get much need-based grant, and he knows she won't take loans. Have I mentioned I hate the b@stard?
>Would she go to a few sessions with you if you
>thought it would help you?Yeah, she'd probably do anything for me. She thinks I'm a bit off for taking so much of this on myself.
>How angry is she?No idea. She hates men, that's for sure. My marriage was a huge, huge, huge betrayal for her. She gets along with my DH, and thinks he's a good guy, but says he must be an ogre, if he could convince me to marry. If it would win her respect back, I would divorce (although stay with him) as soon as our papers are worked out. (USA-EU issues)
> Is there any way to bring charges against him
>at this point?I doubt it. He was under 18 at the time, it's been over a decade, and everyone would deny it anyway. Social Services threw out a complaint that I filed against my parents (for a later aggravation) merely on my parents' word.
>If I had a chance to throw him in prison for a
>few years, I would do it.So would I. if I had thug friends and enough money, I'd hire a private prison experience for him.
> I know you've been through this in therapy but
> would you have stopped him if you knew it was
>happening?Yeah. I was in her room once when he came in, he didn't see me, and I screamed bloody murder at him when he started talking to her - of course he acted like it was no big deal.
> This is a sick person you were dealing with.Yeah. I just found a letter I wrote to our mother, railing at her for the abuse she doled out on him when he was little. She was pretty cold. He's pretty screwed up.
>If he has kids now, I wonder what they are
>living through.None I'm aware of. One issue I have is whether I have any duty or freedom to tell his eventual fiancee what she's getting into. Not that she would believe me. He's glowing mr nice guy to people he needs.
> John Bradshaw's book, Healing the Shame That Binds You, might be a book for you to read.Thanks, I'll check it out.
> so I had one on one experience with this insanity way too early.Man, I'm really sorry you had to go through that.
> Somewhere inside of me, I've believed that her
>drinking was my fault.It's hard not to feel responsible - in our logic, you were the closest party, maybe she loved you the most, if anyone could influence her, it would seem that you could. Not true - but compelling.
>I'm 49 now, never even very close to marriage,
>not good at seeing to my own needs,This will sound bad, but good for you for not marrying. I'm sure you'd like a close relationship (not that marrying needs to play in this picture) but there are so many guys out there who take out so much anger against their mothers, and expect women to cater to them, and then throw the women away when it doesn't work out like the perfect mommy they fantasize. When I was single, working in Boston, I felt like a magnet for the oops-I'm-50-and-forgot-to-breed crowd who really believed a 25-year-old would jump at the chance and they'd live forever young. This experience was a big factor in me marrying DH - he's a good guy, but I was just not interested in marrying anyone. But the pressure from him, and the annoyance and predictability of exactly which needy narcissists were going to eye my curves as mommy material, it all got to me. So Phil, although I'm sure it isn't easy or what you want (or you wouldn't have mentioned it) I admire your awareness and the realism that precludes being serially close-to-marriage.
>I learned to be concerned about others while at the same time, never knowing how to get my needs met.
Dang, can you write a book on solving this and sign a copy for me?
> It's hard to get beyond this; for some, it
>will never really be over.So how do you reconcile moving on, and living with this, and accepting that it's not going to be over?
> How would you say your and your sisters
>relationship is now?I think we're both afraid. She's tired of being punished for my sins (her appearance and many of her mannerisms remind our parents of me), and the scoldings, "M USED TO DO EXACTLY THAT, YOU'RE SO MUCH LIKE HER!!!" I want to help her get Out of the patriarchy, but she's fiercely independent. Probably better for her in the long run. Her next-older sib is also applying to unis now, and he's going to try to get our father to do _his_ paperwork properly, and submit that to schools where my sis is applying, and try to get her not to submit the screwed up paperwork.
It's weird, our parents haven't figured out that they lose every single kid - they kept having more little ones for a while, but the next-to-youngest is already leaving the fold emotionally, and ... anyway I'm rambling.
Phil, thanks for your input. I find it really helpful and comforting.
M
Posted by Medusa on August 26, 2002, at 1:25:52
In reply to Re: maybe this should be on psycho-psycho - ? » Medusa, posted by judy1 on August 25, 2002, at 13:19:24
> I don't think it matters where you post this, so don't worry.
Thanks - I didn't know if there was a rule against posting specifics.
>I think my older sister feels a lot like you (guilt for not protecting me) but I certainly have no anger or any negative feelings towards her. She didn't hurt me, she couldn't protect me, all she can do now is try and take care of
> herself (like you).
Wow, this is really helpful to read from your perspective.
> Guilt can eat you alive, so that is where I
>would start in therapy.I'll keep this in mind. A lot of therapists have theories like "guilt is suppressed anger" - okay, interesting, but then I need to talk about this suppressed anger, not move on to the next platitude!
>Have you discussed this with your sister at all?Not in recent years. I should probably ask her about it sometime. I don't want to trigger stuff for her either. She's the age now that I was when I found out, and ... I don't know. I'm afraid to ask. She probably wouldn't bring it up either though, for fear of setting ME off.
>I want her to know I don't blame her, I blame
>the person who did it to me.Can you write her a letter? One of my brothers just wrote me a letter, not about this, but about other stuff, and it felt really ... absolving. He's a PITA in a lot of ways (a real know-it-all) but that letter is precious.
Thanks Judy, for your perspective and kind words.
M
Posted by Medusa on August 26, 2002, at 1:57:13
In reply to Re: men with too much inbreeding -- » Medusa, posted by Ted on August 25, 2002, at 16:07:49
> <I have a reply which I am sorry isn't very supportive, but I feel I have to say it.>
Ted, I find your response TOTALLY! supportive. Growing up with someone who insists that HE is normal, everyone else is Sinful, etc, I still have to learn to believe my own experiences. There's so much second-guessing-myself trained into my approach to the world! Thanks for stating your impressions. That helps.
> Where to guys like your dad come from?I don't know, and if I did, I would bomb it. It's not inbreeding in his case, so it might be outer space.
I think people who had unhappy or difficult childhoods, and then decide that THEY are going to make their very own HAPPY! Faaaaaaaaamily, are the worst to their own kids. Sure, their technical abuses might be less extreme than what they went through, but ... they invalidate every speck of humanity in everyone with whom they have contact, they suppress every indication that anything might not be perfect in their fantasy Faaaaaaamily. My MIL is like this. Living the high life in Di Nile. DH is pushing for kids, and I worry that he might replicate his parents' pattern. He only just realised that he didn't really have the charmed childhood his parents have insisted he had, that he can believe his own feelings of hurt. And he's almost 40. Neither of us has had good models of how to be decent parents.
> 1. He is in denial: "Oh THAT. Why can't we just forget about it?"
> 2. Her mom is angry and in denial: "That was SO long ago (actually only about 15 years ago). Why can't you just come and visit? Why can't your dad visit his grandchildren?" My secretary has a 9 year old daughter whom she will NOT let her father near for good reason.
>Smart lady. Sorry her parents are such jerks.
> He doesn't deny his actions, only that it is
>*his* fault his daughter has spent 10+ years in therapy, suffers PTSD and has panic attacks, won't visit or invite him to her home, etc.
>
> Geez... where do men like that come from?Okay, I do want to know! so then I can ransack it and purge every last gene of that line.
Thanks again for your support. It means a lot to me. These days I'm so bloody isolated. I'm living in a country where I've just gotten my bearings, learned the language etc, and now it's time to move on ... to another country where I don't know the language, the culture etc. (but DH feels at home there.) At least we'll be free of the ILs, and DH needs that. And presuming I can find good work finally, I'll have insurance, and the culture where we're going is more open, and I can finally be straight up with people about who I am. Not that being a foreigner is necessarily isolating, and not that being back in the states would be a panacea - I don't fit in there, either, and the work of supporting someone emotionally as s/he adapts to a country foreign to them, no thanks, I'd rather adapt myself than deal with DH's adjustment, although he's keen on living in the US eventually - anyway here we've been living in DH's hometown, and it's constraining as heck, and I feel under surveillance, and I've done really well bucking the system and bizarre expectations (e.g. I boycotted a series of events to attend when I first arrived, when ILs wanted to introduce me to their 'friends') and gotten some pretty cool affirmation from PILs so-called 'friends' who have started telling me how great I am for the ILs' faaaaaaaaaamily, and all they know about me is the PILs complaints but I'm ... feeling pretty much an island.
Okay, gotta ask for some resume help from work contacts, gotta do the footwork to take up the help that's been offered - that makes me feel so much more connected and hopeful ...
Thanks again for being there and commenting on my stuff, I know it's smaller than a lot of people's,
M
Posted by Craig on August 26, 2002, at 2:25:27
In reply to maybe this should be on psycho-psycho - ?, posted by Medusa on August 25, 2002, at 12:48:26
Here is what neighbors did to a child molester in a case of street justice. (Could we please pass an international law that would make this punishment mandatory?) http://www.freep.com/news/locoak/spat6_20020806.htm
An excerpt: “Three Pontiac men took the law -- and a blistering hot metal spatula -- into their hands when they learned a neighbor had been regularly sodomizing his 7- and 10-year-old nephews.
Two of the men held down the uncle while the third pressed the smoking spatula on his genitals, buttocks, stomach and legs. They paused only long enough to reheat the spatula on the kitchen stove for repeated branding before tossing the uncle out onto the sidewalk, breaking his arm.”
Posted by Phil on August 26, 2002, at 7:03:50
In reply to Re: maybe this should be on psycho-psycho - ? » Phil, posted by Medusa on August 26, 2002, at 1:00:50
>
>
> > I would have beat that guy to death if I was in the family.
>
> Thanks. Reading this makes me feel better.
>
>
> > What are your sisters feelings about this?
>
> We talked about it some during breaks when I came home from uni, and she used to say things like "I try to remember it's not my fault." She was five!!! at the time of those remarks, three-four when it happened.
>
> We haven't talked about it in the last years. She's almost 17 now. She still talks with the perpetrator, who's still allowed to visit and be alone with the kids. Our youngest sister is 7. Excuse: "he prefers adults." He's almost crashed vehicles with the kids in them. I don't talk with him though, or as little as possible when I can't avoid seeing him. Our father invited him to my wedding - we had a huge blow-out about that.
>
>
> >Has she been to therapy?
>
> No - unless you count the interrogations by our mother, and the sessions with our parents' pastor, in which he decided that the perp was "going through a stage".
>
>>>Oh. This pastor is very dumb. Gee pastor, what happened to ,"Whoever harms one of these, it would be better to have a millstone tied around them and throw them in the sea." Misquoted that one bad but Jesus was pretty clear on this point..don't hurt children because THAT makes me angry.
> >Is she acting out in negative ways?
>
> None obvious. Her confidence is low. She's one of the most intelligent persons I know. I hope she gets out of the patriarch's domain SOON - she's applying to colleges but the Patriarch is intentionally screwing with the financial aid forms so that she doesn't get much need-based grant, and he knows she won't take loans. Have I mentioned I hate the b@stard?
>
>
> >Would she go to a few sessions with you if you
> >thought it would help you?
>
> Yeah, she'd probably do anything for me. She thinks I'm a bit off for taking so much of this on myself.
>
>
> >How angry is she?
>
> No idea. She hates men, that's for sure. My marriage was a huge, huge, huge betrayal for her. She gets along with my DH, and thinks he's a good guy, but says he must be an ogre, if he could convince me to marry. If it would win her respect back, I would divorce (although stay with him) as soon as our papers are worked out. (USA-EU issues)
>
> > Is there any way to bring charges against him
> >at this point?
>
> I doubt it. He was under 18 at the time, it's been over a decade, and everyone would deny it anyway. Social Services threw out a complaint that I filed against my parents (for a later aggravation) merely on my parents' word.
>
>
> >If I had a chance to throw him in prison for a
> >few years, I would do it.
>
> So would I. if I had thug friends and enough money, I'd hire a private prison experience for him.
>
>
> > I know you've been through this in therapy but
> > would you have stopped him if you knew it was
> >happening?
>
> Yeah. I was in her room once when he came in, he didn't see me, and I screamed bloody murder at him when he started talking to her - of course he acted like it was no big deal.
>
>
> > This is a sick person you were dealing with.
>
> Yeah. I just found a letter I wrote to our mother, railing at her for the abuse she doled out on him when he was little. She was pretty cold. He's pretty screwed up.
>>>One big cycle.
>
> >If he has kids now, I wonder what they are
> >living through.
>
> None I'm aware of. One issue I have is whether I have any duty or freedom to tell his eventual fiancee what she's getting into. Not that she would believe me. He's glowing mr nice guy to people he needs.>>>That's a tough call. He will probably attract someone with abuse in their past. Weird how it all works.
>
>
> > John Bradshaw's book, Healing the Shame That Binds You, might be a book for you to read.
>
> Thanks, I'll check it out.
>
>
> > so I had one on one experience with this insanity way too early.
>
> Man, I'm really sorry you had to go through that.Me too. It sucked.
>>>My mom got sober when I was 22 or so and had 19 years sobriety when she passed away in '93. We were best friends and I loved her immensely. She was sick when I was growing up. I was incredibly proud of her beating booze. She was a low bottom drunk and she knew it. She's probably looking down here telling me to stop using her as an example! I've got 2 older brothers and we all miss her tremendously.
>
> > Somewhere inside of me, I've believed that her
> >drinking was my fault.
>
> It's hard not to feel responsible - in our logic, you were the closest party, maybe she loved you the most, if anyone could influence her, it would seem that you could. Not true - but compelling.>>I think being the youngest, she and I were close. She credited me with saving her life twice. That's never really sunk in with me.
>
> >I'm 49 now, never even very close to marriage,
> >not good at seeing to my own needs,
>
> This will sound bad, but good for you for not marrying. I'm sure you'd like a close relationship (not that marrying needs to play in this picture) but there are so many guys out there who take out so much anger against their mothers, and expect women to cater to them, and then throw the women away when it doesn't work out like the perfect mommy they fantasize. When I was single, working in Boston, I felt like a magnet for the oops-I'm-50-and-forgot-to-breed crowd who really believed a 25-year-old would jump at the chance and they'd live forever young. This experience was a big factor in me marrying DH - he's a good guy, but I was just not interested in marrying anyone. But the pressure from him, and the annoyance and predictability of exactly which needy narcissists were going to eye my curves as mommy material, it all got to me. So Phil, although I'm sure it isn't easy or what you want (or you wouldn't have mentioned it) I admire your awareness and the realism that precludes being serially close-to-marriage.>>>I've done the right thing for me.
>
> >I learned to be concerned about others while at the same time, never knowing how to get my needs met.
>
> Dang, can you write a book on solving this and sign a copy for me?
>
>
> > It's hard to get beyond this; for some, it
> >will never really be over.
>
> So how do you reconcile moving on, and living with this, and accepting that it's not going to be over?
>
>>>The key word is acceptance. Then therapy, ACA meetings. Whatever.
> > How would you say your and your sisters
> >relationship is now?
>
> I think we're both afraid. She's tired of being punished for my sins (her appearance and many of her mannerisms remind our parents of me), and the scoldings, "M USED TO DO EXACTLY THAT, YOU'RE SO MUCH LIKE HER!!!" I want to help her get Out of the patriarchy, but she's fiercely independent. Probably better for her in the long run. Her next-older sib is also applying to unis now, and he's going to try to get our father to do _his_ paperwork properly, and submit that to schools where my sis is applying, and try to get her not to submit the screwed up paperwork.
>
> It's weird, our parents haven't figured out that they lose every single kid - they kept having more little ones for a while, but the next-to-youngest is already leaving the fold emotionally, and ... anyway I'm rambling.
>
> Phil, thanks for your input. I find it really helpful and comforting.
>>>>Thanks for letting me ramble.
> M
Posted by Gabbix2 on August 26, 2002, at 14:09:53
In reply to Punishing a molester - true story, posted by Craig on August 26, 2002, at 2:25:27
Posted by Dinah on August 26, 2002, at 16:48:27
In reply to Re: Punishing a molester - true story (nm), posted by Gabbix2 on August 26, 2002, at 14:09:53
This is the end of the thread.
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