Denial of sexual abuse in extended family

[Eagle Ray]

Potentially distressing content warning 

Hi, I’m currently trying to bring myself to communicate with an extended family member regarding her ongoing denial of four years of sexual abuse done to a cousin when she was a child. In fact she pretends the person abused doesn’t exist. The mother of this child (different to above person) blamed her daughter for the abuse and abandoned her. The perpetrator got away with it. This same perpetrator attempted to groom me as a child but I was fortunately never alone with him. Another relative did as well in front of other family including my parents who did nothing to stop his behaviour, but again I was never completely alone and apart from suggestive comments and being leered at and asked to do things for him, nothing actually happened. He later went to prison for abusing another under-age person.

 I’m not sure my question fits here because it’s primarily about the abuse of someone else. But what I’d like to know is how have others handled denial of sexual abuse in families and the ongoing lies and cover ups that can go on for years? As a younger adult I have experienced two sexual assaults and so I feel all the more angry about how the abuse of a family member is denied. I refuse to pretend the person doesn’t exist and I have nothing to do with her mother who abandoned her. The other family member is trying to get me to connect with the mother and I will not do this.

This keeps coming up at the moment and I’m thinking of writing a letter to the family member I’m struggling with right now. I believe she tries to cover up the abuse because she has been scared for years to rock the boat. But I feel I have to rock the boat even though it’s likely to be destructive of my relationship with family members.

 I only found out about the abuse of this cousin in my 20s when my parents told me, years after it occurred. The perpetrator died recently which has put a spotlight back on this issue. Has anyone had to handle something like this? What did you do? How did it go? I have a feeling it’s going to go badly but I refuse to play the denial game. I have never met the cousin in question as she was ex-communicated from her family decades ago. I’m only recently discovering the extent to which other family have gone to cover up the abuse and it’s upsetting me. My parents have died so I can’t discuss it with them now.

[Eagle Ray]

I think that difference between what is oneself and what are symptoms is what I am fundamentally reckoning with right now. And myself today is coming out on top, through the symptoms, to regain a strong foothold while the symptoms just fall away. It is a profound healing.

And you are right, others are often stronger than we give them credit for and at least some of them can likely handle our struggles, including suicidality. It’s so important to know that, but also to kind of intuit who are the right people to share with, capable of supporting us. Sometimes it’s a case of continuing to try, combined with listening to our instincts, to find the right help. There will be someone there who can help us.

[Purple2b]

Well done to all of you supporting each other on a journey so long and at times endless but one journey that can bring healing from one to another in mysterious ways! You have certainly opened up a light through a dark tunnel where healing is hard to see and closure may never be!

[Eagle Ray]

Thank you very kindly Purple 2b 🙏 Yes, sometimes it can seem endless without closure and I’ve definitely felt that. However, I’m starting to find it can happen, often through the right care and engagement with kind others which I think helps us know how to care for ourselves, especially if we missed out on developing that self-care in childhood.

Sometimes there may not be a clear cut closure, more a kind of progressive healing that keeps deepening and permeating our being until we feel it and know it. It’s kind of like light energy filling the body, or at least that’s what I’m experiencing, so it does feel a bit mystical. But it’s also shifts in my nervous system I can feel. My blood pressure has normalised and I have a feeling of being fairly calm after a lifetime of stress and hypervigilance. It’s like coming home to who you really are.

[Purple2b]

I am very grateful with your reply and uplifted by your level of work and commitment to yourself giving you all you possibly can power up to be a better and stronger you! I hope to get there one day and find a place of right and just! A place where the heavy weight that comes with trauma will no longer be my load to carry and some where along the way I get to find that free spirit I see in my own mini me ! Converting the weight to the gently ever so light and breezy weight of a feather!

[Eagle Ray]

I’m glad if that gives you some encouragement Purple2b. I wouldn’t say I’m miraculously cured, but I’ve felt a lot lift from me and feel like I’m healing now rather than struggling to keep my head above water. It’s a lot of grief processing I’m dealing with now but it’s in-process, so to speak, rather than stuck. I’ve found so much of trauma recovery is a process of release and letting go of stuff that’s got embedded in our nervous system, memory, spirit etc. I’ve found help from others who are attuned to that process has been invaluable.

So I really believe that heavy weight of trauma can lift from you. It’s often an up and down process but I’ve learned it’s kind of organic and will unfold as a process under the right conditions.

I’m learning to care better for myself and wisely respond to my own needs (as opposed to being completely focussed on helping others). I think many of us with a trauma history didn’t get to learn how to self-care and respond to our own needs. So I’m learning to be my own nurturing parent and also be in touch with my intuition that often knows what to do if I listen.

That free spirit you mention I believe is always there and sometimes has just gotten obscured by everything that’s happened in life. But I feel there’s always a part of us that’s ok. You sound like you have a lot of heart and spirit which is wonderful. Wishing you all the best on your healing journey!

[Purple2b]

That place of black and that stuff that is not able to be moved, the yucky stuff that is imbedded with each pain inflicted situation, I hate, hate, hate it! How it feels, what it symbolises and what it has done to my personal space and the stolen freedom and identity that you can not go back in time to retrieve it. All things we can not alter! These and many other things anger me and I wish it was as easy as well just let it go. Compounding trauma takes all those years of built up damage that those years and more are required to have it removed what ever the heck it is. EMDR is my hope I now have to believe in to get me to that place you speak of! The calm, the free, the self care the deserving joy and content!

[Eagle Ray]

What you describe is what I’ve been releasing - literally chunks of toxic sludge. It can come out. I’m much too tired to explain any better right now, but it’s like those seemingly unalterable memories and stuck traumas can be revised in how our brain and nervous system work. From what I’ve read about EMDR that’s what it’s doing, though I haven’t done EMDR myself. I wish you the best with it. Take care.

[Croix]

Dear ER, wiht a wave to Purple2b~

I've been thinking over what you have both said and believe that 'releasing the toxic sludge' or however you  want to call it is similar to my feelings, which are that memories - whch are after all part of one - do not disappear entirely, however they mostly lose their impact.

I consider I've reached a pretty satisfactory recovery point, and while still having symptoms lead a pretty good and enjoyable life. The memories are still there, elementary precautions still have to be taken, and sometimes things can seem to loom larger and have more effect, but by and large they are no longer an impediment to life.

I'm not sure if this sounds as encouraging as it is meant to be, I've tried not to paint an unrealistic a picture while at the same time saying most can look forward in time to a happy and fulfilling life.

Croix

[Purple2b]

ER and Croix thank you for bringing your wisdom my way at this journey of life! I find encouragement comes in my forms and is also received in many forms!! I believe in all forms it is encouragement no matter what even if we are yet to understand the how, why or even when! All of which I feel through you it will be! EMDR scares me but so does the reality of the past more so then the unknown so if it is any form of my first self care it is a need for one’s sanity to heal to a point of living for here and now! Thanks again BB Crew! 

[Croix]

Dear Purple2b, wiht a wave to ER~

While EMDR may well be of assistance I think one of hte most hopeful thing's I've read in your posts is that  you can 'step outside' and see how things have affected you, you are not always trapped inside simply reacting. (I hope htat makes sense:)

Croix

Croix