Tag:

Sexual molestation

My Past Has Ruined My Life

by Dr. Marie Hartwell-Walker January 31st, 2024

From Barbados: when i was eleven yrs old I was encouraged by my older cousin (let’s call her Jyl) to have s** with her brother (who is also my cousin) at first i objected, but she continued to pressure me so I did as she said. Eventually Jyl spoke out about the matter but never speak out about the role she played in the situation. I didn t even defend myself when she (Jyl) confessed it all, I just put on a strong face, but I was crying on the inside. Eventually everyone found out about it, as you know words spread like bush fire. In high school I was bullied for it and other rumors that Jyl and my so call friends created about me.

Now i am in college and i m still being bullied. It so happens that Jyl and i attends the same college. One day out of the blue during a curriculum practice she spoke out about my past when i was 11, still not saying the role she played in it. Christians, students and lecturers all bully me, i have also loss friend and i’m constantly depressed. everyone says that I am nothing, the treat me like a germ. It so happen that the principal found out and put what I did in my past in my record. Persons constantly remind me that I have no future, since i would never get a job. So what should I do now? I tried everything

Your past did not ruin your life! You were only 11! You were a victim of child abuse, not a willing or knowledgeable participant in sex. In the U.S., 11 is well below the age of legal consent. (I don’t know the law in Barbados but age 11 is a child as far as I’m concerned, regardless of legalities.) You deserve compassion and support, not bullying.

Your parents could confirm whether the principal really did put something in your record. I hope that is another nasty rumor, not fact. I’m not a lawyer so I can’t give you legal advice but if there is something in your record I do think your parents might want to consult a lawyer about your rights to privacy about something that happened to you as a child. If the lecturers are participating in the bullying, I hope your parents will insist that it stop.

As for your cousin and so-called friends: You need a better class of friends. I suspect “Jyl” keeps bringing it up as if she had no part in it because she knows that she and her brother are guilty of doing something terrible to you. She rationalizes it by shifting the responsibility for it on to you. By doing that, she doesn’t have to face her own guilt — and she is continuing to abuse you.

It’s asking a lot of you, but I hope you can find the strength to stand up for yourself. If someone bullies you about early sex, you might say something like, “I was only 11 and was taken advantage of by people who were old enough to know better. I trusted them and they abused me. That’s not something to bully me about.” If they don’t quit, avoid them if you can. Get adults to help you. Do consider going to another school and making a fresh start if you think that is the only way to get away from the bullies. Taking care of your emotional well-being is more important than trying to change them.

You are no different from the many, many other people who have been victimized as children. People do recover from abuse and do create good lives for themselves. You absolutely have a future — as long as you refuse to accept the opinions of toxic people. You will get a job based on your education and your skills, not on rumors about something that happened to you when you were a kid.

Being bullied is very, very difficult. You might appreciate having a therapist to talk to about how to handle “Jyl” and the bullies and how to hold onto your self-esteem in spite of their horrible behavior.

I wish you well.
Dr. Marie

January 31, 2024 0 comment

Developing a Friendship with Ex, Grown Daughters Will Not Speak to Me

by Daniel J. Tomasulo, PhD, TEP, MFA, MAPP October 6th, 2023

written by Daniel J. Tomasulo, PhD, TEP, MFA, MAPP

Recently I have been developing a friendship with my ex husband. It was a rocky marriage. Divorced 15 years ago. He has received counseling for being a peeping tom 17 years ago. Yes he peeped at my daughters. In case you need to know, he never touched them, he watched from afar. They are now in their 30’s. They hate him. He has mellowed and is regretful. He has said he is sorry to them twice and would get on his knees if he thought it would help. Two months ago we started ‘hanging out’, going places. I did not tell them because I was just seeing him and not asking them to engage in any form of relationship because I knew they would not want to. About two months ago they figured out that we had gone out of town for the night. They sent me terrible texts and threatened not to speak to me again if I didn’t not stop seeing him. I have continued to do things with him because we are so happy together. He seems to have truly changed. I understand that time will only tell. We are not getting married or even including them in the time we spend together. Neither of us remarried after we split up many years ago. We have both been very lonely, not the type to jump into relationships. So now I am torn up inside. I will be miserable if I cannot keep my friendship with him but my stomach stays in knots because I have now been excluded from my family. I am miserable without my family but would be without him as well.

Should I do as my daughter want and stop seeing him? I do understand he did a terrible thing.

Thank you for any advise you can give.

While I admire your capacity for forgiveness there are dynamics within your family that require you to see the reconnection from their perspective in order to maintain the balance.

If you think of the family like a mobile hanging from the ceiling each person in the family is affected by what everyone else does. When your husband checked out, it was like putting a 10 pound weight on him that profoundly threw off the family dynamics. When you divorced him it was like cutting that weight, and your family, out of the balance.

Over time, everyone has adjusted to each other without him being a factor. Reconnecting with him, almost by definition, will throw the balance off again. Your daughter’s request for you to not see him is their attempt at bringing the family back into balance as it was. Since you’ve reconnected with him there is an on going problem with the dynamics. The struggle now his is how to honor your need to reconnect while honoring both your daughter’s.

I highly recommend you and your daughters make an appointment with the family therapist. Here’s a link to a highly regarded association. It will help you find someone in your area. I believe this is very important. To just stop seeing him because of your daughters request alone without a mediated discussion may create more difficulties for you downstream.

Wishing you patience and peace,
Dr. Dan

October 6, 2023 0 comment

Was It Abuse?

by Kristina Randle, Ph.D., LCSW June 22nd, 2022

written by Kristina Randle, Ph.D., LCSW

When I was 12 I was in school and behind me was the 16 year old boy and I felt something behind me in the line to get some dinner, but I wasn’t sure what it was but I felt his whole body in back which was very uncomfortable and I couldn’t see his face properly. But I wasn’t sure if he was touching me at first so I just got out of the line because I felt his hand in my back but I wasn’t sure, so I kinda let it go. So the next day I went to the line again to get some food and I felt something really close to me again and i felt a hand trying to pull my jumper and shirt and it made me very uncomfortable and he touched me in my legs and between them but I was scared I didn’t know what to do I was just frozen I would always try in move but he would always go back, so again I got out of the line. I felt like he was following me everywhere I was really scared my friends were always there to make me feel a bit more protected. It happened for two weeks him just touching me and it always got worse, so I told my head of year but I couldn’t describe what he was doing so it looked like she didn’t really care so I thought I was being exaggerated that it was ok for him to touch me really inappropriately. I didn’t eat at school for days, until one day I went and he was there and once again he touched but this time quite worse as he tried getting between legs again my friends saw so they went to get my head of year and she took him out of the line and I didn’t know what she said to him she never spoke to me about it. The good thing is that he stopped but I was so traumatized and I still am. I have nightmares all the time and flashbacks of his face as I saw him earlier this year for the first time in a year I was scared I was getting paranoid. I was stupid for not saying stop it but I was so scared. Was it molestation or was just something that didn’t matter? These nightmares are just getting worse I just don’t know.

It’s difficult to determine what happened. Based on the small amount of information provided, the 16-year-old boy repeatedly touched you inappropriately and that would be sexual abuse. It does not appear, however, that he was reprimanded or held accountable for his actions. Thankfully, it was stopped.

The abuse still troubles you. It’s not something you should ignore because it seems to be interfering with your life. The ideal solution is counseling. It will help you to effectively address the trauma from the abuse.

It’s also important to address a thinking error. You wrote that “I was stupid for not saying stop.” That is simply untrue. You were a child and you didn’t know any better. Children are vulnerable. You were afraid and confused and did not know what was happening to you. Confusion and fear are understandable reactions, especially for children.

You did what you should have done, which was to tell someone in authority about the abuse. The person to whom you reported the abuse apparently didn’t take your first report seriously. If anyone made an error in this situation, it was the person who didn’t act when you reported it. Unfortunately, some adults don’t believe children when they report abuse. You did exactly what you should have done. You did nothing wrong.

I’m sorry that this happened to you but the good news is therapy can help. Contact your primary care physician and ask for a referral or use the “Find Help” tab at the top of this page to locate a therapist in your community. Please take care.

Dr. Kristina Randle

June 22, 2022 0 comment

How Do I Get Rid of These Toxic People?

by Dr. Marie Hartwell-Walker August 19th, 2021

written by Dr. Marie Hartwell-Walker

From the U.S.: My mother died when I was 15 from breast cancer. Growing up, her and I never spoke or had conversations. I knew little about her. My father had been making sexual comments me since I was 12 – would encourage me to dress up in my mom’s clothes, take photos of me, and then take them to work and call me a whore. He also had this paranoid obsession that I was going to turn him in for molesting me at 12.

He didn’t last at jobs very long – every 6 months we moved since I was the age of 5. I was pretty much ignored as a kid and left to my own devices until I was 15 and I became the scapegoat of my family after my mom’s death.

A lot of the scapegoat behavior was because I didn’t grieve my mom’s death and because my dad had been saying that “the father molests the daughter after the wife dies.”

Needless to say, I was used as a punching bag and my character invalidated. It interfered with my ability to be successful in school, as the constant moving had done.

I was thrown out of the house at 17 by my dad after he began calling the police on me to get me to leave. I had never committed a crime but he was arrested on the first occasion.

I left home at 17 and started working multiple jobs. I assumed everything would resolve itself and I would be left to my own devices – struggling working 3 jobs without a high school diploma.

Instead, I received a call at 18 from my mother’s sister’s husband – who left a message while I was a work.

I only met these people once in 1996 when I was 10. But for some reason, this man who I did not know, left a message calling me a “niece twice removed.”

I moved away after that and changed my phone number and address. However, with the advent of facebook, I’ve been contacted every 3-5 years with friend requests, strange demands asking me to call them. These strangers I don’t know.

I finally confronted my mom’s sister and she never apologized for the rude message, lies about having contact with my dad, and thinks I need therapy and to find Jesus Christ.

What I really need is for all these people to stop contacting me. How do I get rid of these toxic people?

It’s so very sad but true that not every kid gets the family that she deserves. You certainly didn’t. You were living under constant threat of sexual abuse. In a twisted way, it may be that your father did you a favor throwing you out of the house. He may have known at least on an unconscious level that he could no longer control his impulses to try to have sex with you.

Please give yourself lots of credit for having the resiliency and strength of character to survive and thrive in spite of such a rough beginning. I hope you have surrounded yourself with a “framily” — friends who have become a family that loves and supports you.

Unfortunately, there is no way to “make” your uncle stop contacting you unless he has done things that are serious enough to warrant a restraining order. What you can do is learn not to let it bother you.

As you rightly point out, you don’t know these people. You don’t owe them anything. They weren’t there for you when you were growing up and they have nothing to offer you now. You have every right to ignore their attempts at contact. You needn’t feel guilty about not responding. Being angry gives them more energy than they deserve.

Treat messages from them just like you treat “junk mail.” Toss it out and forget it. Focus on the people in your life who matter, not those who don’t.

I wish you well.
Dr. Marie

August 19, 2021 0 comment