This experience showed me that there is a difference between family by blood and your chosen family by heart. Except for the brief phone call from my nephew and the prosecution for defamation, I never heard from my family again. My nephew concluded the phone call that he would await the judge’s ruling in the case of defamation. And nobody did anything or talked to me about it! The whole family knew the whole time! I had a really big family. I had told what happened to someone close to me and that person had told my aunt and my grandmother, and apparently, everyone knew in my family knew after that. He told me he was the only one in the whole family who didn’t know that this had happened despite the knowledge of his father (my uncle) and his mother (my aunt). Thereafter I decided to file charges against him for sexual abuse because I discovered the statutory limitations on abuse hadn’t expired yet.Īfter a little while, my older nephew called me. Well… At least until my uncle the abuser responded to prosecute me for defamation. I sent the letter and my family went silent. With the help of my friend, I’ve written a looooong document where I told all of my uncles, aunts, and adult nephews and nieces what happened. And because my uncle threatened, “What would happen to your poor mom” if he wasn’t there to help my mom out with things around the house. At first, I was silent to protect my beloved grandfather after that it was to protect my aunt who was married to the abuser and as a child, it because I was afraid of the stories of child protective services. Telling someone you are a survivor is something you do for yourself.Īlthough I never hid my story of sexual abuse from my mother, I didn’t tell my story to the rest of my family until I was 26. It should be your goal to think about how revealing your secret will benefit you. It is not your job to be busy thinking about what the other thinks and does. Nor should you want to, because it is in the reaction of the other person that you can see the value of your relationship with them. Second: you can never control the “outcome” or the reactions of the person to whom you are telling your story. I have heard a lot of people say they just want a successful outcome.īut what is a successful outcome? Is there even a successful outcome? The problem with the first suggestion is being too impulsive, and the problem with the latter is that by planning too much, overthinking too much, you likely will procrastinate and/or create unnecessary worries and anxieties. Some will say that you just have to “just say it” and others will say you have to plan carefully. How do you tell your family and (new) friends that you’re a survivor of domestic violence and/or sexual abuse?
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