Mothers who sexually abuse their daughters
However appalling the topic, when it comes to hearing from women sexually abused by fathers, uncles, brothers, grandfathers, society is at least aware of the issue. As a society we have become so used to the potential of men to abuse that men working with children or interested to do so are sometimes instantly under suspicion. Yet up to 40% of those who sexually abuse children are women and around 10% of reported child sexual abuse of girls is perpetrated by the child’s mother.
We hear from women about their abusive mothers; the emotional incest, the mental-emotional abuse, the physical violence and society can get to grips with that, the daughter herself may walk away able to view herself as a ‘survivor’ from that. And we know that sexual abuse is perpetrated by the same parents who have already been capable of other abuses of their children and the lack of boundaries that underpins that. But we hear far less of those women sexually abused by their mothers. Those who were usually won’t speak of ‘that part of things’, if they are not too dissociated from ‘those experiences’ to even be able to face what happened. There is simply something too bizarre about it, unmentionable, alien for both the person who went through it and the society they never told about it.
How could the person who gave birth to you be so disturbed as to see you as a toy, their object, possession, some kind of extension of themselves on which to play out their sexual disturbance, their jealousy of other females, their lust for power over another female, their indulgence in a secrecy and taboo they are certain nobody would ever believe and no daughter would dare to tell?
However much they may have learned to masterfully feign the role, these are not people who are actually capable of healthy love between themselves and their child. Sometimes it will be a mother who is mentally ill, has personality disorders or is psychopathic, substance abusing or otherwise addicted or any combination thereof. Sometimes it will be a mother who has different fixations and perversions about her daughters than she does her sons or even abuses one of her children whilst not abusing the others at all or in the same way. Sometimes the mother who has sexually abused her own children will then continue the abuse on some level with her grandchildren to the extent she can get away with it.
With her own child a mother usually has a high level of private access. If the child is a baby, under 3 years old or has communication or developmental disabilities, the abusing mother may blame the child’s distress or disturbance on being misbehaved, spoilt, or on their disabilities. Children with functional communication are more likely to come to the attention of care services after the abuse has come out through speech, play or artwork.
Mothers who restrain, intoxicate or violently sexually abuse their pre-verbal daughters (or allow or facilitate others to do this for her by proxy) may not bother with the grooming stage at all. When the same abuser then has grandchildren they may have less exclusive or private access to the child so may be more likely to groom the child before overtly sexually abusing them. She may repeatedly expose them to comments, actions or material that desensitizes them to blurred boundaries, dares them to higher levels of tolerance of abusive behaviour, challenges their ability to remain silent in a pact with the abuser. If the child doesn’t disclose, the abuser may take this to another level and if they do disclose may cover their tracks, blame the child, threaten the child or move on to an easier victim.
The mothers who sexually abuse their daughters do so directly and indirectly. At its most subtle level these are the mothers indulging in the oversexualisation of their child, exposing them to porn and graphic language and suggestions. It can be a mother who sexually abuses their daughter in complete secrecy. It can be a mother who endangers their daughter, allowing others to abuse her, even facilitating this or actively suggesting their opportunity to do so. The mothers who do this may do so
* for the power over another human being,
* out of harbored resentment against an unwanted child for being born,
* for financial gain to pay for compulsive gambling, alcohol or other substance addictions,
* to observe replays of their own abuse as a child,
* out of jealousy of other females projected onto the child they wish to see harmed,
* out of hatred for the child’s father (damaging ‘his’ child),
* to win attention/approval from a male pedophile they are with,
* to push their own levels of detachment from empathy or compassion they feel weakens them (to prove/reinforce their toughness),
* as part of identifying with female psychopaths who have also abused children,
* as part of the mother’s unmanaged personality disorders
* because she can and can get away with it
… the motivations are diverse.
Daughters sexually abused by their mothers are among the least likely victims to report the abuse. It’s time to acknowledge that women also sexually abuse children, that mothers do, that this may be their sons or their daughters, that this may happen when the child is a baby, a toddler, or at any time throughout childhood. And just like male perpetrators, they will go to great lengths to hide what they have done. A man cannot so easily hide behind the word ‘love’. But a mother who abuses can use it as a powerful deflection, a hiding place, a means of silencing the child she abused as if to say “if I proclaim ‘I love you‘ often enough, loudly enough, public enough, even co-opting siblings into the chant, then I can feel safer that nobody would ever believe I had been capable of that“.
Can such mothers feign the role of being a loving mother? Come on, … can psychopaths and narcissists con people? Can those with Borderline Personality Disorder play roles that have no relationship to the person underneath? Of course. It’s time we looked past the powerful blinder of the term ‘mother’ we associate with Mother’s Day cards, hearts, roses, aprons, cookies, dolls and dancing lessons. Mothers who sexually abuse their daughters are human beings, disturbed and disturbing, and their title of ‘mother’ is no more than a mask.
SOME OBJECTIVE FACTS:
* pedophiles exist
* incest exists
* around 20% of pedophiles (1 in 5) are female (some of whom will be mothers and somebody will be their children)
* most pedophilia occurs in families
* though some are (Myra Hindley is an example) most pedophiles are not sadistic
* most pedophiles appear to be ‘every day people – you wouldn’t know if you met one in the street
* pedophiles give the emotional responsibility to their victim
* most pedophiles see themselves as ‘children’
* a pedophile can be or appear thoughtful, gentle, quiet, even shy yet still be pathologically narcissisticTHE SOCIAL CONSTRUCTION OF MOTHERS
Mother’s are not human,
they are mothers,
they somehow… change.They are not fallible like the rest of us.
They snap their fingers and are transformed
By virtue of hormones and soiled nappies
Into selfless human beings,
Forgoing their own needs,
Overcoming their own lacking, their own losses,
The missing cogs,
Into some meta-being protecting their child at any cost.In a formulaic society ‘Normality’ is God
And someone wrote a book on it somewhere for sure.
‘Normality’ could not be simply what one has.
There’s no soap opera like that.
If it doesn’t fit the formula, it doesn’t exist.
It’s amazingly invisible.
You can flaunt it under the nose of the world
And as long as you wave the flags,
Nobody will dare to say stop.It is unthinkable, surreal,
To admit that ‘normality’ is a game
That can be played by a fragmented actress,
A camel, its back broken by too many straws,
A barbed wire prison warder.My life, therefore, like all those like it, did not exist
In your circumscribed view of ‘normality’.Donna Williams, BA Hons, Dip Ed.
Author, artist, singer-songwriter, screenwriter.
Autism consultant and public speaker.
http://www.donnawilliams.netI acknowledge Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people as the Traditional Owners of this country throughout Australia, and their connection to land and community.
Thank you for acknowledging this happens. My mother sexually abused my brothers and encouraged them to abuse me. One day I walked into a room and found my 16 year old brother raping my 12 year old brother. We were subjected to an extraordinary level of violence and, when doctors started to say I was a bit “accident prone” we were never allowed near a doctor again. I’ve had a fractured skull (the last diagnosis I had), spinal injuries, knife injuries and I’ve been kicked around like a football. A masseuse asked recently in a kind of shocked voice, “What’s happened to your ribs?” I didn’t have an answer. I have to say my oldest brother was subjected to even worse violence from our father and I think there was an element of “his child” with both mum and my brother.
I’ve had a long, lonely road to sanity. I’ve been to survivors’ groups where their abuse was horrific but I still realised I was the freak in the group. I felt completely isolated. There was no-one I could relate to. I took an access course in Sociology and that was a life saver. For one essay I went to the local library and read newspapers from the 1970s when this was all going on in my home. I saw how people spoke about the up-coming Sex Discrimination Act. I saw how both men and women were against it. I saw the columns for men’s jobs and women’s jobs and the vast difference in wages. I saw as an adult woman, myself, the world my mother had been trapped in back then and that she probably took her frustration out on us. That’s not an excuse for what she did but I actually felt very sorry for her like restorative justice. I certainly had seen our father beat her. I knew she was a victim too. I could forgive her – for my sake, not her’s – and offload some of the anger. Still, those are the memories I have of her and nothing can change that. My brothers can’t look me in the eyes and that suits me fine but it means I have family but, effectively, I don’t and that’s not my fault.
When I meet people for the first time there are the usual questions – Do you have a partner? (No because I don’t do relationships well.) Do you have children? (No because I had no example of what a mother should be) Will you be seeing your family at Christmas (No for all the above reasons). I’ve not done anything wrong and I’m the one stumbling for excuses. These days I’m just vaguely honest. I say that the brother (who was raped) is an alcoholic and hard work. I say my other brother is overseas. He’s actually just the other side of a river. I’d have no qualms now about being completely honest but I’ve met so many confused expressions when I say what’s happened that I don’t bother. It is my history but it’s not my junk to deal with. In the last 20 years I’ve made good friends and had great times. I’ve had fantastic relationships even if they didn’t last and, these days, I’ve more good memories than bad. The one thing my childhood did teach me was to be resilient and I guess that’s the best I can take from it.
Hi Barbara,
I very much understand the dilemma. People tend to think that one has had a ‘falling out’ with the family, as if one is somehow hung up, harboring resentment, etc, when in fact sometimes its just reality… ie keeping grounded and good boundaries when one’s family is rife with psychopathy, personality disorders, substance abuse and those co-dependent with it all. Like you, I used to either under explain or over explain. Under explaining mean do-gooders harped on and on trying to reconcile things they had no idea about… like a psychopath is not just having a falling out and would love to reabuse and will mindf&^$ all and sundry to win back a victim who has broken loose from them. And over explaining of course, to those who’ve never lived with a psychopath in all their glory, leaves them shell shocked, speechless, if not certain nobody could speak those things without being seriously unhinged and certainly therefore ‘alien’ to the human race as they know it. And if a parent was always damaged, if one was born to a parent who was always so, then there may never have been a ‘mother’… just a biological one. And people forget that a psychopath mother was probably a psychopathic child who then grew up, had children etc. Sure, if they married an abuser or lived in tough times this wouldn’t make their life easier, but if you are lucky enough (or unlucky enough) for such an abuser to make you a confidante then you may well be told of the joys they took in harming/maiming other children when they themselves were still a child, at least then all the excuses just don’t carry. There are parents who become unhinged, and their are psychopaths who have had children. Maybe that’s the way to explain it. You could also say that if one’s psychopath parent was like a poisonous snake, you wouldn’t stick your hand into its nest now and then to see if it were no longer a snake. There are those who lost mothers to death or abandoment or substance abuse and those who never had them because their mothers were already so psychopathic, personality disordered or deranged when carrying them or in their first years of life and then into childhood and onwards, that no bonding occurred so there is nothing to salvage. Two different types of Motherless Club. All the best to you this Christmas.
As always Donna I’m impressed with your ability to discuss topics many other writers and the general public stay far away from.
Amazingly bold topic, Donna!
I cannot speak for the case of mothers who abuse, but for men, sexual aggression is a pervasive problem of which the causes are not clearly understood. One promising model that has been proposed to help understand the occurrence of sexual violence is the Hierarchical-Mediational Confluence (HMC) model (Dean & Malamuth, 1997; Malamuth, 1986, 2003;Malamuth,Linz,Heavey,Barnes,&Acker, 1995; Malamuth, Sockloskie, Koss, & Tanaka, 1991). The HMC model has suggested that an individual’s likelihood to sexually aggress against women may be explained by two pathways: Hostile Masculinity and Sexual Promiscuity/Impersonal
Sex. The Hostile Masculinity path involves attitudes accepting violence toward women, hostility toward women, and narcissistic personality traits, whereas the Sexual Promiscuity/Impersonal Sex path emphasizes early abuse and conflictual home environments, general antisocial tendencies
reflected in adolescent delinquency, and promiscuity and impersonal sex (Malamuth, 1986, 2003; Malamuth et al., 1995).Malamuth (2003) highlighted that these paths converge and interact to best predict sexual aggression.
Attraction to sexual aggression is a construct that has received much investigation. Malamuth’s (1989a) Attraction to Sexual Aggression Scale (ASA) was designed to identify men who are attracted to sexual aggression and assesses the self-reported likelihood of committing various acts.
Studies employing this scale have indicated that up to 44% of men report some attraction to forcing sex on a woman (Malamuth, 1989b). Moreover, men who self-reported attraction to rape also offered more justifications for the use of violence against women and were more accepting of interpersonal violence in general (Osland, Fitch, & Willis, 1996).
Do you know of any studies that have been done on mother abuse to their own children?
the sad part is that as badly as society gloryfies mothers every child feels the need to glorify their own mom especially daughters since that is our main female reference we have to identify with understanding that my mother sexually abused me puts me in the harsh position of killing my dream and accepting that there was nothing glorious about my mother… impossible for a child hard for a young adult i love you mom i glorify you and i know what you did perhaps many thing where wrong but it was all part of your personality disorder and not speaking about it and not realizing it was part of my biggest dream having a glorious mother the one every child deserves
My soon to be step daughter visiting for the summer recently made an outcry about her step father and mother doing things to her. Her older sister who has a different father, and her younger brother the mom had with step dad did not seem to be targeted as much. We have been through law enforcment and Child protective services, however the mother and step father have claimed that myself and her father “put things in the child’s head” which is first and foremost untrue, and if that were the case, during her forensic interviews she was alone and told no one would know what she told. My concern being a former Juvenile probation officer and dealing with so many abuse issues there, that they will not believe the mother would do such a thing. The step father has a very violent history with the mother and and although the child first began telling us stories about the bathtub, she opened up more and placed blame on both of the caregivers in the home. This very smart sweet child began making up a song, with angry lirics about her mother and got a rolled up poster and said it was a bat and beat the couch while yelling at her mother. She was so very mad and I have worked with enough children to know a 6 years old does not “hate” their mother unless something is very wrong. Not to that extreme. We also notice that each summer she comes the mother bribes her with fun things, puppies, vacations etc. for when she gets back to their home in another state. She also insisted before the allegations, that she be able to speak with her every few days, and in all those conversations she was the sweetest mother and missed her so bad she cried, and ALWAYS used the older sister and younger brother to guilt her into feeling bad for being away. This mother tried to give this child and only this child of the 3 up for adoption at birth after lying to the father about being pregnant saying she miscarried. There are so many horrible things about the situation I could write a book but need to know who can help a 6 year old maintain the strength to continue telling the truth without being guilted into recanting because she feels like she is her siblings protector. She also misses her siblings and has realized that they will now all be seperated as a result of her statement but has never waivered on what happens there. Help!!!
Hi Shawna,
first thing is it is GREAT you are there for the long haul, determined to support this girl.
second, she is dealing with co-dependency and her mother’s crying, guilting and general emotional blackmail is both rather Borderline and is narcissistic and part of her treatment of this daughter as her narcissistic object, so we are talking there about programming, about emotional and mental abuse, about stunting this daughter’s identity development as a child (not her siblings’ carer, not her mother’s carer). So what you need first and foremost is social stories that can teach this girl about making the tough choices, sticking to one’s guns, about turning from the lure and programming of co-dependency, about rejecting programming, about choosing and insisting on identifying oneself as a person in one’s own right and nobodies narcissistic object. To do that you can take existing stories and alter them to convey these lessons through a range of relateable/parallel characters…. in a sense providing a wealth of life lessons/counseling/skills building indirectly through these stories.
But what is also important for you to know is that when one sibling is the target of abuse and others are not, the siblings are NOT in the same world. If the abused child believes they are protecting the other siblings through being that target (ie to save them from being so) then this is a projected camraderie and in actuality doesn’t exist… if the child could actually see past this martyrdom, they would see their siblings are simply luckier kids who are not being abused and that would be less relateable, perhaps even less reason to have ongoing compelling empathy with them, than imagining they are or could be in the same position as herself.
DID is a risk for children chronically abused under the age of 6, and some with DID develop internal siblings to compensate for the disturbing, compromising, sibling relationships they have in the external world. And I actually think that is healthy, to make HEALTHIER inner world representations of one’s siblings… ie that in her own world she could create some siblings who escaped to safety where they live in her world and she can protect them in there, allow them to share in the safe life she now has in care… sure its ‘imaginary friends’ in a sense…. I prefer to think of them as meta-siblings, as inner world representatives. And as long as she knows its healthy to imagine, construct, create, play out a healthy alternative and still be aware of the contrast in the real world, that at least could create some sanctuary, some control for her over the situation, disentangle co-dependency from missing them, decrease the sense of loss, and reduce the mother’s programming power.
Doing stories about Cinderella, Snow White etc… where the mother figure is trying to program the targetted daughter and the daughter cleverly knows this is LIKE A RECORDING so inside her head sings or says inside yadda, yadda, yadda… this is modelling in the skill to arm oneself against the power of programming.
As for contact, if she has to have that I sure hope its supervised.
I do have a consulting service you are welcome to use if you think I could be of help.
I’m usually an autism consultant so my job is troubleshooting and exploring strategies for kids and adults with developmental disabilities, co-morbids, personality/identity issues, behavioural challenges etc, but have also consulted outside of that field with those dealing with dissociative disorders who have almost always grown up in situations like this girl.
Warmly,
Donna
Thank you so much. This situation is just a nightmare because of this mother having 3 children with 3 fathers. In the past few days, she has gone through every emotion you can think of almost bi polar. She will be happy on minute and disappear and hide under her bed and say “it’s my fault i won’t see my sister and brother again”. So with by background working with abused children as a juvenile probation officer, I am aware that guilt can be a huge emotional problem. She went from talking about this all the time to basically shutting down. AND her younger brother here with us, whose mother and father are divorced, is developmentally delayed and difficult for her to deal with. She shows many signs of Autism however his mother refuses to believe it and has not made sure he has received the care he needs (he was born at 29 weeks). Chris, the kids father, has done everything he can do but although he understands almost nothing and his speech is very delayed, his mother always reports that he doesnt case and disruption at her home. So we are currently dealing with an abused child that is 6 and a 5 year old male who functions at I would assess as about a 3 year old level. It is so hard to juggle both these childrens needs when they are both so imminent and makes it harder to work as closely with Addie. She also began calling her mother by her first name rather than Mom and I was wondering if this was a sign she is trying to detach? I am pretty certain that she may have an attachment disorder and she was given up for adoption and after Chris faught for custody after returning from deployment, the mother left her with the baby sitter for the most part full time until she turned 3. That caregiver she was with who the 6 year old bonded with died 3 months ago very young and she isnt dealing with it well. I allpreciate you and let me know if there is anything else you can help with as to how to deal with the two childrens problems
Shawna, the 6 year old calling her mother by her first name and not mum, is, in my view, healthy and part of coming to terms with the difference between an abuser and a mother and that being biologically a mother doesn’t qualify for mum. re her recent loss, making an altar where she can visit the memories of that carer would be good and helping her understand that that carer now lives in her heart, in her own world, and she can visit her there any time. I made an altar like this for my father, with two small cups, one for water, one for rice, and a satin lined dish in the middle as a bed for his soul to rest. I surrounded this with objects that reminded of him and photos of him. It really helped me.
as for bipolar like stuff, omega 3s work as a natural mood leveler so that could be a plan right now. But working through feeling one has committed a crime, and enormous guilt, one of the best ways to work through that is both adapted social stories but also sandbox work where the child can see how they are feeling and work through that to healthier scenarios.
As for the boy on the autism spectrum there, feel free to book online consulting time and I’ll see what I can do to help troubleshoot and address his particular ‘autism fruit salad’.
Warmly, Donna
We are spending every dime we have to try and keep her and protect her but the “experts” are not believing her. Please tell me what to do. I fear for her life if she goes back to that situation after the allegations made by this tiny child. She is much too young to have come up with these stories if they were untrue. Every agency that could have helped her abandoned her.
she has a legal right to divorce her parents.
If she divorces them, she gets a right to tell a court where she wishes to live
and her parents would have no rights to take her back.
http://www.wisegeek.com/can-children-divorce-parents.htm
She could, conceivably, also have a legal right to take out restraining orders against her abusers so they are actually without any legal right to access her. http://www.courts.dotag.wa.gov.au/R/restraining_orders.aspx
there’s also always activism http://www.change.org/en-AU
Thank you for your site,
I met with my therapist today as usual but I had apparrantly had a mental block, unblocked unfortunately. My mother hated me from the day I was born,…..made it very clear to me all through my childhood. However, the memory that became “unblocked” so to speak was a very, very disturbing one. She as I remembered oversexualized me, told me that if I did not stay on the leash that she put me on in public that dirty men would touch my private parts. But, just the other night, like out of no where came all the memories flooding in of her forcing me to take showers with her as young as 4. Touching herself she would tell me until I looked like her I would never be truly loved by my father. She would make me get on my knees as the water ran down her body and through her pubic hair until it ran all over me. Then she would “wash” her privates and ring the water out of the rag onto my head!!! She told me never to tell anyone or it would get worse. I am know in my late 20’s, a rape victim, and yet this disturbes me more than anything imaginable!!!!!
Hi Karen, the sexual perversions on an insanely jealous person with what sounds like a mixture of Sadistic and Narcissistic personality disorders without a wider framework of psychopathy has no reflection on you whatsoever. Just because someone with that level of serious mental health stuff was capable of hiding it whilst insidiously conditioning a child to feel the responsibility of that twisted adults actions does not mean that child can’t UNCONDITION that mental abuse now, daily and at every turn. Just because this perverted sadist controlled a child through humiliation and threat does not in any way constitute that child having made choices, nor having any responsibility in the situation. Just because someone that mentally ill was one’s mother is no reflection on the child they have taken their sickness out upon. She has shown you shame, degredation, fear, neglect. Now rebel and defy all she taught you by rising up in pride, in self respect, in courage and healthy self parenting. For this is your ultimate revenge.
Thank you for your site, I have come across it trying to find an explanation for why during the supervised visitations, my 4y9m daughter is not afraid to sit on the lap of her father, who was sexually abusing her. She loves him, cuddles him, gives him kisses and wants me to ‘move in together again’ with him. She says she forgives him. The Social Services use this as an argument to push the case towards unsupervised visitations – which is over my dead body!!!
Shocked as I was to read about the sexual abuse by the mothers, I think I now understand how it could have happened that I’ve got attached to a man, 30y my senior, who turned out to be a psychopath.
Until now I have never thought of my relationship with my Mom as an abusive, more of as a dysfunctional one. Yes, she would force me to go to the theatre when I was sick and puking all over the place (she was afraid I would end up -socially, culturally, intellectually – on the ‘level of my father’s family’, who, coming from a simple rural background made it to a captain in the navy). Herself, she is from more privileged circles. Yes, she hated my father and projected this hatred on me – at times. Yes, she is a narcissist, and needs her sexual validation even now she is 75. Yes, she never respected my need for privacy, walking into the my bedroom and bathroom (she even removed the locks from the bathroom door), reading my diary. And now, when I am going through this horrible custody process, she tried to convince me to return to my daughter’s abusive father, that his ‘crime was not that big’, that ‘he won’t do it anymore’ – and that my ‘mental state was a mess’. And that on the background of exchanging letters with her son in law, despite of me urging her not to, as it might harm my case in court.
But only now I recalled the following incident. I must have been between 5-10yo. I was getting ready for school and she sort of grabbed my bottom and my private parts. In a sort of way you see young boys do it to each other. It felt rather disrespectful than sexual. I remember feeling revolted and expressing it to her. And her looking slightly embarrassed. Much later, when I started dating, she tried to make me come to her bed, which I refused. She seemed hurt, said:’ You don’t see to mind to lay around in the beds of all these boyfriends of yours though’.
Too, recently it struck me that contrary to the common belief – that females chose a partner resembling their father – I have married my Mom in the person of my ex-husband and father of my child! Not only they look the same (both blond with similar features), but both lack respect (‘blond is a superior race’ – I remember being excessively teased and called ‘a blackie’ as a child for having not hers, but my fathers brown hair and skin that tans easily), both need continuous sexual validation (despite of being physically very attractive), and both behave as of nothing has happened after yet another rage (sorry is not in their vocabulary).
yes, I have heard of similar cases, where there the pedophile groomed the child to believe this meant they were loved, and particularly if the relationship with the mother was demonised or problematic, and especially if this felt corroborated by extended family, as in what you describe, the child has to choose between someone who cares and is concerned for them, protective of them, and in this case, someone who has used non penetrative sex to convince a child they are sexy, loved, special, compelling, and promoted in status above the mother… and for some children this feeds narcissism and ego in a way with which the non offending parent then can’t compete. I don’t think Social Services easily realise there are children with this type of reaction, rather than the conventional model of abused child anxious or fearful of offending parent… but they fail to see the bigger picture because what happened to your child is just as harmful and deserving of protection from future harm for the entirety of her childhood and teens. Some people would be disgusted at the child for having such a weak and manipulable ego that she has fallen for the pedophiles con that grooming and sexualisation is ‘love’. How loved is a child who then fixates on sex, or on sex as love… to become what? a child prostitute? is this evidence of how loved they felt? How loved is a child who takes this mental and emotional abuse to school and is at risk of further victimisation by older children or by pedophiles outside of the home or who seeks to understand what has happened to them by then victimising younger children? How loved is a child who finds themselves unable to relate to other children who are confused by, disturbed by, find unrelateable or whose carers are put off by the sexualised child, leaving that child to potential social isolation and alienation throughout their childhood? How loved is that child in their teens when they legitimately begin to explore healthy sexuality at their own pace and volition but the face on the foundations of their arousal is that of their father… what does this do for their connection with others, with their partner, so they then reject relationships, or choose adults significantly older than themselves who, like the pedophile who started it all, connects with them merely as a narcissistic object? And if in adulthood this child forms a relationship, has a child themselves, do they get with someone who is just like their pedophile father, and the infection starts a whole other cycle? Do they look the other way, allowing abuse to occur to their child because their pedophile father taught them this was the status quo, the protocol, or that they were now cast in the role of displaced female in a three person relationship? How is that love? I’ve known an adult for whom, like your child, the abuse started in early childhood, with non penetrative sex. The pedophile progressively took this further as they inevitably do, and in spite of the pain and physical damage, the groomed child continued to take their role as narcissistic object to a pedophile as being more ‘special’ and ‘important’ than the mother, constantly rewarded by the pedophile for being an accommodating object. As an adult, this person spent their life in therapy, self injury, alienation. That is not love.
Dear Donna, thank you very much for your reply.
Yes, he has treid to take it to another level, to pass it for an accident. That’s how the entire thing come out. It’s been a year ago. I am giving my little girl all my love and support, trying to remove the taboo of talking of it, to make her believe that it’s not her fault, but entirely her father’s. She is much better now. However she is a very independent little girl and I sence she is trying to solve it herself, telling to him that ‘she forgives him’, that if she ‘comes to his house, he must promise not to do bad things again’ and that she ‘will remind him not to’.
You are totally right about the way he conditioned her and still does, keeps telling her that he loves her very-very much. I am trying to navigate between confirming that Daddy indeeds loves you (bbecause she was really miserable during the 1st 1/2 year when there was no contact with him, thinking that it’s her fault, that he prefers her to her half-sisters in london) and at the same time stressing that nevertheless what Daddy was doing is very bad. That it’s ok to enjoy your body, but when she is alone in her bedroom and not with an adult. She seems to understand that. I told her not to tell her friends at school, to prevent the isolation. The school stuff is luckily very good and understanding.
So hopefully this will lessen the damage. She had indeed been showing seductive behavior, but does not do it anymore – at least not in my presence.
What keeps coming back is the thought whether I myself have been sexually abused as a child. Apart from the mentioned incidents there is no other recollection whatsoever. If it was happening, it must have been very early. How to find out? My Dad has passed away 4 years ago and my Mom …. Do I need to find out? I am 40 after all
Hi Anastasia,
fact is, what you described of your mother sounds like psychopathic tendencies and at the very least narcissism in which she attempted to make you her narcissistic object. Fact is, too, that something made her feel confident enough to do these things to you as an older child and teen. It wouldn’t be unusual if that was because when you were younger, perhaps under 5 or even under 3, she adapted to having a girl by utilising it as a doll, and if she was sexualising you later, its fairly likely she did so when you were younger. It is not uncommon for mothers who sexually abuse their daughters to cease once the child can speak to avoid being caught. This was my own journey, I reflected on how I became the person who allowed myself to become a ‘domestic prostitute’ to several defactos over 10 years from 15-25, then I reflected on how I was in situations where I got raped at 14 and at 12 and why it was I absorbed all of that as if there was nobody to tell, no right to rage, and then in working through PTSD, I struggled with the impact of a (corroborated) memory of being molested by a visitor in my room at age 8 turned out to be the early part of a rape from which all I’d remembered was the start of the event, then dissociated for the rest of it and I asked myself how this could have been allowed by my mother in particular.
Then I struggled to make sense of memories of being given alcohol and pills in late childhood, having people given tours of my bedroom, and dreams I’d been abused, never knowing if these had actually happened. And I had very clear memories of being tied to the bed at age 2-3, which was when I developed DID, and I couldn’t understand this, figured it was because I was autistic and self injurious at times, but then I remembered actually being strapped until I couldn’t breathe and then I was tied to the bed, that I had been ok, just in my own world when my abuser had entered to do this day after day (my abuser was an alcoholic and compulsive gambler, so very addictive personality as well as, in my view fitting narcissistic and borderline personality disorders and psychopathy – she was sectioned when I was 3).
But in trying to understand her behaviours when I was 9-14, akin to what you described of your mother and having been called slut, brothel face, cunt… sexualised terms since I was very small, I was able at least to conclude the possibility I had been sexually abused by her when I was 2-3 years old. I had also been plagued by a memory of someone’s house I’d been taken to from age 2-4… part of my mind determined never to forget this house… and I knew the name of the person who owned it but didn’t know who they were. I had memories of being tied to a bed in another house and something in me told me it was this other house, in those memories, which created serial PTSD nightmares, I was being abused by a man there and I remember my mother’s voice from the doorway, that she found this somehow sickly entertaining, perhaps had even instigated it. But this is just my memories. I found the house as an adult, it was that of her closest friend from her teens, both of them from criminal and incestuous families.
I wondered so many times why, why would a mother endanger, even facilitate the abuse of their child like this. In my experience of her, she had sexual jealousy of me and projected onto me all the idealizing and demonizing a Borderline is known to do, all the narcissistic object treatment a narcissist is known to do, and added to this were the ingredients, in my view, of psychopathy, sociopathy, alcoholism and the need for money for a compulsive gambling habit (which I remember her betting from the phone box since I was 2-3 years old, using my paternal grandfather’s betting account, because she’d cite 1-7-8-8-0-HARRY-H-A-R-Y which was my grandfather’s name.
So I can never prove what she did or didn’t do, but I can have faith my memories are feasible, even probable in the wider context of all that was progressively witnessed of her and her treatment of me until I was 15 and left. I also spoke to the GP from that time, heard my records. He read from my records that I had, in fact, been examined for sexual abuse at age 2. So altogether this is collectively enough for me to understand what caused my PTSD/DID, and why on a gut level I have absolutely no attachment to my abuser and a gut instinct to keep safe from all contact with my abuser. So if you do explore what happened to you, I’d recommend you get a good counsellor on board to support you through the process.
I want someone to tell me if i was sexually abused. sometimes i think that this doesn’t fit the definition or that it wasn’t bad enough. my mother once called me to her bed and she slid her hand over my breasts to feel how they were growing. was i sexually abused? i hate her for this memory and it disgusts me that she touched me.
hi Effie,
if your mother was at all CONCERNED as to how your breasts were growing then she’d have taken you to the GP or, if she feared you might have lumps, early cancer, cysts, then if she didn’t take you to the GP for this, she may have done a check but she would certainly not call you into her bed for that. She was a sexual adult, well aware of what platonic is, what sexual is, what the sanctity of a teenagers body is, and that she was breaking that sanctity. She was also aware she is not a doctor, nor a nurse, that she has no medical basis on which to know what she’d have been looking to check, unless she was someone who had had breast cancer or it ran in her family or she was teaching you how to do your own breast examinations. But do this to a young teen would still be ridiculously obsessive, and only someone with a complete lack of boundaries would call you into her bed to do this. In other words, the woman had no boundaries, no respect for the sanctity of a teenager’s body, her actions were easily EXPERIENCED as incestuous, invasive, disrespectful and the rest sounds POTENTIALLY like her excuse to explore the growing breasts of the object-daughter this narcissistic person wanted to do out of a combination of curiosity, ownership and the thrill of taboo. More than her disrespect for your sanctity, it is sad she mind-f&%$#@ you into thinking this was some kind of medical examination and left you (conveniently for her) never quite knowing if it was in fact incest. If she was lesbian or bi, it was up to her to healthily pursue those sexual interests with an aware and consenting adult.
Oh effie thank you for posting. This was my whole life from 9 to ? If she couldnt feel me up she would slap me. I had a terrible time with allowing boys to touch me, whatever..just means alot to me.
Abuse is abuse.
Hi Donna, I was wondering if I could quote some of your brilliant blog r.e mother-daughter abuse on our new webpage… we are based in the uk and support adult survivors of c.s.a of course I will as I always do credit the source. My email is tangledweb010@yahoo.co.uk …many thanks Kate
no problem. Warmly, Donna
Hi Donna,
I’m glad I found your blog. I thought I was the only one to whom this kind of thing happened. But I’m shocked to see all these comments here. My mother has always been promiscuous, alcoholic and a spendthrift. I’m soon to be 21 now, but when I was 12, she crawled into my bed every night and tried to make touch her forcibly. This went on for a couple of weeks but I was too scared to tell anyone. One night she tried to force to go down on her and slapped me several times and I pushed her away and ran out of the house. My parents separated when I was 13. Although I try to forget it as much as I can, it sort of scarred me for life. When recently I gathered up the courage to tell all this to my boyfriend of 5 years, he acted like it isn’t much of a deal, and behaved in a very insensitive way about all of it. He didn’t know how much I had prepare myself and finally come out and admit this to another person. I wish he would have understood. I feel a bit better because I am able to share my experience here. I really needed to tell somebody.
I’m sorry for your experiences. And sorry your boyfriend couldn’t imagine the entrapment, suffocation, assault to identity, threat of homelessness and the MOTHERLESSNESS that comes with being sexually abused by one’s own mother. Sometimes one has got to have lived these things to understand. Also in the literature males assaulted by their mothers tend to handle it quite differently… their identity is not as directly challenges, the degree of taboo/alienation/shame is not the same, they often feel better able to handle the risks of expulsion/homelessness (ie just go stay with mates), and the power dynamic is different… it is a WOMAN so the degree of threat to a male may be less… and the nature of the abuse is different… ie the mother is less likely to force the son to submit… more likely to dare or seduce or cajole or intoxicate the son into penetrative sex or her giving oral sex to him, but when mother’s assault their daughters it may be with objects or fingers or through a proxy (ie facilitating the daughter’s abuse by others), it is physically invading the daughter’s body, or it is forcing submission through expecting the daughter to perform oral sex. In this sense your boyfriend simply may but unable to EMOTIONALLY fathom what that would be like for a daughter. So appreciate the support he does give you but you may need to talk this over with other females who’ve been sexually abused by their mothers – the motherless club. And do get a counsellor who you can talk to about it. Warmly, Donna
Thank you so much for this insightful article, Donna. I hope someday to have a powerful voice like yours! Meeting disbelief when I decided to speak out about sexual and emotional abuse at the hands of my mother was a shock for me. I’m so glad that there are other people who understand how expertly an abuser can play a role and cover what they have done. Luckily for me, I have a very supportive husband who said “Children don’t make up lies about this kind of thing. They have no reason to. It’s the adults who have to protect themselves that make up the stories and tell the lies.’
welcome Dorothy, may your adult life move forward with the safety you were denied in childhood.
warmly, Donna
I have a question Im not sure how to ask in a sensitive way. I have a narcissistic mother who allowed me to live in a house with a phedophile, my dads father. That family is full of incest and offspring thereof. My mother also whittnessed my father groping his mothers breasts one day and ignored it then marrying him and having me and my brother. As a child I was left with a caregiver, my dads brother, who sat us(me and his daughter-cousin) infront of the TV to watch pornography. Though the years differant memories have returned to me. I was amnesic to my father trying(?) to rape me in my sleep. Im not sure a little penetration is rape not. I know he did this to Nmother to as she talked about it before it happened to me. I wonder if it was planned that way – like to make it look normal. Memories are still returning to me and not sure how much I still dont remember. Ive been told this amesia is related to DID but I am not diagnosed DID. I saw a psych once and he said he thought I had something like DID but not quite. Im very fragmented like a jigsaw puzzle. Ive seen psychs since who dont take the dissociation seriously but ive never told them about sexual abuse. It is only now I am truly acknowledging it and this is the first time I speak of it. I am forced too since im having a breakdown and more memories coming back. I am refered back to soon see a another psychiatrist. I am only just recently realising my mother is very narcissistic, father too and hes sadistic. My question is and i dont know how to say it, as also i dont want to trigger anyone who might read it. but if someone obtains sexual pleasure from hurting you, from causing you pain in personal body places without necesarily touching you even. Is that still sexual abuse, is it psychopathic? I am referring to my father, but reading your post I can see my mother allowed alot so she is not innocent. Ty.
you have clear memories … you were left to live with a pedophile, you were sat with your sister and sexualised by an adult showing you both pornography, you do have some memory of your father molesting/attempting rape with you. You are from a family with a known history of incest, including offspring who are the products of that incest and a first person account of your mother witnessing your father groping his own mother… so you can be certain of those things. These are not things suggested by you, you were not encouraged to look through pictures or headlines to trigger yourself into possible memories. In other words, you have a clear context where sexual abuse was both known and probable.
Yes, you are right, one can be dissociative, have dissociative disorders like dissociation, derealisation, depersonalisation, PTSD, splitting, even DDNos without have DID. People can suffer years of domestic violence in adulthood and develop dissociative disorders as a result without having DID. In your case you appear born into a family that accepted incest as normal, and yes your mother marrying someone she already saw had an incestuous relationship with his mother likely meant she was willing to accept however he defined ‘normality’, including looking the other way, even if that meant endangering you at the hands of a pedophile.
Yes, memories can be blocked,split off from, played down, they can be so fragmented one may only remember the lesser parts of the whole picture, or be unable to reconcile the good parts of childhood or of a carer with the abusive parts or the carer having also been an abuser… but all those I’ve met who have formal diagnosis of DID, even DDNos, or PTSD, all have at least some clear, concrete, 100% reliable memories of at least verbally, emotionally, physically abusive behaviours if not also direct sexualisation, endangerment, molestation. The extent of full blown sexual abuse is then really just what they missed in the gaps.
As for whether pedophiles can be the grooming type who slowly erode the boundaries and implicate the child, or whether they can also be violent, sadistic, abuse directly or indirectly, with their own body parts or objects, yes, pedophiles can be any combination of these things. Each causes the same valid degree of damage to those they abuse. And, yes, lacking empathy, treating a child as an object to be used, or endangering them for one’s own selfish (narcissistic) gain or weakness, is at the very least narcissistic, if not also sociopathic, and in the extreme, perhaps psychopathic.
All the best in your healing process.
Thankyou for replying and giving some clarification. I am very familiar with derealisation and depersonalisation, it was 11 years ago I started remembering what my father did and I experienced very severe Dp/Dr as a result and thats what brought me to the attention of psychiatrists. I see it that i stoped disociating in one way by remembering and then dissociated in another way. The story I had created in my mind…thru wanting to deny that my childhood was abusive, was failing. To me the worst part is the deniability. That abusers abuse in such ways that it can be deniable, like narcissists can create something ‘special’ from something bad to protect their own sense of self so they also do this while abusing and its head wrecking. You start untieing all the knots of distorted truth, that most of what you believed was true, really wasnt. So I see dissociating can also actualy be disociating from the abusers false reality and in my experience more real, even if it feels bad and for a while you feel nothing. I now see it was my first step of healing. Also how narcissists operate by proxy, its how they exist isnt it, to use others for their sence of self, this means everything they do can be deniable. Like my mother tries to make it deniable by saying she was young and doesnt understand ‘ that kind of thing’ meaning sexual stuff, she sees herself above people who have sex. Yet she leads men on and frustrates them. I read narcs can be that way. When she found out i was sexualy active with my first boyfriend at 17 she instigated my dad and brother to call me slut and slag, keeping herself out of it, except to tell me that I may as well get pregnant coz I wasnt good for anything else. Insightful how she sees views the reason for having a child. I didnt mention that I tried to tell her last year what happened and she ignored me for five weeks, next thing i know im being contacted by an ex boyfreind telling me my parents were spreading rumours about me, that im crazy and making up abuse stories. I think for some of us its the deniabity that plants the seeds for dissociation. And our mothers have a big part in that, they can pull the strings behind the curtains and deny involvment…..So i see dissociation can be Detaching from the truth, and then detaching from the lies. To find real self. So I agree personaly dissociation can be many things. From reading your reply ive concluded that abuse is abuse, direct or indirect and the effects of both are devestating and equally damaging. I feel more clarity after reading your reply. And i see the need for honesty with self. And not speculating to much on details coz it might just add to the already tangled abusers web. I do have clear memories, facts to go on and right, abuse is abuse. Im glad I found your page and posted, it felt like a safe place to ask my questions.
yes, I can relate to how one commonly creates a new version of one’s background… one that makes one feel it was happy enough, that one was lucky enough, that things weren’t ‘that bad’… and of course the reality is always a blend of the two. And, yes, the way abusers blur the definitions, flag wave the buy offs, flag wave the ‘lucky child’ thing… smoke and mirrors to hypnotise onlookers but it also hypnotises and confuses the child… they can’t reconcile the two realities… and of course both co-exist… and to those of us who are not abusers we can’t fathom that… that either its a great front, an epic hypocricy or an impossibility the two could have co-existed… but remember abusers idealise themselves, they may have within them the healthy parent they could have been but also the abuser they are too and swing between each, sometimes one winning for a few days, weeks, months, sometimes the other… that’s more confusing than someone everyone knows is a monster. And of course psychopaths are great at smoke and mirrors, at being the psychopaths they are and equally developing a meta self of who they might have been had they not been a psychopath… after all its a disability, and they are living in a world where the majority are not psychopaths and they were usually brought up at some point to be expected to be non-psychopathic (sometimes groomed to be a psychopath, but usually there’s at least teachers or those in the community expecting them to be non-psychopathic children…in other words they still get training to hone that role… a role they can use and play but never actually be in any complete way – equally tragic as the damage they do to others – they are the vampires, passing for normal half the time.
A psychopath is narcissistic by nature… they require a sychophant to feel complete… a puppet so to speak… and they require a narcissistic object… a play thing, to ‘own’, toy with.
And the children of psychopaths, or the sychophants to psychopaths, we get dragged into their world. If we are lucky we’ll not identify with either of them, nor with being the narcissistic objects they seek to make us… if we’re lucky we will cherish every reminder of what it is to be a real person, not an object, cherish every healthy identification we can find so we do not become poisoned and continue the cycle (in fact though most who abuse were themselves abused, 80% of those abused do NOT become abusers or continue the cycle).
from your story your mother was a passive-aggressive emotional abuser and the sychophants to narcissists/psychopaths are commonly closet narcissists themselves (when they are not just weak boundaried acceptance seeking, devotee types lacking their own strong Core Self). Some sychophants ‘wake up’, others live in excuse-ville for the rest of their lives. What remains is they empower the psychopath to abuse… the psychopath will usually always be more active in their abuse with a sychophant assisting them.
I understand the poisoning of the community to control the possibility of losing control of their secrets, being exposed for what they are, and losing control of their narcissistic object – the child they believe they own, their toy. That’s common… they are flag wavers, its the smoke and mirrors thing… but it usually means the person who was abused had to leave not only the family but their community in order to get healthy. Its a big cost, but can be worth it… poison can only travel so far… but these days of course people can use the internet to try and make it travel further… for me, my blog is insurance in some ways… disclosure can be one’s greatest protection especially if the eyes of the world are now watching. The wolf cannot openly get the sheep whilst the field is full of shepherds so to speak.
Ive seen the passive aggression in my mother lately youre right. And I stared referring to her as a puppet master around two monthes ago. She is a selfish self absorbed cold human being. In her mind nonody suffers like she does. And its everybody elses fault. And everyone must know that as fact and apparently that gives her excuse to use and abuse others, to tantrum, to rant on and on and on incessently about herself. In the last year shes done everything to destroy any confidence I had left. Shes drained me and wrunge me dry like an old dishcloth and I am tired. I remember the turning point this time. She asked me how to make friends and I saw her mask slip for a second, i told her to just try interacting with others, and she looked at me like Im an alien. After that she stopped me using her internet to talk to the few friends i have. I have reached the point where I know I need to get away from these people, I use the word ‘parents’ lightly. I am 33 and feel Im grieving what wasnt really real. And anger at myself for being ‘captive(thats how it feels) for this long. Theyve used every trick in the book to try and keep me dependent on them. Sucking me in then discarding me, subtley destroying my confidence….visous cycle. Ive realised so much in the last 6 monthes its overwhelming and keeps coming, like the veils been lifted. Not just on their behaviour but my own too, how I have allowed them to continue to treat me like a play thing. They have created a codependant rel with me, and I am trying not to feel sorry for myself but to take responsibility and reclaim my own sense of self. And heal in myself any biproducts of this abuse. Im exicted to find out who I am away from them. I am planning my escape so to speak. Its not posible all at once but Ive started seeking avenues of help. When I do finally leave them this time it will be the last time, no going back. I will move and not tell them where I am. Crazy isnt it having to move just to have some boundaries. But thats the way it is. For my own sanity and possibley my safety. I have started journaling which is so helpful, when i write i tend to find more insights and realisations to help me understand. And also so I have records of events or myself. I cant yet see my mother in a compassionate way. Ill find some middle ground on that eventually. I feel first I need to remove myself from her, from being her scapegoat for all of her negetive self projections and a mirror for her denial of those aspects in herself. I give those back to their rightful owner. So i can find who I really am. I know i wrote alot, it helps. Not just that but i find it interesting and marvel at the human mind, especialy the amazing ways it tries to protect us, some ways good others not so.
Just to add a little to my last reply. You spoke of the smoke and mirrors and mirrors that is typical of abusers also confusing the child. The abusers public persona and their the abusive one behind closeed doors. Yes, I see how this created splitting in myself. It confused me for 24 years. Their extremes and contradictory realities caused me to split, to fragment, so I would swing between extemes to some degree untill i could tie all the pieces together and find some middle ground myself. See a bigger picture unfolding. I couldnt relate to my reality in whole and complete way because it wasnt whole and complete, there were wacking holes in it and my mind was trying to reconcile and bridge the gap. Ill leave it there as I dont want to take your original blog off topic. Its been good to read, write and share.
you description of your mother fits a narcissist with a martyr complex… so sounds like she has poor social skills too and puts you in the role of being her parent… groan… parents are people and people can be sorted or screwed up, mature or undeveloped. If someone is an emotional abuser and keeps you nuts to control you, don’t work on feeling empathy for them… work on moving on and eventually work on understanding them… just get safe first. Get yourself a social worker who can help you get your own life. good luck
I feel I found some ‘voice’ by posting here and found a new confidence by speaking out and asking questions, that i didnt know I had. I have since gone completely no contact with my abusers(parents). I now find importence in distinguishing the two, parent and abusers, not in the sense of splitting, but just so I can heal my inner child in a truer picture of what happened in relating the abuse to myself while not blaming self and so putting feelings of guilt into right context. I am reprogramming critical inner thoughts and beliefs that I have internalised as my own self and undoing the knots of codependency while reparenting myself. Its odd how abusers can use that invisible codependent cycle of abuse to keep you trapped so that you feel scared of being real with yourself and leaving them, they subtley programme you to believe that you NEED them and you feel you wont survive if you walk away, its odd because, its NOT TRUE. That final realisation has set me free. I did it and Im not scared like I thought I would be, I was at first but have learnt now that it is fear and not truth, im coping independently just fine, better than before. I have learnt that i am so much more able and capable than my abusers would ever allow me to believe and so I couldnt believe it myself. Since breaking free of that cycle I have done things and acomplished things that I didnt believe I could. Its a real wake up call and a journey I plan to continue. I wake up now and I feel the sun is shining for me like it shines for everyone else, that I want to engage in life, explore it instead of just fearfully observing it, it has become an adventure and im an explorer discovering how good it can be, discovering myself. For the first time I have some direction, I know where im going and life is no longer just about trying to survive. Its amazing how much energy it takes to continue to try and live in the abusers reality, to buy into that reality and how they use you to try and keep up their own facade and fake reality and how subley you get pulled and sucked into that, until you begin to see it and awaken from it. It is litteraly like awakening from a dream. I admire you for speaking out about these subjects in your blog, there is so much taboo out there to be faced when you finally speak out or even so much denial in society about such things that it can detrementaly add to the abusers own possible denial of the abuse. Society should not be empowering abusers in this way. Everytime I have trird in the past ive been met with shock or critisism, and comments suggesting that ‘i shouldnt speak of such things’ which is like being abused all over again and strengthening the abusers deniabiliy. It always kept my lips sealed and kept me denying my truth to myself and kept me stuck in the abusers cycle. Im coming now to see that it is NOT MY SHAME to hold onto or to be made to feel all over again, and they are not my guilty secrets to have to keep or deny, those secrets strangle the life out of you and keep you bound in the abusers tangled web… The deniability…. I feel all these subjects need talking about more and the shame removed from whom it doesnt belong and put back in its rightful place. Its something Ive realised I want to contribute to and raise more awareness about myself in the future. Im determined to do so. But meanwhile Im going to continue the healing work Ive began. I learnt so much from reading the comments and replies here. Its been so helpful. Thankyou.
Hi Sirus,
you have come a long way. You have sisters like me walking beside you, around you in the world. You will not be alone. 1 in 5 pedophiles are female. As 50-70% of women have children then at least half of those female pedophiles will have children of their own and will abuse them, daughters or sons. These are facts, undeniable by any abuser.
You may also benefit from understanding GASLIGHTING. I wrote an article on it HERE and understanding it will help you keep yourself safe.
warmly,
Donna
I thank you from the bottom of my heart for posting this entry. I have been in therapy for just over one year and am slowly recovering memories of my childhood. I have hated my mother for most of my life. I remember her always being six inches away from my face screaming that I can never do anything right. I was sexually abused by her husband from ages 8-17 by means of exposure to pornography, touching, and being watched walking down the hall while he jerked off behind cracked doors kept open just wide enough for my sister and I to see. He even sexually abused his biological son. My mother blamed me for all of it, as a matter of fact all the problems within the household, because I told on her (to a councelor at a homeless shelter for youth) and the police were called. My sister and I have a terrible relationship and to this day rarely speak (I’m 30, she’s 26) she’s still locked in the pathology that I’m the reason why the family fell apart. My mother is still married to her husband. The memories that are surfacing now are of me being sexually abused by my mother, I remember her periodically “checking” my sister and I for “signs of sexual abuse” when I was 6 or 7 years old and my sister was 3 or 4. She would have us lay down completely naked on the bed and spreak our legs while she checked our vaginas for signs of assault (this was before she met the man who abused us). I remeber feeling really embarassed everytime afterward and thinking it was just wrong. Does this constitute sexual abuse? I feel so confused about this. I think it does, but I dont know if its just an issue of boundaries. It’s really strange because she made such a huge deal of us telling her if anyone ever touched us innapropriately, and then married a pedophile after she knew that he abused both of her daughters. I dont have any children yet, but when I think about them, I couldnt fathome doing something so innapropriate as checking thier private parts when communication exists as an alternative…we were not toddlers.
a) if you had any level of communication and showed no signs you’d been physically harmed, no mother would do this examining.
b) to have done that she may well have been abused herself as a child and was projecting this onto her children, then endangered them with her pedophile partner.
c) even if she thought ONCE that you’d BOTH been abused, she’d have known that regularly checking you both was in itself blurring the boundaries, sexualising her toddler children and being potentially damaging in their own later identity and sexual development.
d) ‘I was just checking’ or ‘I was just cleaning’ is a convenient excuse by abusers, especially mothers who are abusing. In the real world it simply doesn’t cut it. In the real world we all know someone doing this needs psychiatric help if only to deal with their compulsive, neurotic tendencies or their covert pedophilia
and I’m sorry you don’t have a functioning family. I wish you well as a child of the community in making the wider world your family
Thank you for the reply, I think your right on all counts. Things are getting better with much hard work, and I really appreciate sites like this that will bravely delve into these issues. Again Thank you.
Please I need help. My 45 yrs boyfriend was sexually abused by his mother when he was 9-16 yrs old. He is going through mixed emotions of repulsion and love for his mother. He is also suffering Oedipus syndrome; he sexually fantasizes about having sex with her and then feels tremendously guilty, dirty, sick. He says he does not want those thoughts and hates to get them. This affects our sex live since sometimes he thinks on having sex with her while we are having sex. We have talk about psychological therapy but he does not want to disclose her name and cause her harm. She lives in his house now and have a “normal” non sexual relationship. How can I help him? What can we do about this? He is a wonderful man, great human being and amazing father. I truly love him and want to be supportive, although it is very difficult thing to handle.
a person cannot help someone who is not fully committed to helping themselves. A 45 year old who is committed to clearing the confusion and moving on would not still be sharing their home with their abuser, particularly if he is fantasising as you say and having such complications with his present relationship. The bond between mother and son can be as strong as that between man and wife and if that relationship was with a pedophile parent who sexualised and sexually abused a child for 7 years this is not something the pedophile ‘just got over’. The only thing she got over was her libido. His is still that of a 45 year old. As for your own feelings, waiting for someone to be fully committed to helping themselves is a co-dependent position. At the very least you might benefit from discussing your own situation with a therapist. Warmly, Donna
My childhood was ruined. Its been twelve years since my memories started to return to me. I was abused by my fathers dad, this I always knew, the flashbacks were of my father, severe sexual abuse. It would take all day to tell the entire story…this is my immediate problem…one memory I always had was that of when I was just eight. I felt very sexually frustrated, ashamed and dirty, I would draw very disgusting things, and hide them in a locked case I had. So when my Mother demanded seeing what I was keeping locked up I was petrified. I was desperate for her not to see these vile drawings, I ran and hid the key in my knickers, she made my brother case me and he got it. Next we are sat on my bed and she reassures ne she wont be angry. I was so scared, she looks at my vile drawings, of oral sex, and sex, and says, its not done like that its done with love. She took them away and promised not to tell anyone. Has a little girl I was so relived that she didn’t expose me for the dirty girl I was. Very sad. Through the years she has denied this ever happening, recently it reared its ugly head and again she said it never happened. I cannot continue with her, she’s always denied me all the abuse, she’s lied etc. I have very clear memories of her making me feel guilty while my grandfather abused me, making me feel guilty and very bad. Nobody was supposed to know, it was our secret, yeh right. My mother would shout at ne saying, where are your knickers, or what do you get up to with grandad, it was the typical guilt and shame tactic, as a child it worked very well. I will never ever fathom how a mother could do this to her daughter. Since her recent lies and blaming i really cant see a future, now aged 38 with a young son, I cannot continue with her.
Cheryl, just validating that yes, as an outside it seems clear your mother had plenty of evidence and continued to choose to look the other way. Its possible that she was also sexually abused in childhood and nobody helped her either so when she faced this with her own daughter she didn’t have the guts to acknowledge her own abuse history and that obstacle meant she couldn’t face what you were going through. Yes, this makes her complicit. Yes, until she can work through that with a family therapist and healthily face up to that you could not healthily trust or feel mothered by someone who was so blatantly complicit and failed to protect you. You are 38. If you choose to be healthier without her, so be it. She has made her choices to continue a life of denial. You appear to have healthily chosen a life of being honest with yourself about what has happened to you. Abuse needs resolution. She appears unwilling to be part of working with a therapist to reach resolution about it.
Thankyou Donna, this is unbelievable, today after all these years…I visited my mother for a talk. She must have known Im done with the denial. When I mentioned the drawings, prepared for yet more frustration, she actually admitted to the event!! However she did then say she had never denied it?? However she wants to play it is ok, at least at long last she has given me this. Seems rather sad that I feel the relief I do. After my memories came back I had no contact with my parents for five years, then I found a way to forgive. We had two years before Dad passed away four years ago now. She loved him so much, as he did her,I don’t want to not have mum in my life, I just wanted some validation, or just the truth! She must have known what I was prepared to do, she would still see my son yes but not me. Her admittance, all be it backed up with a few more lies means so much. Thankyou for your reply, much insight into her past which I have often wondered about.
I’m glad for her and for you that she was able to take this first step in acknowledgement. If you can both see a family counsellor I’d think it would be useful for her to be present when you talk openly about the abuse and get to ask her what she would have done had she been able to dare acknowledge that awareness back then. The first step is she has to admit she knew something… even if all she can be sure of is that she knew her child was doing graphic drawings of things she should have had no life experience of. The second step is for her to accept that you have no malicious intent but need resolution and that the best place for this is in the safety zone of a family therapy session. From there what you need from her is simply to hear what she now feels she would have done to change what happened. You may not get all these things. Many do not, not from their abuser/s, not from the carer who protected their abuser/s. Nevertheless one can give this validation to oneself, and to oneself on behalf of the abuser/s and carers who protected them… telling oneself the things these people might have said now if they had the guts to face and take responsibility for their place in abuses from the past.
Yes, once I went through the horror of accepting she actually knew the confusion etc I had always felt subsided. I don’t think she will ever take responsibility for this, and doubt she would agree to family therapy, this would be great however. Luckily her sister, my auntie was there yesterday, the drawings were one of things she had denied to her sister years ago while I was present so I was pleased she admitted it in front of her also. Have to say my auntie sat open mouthed at some of things I said, and again mum did not dispute, she made excuses but did not deny. I believe this is as good as it gets. At least it facilitates a bit a room to continue our relationship, however warped it may be. Before my father passed away I gave him the opportunity to admit the truth, there was just him and me…it would have meant so much to me if he had confessed, but he did not. Life is very short, and nobody can hide from themselves. I hope oneday mum can find the courage to free herself, if only to me, and for herself. Thankyou Donna for taking the time and read and advise me, it is very much appreciated.
all the best in your journey Cheryl.
I am a 23 year old woman who was just recently molested by my mother a month ago. I was visiting her for a small vacation before going back to work. My trip was going great and I finally felt as if I had my mom back again. The last night I was in town my mother asked me why I was such a troubled teen and brought up being molested at age 12 by a friends step father. It was a confusing time for me as a teenage and I was sexually confused only to find myself bisexual. She was surprised and happy at the same time- which I obviously was not expecting that response. As we finish dinner and get into the cab my mother (a very flirtatious “cougar”) was coming onto a cab driver. Embarrassed and taken back I leaped out of the taxi once we arrived to her apartment. After a odd night with my mother I decided to go out and get some of my sanity back from my moms sultry ways. When I got back to her apt at 5:30 am I undressed and hopped in bed with her like I’ve always done in just underwear. When I awoke that Easter morning I felt a sinsation on my breasts. I thought I was the sickest person to walk the earth to experience that sort of dream- only to find out it wasn’t. All I could do was pull the sheets over my head continuously (she ripped them out of my hands each time). I just laid quietly baffled by what had just happened. My mother did this? The same woman who gave birth to me? I knew she was sick in the head and told her what a sick person she truly is and that she should be ashamed of herself. I quickly packed, while she begged me to forgive her and to talk- but i continued to get my things and left her building. I later received a call from her boyfriend in Italy saying he asked her to do it…. I politely told him to f’off. It hasn’t been easy to replay and try to understand this situation. I hope to better understand through other young women who have overcome such a traumatic loss with their own mothers. People need to be more aware of mother daughter sexual abuse. The woman who gave birth to you, raised you and watched as you become an independent woman could completely turn your life upside down. The sacred bond between a mother and daughter is a beautiful thing, and when it’s taken from you it leaves deep hidden scars that will never be forgotten.