You know, I read on someone else’s blog recently, how a mother-figure asked her, “I hope we can move past this,” in speaking of rebuilding a relationship after the fallout of sexual abuse. My own mother has said this to me. “What Storm did to you was in the past. Now I am here. You have to choose to get over it and move on.”  She wants me to somehow rebirth a new relationship with her, denying my history, denying who I essentially am, in the process. Survivors can never “get over it.” We learn to live with it, one way or another. Sexual abuse changes a child. It is woven deeply and permanently into the fabric of my very being.

Parents that are not the sexual perpetrators can still hurt a child. When a parent’s state of denial allows abuse to happen, to continue, and when justice is denied, that parent hurts the child. When the parent focuses on their own needs, it minimizes the abuse. When a parent wants to somehow ‘turn the page,’ and move forward, it trivializes the abuse. There is no page to turn. This is the entire book. This is it. This book is me. Either read the book and learn from it, or don’t. But there is no page to turn and move on to. This whole book was already written on me as a child.

My mother has never read this “book.” She is too lazy. It is easier for her to just “turn a page” and carry on, as if there isn’t a giant white elephant in the room. She is also a narcissist. Whenever she can make the story be about her, she will. My mother once said to me in regards to the abuse, “Don’t you think this affects me everyday?!”  Yes, I am sure that the non-perpetrator parent can be affected. They have to live with the guilt of not knowing, for not believing the victim, for not doing something differently. They have to choose whether or not to continue a relationship with the perpetrator. She does have a relationship with Storm. In fact, she just continues on with both of us, as if nothing ever happened, her face screwed up into this strained smile. Then there’s the balance. How do you balance the love of both children — when one is a victim, and the other is a predator?

But survivors live with so much more than the non-perpetrator parent. This is what people like my mother, unfortunately, don’t realize. I live with:

Shame

Guilt

Dirtiness

Sexual Dysfunction

Body Image Issues

Grief

Loss

Emptiness

Self-Loathing

Rage

Fear

Nightmares

Hypervigilance

Sleep Dysfunction

Trust Issues

Loneliness

Uncertainty

 

For the non-perpetrator parent to suggest that their struggle is anything remotely like ours is ridiculous. It really shows what a clueless baffoon she really is. It makes me so very angry to have my life and my identity trivialized like this.  This is why I hate her.

 

 

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