Four months ago I told my mum that my dad used to molest me, I may aswelll not have bothered

TW CSA: And bit of a rant, sorry.

My heart goes out to you OP. I believe you - wholeheartedly - even if your mum doesn't. Please back yourself and know that someone else backs you and believes in you. You are worthy. You are not alone.

As for neglect and emotional abuse I too went through CSA reveal trauma as an adult. When I outed the CSA in my twenties to my mom and dad, I felt really elated. Like now this terrible secret I'd held in was finally out, that everything was going to be alright from then on in. It really really wasn't. The decades in the aftermath of the CSA reveal was just as traumatising as the CSA itself.

I regret now spending so much time in the futile endeavour of dealing with my dysfunctional and malignant mom who was only ever interested in protecting herself. But what I worked out over that time was that my mom's shame about it was multi-faceted. There was shame about being a bad parent in that she knew it was going on and let it happen anyway, shame about what everyone else would think of her if I revealed the CSA to more people, shame on behalf of the CSA abuser and the impact it was going to have on his life, and regret that her life wasn't going to be the same (and blaming me for that). Amongst all her own shames, she was never able to, nor even wanted to, be a compassionate parent to me, or understand how any of this affected me. I was supposed to simply 'get some counselling and get over it' and everybody was supposed to 'go back to normal' and I was to 'never speak of it in front of her'. Worse, she and other family members did nothing to stop CSA in the wider family and next generation. Your mum's actions here are raising red flags for me of the same kind.

But please remember that the healing process is about you, not her. You were a badass kid who clopped a rapist on his head with a moneybox. I hope it left bruises and I hope he had to make up lies about how he got them. That past kid you is still in there and is still an amazing human. I hope tomorrow and in the coming days your perspective about your family shifts. Go well, OP.

/r/CPTSD Thread