Pandora's Aquarium: Gotta Question For Ya'll Cuz My Mom Keeps Asking,So I Figured Ya'll Could Help Me! - Pandora's Aquarium

Danielle,

I'm so so sorry you're going through this. That is the ultimate betrayal.

I believe that there's a bit of lag time between SA and then when the healing process begins. For me it was like a period of numbness that gradually is wearing off and I'm feeling that pain now.

So yes, that's totally understandable to me.

Sending you safe if ok,

Anne

Danielle,

I know where you are coming from, like I really know. My abuse was from my father as well as my step father and my mother's favorite thing to ask 'why are you so over emotional?'
I agree with Anne that there is 'lag time' it is the period when you really feel nothing at all. You are still in shock during that time I think and it truly is what saves you. When your mind just can't deal it chooses not to and that is why it will come back much later, when you are stronger. Also I think that your emotions are coming out more now because of the SA a year ago. Your mind has decided now is the time to deal with that SA and any other issues you did not work on from the one before.

In my experience my mind shut off for 2 years (plus while the first round was going on) until my step father did the same thing. By that time it was like I needed to deal with it or I was going to lose all of me.
I hope this helps but please know that you don't owe your mother an explanation and if all you can tell her is that you don't know why then that is enough. Don't rush anything in your healing, if you don't have answers then you don't that is all there is to it.
Be well my dear friend.

XO
Jennifer

i added more to my about me page because there is more...
i was SA'd 4 times by 4 different people,ages 6,10-15 by 2 people,and again at 19

Danielle

I'm sorry for all that has happened to you.

Jennifer is right. You don't owe your mother an explanation. I totally understand why you are just now getting upset about your SA. I think it is an easy thing to bury it. I did for years. It was 19 years after I was raped before I was triggered and really just fell apart. And maybe it's because I wasn't ready, or able, to deal with it in any way?

And maybe that's how it is for you.

It is hard, and it takes time. And no matter what anyone says, or thinks, about how you are handling this, or coping with it, or anything, just remember that you are the important one. You are the one who knows what's best for you, and I hope that you do what you need to before what anyone else thinks you need to do.

Stay strong, and take good care of you.

i'm trying,,,i'm trying to be strong but it's hard sometimes....

i try not to tell many people because of how they react to the SA if i tell them,or how they react to me,and just completely stop talking to me.
it makes me feel like it's my fault.

I was sexually abused by my older brother from ages 5 to 13. It took me 30 years to deal with it. My mother did not know but my father found us once when I was 13. I think it stopped after that but I can't be sure because I have a lot of trouble with my memory. I COULDN'T deal with it for 30 years. The pain, guilt and shame was just too much to bear. Now I know that the guilt and shame belongs to my brother...not to me. That only leaves me with the pain and I am learning to deal with that one day at a time.

Like others have said...you do not owe anyone else an explanation. You do what you need to do to heal.

I don't know the reasons you feel upset to talk to your Mom about SA, or why you didn't tell her at the time...it could be so many different things. Most kids are in a state of shock and confusion at the time and don't tell the "safe" parent either because they cannot bring themselves to re-live that pain in the telling of it, or they don't want to hurt the "safe" parent or break up the family, or underneath they hold resentment that the "safe" parent didn't protect them. Your Mom may want to deny that anything happened because she can't handle the fact that her little girl was hurt and she didn't protect you.

Either way, healing from SA is a P-R-O-C-E-S-S. A slow one at that...it doesn't happen overnight. Eventually there comes a point when you don't feel that shame anymore; that's when I knew that I had been healed as much as I could be. The guilt and shame will eat you up inside. I choose not to let what happened to me determine the course that my life is going to take. That would be letting "him" win.

--Isaiah40.31

It's hard dealing with stuff right away. Sometimes our brains just need time to process what's happened before we're mentally at a place where we can be anything but numb. I actually found taking a psychology class was really useful in helping me accept why this whole thing has taken me so long to deal with (especially the stages of grief...denial and all that).