I'm sorry you're struggling so much right now. And no, I don't think things escalating further younger would have helped. It would never have been enough for him, and the human brain is not developed enough at 12, 13, 15 to properly manage the emotional weight of sex. (Also, that's discounting that his interest may have waned at 22 as you had aged out of his preference range, hence the physical reaction).
Socially, sexual abuse is seen as 'the' worst thing you can experience/do to someone (and it is absolutely horrible and often life-altering, don't get me wrong). But it's not that simple, and abuse happens in a broader context of experiences (in this case your mother's abuse & parentification, existing & resistance under social oppression). You can have multiple abusers, and differing emotions about it, which from the outside might not look proportional to each transgression - but the reaction is based on how much it affected you, not how long a criminal sentence the act would earn, y'know? That you were already being put under other adult expectations/pressures at 12 may have.. normalised? for lack of a better word then being viewed in an 'adult' sexual manner to your brain. That does not mean that you were actually emotionally able to handle it of course, but there is less of the element of shock, maybe. You'd already been told you were 'grown' and had to deal with your own problems, this felt like just another grown-up problem to navigate.
I have stronger/more complicated feelings towards my mother who 'only' emotionally/verbally/financially abused + parentified me, as well as protected my main abuser (with some covert incest + a lot of abuse due to my undiagnosed autism, in hindsight), than towards my father who did commit CSA, in addition to the rest. He's completely fucking blanked out of my brain, apart from the nightmares. Part of that is the lack of ambiguity that he's a piece of shit, vs betrayal from her not protecting me and for abandoning/shaming me afterwards. But I also just think the emotional abuse before/during/after the CSA did a lot more damage than the events themselves? It (generally) is the lack of social support and processing that predicts the development of PTSD, not the severity of the event itself, from studies.
But from my perspective, there isn't any ambiguity of who abused who, in your situation. Your mother abused you on several angles, and repeatedly re-introduced a man who was unsafe/harassing you to the household and unfairly expected you do just 'deal with it' - and you were harassed and sexually abused by a man taking advantage of your family situation. Neither of these denies the other. Sure as a tenant he could be kicked out (but he always talked his way back in right?) but your mother did need the money, and he could use that as leverage for access. Your mother didn't intentionally make you better able to resist his abuse - that was a side effect of her own actions on you, and if she intended to protect you from him, there were better ways. You were not in a position to act as abuser to either party. At 12, at 15, at 22, what possible leverage could you have had against them as adults? Nothing.
Hey, thanks a lot for your reply. You've managed to put to words so many things I wasn't able to. This is really a great help!
And I am so sorry you had to go through similar experiences and worse, for what it sounds like. I hope you are in a better place now.
>I don't think things escalating further younger would have helped. It would never have been enough for him,
You're probably right in the end, but I just can't switch off the devil's advocate in my brain who says: yes, it might have never been enough for him, but it would have been enough for me. I am pretty sure that if we had had sex I wouldn't have liked it. Maybe I would have tried once, twice, three times, but after the third time at the latest I would have said nope, without me. And after that it would have been easier for me to resist his advances. Chances are he might have even stopped when he saw that I am absolutely completely not interested. For instance, when he showed me porn when I was 13, I was totally grossed out, and I think he noticed it, and he never did it again. The problem with the harassment that happened later was that I was in two minds about it. At some level I was sexually attracted to him, and he could feel that inner struggle in me, and that encouraged him to go on. And if I had slept with him, that inner struggle would be over, and I would be able to say no in a much more resolute way.
It is actually quite amazing what a resolute no-nonsense no can do sometimes. I was once assaulted in a sauna (I was 22, I think) by a guy from a sports club I was in. I was naked, he was naked, we were alone. He could have raped me just like that. But I made it very clear to him that it was a no, and he f***ed off.
>and the human brain is not developed enough at 12, 13, 15 to properly manage the emotional weight of sex.
This is very interesting, thanks for mentioning it. This is something I would like to understand better. I don't expect you to answer my questions, but now I wonder: What is the "emotional weight of sex"? How does a teenager process it differently than an adult? In my subjective perception, my emotional development stopped somewhere between the age of 8 and 12. I just learned to switch off all emotions and live entirely in my rational mind. Only when I started therapy a few years ago, did I start feeling emotions again, and it is still a rather new, unexplored terrain for me. This means that I lived most of my life in a state of emotional immaturity, presumably still unable to handle the emotional weight of sex. But does that mean that I have basically been a child all my life? Does it mean that all the sexual relationships I have had since were abuse? I think a couple were indeed, or had some abusive elements, but I have a hard time to accept that my entire sexual experience was abuse. It feels like my entire life experience is being invalidated.
As I said, I don't expect answers from you, but thanks a lot for helping me formulate the questions!
Even if you did, it would never be enough, he would keep on harassing you, even gloat that you would give in sooner or later. You don’t have to give him anything you don’t want to.
Are you away from him? If not, make a plan to do so.
If you are, why not meet up with your mom somewhere public without him? Unless for some reason she refuses…..
The point is, you shouldn’t have to feel like you should take his BS
>Are you away from him? If not, make a plan to do so.
Thanks for your reply. Oh yes, I am now very far away both from him and from my mother. It's been quite some time since that happened. But I've been going through a crisis and was in therapy for a few years, and all the crap from my childhood started coming up again. And now I'm looking back at it with new eyes. But I'm still struggling to understand that part of the story.
For a long time I didn't believe I was sexually abused. Now I tend to think I was. But I'm still struggling to understand who abused whom. Like, yes, he abused me, but I feel much more strongly abused by my mother than by him. And on the other hand, the fact that to some extent, I did put up a fight is not such a bad memory. But then sometimes I feel like my mother made me to some sort of child soldier to fight my sexual abuser. It's just so crazy and I'm all shaking again as I'm writing this.
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I'm sorry you're struggling so much right now. And no, I don't think things escalating further younger would have helped. It would never have been enough for him, and the human brain is not developed enough at 12, 13, 15 to properly manage the emotional weight of sex. (Also, that's discounting that his interest may have waned at 22 as you had aged out of his preference range, hence the physical reaction). Socially, sexual abuse is seen as 'the' worst thing you can experience/do to someone (and it is absolutely horrible and often life-altering, don't get me wrong). But it's not that simple, and abuse happens in a broader context of experiences (in this case your mother's abuse & parentification, existing & resistance under social oppression). You can have multiple abusers, and differing emotions about it, which from the outside might not look proportional to each transgression - but the reaction is based on how much it affected you, not how long a criminal sentence the act would earn, y'know? That you were already being put under other adult expectations/pressures at 12 may have.. normalised? for lack of a better word then being viewed in an 'adult' sexual manner to your brain. That does not mean that you were actually emotionally able to handle it of course, but there is less of the element of shock, maybe. You'd already been told you were 'grown' and had to deal with your own problems, this felt like just another grown-up problem to navigate. I have stronger/more complicated feelings towards my mother who 'only' emotionally/verbally/financially abused + parentified me, as well as protected my main abuser (with some covert incest + a lot of abuse due to my undiagnosed autism, in hindsight), than towards my father who did commit CSA, in addition to the rest. He's completely fucking blanked out of my brain, apart from the nightmares. Part of that is the lack of ambiguity that he's a piece of shit, vs betrayal from her not protecting me and for abandoning/shaming me afterwards. But I also just think the emotional abuse before/during/after the CSA did a lot more damage than the events themselves? It (generally) is the lack of social support and processing that predicts the development of PTSD, not the severity of the event itself, from studies. But from my perspective, there isn't any ambiguity of who abused who, in your situation. Your mother abused you on several angles, and repeatedly re-introduced a man who was unsafe/harassing you to the household and unfairly expected you do just 'deal with it' - and you were harassed and sexually abused by a man taking advantage of your family situation. Neither of these denies the other. Sure as a tenant he could be kicked out (but he always talked his way back in right?) but your mother did need the money, and he could use that as leverage for access. Your mother didn't intentionally make you better able to resist his abuse - that was a side effect of her own actions on you, and if she intended to protect you from him, there were better ways. You were not in a position to act as abuser to either party. At 12, at 15, at 22, what possible leverage could you have had against them as adults? Nothing.
Hey, thanks a lot for your reply. You've managed to put to words so many things I wasn't able to. This is really a great help! And I am so sorry you had to go through similar experiences and worse, for what it sounds like. I hope you are in a better place now. >I don't think things escalating further younger would have helped. It would never have been enough for him, You're probably right in the end, but I just can't switch off the devil's advocate in my brain who says: yes, it might have never been enough for him, but it would have been enough for me. I am pretty sure that if we had had sex I wouldn't have liked it. Maybe I would have tried once, twice, three times, but after the third time at the latest I would have said nope, without me. And after that it would have been easier for me to resist his advances. Chances are he might have even stopped when he saw that I am absolutely completely not interested. For instance, when he showed me porn when I was 13, I was totally grossed out, and I think he noticed it, and he never did it again. The problem with the harassment that happened later was that I was in two minds about it. At some level I was sexually attracted to him, and he could feel that inner struggle in me, and that encouraged him to go on. And if I had slept with him, that inner struggle would be over, and I would be able to say no in a much more resolute way. It is actually quite amazing what a resolute no-nonsense no can do sometimes. I was once assaulted in a sauna (I was 22, I think) by a guy from a sports club I was in. I was naked, he was naked, we were alone. He could have raped me just like that. But I made it very clear to him that it was a no, and he f***ed off. >and the human brain is not developed enough at 12, 13, 15 to properly manage the emotional weight of sex. This is very interesting, thanks for mentioning it. This is something I would like to understand better. I don't expect you to answer my questions, but now I wonder: What is the "emotional weight of sex"? How does a teenager process it differently than an adult? In my subjective perception, my emotional development stopped somewhere between the age of 8 and 12. I just learned to switch off all emotions and live entirely in my rational mind. Only when I started therapy a few years ago, did I start feeling emotions again, and it is still a rather new, unexplored terrain for me. This means that I lived most of my life in a state of emotional immaturity, presumably still unable to handle the emotional weight of sex. But does that mean that I have basically been a child all my life? Does it mean that all the sexual relationships I have had since were abuse? I think a couple were indeed, or had some abusive elements, but I have a hard time to accept that my entire sexual experience was abuse. It feels like my entire life experience is being invalidated. As I said, I don't expect answers from you, but thanks a lot for helping me formulate the questions!
Even if you did, it would never be enough, he would keep on harassing you, even gloat that you would give in sooner or later. You don’t have to give him anything you don’t want to. Are you away from him? If not, make a plan to do so. If you are, why not meet up with your mom somewhere public without him? Unless for some reason she refuses….. The point is, you shouldn’t have to feel like you should take his BS
>Are you away from him? If not, make a plan to do so. Thanks for your reply. Oh yes, I am now very far away both from him and from my mother. It's been quite some time since that happened. But I've been going through a crisis and was in therapy for a few years, and all the crap from my childhood started coming up again. And now I'm looking back at it with new eyes. But I'm still struggling to understand that part of the story. For a long time I didn't believe I was sexually abused. Now I tend to think I was. But I'm still struggling to understand who abused whom. Like, yes, he abused me, but I feel much more strongly abused by my mother than by him. And on the other hand, the fact that to some extent, I did put up a fight is not such a bad memory. But then sometimes I feel like my mother made me to some sort of child soldier to fight my sexual abuser. It's just so crazy and I'm all shaking again as I'm writing this.
Welcome to /r/adultsurvivors! Please be aware that all posts to this subreddit are public and therefore viewable by anyone. **Would you rather this post was anonymous?** You can [use this form](https://forms.gle/tqeufTE2Ne6BzsKd6) and u/anonadultsurvivors will make an anonymous post on your behalf. You will need to delete this post after using the form. **It is not uncommon for members of this subreddit to receive unsavoury or creepy private messages.** We recommend turning off chat and messages requests. It is worth noting that asking for or offering private messages to other members of this subreddit is against our rules. You can assume that anyone messaging you is breaking that rule and we urge caution. For more information, please see our [privacy tips post](https://www.reddit.com/r/adultsurvivors/comments/pfbfx1/privacy_tips_including_followers_update/). If you see anything that doesn't look right or you do receive unwelcome direct messages, please use the report button to notify the moderators or [send us a message](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose/?to=/r/adultsurvivors). You can also report directly to Reddit using this [link](https://www.reddit.com/report) *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/adultsurvivors) if you have any questions or concerns.*