My Support Forums - View Single Post - How do you teach empathy to someone that doesn't care??

Open Eyes · 09:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Raindropvampire

Open Eyes printing all this out and giving it to her may help but then do I leave it all in intact and let her know that I'm the one who called CPS? Do I just level and put it on the table that if she doesn't get him help then I will continue to call CPS every time he injures one of the other kids? I'm just so tired and wore down right now I don't know if I can have that fight without causing some real hurt feelings. Part of me just wants to say **** it write them off and forget it. The other part sees how much of this could be helped if someone cared enough to do something.

Well, I understand how you might feel overwhelmed here. I have to be honest that I was in a situation where I was the only one strong enough to stand up to what I was seeing as "child neglect and endangerment". The other people around the situation chose to "ignore" it and think "their problem, not mine".

But I can tell you that my whole childhood (I was the youngest of three) from so very little, I was aware of the "threat of my older brother". And I have terrible flashbacks when I was even in my crib.
I didn't ever think I would be able to have that happen and that I would remember those experiences as they come forward now.

This mother is so focused on this child that she is just not seeing how his threatening presence is going to affect the other children. THEY KNOW and it is already CAUSING DAMAGE. I had that happen in my family, my parents didn't realize how much my brother's unpredictable behavior was affecting me and even my older sister. And my brother's problems turned into CSA for me. I was terrified to tell, because I felt he would Kill me.

By this mother allowing this situation to continue she is teaching the other children that it is "ok" to have to live with such a threat in the home.

Every single time I have a confrontation, there is a part of me that is terrified. I have felt all my life that I had to find some way of "hiding happiness" and that if I was happy, it would only be a matter of time before it would be taken from me. And what I learned from my childhood was that I had to "hide" my real feelings somehow and that I had to learn to "accept" abuse. I also learned that I had to find my own ways of "fixing" my brother and that included giving into CSA. Or, I had to find hiding places and learned to climb trees and sit for hours until my mother came home to get away from my brother. That was my whole childhood, had to find ways to be safe somehow.
That is what children learn when parents allow the threat to continue to be in the environment.

Sigh, what I have been going through the past five years alone has brought back so many years of suffering abuse and being afraid and feeling powerless.

You can tell this mother for me that it is terrible to ask a child to grow up feeling terrified like this because a sibling is so dangerous and unpredictable.

I have had psychiatrists and therapists tell me how intelligent I am.
Well, I never felt that way at all and now I look back at a little girl that ALWAYS WAS AFRAID AND NEVER FELT SAFE. My T tells me about "the gifted child" and WHY DID IT HAVE TO BE SO WASTED?

I just never expected that I would ever relive my past like this with PTSD. And I have been misunderstood ALL MY LIFE. And I never truely talked about MY SECRET ABOUT HOW I DID THINGS TO TRY TO FEEL SAFE around a child that WAS SO DANGEROUS AND UNPREDICTABLE.

Something that was very important to me was taken from me five years ago. And people just don't understand how SO VERY IMPORTANT it was to me. I should just get "over it and deal" and find a way to move on. And I am stuck, something that was "happiness to me" was destroyed. No one gets why I struggle with so much anger, remorse, and feel so violated. I can't even believe I am stuck with a lawyer that is so dismissive and he is old and makes mistakes and I am at the point where I am trying to put together a demand for all my losses. And I have been struggling to do it and I could not figure out why, every time I go near the paperwork, I fall into someplace dark and depressing. I am sitting here writing this and recognizing how deep it really goes for me. I have been in this lawsuit for so many years now and stuck with this lawyer who makes me feel so worthless and all he thinks about is himself and how he is trying to hold onto his profession even though he forgets and shakes so much he can't even grab a piece of paper. I am afraid that I will lose and be told that the "happiness" that I managed to grab onto WAS WORTHLESS and that the people that destroyed it and were careless and so intrusive and disrespectful can just be permitted to be that way, just like my brother. Five years I have been forced to sit with so much trama and how I have to learn to "accept the system" and keep quite somehow. It is so much like my childhood and I see how much the person that hurt me is the one that is "protected".

Well, I don't mean to get into all about me. But "please" stand up for the other children. They just don't deserve to have to live in fear. This mother has to see that instead of just putting her focus on trying to protect this one child that presents so much danger she has to get help and also protect the other children that don't have the ability to understand and protect themselves in this situation.

Open Eyes