[autumnleaves]

This might seem a little bit ridiculous, but tonight something really got to me for the first time. I was thinking about the abuse that I've been through. Then I thought about the fact that while some of the physical and emotional abuse was perpetrated by my mom, she knows nothing of the sexual abuse that was committed by my sister. My dad doesn't know either. Both of my parents are genuinely good people who have just had their hard patches. It really hit me tonight to think about whether or not I would want to know about my abuse if I were my mother or father. In other words, would I want to know about my kid's abuse? What are your thoughts on this? I don't think that I can ever tell my parents... too much scariness and too many steps in between.

[Rapunzel]

That is a hard question. You have to consider the motivation and purpose in telling them. If you have a therapist, talk about whether or not to tell your parents with your therapist first - also how to tell them - the timing and what you would say.

As a parent, that is hard to hear. One of my daughters was sexually abused by a cousin, and I am glad that she told me. I am more able to support her because I know about it, and was able to talk to her - tell her that it wasn't her fault and coach her to recognize similar situations and take her power back and not let someone do that to her again. Abuse does tend to be repeated, and she has had other people try things, and she was able to handle the situation and again to tell us about it.

How do you think that your parents would react to learning about your sister having abused you? Do you think that they would be able to be supportive? Would they be angry? Who would they be angry with? What do you think they might do? In general, keeping a secret about abuse keeps the cycle of abuse going. Getting it out in the open stops it. However, families resist letting the secret out. It is scary. Change is scary, even changing patterns of abuse.

[healed84]

This is a very thought provoking question. As a parent myself.. yes, I would want to know if either one of my kids have been abused. I would want to help them, and help them professional help as well.

However, being a victim.. I can see the other side. Neither one of my parents no what happened to me, nobody but my husband and T do. I have thought about telling my mom, but I don't want her to feel bad. I know she feels guilty as far as how my brothers turned out, she knows she wasn't always present in our lives and didn't do the best job parenting that she could of. So, I feel like if I tell her that as a 10 year old girl I was raped.. so close to home, she would feel guilty for not knowing and not seeing the signs and I don't want her to have those feelings.

[Open Eyes]

This is a VERY good question and I can relate to all the posters thus far here.

I kept secrets for most of my life because I felt the truth would only cause more hurt and damage. And in my time her in PC, I have seen that pretty much all victims feel that way.

The problem with my not telling though is that what resulted was I WAS CONSTANTLY MISUNDERSTOOD ALL MY LIFE. I had developed different coping methods from my childhood that I wasn't really consciously aware of. And how I addressed things in my life was a bit different and because of that I was either told that I was VERY INTUITIVE and WISE, or I was told I WAS OVERLY SENSITIVE AND FEARFUL.

In many ways, I continued to suffer the consequences of something that was never my fault. And it just kept on hurting me in more ways than I ever realized.

So, the problem with holding onto hurt/abuse just to save others from being hurt is that often the end result is that YOU ARE OFTEN VERY MISUNDERSTOOD. And in many ways, THE EXPERIENCE OF BEING ABUSED CONTINUES TO HURT YOU IN MANY WAYS.

And the answer is YES I WOULD WANT TO KNOW IF MY DAUGHTER WAS ABUSED so I could make sure she got the right help and support and I would never want her to end up like me. I always wanted better for her, and most parents do want that. Yes it hurts to hear that even though a parent may have tried to be a good parent, a child still suffered, but for me, I would be hurt more if my daughter was afraid to tell me as well because that would have meant that I failed at teaching her to come to me whenever she needed help or advice etc.

I did finally tell my parents SOME things about my abuse, and while they were upset that it happened, they were also very understanding and willing to listen. And now, they are too old for me to tell them everything. And in some ways they don't understand me because I didn't tell.

Open Eyes

[Sannah]

Most people who come here want to heal and are open to hearing things. There are people out there who do not hear things due to their own problems and those types of people don't come to websites like this. I guess it hinges on how much denial a person is in.

Siblings abuse each other because they can get away with it (the parents aren't doing anything to stop it) and these siblings learned somehow that it is okay to abuse others. What you write shows that your mother was abusive so your sister must have learned from her.

I think that most of the time that the parents knew but because of their own denial about their own abuse they are unable to act to protect because to protect their children from abuse requires that they address their own abuse which they can't. Denial of their own abuse blinds them to acting to protect their own children.

[critterlady]

I was abused by a trusted family friend when I was 13. I've made the decision not to tell my parents. My mother passed away without knowing and I will almost certainly not tell my father. At this point, 40 years later and with the perp dead, I really don't see the point. There's nothing he can do except feel terrible that he didn't know and stop it. There really wasn't any way he could know - the perp and I both hid it really well.

That said, T does not agree with my choice. He thinks I should have told. I've missed the opportunity to tell my mother and he does not want me to miss the opportunity to tell my father. He brings it up once in a while, but I'm pretty adamant that I will not tell my father. I've told my sister and a close friend, but no one else.

[autumnleaves]

Thanks to everyone for your responses. I really appreciated reading everyone's opinions. I think that telling my parents would be too involved, to be honest. I would have to bring up the topic of the abuse with my sister first. I couldn't blindside her with telling my parents without confronting her first. My sister and I have never discussed the abuse. We both pretend that it never happened. After my sister moved out (about 4 years after), she was diagnosed with stage three colon cancer as a 22 year old woman. She then moved back home so that she could receive care from my parents while she was in treatment (chemo and radiation). During this time, I was one of her primary caretakers, even sharing a bed with her for the better part of a year. There are large portions of this time that I don't remember, I suspect due to the fact that it was a rather traumatic period of my life. Anyway, the point is that during this time, our hatred for each other was significantly changed. She apologized for "the way she treated me" all of those years, but we never spoke specifically about the sexual abuse. During this time, she also revealed to me that our older brother (in addition to a neighbor boy) had molested her for years. I imagine that much of the abuse that she perpetrated against me was inspired, for lack of a better word, by the abuse that she suffered at the hands of the neighbor and my brother. According to her, my brother started abusing her after he found out that the neighbor boy was abusing her because he "wanted to know what it felt like" For all of these reasons, I have trouble directing rage at my sister because we now have a good relationship. She enjoys spending time with me, which is something that I absolutely craved from her for 17 years of my 22 year old life. So, I find myself unwilling to destroy this relationship by bringing up the abuse that we pretend as if never occurred. I don't think that doing so would do any good for anyone. HOWEVER, as a parent, I know that I would want to know, even if one of my own children was a abuser. I'd want to help my children.