[Juliana]

TRIGGER POSSIBILITY....



I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this. There's something that I haven't talked about in many, many years... and the only people I ever talked about it with were my dad, my sister and my ex-boyfriend. I talked to each of them about it ONCE.

Anyway, something strange started happening in my family when I was about 11. I have never understood what exactly was going on with my mum, but paranoia ended up being a big part of it.

My mum was sexually assaulted by her doctor. She told my dad about it and they went to the police together. The police were sympathetic and took her statement, but after talking with the doctor, they informed my mum that it was a "he said/she said" situation and mum had no proof so they couldn't do anything about it. Many years later, other women came forward with the same claims. No criminal charges were ever pressed, but the doctor chose to retire early rather than having the medical board investigate him. That didn't do my mum any good at the time, though.

The doctor and his wife lived in our neighbourhood. My mum and the doctor's wife had mutual friends because they all had toddlers that went to a playgroup together. Once the doctor's wife told the other women about what my mum had said about her husband, all the other women turned against my mum. Mum had always been a bit of an outsider in that group anyway. All the other women were wealthy and my family was kind of poor. My mum was very pretty and kind of different -- she was a Mormon so she didn't believe in smoking or drinking and she was all about organic food and healthy living. She was different and free-spirited. She never really fit in with the women in our neighbourhood, but they seemed to like her and they had the kids in common. Anyway, after this happened, she was completely outcast. They despised her. They said that she must have come onto the doctor, or she was lying, or she was asking for it because of the way she looked and the way she dressed. My little brother was only 2, but he was uninvited from the playgroup and never got invited to birthday parties in our neighbourhood again throughout his entire childhood.

My dad had a job on a boat at the time and he was usually gone for about 6 weeks at a time. My mum was under a lot of stress, being ostracized, being traumatized by what the doctor had done, feeling like no one believed her, and being so sad about my little brother being affected by it -- when he was just an innocent baby. Then her brother, who was 11 months younger than her, died a "suspicious death" in a hotel room in Vancouver. His 4 year-old son was with his body alone in the room for two days before a cleaning lady found them. My mum was just a mess. We still don't know who caused his death. Apparently, he was involved in something he shouldn't have been involved in and had been fearing for his life. Lots of unanswered questions there.

I don't know all the details, but after a couple of years, there were lawyers involved in the sexual assault case. I think my mum was trying to push the issue through non-criminal means. She was determined to get some sort of justice. Around this time I started noticing a big change in her behaviour. She became paranoid. When my dad was away, she would be up all night. She would come into my room in the middle of the night and open my closets and root them with a flashlight. She put deadbolts on all the interior doors and had an alarm system installed in the house.

When I would go out with my friends, sometimes she would follow me. She would call my friends' houses to make sure I was actually there. I started to realize she didn't trust me. Little by little, I found out that she believed that this doctor and his friends were coming into our house at night and drugging her and doing things to her. She believed that they could get in through the locks and she thought the police were in cahoots with them... and sometimes she thought that I was too.

So, in the court case, the doctor's lawyer had my mum go for a psychiatric evaluation. I'm sure my mum would have done fine on the psychiatric evaluation a few years earlier -- before the assault and its aftermath. But, when she went to see the psychiatrist, the psychiatrist's report said that she was paranoid -- because she was. That gave my mum no legal credence and that made things worse. She became even more paranoid. She thought that the psychiatrist was in on it too.

This went on from the time I was about 12 until I was 16. I didn't tell anyone -- not even my dad. My mum wasn't all there most of the time and she usually slept in the daytime and evening when I was home from school, so I took care of my little brother and did the cooking and cleaning and stuff. Finally, when I was 16, I told my dad while he was home on shore leave. It turned out he knew -- of course. He didn't know how hard it had been on me, though. He had been trying to get a job where he could stay home all the time and he was finally successful. Once he was home for good, mum seemed to get better. That was a big relief. It turned out that at his new job, the doctor who had assaulted my mum was the company doctor. When my dad went for his physical the doctor said to him, "If you don't get your wife to shut up, I can fail you on this physical, you know." I remember my dad being SO angry about that, but there wasn't anything he could do. He needed the job.

Anyway, I thought my mum had gotten over all this stuff. At the time, I wished she would go to a psychiatrist, but she was so paranoid. If anyone suggested that what she thought was happening wasn't REALLY happening then she would think that person was out to get her. How do you get a paranoid person to seek help if they don't believe they need help? If they believe that everything is REAL? Is it common for people who have suffered abuse and trauma to become paranoid afterwards? I have always wondered. My mum's dad had a breakdown and was hospitalized for a year when she was a child, so I know there was a history of mental illness in her family. I thought that she was better by the time I graduated from high school and that made me happy. I couldn't get summer jobs in my hometown because of my last name -- because of what people thought of my mum, so I was glad that I was heading to a new city and university and had my future ahead of me. I was happy to leave that town behind.

Anyway, about 13 years later, my mum and I were out for lunch, having a nice time... and then she leaned towards me and started whispering... and told me that when she and dad were on vacation a couple of weeks earlier, they had been drugged and kidnapped from their cottage and taken to a bonfire in the middle of the night where they had been forced to have sex with a bunch of evil people... I started crying and told her to shut up and ran out of the restaurant. I had thought the paranoid stuff was WAY in the past.

So, I don't know if my mum still has this paranoid stuff going on. She hasn't mentioned anything about it since and we don't talk about the stuff that happened in the past. There were a few times -- years ago -- when she mentioned stuff from the past, but she got very upset when she sensed that I didn't believe everything she was telling me. I don't know if she's better or if she has just learned not to talk to me or my sis or my dad or my bro about it because she knows we won't believe her or because we'll get upset. I don't know if she still sometimes thinks that we're out to get her... if she still believes that she's being drugged and kidnapped in the middle of the night... and I guess I don't want to know. I would rather believe that she's okay because she seems okay... and if she's not okay, there's not a damn thing I could do about it. She still hates to be alone at night. So, when dad's working the night shift, I often have to stay on the phone with her for hours. I try not to jump to conclusions about that. Maybe it's paranoia, but maybe she just doesn't like being alone. Either way, I would rather chat with her about ordinary stuff for 3 hours in the middle of the night than have her being scared. Dad's retiring next month, so at least she won't have to spend nights alone after that.

Anyway, I just needed to get that out. I haven't talked about it in so many years and this felt like a safe place. I never told my dad about mum's recent story about the vacation bonfire thing. I didn't see the point.

Thanks to anyone who took the time to read all of this.

[sabby]

(((((((((((((Juliana)))))))))))))))))))

I'm so very sorry for all you and your family had to endure all these years. I can't imagine having to live through all of that. How very sad

I'm glad you felt comfortable enough to write about this experience here. I hope it helped you come to terms with it a bit more or at the very least, gave you pause to breathe and relax a bit.

I wish I had answers for you and your family. I'm pretty sure your mum could use some professional help for a a dx and all. But I understand what you mean when you say how do you tell someone they are paronoid without them thinking you are now out to get them. Such a difficult situation

If you ever want to vent privately, feel free to pm me anytime. I have strong shoulders and open ears.

You and your family are in my prayers dear one

*Gentle Hugs*
J

[Juliana]

Thanks so much Sabau. I know there aren't any answers. There's no way to fix what already happened and if my mum is still having paranoid thoughts she would never get help. It's strange... I hardly ever think about it. I saw my parents yesterday, though, and my mum hasn't been feeling well physically and it made me worry about her and I was seeing her as being so vulnerable.. the way I used to see her when I was a teenager, so I think that's why all this stuff ended up in the forefront of my mind when I got home. I couldn't sleep last night and I was thinking about all of it for the first time in such a long time. It felt cathartic just to write about it and put it all out there. Thanks for being so kind. It means a lot to me.