was it ok?

i need to ask this to people who know about abuse... when i was between ages 12 and 13 ther were 3 different adult men who kissed me in a way they shouldn't have. i only ever told anyone about one of them, our neighbor who was also friends with my dad. he was in his 50s and i was 13. i told my sister about a year later because my dad wanted me to go to the neighbors bbq and i threw a fit not wanting to go. i hated the way he looked at me. my sister told my dad but he stayed friends with the neighbor even after we moved across town. i asked him why once but he wouldnt talk to me about it. my brother says he thinks my dad maybe thought it wasnt as big a deal as i made it out to be.

what i wonder is, was it? was i making a big deal out of nothing? or maybe it was my own fault somehow? i didn't like it at all but why would all these grown men want to kiss me if i didnt do something to encourage it? i can't think of anything i did but its been 20 years now. is it stupid that i still even think about this stuff? i'm sorry i just can't figure it out. can anyone help me??

It is a big deal. They violated your boundaries. It also seems like your family didnt keep that situation safe for you. I'm sorry!!

No, it was not your fault. And adults who engage children in sexual activity -- no matter the extent of it -- are behaving totally wrong. It is the adult's responsibility to treat children appropriately. You were not treated with the respect and dignity you deserved. That hurt you and the pain and confusion you experienced then are clearly still with you.

They made you feel very uncomfortable and violated, which is why it is still with you after all these years. I am really sorry to hear that your father did not react to protect you and respect the pain, anxiety and fear you were showing. His failure only reinforced the message that your feelings and rights and even the safety of your body didn't matter -- just like the abusers did. His failure made it worse.

My best advice right now is to honor your feelings for what they were and what they are. Your feelings are real. You can stop denying them now -- it is o.k. Your father denied them, but you no longer have to. I would work on expressing your anger about the abusers and the ones who failed to protect you. You have the right to be angry. You have the right to speak with your voice, so you can hear it first, and then express it to anyone else you feel needs to know how you were hurt. This will be important to helping you heal.

Keep expressing your feelings here. You are not alone.

Be well,

mtd

((((((((((((((bellaviolet)))))))))))))))

You're not making a big deal out of nothing, and in NO WAY is it your fault.

Adults should NEVER take advantage or hurt a child, in any way. Even if it didn't physically hurt you, it's still a violation of your boundaries and not appropriate.

thank you everyone for replying. i feel a little better hearing that it wasn't my fault. when my brother said that, about my dad probably not thinking it was that big a deal, i just started thinking about it and wondering if maybe it wasn't. then when i thought about the 2 other men, both "friends" of the family, i started to wonder if i had done something to bring it on myself.

i think i have even more resentment toward my dad than toward any of those men. but i've never felt able to validate it because everyone who knew him worshiped him like a god or something. he always told me how much he loved me, and i think he did, but it hurt a lot that the only one interested in protecting me was my 16-year-old brother. my dad was almost 60 when i was born so that was always the excuse for every wrong or hurtful thing he ever did - when he said sexist things it was because he was "old-school". when he ignored all my cries for attention as a teenager it was "he's old and he's tired of raising kids". like it was my fault, or my brother's, that he decided more kids were a good idea in his late 50s. and since he died my whole family remembers him as this saintly person, which bothers me to no end. he wasnt perfect and i don't know why people act like he was. i loved him, and i still love him, but he wasn't a saint. he let me down so badly and i never even got an explanation.

i'm just rambling and *****ing now so i'll stop. but thanks everyone for replying and for letting me rant a little.

It's o.k. to rant a lot. I've been ranting for 10 years. I'm not done yet.

mtd

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bellaviolet said:
... when i was between ages 12 and 13 ther were 3 different adult men who kissed me in a way they shouldn't have. i asked him why once but he wouldnt talk to me about it.

what i wonder is, was it? was i making a big deal out of nothing? or maybe it was my own fault somehow? i didn't like it at all.... if i didnt do something to encourage it? i can't think of anything i did but its been 20 years now. is it stupid that i still even think about this stuff? i'm sorry i just can't figure it out. can anyone help me??

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Hi bellaviolet, from what you expressed here, you surely felt very violated. Those adult men had no right whatsoever to do what they did. There are no excuses for them. And it's very sad that your father wasn't willing to discuss it with you. You definitely are not stupid for thinking about these events because obviously they still bother you. Just because they occurred twenty years ago doesn't make the hurt you feel any less.

I hope you'll eventually sort through this. Keep safe.

NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!! NO!!

This behavior of an adult toward a minor was in no way alright.... this grown man should be ashamed of himself and your dad should always stand up for his daughters honor.... no matter how big or small the insistent is or was.

IMO _ NO BODY.....
and I mean NO BODY, not even another teenager has the right to invade your personal space or body.

You were not at fault. You were a minor and they were adults. This is sexual abuse. You are not crazy and you did not imagine this. In addition, your honesty in telling your sister was dismissed by your dad causing you to doubt yourself. You might feel better if you contact a therapist so you can talk about your conflicted feelings. 20 years of suffering is long enough!

((((((((((bellaviolet)))))))))

thank you again everyone. reading what you've all had to say i can't believe i've spent the last 20 years of my life thinking i was just being dramatic, and that my anger toward those men and my father wasnt justified. its always been there but i've kept stifling it because i thought i didnt have any right to feel it.

as far as i know that neighbor is dead now and that is just fine with me. i don't think i was the only one because none of the neighborhood girls wanted to go anywhere near his house. the other 2 are probably still around. funny i knew both of their wives and they were both really nice women. i wish they knew what kind of men they were married to. anyway i doubt i'll ever see either of them again and thats fine with me too.

still the most anger is toward my father. the more i think about it the angrier i get. everybody loved him. half my hometown showed up at his funeral. my siblings still talk about him like he was a saint. they still make excuses for him 10 years after he died. did i mention that he still went to that bbq right after my sister told him?

i'm not sure how its possible to love someone and hate them at the same time, but thats how i feel right now. i cant help loving him, he wasn't all bad, but i can't help hating him a little too.