I’ve gone too long not saying anything. I need to talk to my dad about what my step mother is doing to him and to me.
What happened to my other family member, who was being abused for months with no-one’s knowledge, has made it clearer to me that I need to speak out. I know what can go under the radar; how for those closely involved in the abuser’s world, it can be impossible to see what is happening. And look what went under the radar when I was abused as a child. I’m trying to separate myself from my anger about all the times I “should” have been helped. Right now it just shows me how important it is to not let it go by when you see abuse happening. Another event that has made it clearer to me that I need to speak out is that third parties have commented on my step mum’s behaviour and how my dad is and how another vulnerable member of the family is treated – this was not based on what I told them but on what they themselves observed. It isn’t just me being crazy, or misinterpreting because I’m too sensitive because of my early life experiences, or imagining it, or because I subconsciously resent my step mother so somehow want bad towards her. It’s really happening. Then on top of this, my social worker and a psychologist I have been seeing at the pain clinic have both said to me that for my wellbeing the only course of action may be to restrict contact with my step mother. This is on the basis of the limited number of incidents I’ve described to them from the past 7 years or longer.
It’s really happening. It’s sustained (worsened actually) over time. My dad has no idea or if he does see it wants or needs to ignore it (because he thinks it’s normal? Because he thinks he deserves it? Because he doesn’t know what to do?). My step mum has been able to convince other members of the family that she is perfect, blameless, that she is the one being mistreated, that I am the one mistreating her or causing the problems, that I am the one doing wrong to my dad, that another person in the family is again a cause of problems and to be ostracised (and she has orchestrated this ostracisation), when actually they are vulnerable and desperately in need of help.
As well as being angry with my step mum, I am angry with my dad. This is totally wrong. Misplaced. I feel furious anger at my step mother’s abuse going on unseen and unchecked, even when it is done in plain sight. Why do I have any anger towards my dad? My anger should be only towards her, and the immense control she exerts and deception she weaves, which allows her behaviour to be unacknowledged, unnoticed or excused. That’s all part of her abusing. Does abusers’ behaviour somehow get you angry with the wrong people too? Or is it because all the feelings are brought up from when I was a child needing my dad to help me, trying to tell him what she was doing? Because I can’t really understand why he couldn’t see what my mother was doing to me and what she was involving him in back then? He was deceived by her but he also did wrong, but that’s another story.
However, I am left with the fact that again he’s in a relationship where he and others are being abused, and either he can’t see that it’s happening or he can’t / won’t take action. I don’t want that to repeat for him, for anyone else I care about or for me. It went on 30 years in his relationship with my mother. I don’t want him to go through more years of abuse, never taking action or only taking action when much more has been lost. He is fit but not so young anymore and if he were only to realise what’s happening when he’s elderly, it would seem all the sadder.
I can’t force my dad to take action. I can’t pull him free from the situation. What I can do now, which I could not do as a child, is try to openly tell him what I’ve observed and what I’m worried about. I can also tell him how she behaves to me. It’s likely he won’t believe me or will refuse to acknowledge it. This is what has happened when I’ve told him previously what my step mum has been doing and it’s what happened when I told him what my mother was doing when I was a child. But now I’m not a child. My safety and my world do not depend on him believing and saving me. Sadly, his safety does depend on him acknowledging what is happening to him.
How do I help him do this? How do I raise what is happening without him being so hurt and angry that I’m saying it that there is no chance he will be able to reflect on how she’s treating him and how he’s feeling? How do I do it without him stopping talking to me at all? Then there would be no chance I can help him. If he just utterly blanks it all and changes the subject, or leaves (both have happened before), what then?
Whilst he is not isolated as we were when I was growing up, in a remote village in a shut up house, nobody allowed in, no relationships allowed outside the home, he is isolated in a different way. Apart from his work, the world he’s in is still hers. Her part of the world, her house then the house she chose, her choice of leisure activities, her friends. Almost everyone he has contact with outside his work is her world. Potentially controlled by her. I can think of nothing he does separate from her, apart from his work. I can’t think of any friend he has contact with who is not first hers. No way he spends any leisure time away from her, except for the rare occasions she goes away on holiday without him for a couple of days, or the rarer occasions he comes to see me without her. It seems there would be nothing and no-one to help him move away from her control.
This is worse than I thought.
Xxx
Dignity Beyond Trauma 