From: anon-1409@twwells.com (moondreamer)
Newsgroups: alt.sexual.abuse.recovery
Subject: friends and family
Date: 18 Nov 92 01:48:27 GMT
Organization: Anonymous Posting Service at twwells.com
X-Email-Accepted: yes

Hello.
i think i'll start out by saying that i don't actually have acess to asar.
a friend reads the list and told me about it but i can't read it myself.
so, if anyone has any advice to offer (which i'd really appreciate) please
respond via e-mail.

i have two problems that i'd like to discuss.
first-
friends.

i have a friend from high school.  she's a year younger than me. (she's 20 i'm
21)  she has two little girls age 2 years and 3 months and 1 year and 4 months.
she was married. her husband left her 2 and a half weeks ago.  
my friend had an affair a few months ago which her husband knew about.  things 
ended with the other man and she sent me a letter how she was so devestated.
he's ruined her life etc.
now that her husband has left, she's seeing that guy again.
she and her husband both came from very abusive households.  physically, 
emotionally, and sexually.  she used to swear to me that her husband never hit
her.  would never ever do that and she would leave immediately if he did.
she has since admitted to me that this is far from true.  he did alot to her and 
she stayed.  she still swears that nothing has ever happened to the girls.  i 
don't think i believe her.  her husband has an order of protection against her
because he claims she beat him numerous times.  i don't believe that this is 
he is also trying to get an order of protection against her for the girls.  he
claims that she beat them as well.  i'd like to categorically say that i don't 
believe that she did, but i'm not sure i can.  however, i'm fairly certain that
she has not sexually abused them.  i think he may have.  she says nothing has
ever happened but she was not home very much and he would stay with the girls.
i'm very concerned because of several of the things that she told me last night.
he apparently started fooling around with her friend (that's why he left).
she introduced them.  took her friends kids to the store (her friends kids are
6 and 8) she says when she came home her husband and her friend were intensely 
fooling around on the couch and as she put it "the girls were humping each
other on the bed".  she says the older one often takes off her underwear a
and starts touching herself.  (so she smacks her hand and tells her that's
disgusting)  the older one also doesn't talk.  her sister does.
i don't think children of that age would be doing things like that, if nothing
had happened to them. (i also don't think she should be punishing the child
for something that is not her fault, but that's sort of a seperate issue)

i'm torn right now.  i'm very, VERY,concerned about my friend and her children.
i don't know if i'm just reading into things or if there's reason to be
concerned.  i wish i could take the kids and help them and protect them.
but i can't.  i'm trying to come to terms with my own abuse and can't take
responsiblity for anyone else.  but i feel so selfish for saying that and so 
guilty for probably leaving these two little girls who i love deeply in such
a potentially horrible situation.  there's also the fact that i live 500 miles
away.  what i want is not to take these children away from their mother, simply
to protect them.  and i don't know what i can do.  i also don't know what i
can do to help my friend.

that's the first problem.

the second problem.
my family.

last may, i started to think that something might have happened to me when i 
was little.  i didn't know what.  i then spent three and a half weeks in teh
hospital for severe depression.  i'm currently taking a year off from college
because i feel like i can't handle anything.  since then i've said that i was
sexually abused when i was little and that my father sexually abused me when
i was little.  i don't believe either of these things but i keep saying them
and the piles of circumstantial evidence (including all the checklists of 
common symptoms of sexual abuse, but of course, no memories) indicate that they
are true.
i'm not dealing very well with my family right now and i'd rather not be dealing
with them at all.  i have reason to think that they did some bad things to me.
i managed to get out of going back for fall break and for thangsgiving.
i don't think i can get away with not going back for winter break without 
giving them an explanation as to why.  i can't tell them.  i'm afraid they'd 
tell me nothing happened (my mother has said that i've always had an overactive
imagination and so maybe nothing ever happened to me which might justify my
absolute terror of knives.   she could very well say the same thing about this.
(i still don't know what caused the fear of knives but they're probably 
related))  if that happed i'm afraid that i'd beleive them since i have no trust
whatsoever in my perceptions at the moment.  i need to believe that something
happed before i can deal with it.  i can't afford to set myself back like that.
also, my self-esteem at the moment is at nil.  being around my family always
has a way of bringing my self-esteem down significantly.  i'm having enough 
trouble surviving with my self-esteem where it is.  i couldn't make it if it 
were any lower.the only people there that i'm semi-close to are the friend 
i talked about at the beginning of the post and a guy that i've been friends
with for several years.  but i'm scared of men right now.  so i'd be stuck in
the house most of time.  on top of the sexual abuse issues the house is
full of amazing tensions.  (for instance, my brother's best friend (only friend
really who he's been inseperable from for 8 years) has been arrested for 
breaking into our house, stealing the keys to the car for the driving school
my parents own, taking and crashing the car. this happened at the end of august
when they drove me out here.  my brother hasn't seen him once since august)
then there's the issue of religion.  my mother was more disturbed that i 
didn't go to services for rosh hashanah and yom kippur than the fact that i
wouldn't be seeing them for thangsgiving.  i certainly can't explain to them
that i'm not very jewish anymore and that i'm closer to being pagan than any-
thing else.

in other words, i don't want to go back.  i don't want to see them.  my 
housemate says i don't have to go.  but i feel like i do.  i would hurt my mom
so much if i didn't and i'm hurting her so much already.  how can i do that
to her?  part of me knows that i have to take care of myself and do what i need
to do.  but most of me feels to guilty to do that.

well, that's basically the situation.
i'm very sorry this post was so long.
i'm sorry i rambled so much.
i hope it was ok to post here at all since i'm not really on the list, but 
my friend said she was sure it would be ok.
i'm scared and i'm confused and i would really appreciated any help.
thank you.
(i want to say i'm sorry again but i probably don't need to.)
well, i guess that
that's it.

thanks again-
moondreamer



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