From: anon-1410@twwells.com (Angel & all)
Newsgroups: alt.sexual.abuse.recovery
Subject: talking to abusers/family
Date: 27 Dec 92 11:03:31 GMT
Organization: Anonymous Posting Service at twwells.com
X-Email-Accepted: yes

I tried sending this through the pax anon service and got an error.  so 
I'm trying to send it here.  hopefully it will work.  sorry if it ends up
getting posted more than once.

ANON-Mail: Us Peoples


I wanted to write about confronting abusers. -- hmph.  didn't really end up 
being about that.  about talking to family, perpetrators and not perpetrators
and the positive and negative aspects of that - -I guess.
I guess I confronted my mom a couple months ago.  Wrote her a long 
letter, sent her a poem I had written about her, sent her a photo-copy 
for "For the Abuser: guidelines for interacting respectfully with the 
survivor" from the Courage to Heal.  
 
It helped that I knew what I wanted from her.  I wanted her to send 
me certain things (like pictures of me during my childhood) and I 
wanted her to not call me & not write me expect to inform me of big 
family things.  Basically I told her that I wanted her to leave me alone, 
I said I was screening my calls through an answering machine and 
that I would have friends read any mail I received from her to make 
sure it was safe & that I would not notify her when I was out of town, 
but that mail sent to my po box I had given her would always reach 
me.
 
She has sent me some of the stuff I've asked for & she hasn't written 
me.  She also didn't tell me big family news (like when my new 
cousin was born)  I think it was a good thing for me, her letter made 
me feel guilty & I felt like she was trying to control my life again, like 
she hadn't for a while.
 
But recently I've been wanting to write to her again & I have sent her 
another poem that I wrote to her.  I don't know what to do about this.  
Much of the abuse that happened was perpetrated by other members 
of my family -- my mom's sisters and brothers (and Ican't quite 
believe I just said that because I haven't yet confirmed to myself that 
any of my uncles did anything -- two of my aunts I am pretty postive 
about -- I have alters who were created to deal with the abuse by those 
aunts & although *I* don't necessarily have memories of anything 
happening, I know that some of my other inside folk *do*, but so far 
only suspicions about uncles).  
 
I want to know how much my mom knows about that abuse.  But I 
don't want to have to have any sort of relationship with her.  I feel 
sad/bad/guilty a lot, but I am really glad to not have her in my life 
right, to not be responsible for her.  
 
As for the rest of my family.  I send my cousins birthday cards.  that is 
the extent of my communication with them.  I think they are startig to 
notice.  I have not said anything to them, I do not know if my mom 
has said anything to them.  (by family I mean a whole network of 
aunts/uncles/cousins/second cousins/grandparents)
 
I am not ready to confront the abusers yet.  I know that really well.
 
My fathers side of that family did not sexually or physically abuse me.  
There were perhaps emotionally abusive.  they attemped to force 
religion down my throat quite often.  I have not felt close to them 
since I was a very young child.  But I have become aware that I have 
been cutting them out of my life along with my mother's family, but I 
don't have the same reasons there.
 
So I'm thinking maybe it woudl be good to write to them, maybe say 
many of the things that I have been hiding from them forever (like 
that I"m bisexual, not Christian, not likely to ever marry, ect...) and 
maybe try and build a relationship with the ones that react okay.  
don't know.  don't know how important they are to me.  I'd like to 
have some contact with a few of them though, I think.
 
And my youngest aunt in my mother's family.  We're pretty sure she 
didn't do anything to us.  Arguements between her & the second 
youngest aunt were pretty awful for us to witness, but that wasn't 
*her* doing anything to *us*, it was just us witnessing stuff that 
happened at her house, during her teenage years (she is only 6 years 
older than me).  
 
She wrote to me recently.  and I am really tempted to write back.  But I 
am still unwilling to play the stupid games of pretending everything 
about our family is fine with any of them anymore.  So I'll have to say 
*something* about what is going on.  I don't know.  She might be a 
possible support for me.  I might be able to find out some of what 
happened to me.  The two aunts that I *know* abused me were the 
2nd & 3rd youngest (my mother is the oldest of 8 kids) and those three 
all lived at home (with my grandmother) during much of my 
childhood & they all knew each other -- and hung out with some of 
the same people -- so she could possibly be supportive.
 
I'm also worried about a weird incident that happened last year -- her 
husband's brother had been very sexually aggressive towards me, at their 
wedding reception [my aunt's] and I had been uncomfortable around 
him ever since then.  he made sexual jokes -- everybody joked about 
why doesn't Chris like Russ (russ is the brother-in-law of my aunt, 
Chris is what they all call me -- but nobody else does anymore, I won't 
accept it).  I was staying at my aunts' house & the brother in law 
called -- I was alone in the house -- his car had broken down & he wanted 
me to come pick him up so he could get stuff to fix it -- he was on an 
interstate highway -- it was night -- I was *not* comfortable doing that 
& I declined.  said I'd tell my aunt & her husband when they got back.   
my uncle got really mad about that -- my aunt seemed upset, but more 
puzzled, he was 'family' how could I *not* help him....I ended up 
leaving their house & spending my last night in a motel before I came 
back to school   -- I eventually wrote them a letter apologizing for the 
incident -- because they were pissed off at me -- but I have not been 
comfortable around them since -- and I'm worried about that coming 
up -- because I don't think I would apologize for it again -- I was taking 
care of myself, protecting myself.
 
But I thinking about writing to this aunt.  being kind of vague about 
what I remember.  Just to test out support.  And because I miss having 
a family.  And she might be kinda cool about it.  I don't know.  maybe 
I will, maybe I won't.
 
hope everyone has survived through Christmas okay.


us peoples

ps.  we did write to our aunt.  and I think I'll even send it.  wow.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
anon.30@pax.tpa.com.au    (prefered address)

an1308@anon.penet.fi
anon-1410@twwells.com




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