My Cousin Sexually Abused Me When We Were Kids and My Family Doesnt Believe Me

Why practise adults fail to protect children from sexual abuse?

There are no excuses for this. Only there are no simple answers, either.

Complexities and Cautions

Ask nearly anyone: They'll say they would speak upwards if they idea a kid was being sexually used or abused. Many are certain they'd recognize exploitive or abusive behavior if it were happening. Near no one believes they would allow harmful sexual behavior to continue if they knew for sure that it was going on.

And yet, the sorry truth: Millions of children take unwanted or abusive sexual experiences. Many of them believe, correctly, that someone else knows or should know about their situation, but does little or nothing to protect them. Some tell adults what's going on, seeking protection and assistance, only to be met with disbelief, deprival, blame, or even punishment. How can that be?

When y'all're the i who has been hurt in this style (or someone who cares about a child who has), it's hard to imagine that there can be whatever "good reason" for failing to protect a vulnerable child. You lot may experience doubly betrayed by someone's failure to help. You were in danger, someone could accept protected yous and chose not to…flow. No excuses or rationalizations for their failure seem acceptable.

As well, some people actually feel more anger toward a non-abusive adult who didn't speak up than toward the person who really hurt them. They may have expected the worst of the abuser, who was clearly deeply disturbed or had piddling or no concern for others, but expected better from someone who was otherwise mostly caring and worthy of trust. This anger at the person who failed to protect may be especially strong while unwanted or abusive sexual experiences are happening, or as one begins coming to grips with the consequences. Merely information technology can last for decades.

We totally understand. We are non trying to "excuse" anyone. We are not trying to convince you of annihilation. We are just offer some perspectives and information based on decades of experience and research on how people tin can become "bystanders" who fail to protect others from harm, including children who are being sexually used or abused.

A fourth dimension may have come, or may come, when you really want to understand: Why did [whoever information technology was], who could have protected me – could accept stopped information technology – remain silent and practice cipher, even when the evidence was clear?

We're not asking y'all to stop feeling angry.

Maybe answering these questions feels similar an important function of your healing procedure. Maybe you want to reconnect with someone who did not protect you lot, and hope to prepare yourself by trying to empathise why and how they may understand or justify their response (or lack of ane). Mayhap y'all desire to wrap upwardly some loose ends in your own listen, so you lot tin let go and move on from a relationship with someone who failed yous when you needed them nigh.

Any your reasons for wanting to know, there is no simple answer to the question. And once again, gaining agreement does not mean having to give up your acrimony or thwarting toward the person before you're skillful and ready, if ever.

With these complexities and cautions in mind, we offer the following perspectives and information.

Most important, it's helpful to remember that the people children expect to for protection are – similar all of us – imperfect and complicated individuals. They have very real limitations, including thinking that'southward distorted by hopes, fears and misunderstandings. What yous legitimately experienced as a betrayal may take been the best they could do at the time. That doesn't make it OK, just tragically man and existent.

As hard equally it may exist to have, at that place are many genuine, compelling reasons that it can be challenging for adults – even otherwise loving and caring adults – to take protective action, or even to notice, when children are being sexually used or driveling, or at hazard of beingness harmed in that fashion. These reasons or causes include:

Overwhelming feelings (similar fear, anger, or shame) acquired by just thinking almost the sexual abuse of children.
Confusion acquired by incorrect stereotypes nigh what kinds of people sexually use and abuse children.
Concrete, emotional, and fiscal dependency on an private or group that would be lost (for oneself and the family) if such concerns are raised
Self doubts of various kinds (e.g., "I'm paranoid." "What if I'thou wrong?" "It's none of my business.").
Fears of diverse consequences (e.k., of acknowledging betrayal by a trusted and respected person, of being incorrect, of beingness right).

For these and many other reasons (explored in detail beneath), even when an developed knows most such beliefs, he or she may not speak up, or may even tell the child to keep tranquillity. Also, if the child's distress or any harm seems minor or absent, a tragic calculation may take place: the immediate costs of confronting the state of affairs seem greater than the imagined long-term costs of looking the other style.

Whatever your reasons for wanting to know, there is no unproblematic answer.

Equally we've said before, such reasons do non excuse the failure to human action protectively. They only offering possible explanations for why that decision tin can be made, and how it tin can be much more complicated than it seems at starting time.

The reality of this complexity, and the tragic and all-besides-human limitations that result in failure to protect sexually used and driveling children, are very serious challenges to educating and empowering adults to overcome such barriers to action. Thankfully, some people and organizations are addressing this real-globe complexity in their efforts to prevent and end the sexual exploitation and abuse of children. A leader is Stop It Now! , which has many resources for adults attempting to deal with suspected or known sexual abuse of a child they know.

What's written in a higher place is a general overview, and may be enough for you (right now). If you desire more information about the reasons mentioned above, we explore each ane and some others in depth beneath. We likewise offering some final thoughts at the very end of this folio.

Overwhelming Feelings

Even adults with no personal experiences of sexual trauma will often have instant, gut-wrenching reactions to hearing or seeing anything nearly the sexual abuse of a child. Such unpleasant and unwanted reactions make many people very resistant to paying attending to anything that might trigger such responses again – including clear evidence that sexual corruption is happening to a child they know.

Given how mutual unwanted and abusive sexual experiences in childhood are for both men and women (one in 3 women and one in 6 men), there'south a good possibility that a potentially protective developed has had prior feel with sexual trauma, either personally or with someone close to them.

Nosotros know that people tin can respond to such a history in many ways, some of which involve great efforts to avoid unwanted and confusing feelings that the feel may have acquired. These strategies can include suppressing memories, denying it ever happened, blaming oneself, self-medication with alcohol or drugs, and rage or violence against others or themselves.

The ability to maintain such self-protective strategies (whether or not they are actually helpful) is normally greatly challenged when ane learns that a kid ane cares about is or may exist having like harmful sexual experiences. The adult may be struggling (with or without realizing it) to keep such coping strategies or "defenses" from breaking downwards. When the developed is going through that internal struggle, information technology tin can exist very difficult to support the child, or even to acknowledge the reality of the situation.

Stereotypes

One of the biggest blocks to acting on suspicions is the trend, which all of u.s. accept, to divide the globe into "skilful" people, who do good things, and "bad" people, who do evil. We all utilise stereotypes equally shortcuts to make up one's mind who and what is safe.

That's how our brains piece of work. And information technology's very reassuring. We think we can tell who poses a risk. If they generally carry well, do expert things for others, or are generous, inspiring, respected by others or fun to be with, then we instinctively believe they're safe.

We all employ stereotypes as shortcuts to decide who and what is safe.

Tragically, such thinking gets in the fashion of protecting children. Even if we recognize this fact and know ameliorate, we still tend to human activity equally if it's but evil and creepy people who hurt children. We believe that nosotros would easily recognize such people and protect children from them.

Unfortunately, it'due south much more complicated than that. Those widely accepted stereotypes, especially the ones about what "adept people" do to others, brand information technology hard to recognize existent risks. They are as well what make it and so difficult for children to tell when a respected person is taking advantage of them sexually.

The truth is, sometimes loving and involved mothers and fathers sexually injure children. Sometimes fun and generous grandparents sexually hurt children. Sometimes caring and dedicated coaches and teachers sexually hurt children. Sometimes inspiring religious leaders sexually injure children. Sometimes heady and attentive babysitters, and protective older siblings, cousins or kids downwards the street, sexually harm children.

In fact, only rarely is the person sexually harming a child one of those totally creepy people that everyone already suspects.

Most of us find it very challenging to simultaneously hold two conflicting views of how we expect people to behave. And then we oftentimes neglect to run across the take chances when it's staring us in the face. It's very difficult, even scary, to have that "proficient" people have "bad" qualities and behaviors, peculiarly when the "good" person is somebody we intendance well-nigh or respect. And then there'south a strong trend to ignore or bend the facts to fit our reassuring expectations. In reality, no one is purely good or purely bad. And sometimes a "adept" person'south bad behaviors include sexually using or abusing children.

Still, even if someone tin truly get past such stereotypes, the very real costs of speaking up create a huge bulwark to acting. And equally nosotros've pointed out before, adults in a position to protect a kid are likewise – like all of us – imperfect human beings with complicated mixtures of strengths, fears, and weaknesses that may severely limit their ability to protect a child who is being sexually used or abused.

The Price of Speaking Up vs. The Cost of Silence

Sadly, at that place are many ways adults come up to believe that trying to protect a kid from sexual exploitation or corruption is not worth the potential costs of doing so. Hither are some of the most mutual ones.

Dependence on an individual. Ofttimes, people who take advantage of a power imbalance to sexually harm a kid also inspire feelings of powerlessness in adults who could protect that child. This sense of powerlessness may result from emotional and/or fiscal dependency on the person committing the harmful acts. Or there may have been previous threats or acts of physical or emotional violence from that person, or threats of suicide.

Competing survival needs and potential for greater harm. Many people are kept from speaking up by legitimate fears of violent retaliation against themselves, the child beingness abused, or other family members. Domestic violence or fear of a powerful and violent individual or group who is sexually pain a child (like gang members, people involved in organized criminal offence, or a corrupt police force officer) are circuitous and especially dangerous challenges to interim protectively.

Dependence on a family or community group. Accusing someone within a family, religious or community grouping ofttimes leads to beingness rejected by family or group members who can't bring themselves to believe the accusation. When the family or group is a key source of emotional or fiscal support, risking rejection may feel far more dangerous than the risks of remaining silent. For some people, maintaining family unit or community support (even at the cost of their own silence and impairment to the kid) feels like an issue of personal survival.

Sadly, in that location are many means adults come to believe that trying to protect a child is not worth the potential costs of doing and then.

In addition, if the person to be accused has high condition or wields ability or authority in the group, it may non just be fright getting in the way, but also deeply ingrained values and beliefs about obeying authorization figures. And when the person under suspicion has protected or stood by others in previous hard situations, a 18-carat fear of beingness "disloyal" may exist particularly challenging.

Reluctance to acknowledge betrayal. When an private who is loved or admired sexually harms a child, the powerful sense of betrayal is felt non but by the child, but also by everyone else who trusted or respected that person. For both children and adults, acknowledging such a betrayal tin threaten their overall sense of prophylactic in the world.

That is, suddenly the rules take inverse: Confidence about who can be trusted, and in ane's own judgments about friends, family members and other people, are totally called into question. Many children who have been exploited or abused face a tragic pick – between accepting the frightening new reality of expose and uncertainty, on the 1 paw, and what feels like the comparative prophylactic of denying that anything has changed, on the other. Understandably, vulnerable children may choose deprival. Yet the same is truthful for many adults who could protect children from the terrible betrayals of sexual exploitation or abuse.

Guilt or shame about previous silence. Oddly, guilt or shame about not speaking up sooner can be another powerful gene that keeps people from interim, even once they permit themselves recognize that something is not right.

Imagine you get a new job and in the first calendar week y'all ask your boss virtually a pocket-sized but questionable expense on his expense account. He tells you lot to ignore it, that it'due south OK, and you go on to let similar questionable expenses pass by each week. A twelvemonth afterwards, when a company audit raises the aforementioned questions, you find yourself trying to defend your boss'due south actions to keep yourself from looking bad.

Realizing that you've tolerated inappropriate or harmful behavior over and over tends to make information technology much harder to face the beliefs in the present. People tend to feel like they're partly responsible, and come to accept a stake in pretending or even believing that the behavior must have been OK.

Cocky-Doubt

Self-incertitude comes in many forms and from many sources, and it'southward a major stumbling cake for people who desire to exercise what's correct when they suspect or know a child is beingness sexually exploited or driveling.

Examples of self-uncertainty include:

Am I being a "prude"? People who want to be open-minded virtually sexual matters sometimes distrust their own discomfort when they suspect sexually harmful behaviors. They wonder if they're being prudish, or likewise proper. By focusing on their own feelings about sex, they sometimes miss real signals of harm or power imbalances that brand consent incommunicable, and end upward overlooking abusive or exploitive sexual beliefs.

Cocky-dubiousness comes in many forms and from many sources.

Maybe I'm just existence paranoid. People who have experienced abuse or violence themselves are often highly attuned to the slightest hint of a harmful interaction. Merely that hyperawareness or hypervigilance can be a double-edged sword. For example, after repeatedly pointing out concerning behaviors to family unit members and others who don't believe them and dismiss their concerns, some people come to doubt their ain perceptions.

What if I'thou incorrect? It'south none of my business. "Mind your own business" is ane of the earliest lessons many of u.s. were taught. Near people are reluctant to charge someone else – especially about something as charged as sexual abuse – unless they have solid proof. Fears of almost surely ruining a friendship or other relationship, and of possibly hurting an innocent person's reputation over something that may not exist true, frequently outweigh the intention to act protectively on a suspicion.

What if I'm right? We'll lose everything. Fears of the breakup of one's family, of destructive intervention by child protective services, of shame, of losing one's children, dwelling house or social standing – all of these end some people from interim protectively. An imperfect child protection arrangement and a criminal justice arrangement that harshly punishes nearly all people who are convicted of sexual offenses (fifty-fifty children), often leads family members not to report someone they care almost. Fright of devastating lifelong legal and other consequences are peculiarly powerful when the person sexually misusing or abusing a child is another child or boyish. (Adolescents and young children, almost always in response to existence abused themselves, commit more than a tertiary of all reported sexual abuse of children.)

Misunderstandings About How Children Reply

Many adults wrongly assume a child would tell if they experienced a traumatic sexual interaction. If the child doesn't tell, they assume zero happened. Even when exploitation or corruption is known, if there is no visible touch on the child, or only minor effects are noticed, adults may believe the experience will be forgotten and have no lasting negative furnishings. They may genuinely think that it'southward "best not to focus on a bad memory."

Some adults also incorrectly equate sexual abuse only with tearing rape, and don't recognize that very serious harm tin exist caused by many kinds of sexualized interactions with children, including unwelcome touching, exposure to pornography, witnessing sexual acts, or even sexually demeaning and/or threatening comments. All of these experiences are unwanted or abusive betrayals of adult'southward responsibilities and children'due south trust, and all can take lasting negative effects on a child's mind, encephalon, body, relationships, and abilities to succeed at school and work.

Demands for Forgiveness

In many cultures, organized religion communities and families, the human activity of forgiveness is held upwards as the highest ideal, and for good reasons. Some acts of forgiveness are truly genuine on the part of the person doing the forgiving, truly justified by the attitudes and deportment of the person receiving forgiveness, and truly emotionally, morally and spiritually beneficial for everyone involved.

The pressure level to "forgive and forget" tin can exist a powerful obstruction to protecting children finer from harm.

But others are not. Unfortunately, forgiveness can be false and destructive. This happens when it is demanded or forced – past exterior pressure from others, including those who mostly want to avert conflict and genuinely dealing with the problem, or by internal pressure, including a felt obligation to forgive in order to be a adept person. This happens when someone and his or her deportment are not (all the same) worthy of forgiveness, at to the lowest degree non worthy of forgiveness as the only or main response to the harmful behavior.

Also, unfortunately some people strongly but incorrectly believe that a (seemingly) sincere apology, especially when accompanied by a promise non to repeat one's harmful behavior, is enough for everyone to "motion on."

Tragically, the force per unit area to "forgive and forget" can be a powerful obstacle to protecting children effectively from damage. Finally, giving in to such a demand for forgiveness also means dismissing the feelings of those who have been harmed, and for them it usually feels, rightly so, like an extension of the abuse.

Final Thoughts

We promise the perspectives and information on this page accept been enlightening and helpful for you. In closing, nosotros want to emphasize a few things:

While whatever or all of these reasons may exist real, even legitimate roadblocks to protecting a child, none of them free adults from the responsibility of doing everything they tin to go on children prophylactic and help them heal from damage they have already suffered.

We hope that, by existence aware of these complicated obstacles, and having a sober (if grudging) respect for their roots in inescapable human limitations and tragic social circumstances, we tin all support one some other more finer in overcoming the very real barriers to protecting children.

Besides, depending on your personal situation, understanding what might have gotten in the way may – or may not – reduce your feelings of disappointment, betrayal, or acrimony toward a person or grouping who failed to protect you lot or someone you honey.

Finally, why people fail to protect a child from unwanted or abusive sexual experiences, especially if yous were the child, are never merely "reasons" to be "understood." They are tragic and painful realities that people who face them cannot help simply struggle with, even grieve over – hopefully with the help of others who intendance and can truly assistance with sorting it out, however long that may demand to take.

For splendid kid sexual corruption prevention information and resources, including guidebooks on how to talk with other adults most potential or definite sexual corruption situations, visit the website of Stop It At present.

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Source: https://1in6.org/get-information/common-questions/why-do-adults-fail-to-protect-children-from-sexual-abuse-or-exploitation/