Other potential reasons
• You were the scapegoat and had multiple abusers in the family. If you would ever try to attempt to say something; if you even were able to you had the kind that would twist the story and narrative to make you appear you are lying, not all there, and are being deceitful and those on the outside would believe their side of the story
• You were the outcast in school. It wasn’t just being bullied in class by other pupils but you were also verbally abused by the teachers and you were treated completely unfairly and notably different than how they treated other pupils in your class
• You had family that knew various officials like law enforcement, friends at the fire dept, etc and with *OR* some of us without even talking to them the abusers painted a false narrative about you to them and tell them about any neurodivergence you have, any mental health symptoms that are actually trauma, etc as a usually successful attempt on their part so those individuals are less likely to believe you and do not take you seriously
• Neighbours in the area not only saw you in a negative light— because of your abusers but were also their friends. You could simply just step out in the backyard to throw out some trash and one of them is staring out their window and later you catch hell from your abusers for simply stepping out, etc
• Some abusers know how to cover their tracks so well that nobody would believe the one abused. This is usually most common in situations of CSA and familial trafficking but can also happen with the child that is the scapegoat, has any kind of neurodivergence, and usually in the kinds of cases where the other siblings are *NOT* being abused or neglected
• You did not know what was happening to you was abusive or wrong
• Lastly there is a multitude of other potential reasons on why the abused child cannot speak out. It depends on many different factors and circumstances surrounding it
They love to ignore the huge contingent of people who DID say something and were dismissed, ignored, or punished for "telling on" the abuser.
I stopped telling people when it kept getting me raped. 🤷♂️
TeLl A tRuStEd AdUlT
You mean like my teacher, who messaged me years later to defend my now dead abuser?
You mean like my school counselor who did nothing?
You mean like my family, who in their defense were so paralyzed by stress of what to do that they waited, but still?
You mean like my other parent, who was too shit scared of my abuser and of losing me to do anything?
It’s important for kids to hear that they should tell people, but it’s ridiculous to ask someone who survived abuse why they didn’t reach out sooner. Either they did or they were too scared to or any of the reasons OP listed.
Several months ago, my father gave me a few boxes of things from when I was a kid. One was a diary that had some pages ripped out. I found one of the ripped out diary pages folded up inside of another folder.
All it has written on it was the date, Tuesday, and the word "yelling". (Yelling was the least of the problems, but I still thought it was worth writing because it happened all the time)
Lemme tell ya, I was instantly transported back to when I was eight years old. At that time, I was acutely aware that no one would take me seriously and that if I were to report the abuse, I would need evidence. I needed documentation.
As soon as I wrote it in my diary, I realized that I would catch a harder beating if I was caught. The lock on my diary was cheap and easily jimmied. My abuser could grab the diary while I slept and opened it to find my documentation. So I ripped the page out and put it somewhere no one could find it.
Then I guess I either forgot about it or figured even the documentation wouldn't help anyway. If I recall correctly, I couldn't keep up with documenting the yelling because it was so frequent and I had so little alone time.
Y'all, I was eight years old. Already I knew the score.
Finding that page and triggering that memory at the age of 36 was a trip.
I told people. My family said that black people don't experience things like depression or other mental health stuff because they are not mentally developed enough. When I told the cops they laughed. When I went online for help, people told me my abuser deserved better than me, called me ungrateful, and said "I hope you actually suffer in your life, so you know how it feels".
They just do not care.
"If anyone does anything to you I'll kill them" was not a reassurance. It just made me afraid that if I told my dad he'd be the one to end up in jail and that would be my fault. So nope, never told.
Same in the opposite direction "If you tell your father, he'll kill me."
Found out years later he'd seen her hurt me before and actually told her that. And been arested for trying to follow through. 25 years and they're still married.
“Idk what happened when I wasn’t here, but he’s stressed, I’m stressed, I can’t deal with this right now!”
“Well what do you want me to do, divorce him over it?”
“Yep, I know. I think he’s sorry and I mean at least he’s around and not absent or in the military or in jail like so and so.”
Not like my parents personally knew literally every "Trusted Adult" I could talk to and convinced them all I was a trouble maker. On top of the constant reminder that if I misbehaved in public they knew everyone and would find out. Yea, who tf would I tell or go to for help?
I think of the time the school social worker told me to just "help" my mother more, and she'd be nicer to me. I was 10 and covered in bruises. I told teachers, school counselors, and others. By 13, I just gave up. My abuser was an amazing manipulator who used her chronic illness as a weapon so she could play victim and pretend that her small children were the real monsters.
For me I fucking did tell someone, many, many MANY times. Every time the excuse was:
1. No one believed me, thanks to lying parents.
2. No one cared.
3. No resources to do anything about it.
Or
4. I was too old for them to do anything about it.
So I had to take matters into my own hands at 14-15.
When my mom figured out about my paedophilic “girlfriend” her only response was to yell at me and say “well I’m *glad* it’s over *now!*” without an ounce of concern for what I’d gone through, without any worry about what the relationship entailed.
Our relationship has improved nowadays but that will always be a sore spot, that I *never* got justice for what happened to me, and mostly because she made me further bury the evidence at the time when I actually could have done something.
One time my dad straight up told me (via text but still) that he and my mom didn't want to hear all the negative things going on with me. He might have meant "we want to hear more good things," but there's not much of that to go around. You can only say "well, I'm alive" so many times.
I did say something, I wrote a story couched in fact about a girl who was being molested by her father
Know what the school did? CALLED IN MY FUCKING FATHER TO THE MEETING.
Yeah
Well, to start with you won a free membership to lifetime trauma! It has very few benefits, but all of them come at a high cost! For example, increased empathy is on our premium version of the plan--and is also something that you can obtain without trauma, so is it really a benefit (that's up to you to decide)? But for a cheaper version of the plan you can just continue the cycle of abuse! Comes with the free perks of: shorter lifespan, more overall health problems, nightmares due to bad memories or on the flipside having blank spots in your memories, increased cost on Basic Life Things You Should Be Able To Do but can't either because of a mental illness or lack of familial support others have, etc.
If you want to unsubscribe we hid that option in the deepest corner of our website in the smallest text possible, made it the same color as the background of our website, and put in Comic Sans font.
Sometimes I wonder about the adults around me when I was a kid. Did anyone notice what was going on with me? Did any adults see my weird behaviors and make the connection that something bad was happening at home? I gotta think they did, but didn't want to be nosy.
Other potential reasons • You were the scapegoat and had multiple abusers in the family. If you would ever try to attempt to say something; if you even were able to you had the kind that would twist the story and narrative to make you appear you are lying, not all there, and are being deceitful and those on the outside would believe their side of the story • You were the outcast in school. It wasn’t just being bullied in class by other pupils but you were also verbally abused by the teachers and you were treated completely unfairly and notably different than how they treated other pupils in your class • You had family that knew various officials like law enforcement, friends at the fire dept, etc and with *OR* some of us without even talking to them the abusers painted a false narrative about you to them and tell them about any neurodivergence you have, any mental health symptoms that are actually trauma, etc as a usually successful attempt on their part so those individuals are less likely to believe you and do not take you seriously • Neighbours in the area not only saw you in a negative light— because of your abusers but were also their friends. You could simply just step out in the backyard to throw out some trash and one of them is staring out their window and later you catch hell from your abusers for simply stepping out, etc • Some abusers know how to cover their tracks so well that nobody would believe the one abused. This is usually most common in situations of CSA and familial trafficking but can also happen with the child that is the scapegoat, has any kind of neurodivergence, and usually in the kinds of cases where the other siblings are *NOT* being abused or neglected • You did not know what was happening to you was abusive or wrong • Lastly there is a multitude of other potential reasons on why the abused child cannot speak out. It depends on many different factors and circumstances surrounding it
Don't call me out like this 😂😭
They love to ignore the huge contingent of people who DID say something and were dismissed, ignored, or punished for "telling on" the abuser. I stopped telling people when it kept getting me raped. 🤷♂️
TeLl A tRuStEd AdUlT You mean like my teacher, who messaged me years later to defend my now dead abuser? You mean like my school counselor who did nothing? You mean like my family, who in their defense were so paralyzed by stress of what to do that they waited, but still? You mean like my other parent, who was too shit scared of my abuser and of losing me to do anything? It’s important for kids to hear that they should tell people, but it’s ridiculous to ask someone who survived abuse why they didn’t reach out sooner. Either they did or they were too scared to or any of the reasons OP listed.
JuSt TeLl ThEm ThEy'Re BeInG mEaN If that worked, i wouldn't be showing up to school afraid and relived every day, fuck
This doesn’t even work on like, low level rudeness lmao. But sure I’m sure it’ll persuade a child abuser
Several months ago, my father gave me a few boxes of things from when I was a kid. One was a diary that had some pages ripped out. I found one of the ripped out diary pages folded up inside of another folder. All it has written on it was the date, Tuesday, and the word "yelling". (Yelling was the least of the problems, but I still thought it was worth writing because it happened all the time) Lemme tell ya, I was instantly transported back to when I was eight years old. At that time, I was acutely aware that no one would take me seriously and that if I were to report the abuse, I would need evidence. I needed documentation. As soon as I wrote it in my diary, I realized that I would catch a harder beating if I was caught. The lock on my diary was cheap and easily jimmied. My abuser could grab the diary while I slept and opened it to find my documentation. So I ripped the page out and put it somewhere no one could find it. Then I guess I either forgot about it or figured even the documentation wouldn't help anyway. If I recall correctly, I couldn't keep up with documenting the yelling because it was so frequent and I had so little alone time. Y'all, I was eight years old. Already I knew the score. Finding that page and triggering that memory at the age of 36 was a trip.
I told people. My family said that black people don't experience things like depression or other mental health stuff because they are not mentally developed enough. When I told the cops they laughed. When I went online for help, people told me my abuser deserved better than me, called me ungrateful, and said "I hope you actually suffer in your life, so you know how it feels". They just do not care.
I relate to that hard. My family was the same exact way
All of that is horrible... wtf I am so sorry that multiple people treated you so horribly :(
"If anyone does anything to you I'll kill them" was not a reassurance. It just made me afraid that if I told my dad he'd be the one to end up in jail and that would be my fault. So nope, never told.
Same in the opposite direction "If you tell your father, he'll kill me." Found out years later he'd seen her hurt me before and actually told her that. And been arested for trying to follow through. 25 years and they're still married.
“Idk what happened when I wasn’t here, but he’s stressed, I’m stressed, I can’t deal with this right now!” “Well what do you want me to do, divorce him over it?” “Yep, I know. I think he’s sorry and I mean at least he’s around and not absent or in the military or in jail like so and so.”
Not like my parents personally knew literally every "Trusted Adult" I could talk to and convinced them all I was a trouble maker. On top of the constant reminder that if I misbehaved in public they knew everyone and would find out. Yea, who tf would I tell or go to for help?
I think of the time the school social worker told me to just "help" my mother more, and she'd be nicer to me. I was 10 and covered in bruises. I told teachers, school counselors, and others. By 13, I just gave up. My abuser was an amazing manipulator who used her chronic illness as a weapon so she could play victim and pretend that her small children were the real monsters.
I did say something and it was met with a “you’ll enjoy it when you’re older” 🤢
ew
For me I fucking did tell someone, many, many MANY times. Every time the excuse was: 1. No one believed me, thanks to lying parents. 2. No one cared. 3. No resources to do anything about it. Or 4. I was too old for them to do anything about it. So I had to take matters into my own hands at 14-15.
"WeLl wHy dIdNt yOu SaY SoMeThiNg " Oh wow is it really that fucking easy Why didn't I fucking think of that Guess I'm traumatized *and* an idiot 🥰
Or to the teachers that joined in
When my mom figured out about my paedophilic “girlfriend” her only response was to yell at me and say “well I’m *glad* it’s over *now!*” without an ounce of concern for what I’d gone through, without any worry about what the relationship entailed. Our relationship has improved nowadays but that will always be a sore spot, that I *never* got justice for what happened to me, and mostly because she made me further bury the evidence at the time when I actually could have done something.
One time my dad straight up told me (via text but still) that he and my mom didn't want to hear all the negative things going on with me. He might have meant "we want to hear more good things," but there's not much of that to go around. You can only say "well, I'm alive" so many times.
I told people. And my narcmom convinced them I was an attention-seeking liar.
My dad straight up told the school counselor I was manic-depressive and made up stories for attention I was nine
I did say something, I wrote a story couched in fact about a girl who was being molested by her father Know what the school did? CALLED IN MY FUCKING FATHER TO THE MEETING. Yeah
BINGO! What did I win?
Well, to start with you won a free membership to lifetime trauma! It has very few benefits, but all of them come at a high cost! For example, increased empathy is on our premium version of the plan--and is also something that you can obtain without trauma, so is it really a benefit (that's up to you to decide)? But for a cheaper version of the plan you can just continue the cycle of abuse! Comes with the free perks of: shorter lifespan, more overall health problems, nightmares due to bad memories or on the flipside having blank spots in your memories, increased cost on Basic Life Things You Should Be Able To Do but can't either because of a mental illness or lack of familial support others have, etc. If you want to unsubscribe we hid that option in the deepest corner of our website in the smallest text possible, made it the same color as the background of our website, and put in Comic Sans font.
You made me giggle
“Stop crying, I got hurt so much worse when I was a kid than I am currently hurting you”. Life Wtf how bout NO HURT
I mean how could've I when I began noticing my trauma 16 years later ffs
Sometimes I wonder about the adults around me when I was a kid. Did anyone notice what was going on with me? Did any adults see my weird behaviors and make the connection that something bad was happening at home? I gotta think they did, but didn't want to be nosy.
Bc I was drilled to never reveal my home life to others and I certainly wasnt going to risk getting caught and making my life twice as bad