Very distressing news.

[Hekate]

69. Bright, my SIL is plying me with rum & cokes tonight, so bear that in mind...

Last edited Sun Jan 1, 2023, 06:01 AM - Edit history (1)

You have insight :
In the event of full-on pedophilia, you know nothing of how your friend deals with it - it's one of the single most difficult compulsive disorders to experience and treat. The shame and self-loathing that goes with it can twist a person in a whole variety of painful ways. Your friend may be fighting a lonely battle, in a terrible place - or in deep denial, trying to convince themself they did nothing wrong.

I never made a study of it, as I was way, way too close and the pain was too deep. But I will say this: I thought I was the only one, and kept my silence for 20+ years out of respect? fear? I don’t know. A whole snakes-ball of reasons. But when I finally opened my mouth the responses were so strange I still can’t wrap my head around them. One was: “Were you raped?” Wait, what? You weigh the depth of my trauma by your own arbitrary scale? No! But I was 12! Another was — well, eff it, it wasn’t even denial.

Suffice it to say: I was not the only one. There was me at 12 and my daughter at 3 and a little cousin at my wedding at 7 and if the stunned woman who told us about her 7 year old when I was in my late 30s was correct, he molested another cousin in his extended family before he was even 19. So how far back did it go? How far did it spread out? Adding 2+2+2+2+2 together, it looks like if the weird “car accident” he had in his late 40s was looked at another way, he may have had the crap beat out of him and you don’t have to guess why.

Compulsive? Oh, I would say so.

But all under the effing legal radar.

Kee-rist.