Anytime I try to talk to my mother about what I’ve been through, she tells me she’s uncomfortable or doesn’t want to talk about it, and turns it to a pity party for her about how she feels she “failed as a parent”….but she’s kind of right?
She had so many chances to stop my brother and my stepfather from laying their hands on me, and she had caught my brother specifically several times and only ever punished him by grounding him to a different part of the house than me for a month. I used to beg her not to leave me alone with my stepfather and she would roll her eyes and tell me we “needed more bonding time” and it “wasn’t the end of the world.”
Green is my brother, brown is his father who raised me until I was 8, black is the location we moved to.
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Doesn’t really strike me as insane in the text. Your past experiences obviously differ, but in this text she seems to care about your wellbeing and protecting you from (brown) now. I don’t see much downplaying, but perhaps I just don’t understand the context.
Nobody can change the past, and that doesn’t mean you have to accept their past actions, but it does mean you can’t judge all their new actions through glasses tinted by your previous experiences, and expect others to agree.
It reads to me more to be about accountability and responsibility. The parents were not accountable to their daughter about something her sibling did to her in the past, and they are not taking accountability now. They are simply saying the past is the past and we all mess up. That is true, but if you had a hand in hurting someone, by either direct action or passive inaction, especially someone you should be caring for and providing safety for, you can’t just expect that person to forgive and forget. She is incredibly hurt and it affects her entire life, and her parents are downplaying that impact by passing it off as “we all make mistakes.” That’s not how one takes accountability. That is attempting to escape the shame of not doing enough. Problem is, in offering for reconciliation to occur, they need to feel the full weight of their shame and apologize to their daughter. They should be begging her for forgiveness. The fact that they are not is why the downplaying is occurring.
Exactly this. She caught him multiple times and never went further than grounding him to his room for at most a month. He was sent back to his dad because he was causing trouble in school, so it was like that was more important than him laying hands on me. As an adult, she’s tried to get me to have dinner with him multiple times and “make up,” like I’m supposed to get past it. And if I try to have an open conversation about it, she acts like I’m just trying to make her feel bad and will sometimes even end her side with “I’m sorry, okay? We all fuck up, parenting doesn’t come with a guidebook”
Ouch. I’m sorry this has been your experience. Your parents are not taking accountability for their inaction in protecting you from your brother. It is absolutely true that parenting does not come with a guidebook. It is absolutely true that we all make mistakes. But they are, in effect, taking his side, siding with abusive behavior, as a means to keep the peace. That is not responsible nor accountable behavior. They need to be holding themselves and your brother accountable to you for the harm that was caused, not get upset when you point out, correctly, that they continue to support an abuser over the victim. This, in effect, makes them abusers, as well.
You may want to seriously consider setting strong boundaries with your family, with the goal of reaching truth and reconciliation. If they are not able to take accountability, they are not ready to receive forgiveness, and are effectively opting out of the relationship.
Trying to have a conversation about this over text is the insane part.
She lives in another country
She allowed you to be abused repeatedly, she’s just as much at fault for what happened as your brother. Her job was to protect you and she selfishly didn’t want to deal with the reality of what her son was. She chose her own feelings over your safety and security. That’s not love. You don’t have to talk to these people anymore, you could just forget she exists and start to heal. Sending love ❤️
I'm so sorry OP, her (lack of) reaction is infuriating. You deserved to be protected and she let it happen, she was complicit.
Wow.
Umm. So...we share a quite similar trauma it seems, and I gotta say. I wish my parents could address what happened like yours does here. Genuinely it seems as though they are at the very least trying In some way. So give them some credit.
I dunno maybe if you voices all you feel to them you might have a rather decent outcome.
I do understand tho. Having a sibling that has BEEN CAUGHT IN THE ACT. No evidence needed they saw with their own two eyes. Having that just....swept under the rug. It is rage Inducing.
I hope your healing journey is incredible and I hope you are ok op. I am so sorry for what happened to you. From one survivor to another. Your not alone