mazajo wrote:Thank you both so much for your replies!
Let me give a little more information- My sister says that she was sexually abused by our father all throughout her childhood. I know it's taboo to doubt somebody that says something like that, but it does so happen occasionally that people make that up.
Sure some make it up, but quite a few people these days, are convinced by non-legit 'therapists' that they have 'repressed memories' of abuse. The 'therapy' basically is to convince a very suggestible person, that they were abused. If the person hasn't seen a therapist they may have been convinced of this by reading 'books' or magazine articles.
Repressed memories do happen, but they're nothing mysterious. People tend to lay down distorted or inaccurate memories when under stress. We know that from research. These memories are usually partial or vague. When prompted the person recalls more...but often they'll never remember all of it.
Impressionable people very often are convinced by therapists that they were abused sexually.
HOWEVER....there's a big huge flaw in your reasoning as to why you think she wasn't abused. Read on please.
My reasons for not believing her are, one, we are only two years apart in age and grew up together in the same household with the same father who had equal access to both of us, and he never harmed me in any way. He also would have had access to three stepdaughters and a granddaughter (my sister's daughter who has been raised by her father) all of whom are adults now and insist that they were never abused. How likely is it for a child abuser to be satisfied with abusing only one child during his entire life?
In fact it's not unlikely at all. Quite a few sexual abusers hone in on one child in the family. They MAY also abuse others, perhaps outside the family but simply are never caught. But in fact, yes, some men abuse only one child for quite some time.
My sister even tried to sue him in court over this but the judge threw the case out because of lack of evidence to support her accusations.
There rarely are witnesses to ACTUAL abuse, so that's not really a legitimate reason to disbelieve her either.
I'm not saying she must be telling the truth. I'm saying that you have no grounds to believe she's making it up, because your reasons just aren't valid. Abusers VERY often are only caught with one child, and they VERY often have no witnesses to corroborate the child's story in court. That's because they deliberately timed it and planned it so there would be no witnesses.
By the way, she was in her early 20s when she first accused him, and said that she did remember all of this through dreams. Now she has vidid recollections. I know in practically every case there are people that say the abuser would never do that, but everyone that knows my dad... She also says our mother knew of this while it was happening but did nothing to stop it. Anybody that ever knew my mother would know that she wouldn't do that.
Bull. Many very nice women wind up not stopping abuse. Some have no idea it's going on (if they have a 'normal' sex life with the man, and especially if he's the usual abuser - charming,, convincing and very smooth, they believe their husband and not the one claiming sexual abuse.
AGAIN...not saying he's guilty, but AM saying that all of your 'logic' is not logical at all and flies in the face of 99% of the cases of child molestation.
Because my sister claims this childhood abuse that she suffered caused the PTSD & DID, and I don't believe the abuse story, therefore I assumed she was making up having PTSD & DID.
Again, not a valid assumption...n...not exactly.
She may, for example, have an awful lot of mental distress, and simply has seized on childhood molestation as the explanation. Just because someone makes things up, doesn't mean they are well and happy.
For example, many of my friends who have psychotic disorders, believe with all their hearts, that they were abused. This MAY BE a delusion - a thought that is actually a neurological symptom of a neurological disease, like dementia, or schizophrenia. Those are brain diseases. The person isn't 'making it up for attention'. They truly believe it.
But....studies of abused children, whether it's emotional, physical or sexual, simply do not find that they suffer from dissociative disorders. No, they don't. People with dissociative disorders say they were abused, but the inverse(abused children showing many dissociative symptoms) is actually not been found in research. They often suffer from anxiety, depression and bitterness, lack of trust, sexual promiscuity, substance abuse, and many other problems.
My sister does have a history of making up things to get attention, dating back to when she was in kindergarten and she told her teacher one day, in tears, that her little sister died in an operation and her daddy moved out. The teacher believed her completely and called my mom and was shocked to learn that nothing of this sort was going on at all. Was this an early sign?
It's an 'early sign' that you see her behavior as lying! LOL. It's not a sign of anything else. For all I know, those were early psychotic symptoms, and she's now suffering from a psychotic disorder, and seeing therapist who encourage her to believe that she's been abused and has DID.
You see, DID and PTSD are both kind of 'cool' disorders to have, so many people believe they have these and plenty of therapists are willing to accommodate them. Some of these people are suffering from psychotic depression, others from schizophrenia, others from other disorders. They are often accused of 'lying' or 'trying to get attention'. And they often fall prey to non-legit charlatans who are very charming and convincing.
Looking back, my mom says she wishes she had taken in more seriously but this was the 1970s and they just said my sister had a very active imagination and brushed it off.
Maybe not really imagination at all. Maybe delusions. These can go along with depression or other disorders I listed.
Another reason that I have doubts is that although my sister has been treated for various mental illnesses for over 20 years, she only seems to get worse and worse, never any improvement.
Now we get down to it.
Just because she's 'getting worse', it doesn't necessarily mean 'the treatment didn't work, so she must be faking it'. VERY often, it means the person is so sick they don't keep taking their medication. So they continue to worsen.
She has attempted suicide a few times (ie she calls somebody up and says she's taken a bottle of pills or something like that), she's been in psych wards more times that I know, she is a cutter, she's on disability, she's had ECT, she just got a service dog. She has more knowledge than any text book on every type of mental illness, and treatment, out there.
And guess what? If multiple psychiatrists have diagnosed her with mental illness, and she's tried to kill herself and been hospitalized over and over, and she's a cutter, you know the old saying, right? If it walks like a duck, if it talks like a duck, it's probably a duck. I'm going to bet your sister simply has a serious mental illness. SERIOUS.
Her behavior may be annoying and offensive, but that doesn't mean she's not suffering. And it doesn't mean she's lying, and it doesn't mean she's telling the truth!
Your family may NEVER have been told her real diagnosis - the docs can't share that information with you without her permission, and if she's fallen under the thrall of one of these unscrupulous charlatans she's not going to give you permission to see her real records....same if she's psychotic. When these jerks get ahold of someone who's psychotic it makes for a really bad situation and many very ill people believe these jerks and stop taking the medication that IS helping them.
I do believe she has some type of mental illness for sure, I am just doubting it is actually as she says it is. I guess the bottom line is I do not believe the abuse accusations and I am looking for a reason as to why she would make something like that up.