When family pressures you to forget abuse - what to do?

Hi, I haven't been on this forum in over 5 years. I want to thank everyone who supported me back then. I had stopped coming because people in my life told me going online was "putting ideas in my head" that weren't true, and I was all to eager to believe none of this was true. I don't want this to be -too- long, so here's the main points of what I've been through, and what is going on now:

-I thought I had OCD when I was younger because of intrusive thoughts/images/body sensations/feeling sick to my stomach around my father. I had asked to see a therapist but was told "only crazy people need therapists."

-I eventually move out and manage to mostly bury/distract myself from the upsetting thoughts, most of the time.

-Years later, after the birth of my second son, I let my first son (aged 2 at the time) sleep over my parents' house for the first time. I slowly realize he is showing unmistakable signs of abuse afterwards. His signs of abuse trigger flashbacks in me, which I originally fear are random hallucinations, but I go on to be diagnosed with C-PTSD. (I also remember seeing searches for child pornography on the family computer when I was younger (however, my younger sister later tells me it was her that watched it (she would have been about middle school aged at the time I saw the searches). She says Catholic school messed her up, says she doesn't want to talk about it further, doesn't believe me about my son's abuse, and then blocks me. She hasn't spoken to me in over 5 years now.)

-DCF says there is no proof of abuse. They say treating him for unproven abuse (play therapy) would "put a stigma on him." I later find out my husband has taken my parents' side and tells DCF they are very nice people and that he doesn't believe me (he was playing video games 70+ hours a week and didn't see any signs of abuse). I later find out my parents are giving him money and gifts.

-My son continues to show explicit signs of sexual abuse and I bring him to the hospital and ask if he should be tested for STDs. DCF is called again and they say I am showing "red flags" and they "don't want to have to take my children away." I never bring up the signs of abuse in a professional setting again.

-I find out my husband has continued bringing my son to see my parents behind my back and has even let me father be the one to bring him to the bathroom. My husband says we shouldn't keep the kids away from them. My therapist suggests I "take control" of the situation and invite my parents over for a visit I can supervise myself, saying, "Because you're not really positive there really was abuse, right?"

-My mother agrees to come to visit the kids and says we will not talk about "the situation." However, when they arrive, she ignores my kids and corners me in the kitchen, verbally abusing me (saying I was an "ungrateful bitch" who "she wishes she never gave birth to"), and when I start giggling nervously (I always do that when I'm overwhelmed), she hits me in the face and knocks me to the ground. They leave me screaming and crying on the floor and go home. I call my therapist, he tells me to call the police, and my mother is arrested (my husband was playing video games the whole time).

-My grandmother tells me to drop the charges. She says I am ruining the family. She says I deserved to be slapped and that she would have done the same thing if I was "laughing at her."

-Two years go by and I continue to have visits with my parents. I hear part of myself screaming and crying in my head that "I can't take it anymore," but I ignore it. My husband has the same volatile personality as my mother and I try not to set him off, but little things like throwing away his toothpaste before the last bit is used send him into raging, screaming, and shoving fits. He also threatens to drop the kids off at my parents' house if I ever try to leave him. I am working third shift and am exhausted.

-I have more visits my my parents at my house. My grandmother, who has spent the last few years telling me I'm crazy, that I am ruining her family and ruining her happiness, keeps pressuring me to "forget everything" and let the kids sleep over my parents' house (although I don't). I am having constant nightmares of sexual abuse by my father.

-One morning my youngest tells me, in a very scared voice, that in the middle of the night, I pulled his hair, pinched him, and poked him in the eye. He says I put my hand over his mouth and screamed at him to go to bed. He tells me I was talking about "bad" things "my daddy" used to do to me. He didn't seem to understand what I had been saying, but I realized I had been describing sexual abuse with little kid words. I don't remember any of this. Even as he tells me what I said/did, I get the weird sensation of his words being pulled down deep inside of me, and I have to claw to pull them back up to the surface to avoid completely forgetting what he just said.

This incident was really the turning point where I could no longer deny my history of abuse and that repressing it would only cause further harm to my children. Apparently with the lack of sleep, living with an abusive husband, and continuing to have visits with my parents where I acted like everything was fine, I had lost control over the tortured younger self inside of me. It was such a dark point of my life no longer being able to deny the dissociation and abuse history. I was so scared ot losing control again. I was so scared of what could happen if I weren't in control. I cut off all contact with my parents and blocked my grandmother. I went through a several years-long process of divorcing my husband that involved a restraining order, but I finally got the signed agreement last week where I got full custody of the kids and he was not allowed to let the kids have contact with my parents in any way during his visitation hours. I've had a new therapist for the past couple of years and have made amazing progress healing trauma.

As for my mother, she has gone from saying that I made up my son's signs of abuse when he was 2, to saying a neighbor did it, to saying my ex-husband did it, and now she says I did it, since when I had confided in my then-husband that I had the sleepwalking episode, he told her about it and she has doubled down that I'm the only "crazy" one in the family. She actually later sent my divorce lawyer a string of out of control emails saying that I was the one who abused my son and that she would bring me to court for grandparents' rights if I didn't bring the kids to see her soon.

My lawyer says my mother has a very weak case for grandparents' rights in my state and that I should continue not to let the kids see her, as it has been about 3 years now and seeing her would weaken the clause in my divorce agreement stating it is dangerous for the kids to be around them due to abusive behavior.

However, my grandmother says my grandfather is very sick, has come close to dying, and says one of his wishes is to see his family together again before he dies. I told her I would consider visiting them and having my mother present there (not my father). My grandmother cries that it is time for me to "get over all of this" and to "let us all be a real family again." She cried and said, "We were a nice family, weren't we? Tell me we were."

So. That was long. But it seems this is it. I have to decide whether to do the visits at my grandmother's house with my mother present and keep insisting that is as far as I will go and I will not discuss "the situation" any further, or I just flat out say goodbye to my grandmother and wait for my mother to bring me to court to try to see the kids.

TLDR; I don't know if anyone managed to read all of that, but how did you deal with people telling you to "forget" abuse/or denying it happened (and believe me, I want nothing more than to pretend that none of it happened, so it's an internal struggle, too).

Thanks.

First, I want to say that I was very glad when I got to the part in the story where you cut off all contact with your parents and grandmother, and divorced your husband. It was very worrying up to that point. And it's wonderful that you got full custody of your kids.

But then at some point you resumed contact with your mother and grandmother? Is there something positive that you get from contact with them? Because I didn't get that from your description. It sounds like they constantly gaslight you and guilt you, and your mother has physically abused you even after you became an adult.

I haven't even told anyone in my family of origin about my dissociative disorder or even tried to work things out with any of them, so I've never given them a chance to deny that things were "bad enough" to cause this. I have rare polite email contact with them and that's it.

I think that you should consider very carefully what you would get out of visiting your grandmother.
(And it's just you, right, not the kids? I think it's great that you're keeping them away from those people.)

What does your therapist say about it?

Hi, thank you for responding and reading all that. My family just knows that I have been diagnosed with C-PTSD, although they think it's a mistake. Do therapists not really mention DID sometimes? We seem to dance around the idea with my therapist just saying I have "severe dissociation" and then asking me to have certain ages of myself present when I close my eyes and work on releasing past emotions. I might bring it up with her now that the divorce process is over (that took a lot of energy out of me).
Anyway, I haven't seen my therapist in a few months due to financial reasons, but I plan to set up a time with her this week. She had always said I didn't need to see toxic family (my previous therapist had different ideas, saying things like "they tried their best," or "maybe we could work things out in family therapy"). I just wanted to ask people here how they dealt with family who denied/gaslighted abuse, etc. I also wanted to ask people what kind of therapy they got for a child who likely has untreated/undiagnosed PTSD/DID, but that original post is already so long.
I had called my grandmother at the start of the pandemic to see if they were ok, since I knew my grandfather was high risk. I was dismayed that she went right back into her past insistence that I "mend things" with my parents. I told her that is a subject I refuse to discuss, and when she insisted, I hung up the phone. I thought this approach would work, as she said she wouldn't talk about it during the next phone call, but then my grandfather had a near-death experience recently and said before going into surgery that his wish was for me to "heal the old wounds" in the family and let things go. Also, considering my mother had threatened to bring me to court, I had wondered if meeting her (with the kids) at my grandmother's house would dissuade her from doing so. My mother sends a huge box of candy/toys for the kids often to my apartment, with a huge picture of her face plastered to the front.
What do I get out of the relationship with my grandmother? Stress. Also guilt, as I know she is old and stressed with my grandfather's health, and that she is in denial of her own intergenerational trauma. Also, my (ex) mother-in-law says not honoring your grandparents will bring bad karma on the whole family. So I thought, well, would a visit at my grandmother's house with the kids really be that harmful? But nothing's ever enough for her/them, she would just be pushing for more I'm sure, and then my mother might be able to claim a relationship with the kids in court after she sees them there. It just seems really cruel to cut sick and stressed grandparents out of your life! Ugh.

Also, as an aside, an ex-boyfriend of my cousin reached out to me and said that my cousin had pulled a knife on him, saying he could never leave her. He said something is very "wrong" in that family. It was such a relief to hear someone else say that, after being told by them for so long that I'm the only one with issues!

Also, I will mention that I am afraid of my mother bringing me to court for grandparents' rights because I'm not sure I'll be able to get a good lawyer; the lawyer for my divorce was a subsidized lawyer that I was approved for because I am low income, and I'm not sure I would be approved for another one for a separate case. My mother did move 2 hours away years ago after she was arrested, so I'm not sure how much time with them she thinks the court would even give her. I'm just really afraid of going to court and having my mental health put under a microscope.

I can't answer to everything right now, but it's nice if you managed to escape a bit from the past situation !

However, my grandmother says my grandfather is very sick, has come close to dying, and says one of his wishes is to see his family together again before he dies. [...] It just seems really cruel to cut sick and stressed grandparents out of your life! Ugh.

I know how this feels. I don't have any contact with my paternal family since I'm 2yo. I have strong suspicions my grandfather abused me like he abused my aunt and father, and I don't want to have anything to do with this whole part of the family.
However, my brother is still in contact with them. Last year, he called me saying our grandmother is really sick, had a lot of medical testing going on and might die soon, and she wishes to see me again before dying.

I said no and I don't regret it. One year after, she's still alive and no longer sick. And even if she dies, it will not erase the fact she's a toxic person who manipulate and abuse everyone around her. I don't know her, but meeting her would mean seeing my father, maybe my granfather, and this idea terrify us. I don't want to have anything to do with any of them.

But my mom and my maternal grandparents were all about "maybe you should reconsider it, if you want to go, that's fine, etc." and it triggered the adults parts into guilt and the young parts into fear. It wasn't a good time for us.

Deep down, what do you feel ? When you think about seeing them, what emotion is triggered ?
If it's nothing positive, if it scares your younger parts, then you don't have to go. If they were good people, they would wish you to protect yourself, instead of hurting yourself.

I just wanted to ask people here how they dealt with family who denied/gaslighted abuse, etc.

I don't contact them. It's a hard decision, but when I see how the idea of keeping contact makes us feel scared, anxious, unable to function properly... My family works on making noises so others act the way you want, with no regard for how it will affect them. To protect myself from that, I don't have the choice, I have to be a bit selfish too.

I was ready to do the same with my maternal family, which isn't as bad as the paternal one but still trigger us a lot, but they've all started to go to therapy and things begin to change, so "wait and see".

I also wanted to ask people what kind of therapy they got for a child who likely has untreated/undiagnosed PTSD/DID

Some DID/dissociative disorders specialists can adapt their therapy for children (play therapy, EMDR adapted for children, etc).

Hi, Dwelt,

Thanks for responding. Those are good questions for me to consider, about focusing on how I feel about going to see my grandmother and mother. I have entirely negative emotions about seeing my mother, but I could tolerate her presence if she respects my boundaries about only having visits strictly at my grandmother's house, without my father, and no further discussion of the subject. But I doubt she or my grandmother will respect my boundaries. They will keep pushing for more, they will keep telling me I'm crazy and need to "fix things". So, I have negative feelings about seeing my grandmother, too. My lawyer, on the last day I spoke to her (her service to me has ended now that my divorce is over), was very firm that seeing my mother would actually be a bad legal move, considering it says in my divorce agreement that I have no relationship with her, she is abusive, and therefore my ex-husband is not allowed to have the kids in contact with her.
So, if I double down on refusing to see her, it looks like I have to prepare for her to bring me to court to try to see the kids. Maybe I should save money for a lawyer instead of paying down student loan debt/fixing my credit like I planned. How exhausting.

When I bring my son to see a therapist after the pandemic, I plan to tell him/her I want them to work on negative feelings from past trauma, but I don't want to give the impression I'm putting ideas into my son's head (although there is documented child abuse/neglect from my ex-husband they can discuss with him in therapy) . Maybe I will just say I suspect he was also abused when he was 2 by a different relative, and that I want them to work on his fear of going to bed at night. I do want him to get the specific right kind of therapy eventually, but I'm so afraid of being called paranoid after having no one believe me when he originally showed the signs of abuse.

You wouldn't be "doubling down." You would just be continuing to maintain a healthy boundary of no contact with an abuser, and protecting your children from her. Same with your grandmother who, as I recall, supported your mother's physical abuse of you for which your mother was arrested.

You would be following your best instincts as well as the advice of your divorce lawyer. Remember, that lawyer said that she wouldn't really have a case. There's a record of her arrest for physically assaulting you, and it's written in your custody agreement that she is abusive. A judge agreed that your kids should not have contact with her.

I don't have financial advice for you. If you were approved once for a subsidized lawyer, and your income is still low, I don't see why you wouldn't be approved again. And it's your mother who's going to have to prove that she should have contact with your kids. I don't think your fitness as a mother would be questioned, but I don't really know much about it. A judge already awarded you full custody and your mother wouldn't have any new grounds on which to bring that into question.

People who love you support you making choices that are good and healthy for you. Someone who truly cares might let you know that a decision you make causes them pain, but they don't question your right to make that decision. They don't tell you that you're crazy, or a liar, or "ruining the family" or to "get over it." They respect your feelings. I don't see that in your mother's or grandmother's words or actions.

Yes, what you are all saying is really making sense, thank you for reading and responding. I just feel so guilty, guilty about making anyone in my family feel bad; I really should work on this with my therapist. It's just so hard because even though I typed my story above, I hardly ever discuss the issue about my parents with anyone in my every day life. It's like my default mode is to just pretend none of it is happening and ignore the whole situation, and now needing to make a decision to tell my grandmother that I am sticking to my boundaries is stressing me out because that involves bringing up topics that I prefer not to acknowledge. I had a fantasy for a while of getting a job far away from all of this and therefore having the decision about visits become a moot point, but that is not going to happen anytime soon. It's just so hard to stand up for boundaries, rather than run away from the issue, when part of you wants to keep living as if none of it ever happened.

Remember that you don't have to give any explanation to your mother or grandmother. You can just set your boundaries and that's it. No topics need to be discussed or reasons given.

Definitely bring this up with your therapist, and I don't know if you journal, but it really helps us to write down how different parts feel and have a dialogue in writing. I would bet that there's one or more parts who are holding the guilt about making this decision--maybe there are parts who are still attached to family members and still hope that they can change.

It's hard. But it's their actions that brought things to this point. None of it was your fault.

Wanted to answer but, the others already said what I wanted to say so... Well, I agree with them 200% and I send you a lot of moral support and NEVER EVER fold yourself in 4 pieces to please people who hurt you in the past. They are just manipulative.

Keep yourself safe!

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Envy