Messed up situation - who is to blame?

LegacyUser

Pub07 wrote: »

Jesus, get a grip OP. Everyone has regrets and issues from the past but you just have to get on with life. Just let it go, at this stage if you are going around so hate filled all the time it is YOU who is causing the suffering in the family as the rest of them sound like they've got over it and got on with things. You parents rasied this kid from 2 years of age, they've a different perspective on this than you, they would've thought of him as one of their own and as you said they were getting no help from social services. What were they to do, dump him out on the side of the road?? In any case they did get rid of him in the end.


Do you want to keep going around full of hate and bitterness for your parents for the rest of your life and turning your family against yourself? This guy already got what was coming to him, his life is a complete disaster, what more do you want?

Yes I got what I wanted, too late and at the very high price of sister being hurt.

Yes, I don t understand how everyone in my family can move on whilst Im still burning with anger and hate. As I ve said Im grudge holder and forgiveness doesn t come easily to me, even as a christian Im told forgiveness will help but I just can t. Some things are unforgiveable.

I don t care what age he was. He planned it and told her not to say anything, I mean would you want someone like this around YOUR kid? Probably not..
The way I see it is he should have been removed immediately this wasnt done. I ll always feel let down by social services.

Getting a grip is easy when its not you or your family affected!!

These thoughts are only in my head. The hate never changes. It varies and at times I blame myself and my parents and always him and social services.
I agree with other posters in that this kind of hatred is toxic but even after 6 years its not gone away...
Outwardly I seem unaffected by this, I have never been ill or needed to see someone as these thoughts are only in my head. Its an unmentionable topic in our house.

Hrududu

To me a lot of your anger seems to stem from how your family reacted. You always disliked him and by all your posts he seems to have been a holy terror. You were sick of him when this happened and it was like all of a sudden everything you ever thought about him was justified. That no matter what he had done before and gotten away with that this time people would finally see him the way you did. It seems to me that your mother's calm reaction is what made you furious. Along with the decision to let him stay in the house for the 4 months it took to rehouse him.

I wonder how you would feel today if your family had reacted with more emotion or anger. Because from what you have described it sounds like you are the only one that reacted with anger. And I don't think there is anything wrong in reacting angrily to that. To be honest I couldnt see how anybody could react otherwise in that situation. But you really need to find a way to deal with it or it will ruin your life.

paperclip2

Let it go, let it go, let it go.

Six years on you are the only one anchoring yourself to the horror of what happened to your sister. She, the most important person in the picture, is moving on and seems to have a really good life.
Reading your post i got a sense of all not being well in your life prior to the foster bro's arrival. You are the oldest, the one by your own account, least likely to need time and attention from your parents. To me thats often a sign of 'I didn't get much time and attention from my parents' . Now there is an interloper who is very hard work to be around and you make your childish (relevant as you were a child), dislike obvious. And you end up getting censored by all and sundry for this and even less attention from your parents.

Suddenly there's going to be a new baby, well, demonstrating dislike for the the foster brother didn't get results so now you do a one eighty and throw yourself into being a second mammy to your new sister. The language you use to describe your relationship with your sister is extremely OTT. Why do you have such a depth of feeling for this particular sister? Sometimes we try to cover up negative feelings by being overly solicitious towards the person we hold the negativity towards especially if we know it won't be tolerated. You can square this with your conscience as your sister is a full flesh and blood sibling unlike the foster brother.

Definately what your foster brother did was horrific, yes, at the time anger was the appropriate response. But is it appropriate to hold such a depth of it now? I get a feeling your foster brother is the scapegoat for all of the negativity in your life, including perhaps your own feelings about your parents and perhaps your sister.

You are dismissive of therapy. Therapy takes work and effort. The most important piece of which is often the effort to find a therapist you can trust, respect and work with. So do that work and find the therapist you click with.

You need to let go of the hate, not for any one elses sake but your own. I lived for a long time with hate just as corrosive as yours. It didn't affect anyone else but it did affect me.

In your story i feel sorry for two people, your sister and your foster brother. They had little enough choice in what they have been asked to carry. You do.

Good luck.

BroomBurner

Hrududu wrote: »

To me a lot of your anger seems to stem from how your family reacted. You always disliked him and by all your posts he seems to have been a holy terror. You were sick of him when this happened and it was like all of a sudden everything you ever thought about him was justified. That no matter what he had done before and gotten away with that this time people would finally see him the way you did. It seems to me that your mother's calm reaction is what made you furious. Along with the decision to let him stay in the house for the 4 months it took to rehouse him.

I wonder how you would feel today if your family had reacted with more emotion or anger. Because from what you have described it sounds like you are the only one that reacted with anger. And I don't think there is anything wrong in reacting angrily to that. To be honest I couldnt see how anybody could react otherwise in that situation. But you really need to find a way to deal with it or it will ruin your life.

+1 I agree with this entirely.

OP, please ignore any of the other posters that have said your hatred of this boy made him become what he was. The only person that caused him to molest a child is himself. He was in the wrong. Why wasn't he charged for this? I'm sick of people blaming others for their own actions. For God's sake people, everyone is responsible for themselves, STOP BLAMING OTHER PEOPLE.

If I was in your situation, I would have been also delerious with anger at such a calm reaction from my mother. In fact, I'm angry thinking about it.

OP, please seek counselling so that your hatred won't consume your life, and maybe take a break from your family for a bit to clear your head.

Pub07

I never said forgive him, I dont play in that forgiveness crap and I certainly wouldn't forgive him if it was my family. But I would let it go at this stage, he's out of your life, he's f*cked up and is going nowhere so he's got his comeupance.

Life is tough enough without making it harder thinking worrying about things that are in the past that you can do nothing about. If you want some perspective think of this - someone in your family could be in a serioius accident or get cancer, etc... any day out of the blue, that's the kind of crap that people are dealing with up and down the country every day of the week. As it stands every one in your family is healthy and in good spirits and things are going well for you in your life, so why mess it all up worrying about some twat who is living in misery and is no longer apart of your familys life.

King of Kings

here goes:

OP seems to have issues with the kid since his arrival before her sisters birth. This does not explain the abuse in any way but certainly the mental abuse the Op inflicted on the child cannot have been anything but negative on the child during their formative years. The kid would certainly have grown up with low self esteem at best.
There is no way a child is warped by age 2 beyond repair. You never gave him a chance and by the looks of it did everything to hinder the child

The kid was 12/13 by my reckoning when the abuse took place. Sorry I don't believe a 12/13 year old should be hung drawn and quartered for sexual misadventure. Are you sure this wasn't doctors and nurses that got out of hand? like he was 12 ffs.
It is wrong of you to harbour such hatred. I don't have the answers of what to do with the foster child, but your hatred will destroy you - you are quite twisted in your gloating of his current misfortune.

There is more to this than just the OP's opinion of the child , opinions on "normal" families taking in foster children from "diffciult" backgrounds are aired in a very negative light. You mention his brothers ruining other families, I get the opinion that the OP feels society shouldn't bother with help these kids. Why?

I am sorry to hear what you sister went through but she was a child abused by another child. It's a difficult situation but maybe there is no blame to be dished out. Did that occur to you? It looks like it occurred to your parents, your sister.

It has been alluded too previous that some of this story does not add up. I agree with this sentiment. Did you get the full story? I doubt if sexual abuse was taking place social services would leave him there.

LegacyUser

OP, Your post really resonated with me, mine is a very similar story indeed, bar the fact that the abuser was my father rather than sibling.

He too abused our precious youngest sister and I can really understand your feelings. I wont go into all the details, suffice to say when he was exposed I too was also appalled at what I saw as famiy members weak reaction.

Like you I am a "strong character" but I have mellowed throughout the years when I realised I was a self righteous unbending a$$hole and thats why no-one wanted to listen to me, not because what I said was

I also saw myself in the role of heroic protector of my younger sister and forcefully tried to impose this (incorrect) vision of myself onto the world (family) as it turns out my sister had no need of an heroic protector and after my father was exposed took herself off abroad which soon smartened me up, I stopped hiding behind the pain of being the noble but twarted "protector" and started to cop myself on to reality. No one asked me to be the hero, it was all about me me me and the way I wanted to be seen, well this drama was nothing to do with me and as I watched and observed other family members who had been crushed and torn apart dealing with it in dignified stoic bravery, I looked, learned and started to cop onto myself.

Reading your posts the words could have been written by myself, the self pity and the bitter, entrenched views. Yes OP, self pity, look at your parents attitudes and be humbled, learn from them and drop this hate campaign, before you start with "its easy for you to say, you have not been through it".....I have been through it, I am still going through it now. The offender sits pretty in our family home, while my mother grows weaker and her own grandchildren cannot visit, she will not leave, we just deal with it. You have to respect other people and what they want, forget this idea that its all going to be resolved like in a soap opera, its not, and its other peoples business if they want to forgive.

Your petulance and attempts to control how other people should be and your obsession with who is "right" and "blame" is pointless and doing nothing but draining you and most likely turning people against you. Regardless of whether you are "right" -you have got to back off and let others do it their way.

Two things I want to address that you said are:

""I firmly believe I am right in feeling anger""

Yes thats right, you were/are right to be angry but you do not have licence to stuff it down everyones throat day in day out, keep your grudge to yourself. Its not about your feelings, its about how you act on them.

""The way I saw it was I was in the right and being angry towards abusers is completely normal. I have to add that I am influenced by the way paedophiles and abusers are hated through the media. My immediate reaction was one of judgement and hate, I thought thats whats normal, how people are supposed to feel.
I couldn t understand anyone who could disagree.""

Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes, I hear you you better believe I hear you, again I spent years wrestling with this one. All I can say to you is I felt/feel exactly that way, but it was born from FEAR, FEAR of being seen to be associated with the abuser, fear that people will think you have approved their actions or forgiven them or by association you are as bad as them.

Heres the reality OP

PEOPLE DONT WANT TO KNOW.......they will block it out and avoid you, what you fear might happen, but you cannot control it by shouting and being angry. This has happened, its happened to us, there are thousands out there like us, just because they are quiet dont believe they dont exist.

You have GOT to let go of this obsessional hate and obsessional blame and obsession with being seen as RIGHT. Its selfish. Yes, you heard me, selfish.

Leave them to get on with it, keep your eye on the sister, just like I keep my eye on my mother, there is nothing else you can do.

Adam

Great post from YouAreNotAlone.

Dudess

OP, you have to stop blaming yourself. You're not responsible for the abuse - he is, and he alone.

And while you probably feel an obligation to your sister to hate him, you're only letting it eat you up inside. For god's sake, it's terribly unhealthy - that much hate is like a cancer inside you. You do not need to hold onto it. You are doing nobody any favours and you would not be letting your sister down if you let it go.

marie_85

As others have said OP, you need to find a way to let go of your anger, or at least to find a healthier way of dealing with it.

To give you another perspective... I learned from a very young age not to tell my parents whenever someone was mean to me, or stole from me or acted against me in some way as their over-reaction ended up making me feel guilty and made me feel like I was the one causing trouble. They weren't angry per se, but they were and remain protective of me, partly because I am the youngest child. Thankfully, nothing serious has ever happened to me that I've had to keep from them but there have been so many things which I've felt I had to keep secret. I don't know your sister and I can't tell if she'd be the same but it might be worth considering the possibility that your over-reaction has led to a similar reaction. You're angry with your parents for acting calm. At the end of the day, calm is probably exactly what *she* needed. And this is about her. Not you.

JDLK

I read your post a couple of times, then read a few responses

Of course the "nobody is wrong, nobody is right" argument is always true in a theoretical sence, and we can spend eons thinking of all the different angles involved and what might be going on in other peoples heads blah blah blah

However I found that your actions were not only practical but pretty courageous. Of all the different people in your story you are the only one who (a) foresaw the possible danger (b) attempted to prevent it and (c) took the correct steps after it happened.

If you're account of this situation is accurate and as unbiased as possible then I would say you not only were correct but went beyond what should have been expected of you. You have shown more intelligence and insight into this situation than anyone else, and it was your self belief that made you make the right decisions dont start doubting it now.

I for one would be proud to call you a sister

LegacyUser

King of Kings wrote: »

here goes:

OP seems to have issues with the kid since his arrival before her sisters birth. This does not explain the abuse in any way but certainly the mental abuse the Op inflicted on the child cannot have been anything but negative on the child during their formative years. The kid would certainly have grown up with low self esteem at best.
There is no way a child is warped by age 2 beyond repair. You never gave him a chance and by the looks of it did everything to hinder the child

The kid was 12/13 by my reckoning when the abuse took place. Sorry I don't believe a 12/13 year old should be hung drawn and quartered for sexual misadventure. Are you sure this wasn't doctors and nurses that got out of hand? like he was 12 ffs.
It is wrong of you to harbour such hatred. I don't have the answers of what to do with the foster child, but your hatred will destroy you - you are quite twisted in your gloating of his current misfortune.

There is more to this than just the OP's opinion of the child , opinions on "normal" families taking in foster children from "diffciult" backgrounds are aired in a very negative light. You mention his brothers ruining other families, I get the opinion that the OP feels society shouldn't bother with help these kids. Why?

I am sorry to hear what you sister went through but she was a child abused by another child. It's a difficult situation but maybe there is no blame to be dished out. Did that occur to you? It looks like it occurred to your parents, your sister.

It has been alluded too previous that some of this story does not add up. I agree with this sentiment. Did you get the full story? I doubt if sexual abuse was taking place social services would leave him there.

Sorry what abuse did I inflict on him? where exactly did I say that? Thats why Im confused...

How dare you? You speak with ignorance who hasn t had to deal with social workers in this country/ You obviously have no experience whatsoever with the Eastern Healthboard.

The social services KNEW full well what was happening. We and (I) made it crystal clear. He was just another problem for them to do deal with. Amazing the amount of people who think the second sexual abuse is ivolved everything will be social services . Ha makes me laugh!
Well it doesnt!!! They couldnt give a f*ck what was happening to my family. All they wanted was to solve the problem and stop my family complaining about them. He confessed it to them. Believe THEY KNEW FULL WELL!!
Not to mention the suffering my parents put up with before... My parents begged for help and this was ignored
TRUTH IS THAT THEY DON T CARE! I know its been said on this forum before but the social workers were at the height of incompetence, i very much doubt they have improved since!!!

JuliusCaesar

Messedup? wrote: »

Sorry what abuse did I inflict on him? where exactly did I say that? Thats why Im confused...

How dare you? You speak with ignorance who hasn t had to deal with social workers in this country/ You obviously have no experience whatsoever with the Eastern Healthboard.

The social services KNEW full well what was happening. We and (I) made it crystal clear. He was just another problem for them to do deal with. Amazing the amount of people who think the second sexual abuse is ivolved everything will be social services . Ha makes me laugh!
Well it doesnt!!! They couldnt give a f*ck what was happening to my family. All they wanted was to solve the problem and stop my family complaining about them. He confessed it to them. Believe THEY KNEW FULL WELL!!
Not to mention the suffering my parents put up with before... My parents begged for help and this was ignored
TRUTH IS THAT THEY DON T CARE! I know its been said on this forum before but the social workers were at the height of incompetence, i very much doubt they have improved since!!!

I'm not a buddhist, but they have a good take on anger. This anger is hurting you and your relationships rather than being useful or helpful. You could do something about the cause of your anger- something constructive- instead of letting it poison you and be destructive.

Allan Wallace in 'Tibetan Buddhism from the Ground up':

"'Righteous hatred' is in the same category as 'righteous cancer'or 'righteous tuberculosis'. All of them are absurd concepts.

This does not mean that one should never take action against aggression or injustice! Instead, one should try to develop an inner calmness and insight to deal with these situations in an appropriate way. We all know that anger and aggression give rise to anger and aggression. One could say that there are three ways to get rid of anger: kill the opponent, kill yourself or kill the anger - which one makes most sense to you?"

King of Kings

Messedup? wrote: »

Sorry what abuse did I inflict on him? where exactly did I say that? Thats why Im confused...

this

Messedup? wrote: »

I despised him from an early age. To me he was always an outsider and never one of us.

inflicting that atmosphere on a child is mental abuse. simple as.

Messedup? wrote: »

How dare you? You speak with ignorance who hasn t had to deal with social workers in this country/ You obviously have no experience whatsoever with the Eastern Healthboard.

You presume to assume that I have no dealings with the Eastern Healthboard and you are right. However I have had long and arduous dealings with their current incarnation called the HSE. It related to the health of my child - i'm not getting into that here. I found them very difficult and tempers got frayed dealing with them. So get off your moral high horse of "woe is me".

But for social workers to ignore sexual abuse would be a national scandal. I have my doubts. Furthermore at him being 12 - i have my doubts to the seriousness of the crime (i mentioned his age etc ...previously)

Messedup? wrote: »

The social services KNEW full well what was happening. We and (I) made it crystal clear.
He was just another problem for them to do deal with. Amazing the amount of people who think the second sexual abuse is ivolved everything will be social services . Ha makes me laugh!
Well it doesnt!!! They couldnt give a f*ck what was happening to my family. All they wanted was to solve the problem and stop my family complaining about them. He confessed it to them. Believe THEY KNEW FULL WELL!!
Not to mention the suffering my parents put up with before... My parents begged for help and this was ignored
TRUTH IS THAT THEY DON T CARE! I know its been said on this forum before but the social workers were at the height of incompetence, i very much doubt they have improved since!!!

what did your parents say to social services. Do you know for sure EXACTLY what they said. Maybe they said - they'd take him until alternative accommodation became available. Maybe they saw that he was 12 - and figured, like I do,although a very wrong thing that perhaps he wasn't all bad and it was a childish mistake without the adult comprehension of his actions.

Saying things like

Messedup? wrote: »

I said some wicked,evil things to my mother for defending this monster who destroyed my own family.

shows that you are trying to control your parents reaction to those. They obviously felt a certain way about teh situation and you hated them cos it wasn't your way. They decided to forgive and move on - your couldn't/wouldn't.

Messedup? wrote: »

I said some wicked insulting things about her own parents, My god forgive me but I just wanted to hurt her the way she was she hurting me for taking defence of this monster

notice she was hurting YOU. You sis is the victim not YOU.
You made the sexual abuse of your sister YOUR issue and you need to step back form that.

Messedup? wrote: »

My sister underwent counselling. To my amazement her anger was directed at me and my anger towards her foster brother. The way she saw it was I was the one filled with hate
and causing all the arguments and hostility in the family.

from your post you appear to recognise that you are seen to be the problem. Is this the reason for your continued anger. Perhaps your sister couldn't move on and get over it cos you kept bringing it up. You were the constant reminder. I dunno any other reason why she'd be angry at you.
For everybodys sake you need to move on.

seahorse

I haven’t read all of this thread but just want to back up the OP on two points: Firstly, Eastern Healthboard social workers are generally a bunch of ineffective incompetents and I say that as someone with nineteen years personal experience of dealing with them. My youngest natural sibling is only just coming out of state care as I type.

My second point is that yes, two year olds can behave like complete and total animals and the worst of them could rip a family apart, especially a family ill-equipped to deal with the situation through an unfamiliarity of serious social problems. I had two and three year old foster siblings myself (I was a foster child on two occasions in my very early teens) and believe me, some of the behaviour I saw out of my youngest foster siblings would give you a serious case of the creeps. Just one example: I saw toddlers physically torturing small animals with sharp implements and laughing and smiling from the great pleasure they derived from it.

People who wonder how a two year old could be classified as 'pure evil' have obviously had no dealings with children who've come from environments of pure evil, simple as that. Would I take on a foster child with that degree of very serious problems? No fcukin way; my son is too important to me.

How can anyone condone leaving a child who has been abused live with their abuser for a further four months? I can understand the OP's bitterness and anger. I believe both the OP's parents and the social workers concerned failed miserably in their duty of care.

Chinafoot

In the end, the sister is the victim. She is the one that was abused and she is the one that is trying to move on with her life. If the OP continues with this hatred the sister will never be able to fully move on.

For someone who justifies her hatred with her love for her "precious" sister, the OP is just going to hurt her sister even more.

Go seek professional help and realise that, while sexual abuse affects everyone in the family, you should be supporting the real victim in this story, your sister....not you.

LegacyUser

Im with Seahorse on this one.

OP realistically, you need to go and talk to a proper specialist. Not a psyciatrist, but a really good counsellor. Dont feel like your feeling wrong at the moment. Talk it out with someone. In years to come your sister may crash, at age 30 and she needs the family there to support her.

You never know when abuse is going to come back and haunt you, its like someone lifts a veil and you cant stop thinking about it, so you need to get counselling over again. This is only in a certain percentage of cases.

As for your vengence, I understand that the monster took something valuable from your younger sister, but you have to put it in a box and move on, not forgetting what you learnt, and move on. Bring your family and sister with you.

I do think its a little weird they were so forgiving, but maybe they were afraid of people finding out and kept their emotions bottled up. Maybe friends close to your parents at the time really knew what was going on.

Maybe this incident released a monster from inside you? You might re-examine the hatred you've displayed that is eating you up and try and put it to rest. Counselling is the best option. You are not the only person in society or let alone the world that has been affected by an evil and sick person so you shouldnt feel any inhibitions about talking about how you feel.

Just my opinion

spinandscribble

i have nothing to add except that everyone shouldn't assume the op must have been awful if the rest of the family are angry at him. generally, in sad family circumstances like this where one person is trying to bring things to the forefront instead of bottling it up, everyone else will lash out at them for this, creating a scapegoat. i talked to a professional about this type of thing happening when one member of a family can't bottle emotions about a family issue.
i think the op and her family all need to seek help. it seems like the family bottled it up out of shame and pain while the op let it consume her.

cutymonalisa

OP, I have been a lurker on Boards for many months now, and dont usually post BUT in this case I really feel compelled to do so, if only to ask you to be very careful. I used to work with the EHB/HSE and you have given away such an amount of identifying info - This country is such a small place - a public forum really is not the way to tease out such a personal issue especially when people reading may resognise you as I think I do. I'm not posting to make you feel worse just as a wee encouragement to think about how wise it is to expore your feelings in this medium , thats all