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Remember that sexual abuse is never the victim’s/survivor’s fault. Reminding them of that is crucial.

Shame and self-blame from incest are insidious for survivors. Left uncontested, they compound the trauma.

Parents are obligated to see and deal with sexual abuse in their families. They can do it. They are doing it.

Normalize talking about incest/intrafamilial sexual abuse. Break the cycle by teaching consent and agency.

Do you want to support sexual abuse survivors? Then work to prevent more kids from being sexually abused, especially in their families by their family members. Bring the reality of sexual abuse and incest into the light.

Follow the examples of parents who are addressing sexual abuse in their families

Over the last two years, I’ve spent a lot of time talking with parents who are dealing with sibling sexual abuse and trauma in their families. Recently, I was on a panel of sibling sexual abuse survivors and parents of survivors and abusers. Hearing the stories of parents of survivors is one of the most transformative experiences I’ve had in over 50 years since I was sexually assaulted by my brother.

I still have to let this sink in: there are parents who learn about and address the abuse when it is happening. They stop it. They deal with it as a family. Other parents learn about the abuse through disclosure by survivors after it has stopped, and they confront the harm.

This was not my experience with my parents. So it takes me a minute.

Generational trauma continues harming, so address it in your family

I have known for a long time that both of my parents suffered trauma early in their lives that they never addressed. That meant they hadn’t learned how to confront, deal with, stop, or even recognize the trauma that was being inflicted on their own children.

This history left me and my siblings vulnerable, vulnerable both to being harmed and to causing harm.

Recovering from sexual trauma takes a ton of work. Over the years, I’ve concentrated on putting myself back together emotionally and psychologically, calming my nervous system, and reclaiming my feistiness, creativity, joy, and self-worth. Blaming myself for somehow causing the abuse has been the hardest to see, manage, and overcome. Self-blame, and the shame that comes with it, often have the tightest grip on survivors. That certainly has been true for me.

Reassure survivors that the sexual abuse was not their fault

Even after I told my family about my brother sexually assaulting me, they didn’t tell me it wasn’t my fault. I didn’t know how badly I needed to hear that from them; how critical it would be for my recovery to be reminded of the fact that it was not my fault, that I did nothing to cause the abuse, that there was nothing inherently bad in me that made him target me.

So this is what I want you to understand. From the day my brother cornered me in the closet where I hid when we were playing hide and seek, I was sure it was my fault he sexually assaulted me. I will repeat that. I was sure it was my fault that someone else assaulted me.

We need others to recognize (and reassure us) that it was not our fault, that we did nothing to bring it on, that there is nothing wrong with us or inherently bad in us that made us culpable. We were victimized. Support your child(ren)/sibling(s) just as you would if someone outside the family had assaulted us.

Blaming myself, mixed with shame that had kept me scared and quiet, cemented my feelings of being bad, unworthy, inadequate, and just plain undeserving of anything good in my life. These still show up today, decades after the abuse began. This is what survivors live with.

And believe me, I have worked doggedly to unearth these feelings, knowing that they were (and are) lies.

The Fundamentals of Sex

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By the time I told my family about the abuse, I had felt culpable for a solid 12 years. Do I think that if they had told me then that it was not my fault, it would have made a difference in the next 40 years of my life? I sure do.

Create a culture of consent in your family

Here are some other things that could have made a difference, so that I wouldn’t have had to do all this work by myself, so that what happened in our family would have been shouldered by the family and dealt with as a family.

If someone had taught me that saying no to someone in my family would be respected. Instead, when I tried to get someone to stop tickling me, they laughed and kept tickling me.

If someone had shown me what it meant to ask for help to be safe, and when I didn’t feel safe. Instead, I felt ashamed for feeling unsafe, kept quiet, and blamed myself for not being stronger and less scared.

If someone had asked me for consent, waited for my answer, and accepted what I said. Instead, I was told to eat what was put on my plate even though I had said I didn’t like the taste.

If someone had asked me why I was frustrated or upset. Instead, powerlessness was drilled into me when I voiced frustration or started to cry at something unfair in our house, and my dad cut me off and told me to go to the den until I could “act right.”

If someone had made and kept a house rule that secrets were not allowed in our house. Instead, I kept secret what my brother was doing to me, not telling them until I was ready to explode (and was out of the house) 12 years later.

Talk. Tell the truth. Seek out the truth. Step up.

So when I meet and talk to parents who are confronting the fact of sexual abuse in their families, I have hope. I have hope that naming the abuse and talking about how to deal with it and its consequences will be the necessary predicates to recovery and healing. I have hope that they are making a difference in their own kids’ lives and will extend to prevention and healing in other people’s lives.

Don’t put the burden of untangling the tenacious and insidious shame and blame on the one who was victimized. The shame and blame after sexual abuse was not theirs to begin with and never will be. Step up, no matter how hard it is. Step in, take responsibility, and require accountability, no matter how hard it is.

Be brave. Seek truth. Deal with the mess, the trauma, the broken trust, and broken relationships. By confronting what really happened and why, along with the life-long consequences, maybe healing can begin by the family and in the family.

To find a therapist near you, visit the Psychology Today Therapy Directory.

Gisèle Pelicot (France). December 3, 2024. Rape survivors like Gisèle Pelicot are choosing to speak out, refuting the idea that they should feel shame. In The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/rape-survivors-like-gisele-pelicot-are-choosing-to-speak-out-refuting-the-idea-that-they-should-feel-shame-243659.https://doi.org/10.64628/AAI.q6s6x3cmm.

Shaw, R. (2007). Meaning in context: The role of context and language in narratives of disclosure of sibling sexual assault. Union Institute and University, ProQuest Dissertations & Theses. 3299621.

Shaw, R. Ed. (2003). Not Child’s Play: An Anthology on Brother-Sister Incest, Second Edition. Lunchbox Press. https://www.notchildsplay.com/store/p/not-childs-play-f6e6f

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