When A Parent Denies CSA

[Kizzie]

I just saw an article about a famous author here in Canada, Alice Munro, who it seems denied her daughter was sexually abused by her stepfather. This came to light recently when Munro died in May and her biography was published with no mention of the CSA even though the biographer knew about it apparently.  Here's a link to a story about this not uncommon denial on the part of a parent - https://www.cbc.ca/news/entertainment/alice-munro-biographies-1.7268296.

Another Alice who did the same thing was Alice Miller, renowned for her writing about childhood trauma. Her son wrote a book about her abuse and her denial - https://www.amazon.com/True-Drama-Gifted-Child-Phantom/dp/1980668949html

The mind boggles at such deep betrayal of one's own children, especially Alice Miller whose life was dedicated to educating people about childhood trauma.

It speaks to how deeply society's denial of child abuse, sexual or otherwise is and why it is so important for us to drag it out into the light, again and again if we must.   

[Lakelynn]

Thanks for bringing this up.

According to the first article, the author didn't include it because it was a "private family matter." As some people might say, I call B.S. This "family privacy" was a cultural norm in the 50's 60's and even 70's. Many suffered in silence and have gone on to lead lives of desperation, medically, emotionally and physically.

I had a pointed discussion with my T on Friday about what constitutes breaches of trust among family. I often wondered if I was making a mountain out of a molehill. It turns out I'm not.

Yes, these Alices who denied their children's experiences illustrate how incredibly powerful our need is to preserve our self-image, whether is it based in reality or not. This is why it is critically important not to swallow some revered "expert's" work. Dig deeper to see if they are truly authentic.

[Cascade]

Hmm, yeah, a private family matter, so keep it out of the biography?  I agree with Lakelynn's call.  And I absolutely refuse to read any of Alice Miller's work.  Maybe if I read her son's book first.  What is it with these people?!  I guess they just figure, "Oh... well, write your own book.  [Insert familial criticism.]" 

Sorry, end my lil rant.

Thank you, Kizzie, for raising this and shining a light on it. 
  -Cascade

[dollyvee]

Yeah I have problems with this as well as did some thinking about separating the "art and the artist" recently after reading, "The Fantasy Bond," and finding out the author is basically a cult leader (his references to women in the book sort of tipped me off). However, I did struggle with it as I found the concepts he wrote about to aptly describe my experience to some degree, and am wishing there is someone else writing about "limerance," and more specifically to the idea(l) of family and what you're supposed to be as a way of perpetuating the (abusive) connection to your family (and the attachment to what kept us safe).

[Little2Nothing]

Sometimes people champion causes in order to silence their own conscience. They become blind to their own hypocrisy and lead a double life. 

Humanity has such a great capacity for barbarous acts. We can justify ourselves while pointing a finger at others for the same things. All of that is a choice. 

But we can also choose to be kind and decent people. Many who have suffered under the depravity of caregivers have chosen the good over the bad. Their hearts are moved with compassion for the suffering and hurting. That's the kind of person I want to be. 

[Dalloway]

I read Alice Miller´s book and then also her son, Martin´s, in which he describes the way his mother developed this distorted second personality during the WW2 when she had to hide and basically become someone else in order to survive from the Nazis. Martin´s approach is very compassionate, which I think had to be very challenging knowing what he went through. Anyway, I just wanted to say that it´s a really interesting reading for people like me who first knew only about the pioneering work of Alice Miller in the field of childhood trauma and then from the second book got to know the whole stuff that was going on under this facade of the perfect psychoanalyst.

[Lakelynn]

Sometimes people champion causes in order to silence their own conscience. They become blind to their own hypocrisy and lead a double life.

I like this perspective Little2Nothing. Thanks.

[Desert Flower]

O dear, I have obviously been living under a stone (surviving) and not looking into any available literature, because I did not not know this about Alice Miller and her son! (I did read her book before and have some important notes by myself written in that copy.) It's so shocking to read that what she wrote and what she did is so totally different. This is really difficult to deal with and to reconcile. I'll try to find something to hold on to in what Little2Nothing's wrote. And try to digest this.

[Kizzie]

Just my thoughts here but I think Alice Miller wrote from the persepctive of the person she wanted to be, that she knew all parents need to be but with a degree of blindness to her own abuse of her children. I have no idea how this can be psychologically but it happens. When I was looking around apparently this is fairly common. It reinforces for me how we as humans do not ever want to think the unthinkable.

When I think about child abuse by priests I remember the backlash against survivors when allegations first starting coming out. But survivors refused to be silenced anymore and finally the possibility and then the reality seeped into our collective consciousness. It took a lot of voices but it happened and I'm hoping we can do the same thing with relational trauma. Enough voices and the reality of abuse/trauma cannot be kept in the dark places it often resides.

It's a good thing IMO that the two Alice's have been called to account and their children have been (mostly) believed. There are always deniers but with enough validation from those who have lived experience of  abuse/neglect and are willing to say it's real, their voices will hopefully fade and we will move forward.  These two cases do raise the question "If the parent/abuser is famous, can/should we separate the art from the artist?" as Dolly touches on. Personally I can't look at their work in the same way, just as I can't look at the comedy of Bill Cosby the same, or Michael Jackson's music, etc.  There is for me a feeling that they each in their own way sacrificed others for the sake of their art and ego.

[Desert Flower]

Me too, I find it very hard to separate the author and the mother in this case.
I think you're right Kizzie, that people do not and cannot sometimes think the unthinkable, because it's too much to bear.
Relating to my own situation, I think that's why my brain and central nervous system for a very long time thought it was better to give me many physical complaints instead of processing the emotions and feelings that needed to be processed. For a long time, it would have been too much for me too handle. I think now, slowly and slowly, I'm getting around to feeling and aknowledgeing what's really there.
As for my m, I think it would be totally unthinkable and anbearable for her to hear what really happened between us. My abuser, same story. Denial denial denial. Somehow, people need to think that they are all right. It takes a very brave person to see what they did wrong or what wrongs were done to them.

[Kizzie]

You know I was watching a show about an animal recovery organization in Canada the other night and one of it's vets went to help deal with a large animal hoarding situation in the US (she was another set of experienced hands). She had seen abuse but never on the scale of this house of horrors. The owner said she was rescuing the animals but they were in deplorable shape, some obviously starving to death and worse. I couldn't watch it all. 

The thing that stood out to me was how absolutely traumatized the Cdn vet was despite being an experienced wildlife rescuer. She said since she came back she would just burst into tears at odd times and was having trouble coming to terms with what she saw and had to deal with there. All I could think was "Of course, it was traumatizing to see animals in that much distress" and that this is how difficult it is to get one's mind around abuse/neglect of animals and humans. It is unfathomable, unthinkable and many of us find we need to turn away as I did when I could not watch any more.

I was thankful there were many there who were able to get the animals out of there and deal with them, even if it meant euthanizing them. In a similar vein I am always and forever grateful to the clinicians who don't turn away from us and what we have been through, but of course we need more. There are so many of us and at the moment so few of them.

And just like other movements such as BLM, MeToo or the Vietnam Vets who got PTSD into the top two diagnostic manuals (DSM and ICD), I believe we need to be a part of bringing these unthinkable, deplorable acts into public consciousness.   

[Desert Flower]

Yes Kizzie I think you're right. And this not only goes for the cases that are overtly deplorable but it would need to also include the cases where every seems fine on the outside but it is really not.

[Kizzie]

So true DF, good point. It's like if you can't see it, it easier to say it doesn't exist. I have that issue with my back.  The pain can be really intense and yet "nothing to see here folks' so I often feel like people think I'm lying to get out of work, gain sympathy, etc.

Perhaps that is part of what makes it easier to deny CSA; no-one actually sees it except the perpetrator and victim. And if the victim is young, they can be silenced or made to feel they are making things up. Physical abuse on the other hand is clear and is likely why there is more attention paid to it (finally).

Just noodling here. I like throwing ideas around, digging deeper so we get a fuller understanding.     

[Phoebes]

Thanks Kizzie, I saw that recently and wasn't surprised. I'm glad there are brave people simply speaking the truth. What a concept.

The one star reviews on Martin's book are quite triggering. Mom? Is that you? One thing I know is true- some people will never be able to handle the truth.

[Papa Coco]

Our human ability to see horrible things and just pretend we didn't see them is one of the most insidious talents we have.

I once watched an episode of DatelineNBC. Lester Holt was telling the documentary of a man who'd been murdered here in the US. As the story unfolded, it started to come out that this man had been sexually abusing boys, and that perhaps it had been one of the boys who'd grown up and come back to take revenge. During the story, it came out too that this man tended to frequent gay bars.  Then, the REAL CREEPY THING was, they interviewed this man's former best friend, who said...Hang on to your hats, folks, this idiot really said it right into the camera. This creep said, "Well I'm okay with him being into little boys, but Gay? NO WAY WAS HE GAY!"  This sleezy, stupid, hick southerner was okay with his friend raping boys, but couldn't get accept the mere idea that maybe he was gay too.

That was a real eye opener for me. A true example of how it is that stupid people find it easier to sacrifice their children than it is to protect them.

I used to work with parents of abused children, and I used to advise that if they don't need to prosecute the offender, they'd be better off not doing it. The courts and the lawyers tended to emotionally rape the children all over again on the witness stand. The prosecution almost never won (This was the 1990s). The child's name gets posted publicly and their whole world turns against them. Going back to school after the world finds out you were molested is just setting the child up for suicide.

Once people accept that a child was molested, that child is never treated the same way again. Parents hide it or refuse to believe it. Teachers and fellow classmates look at that child differently. Often, that child is accused of hurting the man's repiutation who raped them by telling the truth of what he'd done to them.

People just simply do not want to deal with the fact that some adults rape children. Our power to pretend it didn't happen is too strong. People just want to pretend it didn't happen. All too often the child gets blamed for the rape. It's one of the cruelest things we humans do to each other.

My parents wouldn't do anything about it. Priests were to be respected no matter what horrible things they did to the kids. And for a Catholic to tattle on a pedophile priest, well...that loses friends and makes the rest of the Catholics hate YOU, not the priest.

Socially, physically, emotionally, addressing child rape is just too much reality for some people to deal with like adults.

And, from what we see in the school systems and their BS anti-bullying campaigns, I have found it to be true that teachers and principals punish the bullied child rather than the bully because, let's face it, a bullied child isn't scary. The bullies are scary. The rapists are scary. The victims are easier to deal with. So most schools punish the bullied kids, and most people find it safer to accuse the child of wrongdoing rather than risk losing friends by accusing the scary man.

I'm very aware that my post has a lot of anger in it. Welcome to my world. Adults who refuse to address child sexual abuse is one of my hottest hot buttons. The whole thing just enrages me. Too close to home. My mother was more interested in being a good Catholic than she was in protecting her son. I've never become okay with that.