ParentSurvivors.com…

My heart breaks to share this here but our daughter who broke up with her boyfriend last Christmas and had the drinking problem in April is gone.  She took her life in September and left no note, and no indication that anything was wrong.  By all intents and purposes she seemed happy and getting her life on track. She had a great job with excellent pay, was living the corporate life, had lots of friends and a busy social life and was due to fly overseas for a 5 week holiday only a week later.

It has been 3 weeks now and we still don’t know why she did this.  What tipped her over the edge?

Once again my husband and I are going through intense periods of anger (how could she do this to us?, who told her how to do that?  who is responsible?) and extreme grief and pain.  Why didn’t we see any signs?  How could we have stopped this? What did we do wrong?

Whilst we know in our heads the answers to some of these questions our hearts just won’t believe the answers.  We’re told that often those who take this action do not let on and appear happy on the outside to all.

We cannot help but think that the path she took in her early teen years, shortly after learning that what her grandfather did was very wrong, has led to this result with disastrous consequences.  Will we ever feel happy again?  Will life ever feel normal again?  It doesn’t feel like it will.

I haven’t posted here for some time. It’s never far from my mind but I manage to keep it behind me… most of the time.

Our girls have been getting on with their lives for the most part, but periodically things come out. One has broken up with a boyfriend and we thought that this was at her instigation and she was happy but a few weeks ago she had a night out with workmates, too much to drink, and it all came flooding back to her. She did some things she would never normally do if she was sober - it scared both her father and me. We can thank God that it all turned out ok and she was protected.

Another daughter has gone back to counselling but she doesn’t share what about. Can’t help wondering if it’s all about this. She’s in her mid 20s, never had a boyfriend and her dad is the only male she’ll come close to.  Doing her studies, trying to get work, it’s probably all crowding in on her.

And the third seems happy in her work and social life but won’t let any guys get close. She has a mouth that tends to scare guys off - she can give back as good as they give and lots more. It will have to be a very caring, and patient man who captures her heart. She jokes about it all but underneath I can’t help thinking my father is responsible for this.

Our girls should have had normal happy teenage lives and in regular circumstances they should all have happy relationships too by now. Our other two daughters (one older, one younger) are both married and happy… and were not touched by my father.  Kind of makes you think, doesn’t it?

Recent events with a group I belong to online has indicated someone like my father has been hanging around the group. It immediately conjours up all sorts of ideas and thoughts amongst others as the word gets around and immediately I begin to view every male on the list as suspicious. I know I shouldn’t but can’t help it. It’s the same when I’m out in the street and see older men walking or shuffling along - someone who could be in the same age group as my dad. I wonder if their grandkids were safe with them as my kids should have been with their’s.

There’s a news report this morning on the radio - it’s not yet showing up in the papers online.  It tells of a counsellor who stood up and spoke of a convicted paedophile as a ‘loving caring man’ in his defense.

The mothers of the victims are insensed and so am I.   I doubt that counselor has any kids of her/his own, and if they do, their children have not been touched by this insidious behaviour.
I’m a mother who has some daughters who have been defiled by my own father.  I had no idea he was like that - he wasn’t when I was a child - at least not to me or my sisters but I have reason to believe he may have been to at least one of my school friends - only I didn’t know it at the time.

These events took place when our children were left in his (and my mother’s) care whilst we were away some time ago.  He has been reported to the police and is being monitored - he lives in another state.

I would say my father is also a loving caring man but that doesn’t mean we agree with what he’s done and that ‘loving and caring’ has been screwed up.  I would never say that in his defense - if he ends up in jail he deserves it.  I don’t want to see my father again - it hurts too much to know that he abused the trust my husband and I had in him and my mum and it has definitely broken our family relationships as a result.

Our girls are growing up and want to put this thing behind them - for that reason I have been careful not to identify who I am or my children. My daughters’ identities should be protected but I felt I should speak out as this is an important issue and not one to be shoved under a carpet somewhere.

It’s been months since I’ve spoken to dad. I no longer ring their home as I don’t want to get him on the phone but I would like to talk to mum now and then. Instead I write her emails and she writes back. I know dad reads them but at least I don’t have to talk to him. I wouldn’t know what to say anymore and it would just be awkward.

He still insists he’s done nothing wrong but when you have not one, not two, but three daughters who all say the same thing, how can you hold any doubt that what they say is true? When only one was saying it, and she is my step-daughter, I didn’t know what to believe and couldn’t help thinking perhaps she’d mixed up something in her young mind and confused the facts. When her sister later confirmed and gave more details I was faced with the fact that my dad had certainly done something wrong and I had to accept that. And when a third confirmed it, one of my own daughters, I began to see my father as someone I no longer knew, an animal who dared to touch his own granddaughters (step or not) with his fantasies - things that they should never have been included a part of.

The girls are in their 20s now and it happened preteen to all of three of them. There is no way these girls would make up something like this and then carry it on all these years into adulthood. And what my husband and I have read and learnt in the past months is that young children don’t make those things up. How could they possibly know and describe what they had if they hadn’t been introduced to something like that?

I so much want to go back to the way life used to be, when I used to love and adore my father but I’ve lost him and I would much rather it had been through death than through something like this. My heart grieves so much and I still don’t know how to get over it - will I ever?

Mum’s letters aren’t coming as frequently as they used to. I contacted my brother and one of my sisters to see if they are still getting them - they are. So I have no idea if dad’s stopped sending them to me for mum (as he’s the one that manages the computer and email) or if it’s purely co-incidental and they’ve gotten lost in cyberspace somewhere. I got one a couple of weeks ago but none last weekend again.

My brother rang dad on his birthday but didn’t speak to him for too long and mainly chatted with mum. He says dad sounds bitter now. I suffered a brief moment of guilt and then thought ‘why should I feel that way? It wasn’t me who did the wrong thing’.

How I hate what this has done to my family! My 50th is later this year and whilst I’m planning to have a party mum and dad won’t be invited. That saddens me - I’d like to see mum and make sure she’s ok but I won’t invite them here otherwise some of our daughters won’t want to be here and this is the home they grew up in. I really hate that dad’s done this to our family and I guess he never ever thought of the consequences either when he was having his ‘playtime’. Ughh!

bitter feelings, moment of guilt