Feelings After Incest Happens In Your Family

Being a parent is one of the most difficult jobs we can experience. Parenting a child victimized by sexual abuse can feel overwhelming, and you may need to seek special help to cope with your child’s abuse. You will experience many thoughts and feelings that you have never had before. Be assured that you are not alone. Here are some feelings you may experience.

• Your first reaction may be one of horror, shock, and disbelief that comes from feeling disgraced. You want it all to go away. Part of the shock is to feel numb, confused, guilty, and betrayed. You may suddenly feel cut off from your spouse or partner, and your child who has been abused. Your emotional ties have been fractured, and you may be wondering what to do.
• You may fear that other people will find out, and you may feel embarrassed and guilty. You may feel inadequate as a parent, and husband or wife, wondering if this is your fault.
• You have been put in the middle, having to choose between your spouse or partner, and your child. You stand to lose a lot no matter how you choose. You may also feel victimized by this situation that you were not part of, yet must shoulder now. You may feel frustrated at having the responsibility for resolving this problem you didn’t create. Your frustration may lead to anger and sometimes rage.
• You may also fear the destruction of your family. Your loved one, who did the abusing, may go to jail. Your child may go to a foster home.
• You may fear a loss of economic support too, or have anxiety in having to support your family financially.
• Even harder is also the fact that you may abhor the abuse, and the loved one who committed it, but care for this person all at the same time.
• Nearly all parents of incest victims has some degree of denial upon first learning about the abuse. You don’t need to consider this resistance. Denial is also an important survival tool. It helps dilute the pain, and it helps to absorb the intense anger and fear. It can buy you valuable time until you are strong enough to face the problem for yourself.
• You may also feel anger towards human service systems, like Social Services because you may feel as though you have been accused. You may also feel misunderstood, and like human services workers tell you what to do without regard for you feelings and anxieties.
• You may have even been sexually abused as a child, and discovering it in your own family may bring up unresolved feelings which complicate the current problems.
• Some parents may feel jealous of their children, and may wonder if, for example, their daughter behaved seductively.
• Nearly all parents of incest victims has some degree of denial upon first learning about the abuse. Denial isn’t just resistance. It is an important survival tool. It helps dilute the pain, and absorb the intense anger and fear. It can buy you time until you are strong enough to face the problem.
• You may also feel some ambivalence toward your partner and your child, but not the abuse itself. It takes time to absorb this kind of information, and the fact that you may have to physically intervene to protect your child can be particularly difficult.
• Even harder is also the fact that you may abhor the abuse, and the one who committed it, but care for this person all at the same time.
• You may also feel anger towards human service systems, like Social Services, because you may feel as though you have been accused.
• You may also feel misunderstood, and dislike human services workers telling you what to do without regard for your feelings and anxieties.

Adapted from Connections: WCASA Quarterly Educational Newsletter “Vicarious Traumati[z]ation;” Volume IX, Issue I, January 1995.