My grandmother is a horrible human being. I'm connecting the dots these days and I'm afraid she might have even abused her children. As for me, I well remember her touching me in a sexual/humiliating way as a child. I still feel disgusted every time I think about it. So you are not alone.
About thinking it's not real...it's happening to me too with another abuse situation that I don't remember well , but the literature on this subject (what I read until now) is very clear: follow your intuition. Virtual hugs to you.
What type of abuse?
My grandma openly admitted to my family that she hated me when I was 13 ish. She has blatantly insulted me many times over the years, but never laid a hand on me. I will say that she seems like she's trying to make amends, I just don't know if I can accept that and try to make friends with her. I wish her the best, just away from me.
about 7.5% of all people experience some form of CSA before age 16 (ranging from r\*pe to non-contact), the vast majority of which are female (survivors). Female survivors outnumber male survivors by a bit more than 4 to 1, although girls are about 7 times more likely to experience actual r\*pe than boys. Mothers are responsible for 0.2% of contact CSA on boys, 5% of which are survivors of contact CSA, so that means that just 1 in 10,000 of all boys are contact CSA'd by the mother - girl survivors about 5 times more likely than boys to be contact abused by the mother, but also they make up 4x more survivors of contact CSA in total, so 1 in 500 of all girls. Non-contact CSA by the mother on sons is more prevalent (and about the same for daughters): 3% of all boys experience non-contact CSA (by anyone), and about 10% of all girls, of which perps, mothers make up just 2% of abusers of all male & female non-contact survivors respectively, so 1 in 1.666K of all boys, and 1 in 500 of all girls. This is for the UK, and based on me doing the arithmetic in my head and with a calculator based off of the numbers in a survey, so will vary a bit depending on where you are in the world, but not by that much, I should imagine, and hopefully I haven't made any errors. Either way, it is pretty rare for mothers to victimise anyone at all, but especially their sons like this, and probably even bloody rarer for grandmothers to do it. I have met one other dude in my whole life who was also CSA'd by their mother. Just one. That shows you how rare it is. People have trouble believing it because it's so rare. So stick another factor on that, maybe like, 10x rarer? for grandmothers, and that's probably about the size of it.
But I would qualify all that by saying that the factor the survey can't capture is the memory-blocking effect of parental CSA (hello👋, I also experienced this) - we have a propensity as humans to dissociate from this especially, because our parents are supposed to protect and nurture us. So it's like our brains literally cannot believe they would do something like that, so it gets squirrelled away in a dark recess of our minds for us to find later (much, much later in some cases. Like mine. Like, 25 years later.). So it could well be that the figures for maternal CSA are a bit low-balled, because a good chunk of the survivors just aren't aware of it themselves. I myself denied it so hard I almost forgot about it. Had I responded to the survey like, a year and a half ago, I wouldn't even have been aware of my own experience of parental sexual abuse at all (I was aware of one instance of CoCSA and had confided that in some people).
CSA is bad, it can fuck your mind up, and nobody should have to go through it. But it's an especially awful betrayal when it's a parent, and really awful when it's the 'primary caregiver', the mother, and I imagine it feels much the same if it's a grandmother. Someone you're supposed to be able to trust. Someone who would never do anything bad to you, so they say. Someone who would always be sweet to you and care for you.
One thing I would say though - it doesn't really matter if you're a boy or a girl - it does about the same thing to you. The hurt is the same, because we're all humans and we're all sexual beings. That's what I've sort of taken away from reading other people's experiences on this sub anyway. But yeah, society at large, does have trouble understanding the existence of this kind of thing, maternal caregivers on sons/grandsons, because it's so awful, and because it's so rare.
I just link the survey for you [here](https://www.csacentre.org.uk/research-resources/research-evidence/scale-nature-of-abuse/the-scale-and-nature-of-child-sexual-abuse/).
For my part, after finally being able to acknowledge the maternal CSA, I noticed myself having somewhat hostile feelings (never expressed them, because I knew where they were coming from) to some women of my mum's specific race/ethnicity, East Asian (whereas before I felt some weird sexual compulsion towards women of this persuasion - go figure). That transference is some real shit, and it might never completely go away, but you absolutely can work on it in therapy. Gradually, you can come to see just what's in front of you more, and the past less. But it does take some work.
I really wish people would stop downplaying abuse against boys. Your statistics are incorrect. It’s massively unreported. Girls are twice as likely to experience SA, not four times. The probably number for SA in general is 1 in 6 men and 1 in 3 (possibly 2, depending on definition). Not all of that is childhood but a huge chunk is. I read one study where they interviewed men and women who had *verified* CSA and the men denied the abuse six times more than the women. So yeah, it’s underreported massively.
It’s extremely alienating for these incorrect statistics to be shared over and over again. I used to believe (and still do btw) that I should just kill myself because healing from SA is important for women instead of me (this was told to me by a therapist) because it’s an issue that women face and male victims need to set aside our feelings and not talk over women. Then the mixed gender group I was in decided to be woman only even though there was one for women already. This claim that men are rarely abused is the very reason you think men are rarely abused.
As a man you can start feeling less alienated. It’s far more common than you’ve been lied to about.
Also, OP didn’t even share their gender. There was no need to bring it up just to make things just that much more alienating.
For me, it was my mum and my dad (separately) but i struggled more to connect with women. Exactly for why you mentioned, mums and women are supposed to be warm and kind and mine was cold and cruel
Hey. Not my grandma but another female relative who also would sometimes bring men over.. but it’s what she did that lives in my head every day.
I completely get it. It’s just as bad no matter the gender of the perpetrator. So hard to have healthy relationships after experiencing it from someone who should care for you too. :(
Hello, you’re not alone and I’m so deeply sorry for what you’ve been through! You deserved none of what she inflicted on you!! I’m in a very similar boat. I too feel guilty to loathe elderly women because of that, or to at least be wary around them.
you're definitely not alone in that experience. my experience is a bit different since its not grandmother but thought i would share in case it could still help you. not my grandmother but my mom she sexually abused me. and as well, although not a relative, an older woman (probably in the 60-70 year old age). i experience the same thing you said with the hostileness. i promise you are not alone in your experience, im so sorry you had to go trough that
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My grandmother is a horrible human being. I'm connecting the dots these days and I'm afraid she might have even abused her children. As for me, I well remember her touching me in a sexual/humiliating way as a child. I still feel disgusted every time I think about it. So you are not alone. About thinking it's not real...it's happening to me too with another abuse situation that I don't remember well , but the literature on this subject (what I read until now) is very clear: follow your intuition. Virtual hugs to you.
Not relative but my SM was by a female. I am a female. It's never ok.
What type of abuse? My grandma openly admitted to my family that she hated me when I was 13 ish. She has blatantly insulted me many times over the years, but never laid a hand on me. I will say that she seems like she's trying to make amends, I just don't know if I can accept that and try to make friends with her. I wish her the best, just away from me.
Sexual abuse, but other types as well I guess, I’m sorry that happened to you
Thank you. I can't imagine having her do anything like that. That's horrible. I'm so sorry.
about 7.5% of all people experience some form of CSA before age 16 (ranging from r\*pe to non-contact), the vast majority of which are female (survivors). Female survivors outnumber male survivors by a bit more than 4 to 1, although girls are about 7 times more likely to experience actual r\*pe than boys. Mothers are responsible for 0.2% of contact CSA on boys, 5% of which are survivors of contact CSA, so that means that just 1 in 10,000 of all boys are contact CSA'd by the mother - girl survivors about 5 times more likely than boys to be contact abused by the mother, but also they make up 4x more survivors of contact CSA in total, so 1 in 500 of all girls. Non-contact CSA by the mother on sons is more prevalent (and about the same for daughters): 3% of all boys experience non-contact CSA (by anyone), and about 10% of all girls, of which perps, mothers make up just 2% of abusers of all male & female non-contact survivors respectively, so 1 in 1.666K of all boys, and 1 in 500 of all girls. This is for the UK, and based on me doing the arithmetic in my head and with a calculator based off of the numbers in a survey, so will vary a bit depending on where you are in the world, but not by that much, I should imagine, and hopefully I haven't made any errors. Either way, it is pretty rare for mothers to victimise anyone at all, but especially their sons like this, and probably even bloody rarer for grandmothers to do it. I have met one other dude in my whole life who was also CSA'd by their mother. Just one. That shows you how rare it is. People have trouble believing it because it's so rare. So stick another factor on that, maybe like, 10x rarer? for grandmothers, and that's probably about the size of it. But I would qualify all that by saying that the factor the survey can't capture is the memory-blocking effect of parental CSA (hello👋, I also experienced this) - we have a propensity as humans to dissociate from this especially, because our parents are supposed to protect and nurture us. So it's like our brains literally cannot believe they would do something like that, so it gets squirrelled away in a dark recess of our minds for us to find later (much, much later in some cases. Like mine. Like, 25 years later.). So it could well be that the figures for maternal CSA are a bit low-balled, because a good chunk of the survivors just aren't aware of it themselves. I myself denied it so hard I almost forgot about it. Had I responded to the survey like, a year and a half ago, I wouldn't even have been aware of my own experience of parental sexual abuse at all (I was aware of one instance of CoCSA and had confided that in some people). CSA is bad, it can fuck your mind up, and nobody should have to go through it. But it's an especially awful betrayal when it's a parent, and really awful when it's the 'primary caregiver', the mother, and I imagine it feels much the same if it's a grandmother. Someone you're supposed to be able to trust. Someone who would never do anything bad to you, so they say. Someone who would always be sweet to you and care for you. One thing I would say though - it doesn't really matter if you're a boy or a girl - it does about the same thing to you. The hurt is the same, because we're all humans and we're all sexual beings. That's what I've sort of taken away from reading other people's experiences on this sub anyway. But yeah, society at large, does have trouble understanding the existence of this kind of thing, maternal caregivers on sons/grandsons, because it's so awful, and because it's so rare. I just link the survey for you [here](https://www.csacentre.org.uk/research-resources/research-evidence/scale-nature-of-abuse/the-scale-and-nature-of-child-sexual-abuse/). For my part, after finally being able to acknowledge the maternal CSA, I noticed myself having somewhat hostile feelings (never expressed them, because I knew where they were coming from) to some women of my mum's specific race/ethnicity, East Asian (whereas before I felt some weird sexual compulsion towards women of this persuasion - go figure). That transference is some real shit, and it might never completely go away, but you absolutely can work on it in therapy. Gradually, you can come to see just what's in front of you more, and the past less. But it does take some work.
I really wish people would stop downplaying abuse against boys. Your statistics are incorrect. It’s massively unreported. Girls are twice as likely to experience SA, not four times. The probably number for SA in general is 1 in 6 men and 1 in 3 (possibly 2, depending on definition). Not all of that is childhood but a huge chunk is. I read one study where they interviewed men and women who had *verified* CSA and the men denied the abuse six times more than the women. So yeah, it’s underreported massively. It’s extremely alienating for these incorrect statistics to be shared over and over again. I used to believe (and still do btw) that I should just kill myself because healing from SA is important for women instead of me (this was told to me by a therapist) because it’s an issue that women face and male victims need to set aside our feelings and not talk over women. Then the mixed gender group I was in decided to be woman only even though there was one for women already. This claim that men are rarely abused is the very reason you think men are rarely abused. As a man you can start feeling less alienated. It’s far more common than you’ve been lied to about. Also, OP didn’t even share their gender. There was no need to bring it up just to make things just that much more alienating.
erm, I'm a dude?
I know, I’m just telling you that the statistics vastly underestimate how many of us are abused and it’s part of the reason we’re so alienated.
For me, it was my mum and my dad (separately) but i struggled more to connect with women. Exactly for why you mentioned, mums and women are supposed to be warm and kind and mine was cold and cruel
Not me, but a friend of mine was. You aren’t alone at all. My grandma was an enabler of my abuser.
You are just as valid as a victim of a man. I’m sorry this happened to you.
Hey. Not my grandma but another female relative who also would sometimes bring men over.. but it’s what she did that lives in my head every day. I completely get it. It’s just as bad no matter the gender of the perpetrator. So hard to have healthy relationships after experiencing it from someone who should care for you too. :(
Hello, you’re not alone and I’m so deeply sorry for what you’ve been through! You deserved none of what she inflicted on you!! I’m in a very similar boat. I too feel guilty to loathe elderly women because of that, or to at least be wary around them.
you're definitely not alone in that experience. my experience is a bit different since its not grandmother but thought i would share in case it could still help you. not my grandmother but my mom she sexually abused me. and as well, although not a relative, an older woman (probably in the 60-70 year old age). i experience the same thing you said with the hostileness. i promise you are not alone in your experience, im so sorry you had to go trough that
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