Please help me understand what is going on with my niece who was sexually abused by her father? A few years ago, my niece who was 4-5 years old at the time told me things her "father" was doing to her. I told child services, the police, my doctor, and nothing could be proven, so nothing was done. My sister and her husband would never let me see my niece again. She is now 9 years old. We all used to live in the same building on the same floor and my niece was over at my place much of the time. (Long story, but my sister and her husband were very neglectful of her and I loved her like as if she was my daughter and I still do.) She loved me so much and would cry to come to my apartment and my sister and her husband were very jealous so my sister would get mad at me because she always wanted to come to my place. Anyway, I can't express here the horror of knowing I could do nothing to help my niece and no one would help. My niece too went through a horrible time. She was not allowed to talk to me ever again even when I would see her in the hallway in the building. She was in fear of her "father". They moved away soon after and hid where they went, even from my mom because my mom knew things were going on, yet she never called child services. I don't want anything to do with my sister who protected and still protects her child-rapist husband and hid what he was doing to my niece. Back then, before I knew about the abuse, and when I heard my niece cry and scream that she didn't want to go home (when my sister would come get her from my place). One night when she did this she told my sister and me why she was so scared to go home (because her father was doing this and this and this to her) My sister slapped her across the head and said: "Stop saying those stupid things!!" and got really mad at her and pulled her really hard by the arm into her apartment and shut the door on me. I waited and listened at the door. She yelled at my 4 year old niece and said: "Tell him! Tell him what you just said!" My niece was crying (a really awful horrifying cry) saying: "I can't, I can't, dada's going to be so mad at me!" And my sister yelled at her again, then my niece said to her: "I'm scared dada's going to make me bite his penis". And he laughed and acted like she was just saying silly things. It was a nightmare for my niece and still is and is for me too. Who knows how he threatened her after that. Well.. I know some of it, he would threaten her and make her cry and say: "Do you want the police to come and take you away? Do you want them to come take your brother away, do you want them to take your mother away?" He made her believe that if she tells, the police will take her family away. Instead what was truth is that they would just take her perpetrator away. They silenced her. They scared her. Both of them. They are disgusting. After I told the authorities is when my niece was never allowed to speak to me again. So now, fast forward 4 years later my sister wants me back in her life but I am so disgusted with her for hiding the abuse to protect her husband and I don't want anything to do with her. And she took away 4 years from my nieces life with me. My niece came to me for protection and to have time away from her abusive father and then she lost that. She had no escape, not even for the few hours that she was at my house everyday from being a newborn to just when she turned 5 years old. I remember her as a cute small child and now she is a big girl and I lost those years because of my sister protecting the sick pervert. But my niece was at my mom's today and my mom phoned me and put my niece on the phone. I said: "Hi!! How are you?!" (I was so happy hear her voice after so many years.) She said: "Hi" and "Fine" then I said: "Do you remember me?" She said: "Yeah". I said: "I love you" and tried not to cry, then she said: "Ok Bye". She seemed calm at first when she said hi, but as soon as I said that I loved her she was in such a hurry to get off the phone, I couldn't even say "Bye".
Can someone help me please understand why she reacted like this? My thoughts are that she is trying to cut off her emotions and doesn't want to "feel" so when I told her I loved her, she didn't want to remember because I was like a mother to her and then in an instant she was never allowed to see me again. I then think that maybe she hates me because I wasn't able to save her. I have never been the same since the stupid authorities never protected her and I have been so angry and felt so helpless knowing that there was this child, whom I love more than anyone else on earth, in danger and being so horribly sexually abused. I feel so crushed that she may think that I didn't care about saving her when that's so far from the truth. What do you think she is thinking? Why would she hurry off the phone when I said that I love her? Please help me understand and I don't know what to do. I don't know if he is still sexually abusing her or not. I could only hope he stopped when he almost got in trouble for it back then. But then, the way his personality is, he may have done it even more and has continued because he laughed that he got away with it.
Btw, this is so great and so kind of you Cynthia to be helping us by posting your thoughts on things troubling us. For some of us, this is the first step and only way to open up for now.
Wow this is such a heartbreaking story! I can't imagine anything sader or more frustrating than being helpless to protect a child, especially one you love so much, from being abused by her parents.
Of course neither of us can know what your neice is thinking or feeling, but I would guess something similar to what you said. She's had 5 more years of abuse and shame and disgust and rage and betrayal and loss to deal with and undoubtably has found a way to separate herself from her unbearable feelings she has no one to help her with. On top of that, her parents have probably convinced her that you are the root of all her problems. Perhaps they've told her that you abandoned her, betrayed the family, tried to break it up, etc. As absolutely infuriating as that is, it would be consistent with the rest of what they've done. There is no way they would explain to her broken heart that they took her away from you because you were loving and not abusive and they needed to hide their abuse from you. They would have made you the bad guy so she could hate you and not them.
The interesting thing is your sister wanting you back in her life. Why does she, after all of that? This could be an opportunity to help your neice, if even a little.
For 25 years, compassionately helping women heal from depression, and it's
destructive criticism, losses and traumas, while building self-acceptance and confidence.
