Okay, first things first: this is going to sound like to sort of thing I should talk to my IRL friends and my parents about; I already have, and they just sort of danced around the topic. Hopefully, my fellow Escapists won't. Second: This one's going to be a wall of text. The faint of heart should turn back now. And finally, the situations I'm about to describe should probably be avoided by the younger or easily offended Escapists. Still here? Brace yourself, here we go.
A few months ago, my sister told me and my parents that, up until about a year ago, one of my older friends had been molesting her. I had already had my suspicions before that, which is why I broke off my friendship with him, but my sister was close with his sister, and I couldn't just tell her to break it off.
Here, however, is where it gets complicated. This guy had been my friend for many years, and according to her, the molestation had begun from nearly the day we met him, at which point he would have been 12, I would have been around 8 or 9, and she would have been 7. And as I listened to her describe what had happened, I realized that what she was describing didn't sound like molestation: hugging, attempted kissing, and a few attempts to slip his hand under her shirt. The most important thing is this: he stopped when asked to stop, but would try again on subsequent visits. While I was still pissed that he would try in the first place, it seemed like calling it molestation was a bit much.
Furthermore, she told us how he'd said that this sort of contact wouldn't be "breaking any rules", because they were "in love". Now, that's obvious bullcrap coming from some 40-year-old Pedobear lookalike, but to a young boy just coming into puberty, whose parents parents were extremely conservative and probably didn't teach him about the birds and the bees until he'd already heard from a health teacher, could love and sexual desire be easily confused? Could he have honestly thought that he was in love with my sister?
Now, at this point I have to pause and give some background- my sister has a temper. A really bad one. She's been known to cold-cock people for the slightest insult, and she's pretty insulting herself. But lately, just before she told us what had been going on, she'd been even more irritable and withdrawn than before and, I had noticed, she was increasingly uncomfortable with being touched, especially with being hugged. She would give my parents dirty looks when they hugged her, and she would actually hit me.
She explained to us that what had really been bothering her and messing up her life wasn't so much the fact that she had been molested as the fact that he "used" her, and that the physical side of the relationship was all he wanted- in her own words, "he didn't really care about me". And once again, I found myself doubting. I had, as I've said, known him for a long time, and I'd always gotten the impression that he actually did care about her.
In the end, my parents called the Rape Crisis Center (or whatever the organization is called) and, with the help of one of their operators, came to the same conclusion I had: while what my friend did was morally objectionable, it didn't legally constitute molestation, and the best thing for it was to get her a therapist and try to move on with our lives as best we could.
My parents went to a therapist the family knew well; he'd helped both me and my mother cope with depression, and I thought he'd do her some good. She saw him for a time, and she's been officially done with him for about 2 months.
And here's the final bit of concern on my part: I've noticed that, since she stopped seeing the therapist, she's been getting withdrawn again. She's still not comfortable with hugging. She's been listening to a lot of really over-the-top emo stuff, and the way she seems to sort of empathize with the music and act like it perfectly describes her life disturbs me for some irrational reason I can't explain.
And here's the part that worries me the most: my sister is a phenomenal author. I've read some of her stories, and they're great. She has a real passion for writing. However, she has a sort of act going on: she acts as though she doesn't want us reading her stories, because she thinks we won't approve of the subject matter. I suppose this has some truth to it, because a lot of the stories she writes have homosexual main characters, and my dad isn't the most tolerant guy. But she'll leave her handwritten copies of stories lying out in the open for us to read. And recently, I came across an outline of a story she was writing lying around on our couch. It listed the major events in the story. Apparently, this was a sort of self-insert thing, as the main character was named after her.
Here's where it gets disturbing: the last two plot events were: her character being raped by her love interest, named after the afforementioned friend, and her character being hauled off to an asylum after her friends find her catatonic.
And so, here's what I ask of you, Escapists: Should I feel badly for thinking that my sister is overreacting? Is it wrong of me to think of her "molestation" as just the normal curiosity of pubescent children? Should I be concerned about how she's fixating on the event? Is it wrong of me to be disturbed by the way she's handling this? Should I tell her what I think of the situation, or is it better to stay silent?
EDIT: Thanks for your advice and support, everybody. I really appreciate it. For those who've been asking, she just turned 14, but she was 13 when she told us.
A few months ago, my sister told me and my parents that, up until about a year ago, one of my older friends had been molesting her. I had already had my suspicions before that, which is why I broke off my friendship with him, but my sister was close with his sister, and I couldn't just tell her to break it off.
Here, however, is where it gets complicated. This guy had been my friend for many years, and according to her, the molestation had begun from nearly the day we met him, at which point he would have been 12, I would have been around 8 or 9, and she would have been 7. And as I listened to her describe what had happened, I realized that what she was describing didn't sound like molestation: hugging, attempted kissing, and a few attempts to slip his hand under her shirt. The most important thing is this: he stopped when asked to stop, but would try again on subsequent visits. While I was still pissed that he would try in the first place, it seemed like calling it molestation was a bit much.
Furthermore, she told us how he'd said that this sort of contact wouldn't be "breaking any rules", because they were "in love". Now, that's obvious bullcrap coming from some 40-year-old Pedobear lookalike, but to a young boy just coming into puberty, whose parents parents were extremely conservative and probably didn't teach him about the birds and the bees until he'd already heard from a health teacher, could love and sexual desire be easily confused? Could he have honestly thought that he was in love with my sister?
Now, at this point I have to pause and give some background- my sister has a temper. A really bad one. She's been known to cold-cock people for the slightest insult, and she's pretty insulting herself. But lately, just before she told us what had been going on, she'd been even more irritable and withdrawn than before and, I had noticed, she was increasingly uncomfortable with being touched, especially with being hugged. She would give my parents dirty looks when they hugged her, and she would actually hit me.
She explained to us that what had really been bothering her and messing up her life wasn't so much the fact that she had been molested as the fact that he "used" her, and that the physical side of the relationship was all he wanted- in her own words, "he didn't really care about me". And once again, I found myself doubting. I had, as I've said, known him for a long time, and I'd always gotten the impression that he actually did care about her.
In the end, my parents called the Rape Crisis Center (or whatever the organization is called) and, with the help of one of their operators, came to the same conclusion I had: while what my friend did was morally objectionable, it didn't legally constitute molestation, and the best thing for it was to get her a therapist and try to move on with our lives as best we could.
My parents went to a therapist the family knew well; he'd helped both me and my mother cope with depression, and I thought he'd do her some good. She saw him for a time, and she's been officially done with him for about 2 months.
And here's the final bit of concern on my part: I've noticed that, since she stopped seeing the therapist, she's been getting withdrawn again. She's still not comfortable with hugging. She's been listening to a lot of really over-the-top emo stuff, and the way she seems to sort of empathize with the music and act like it perfectly describes her life disturbs me for some irrational reason I can't explain.
And here's the part that worries me the most: my sister is a phenomenal author. I've read some of her stories, and they're great. She has a real passion for writing. However, she has a sort of act going on: she acts as though she doesn't want us reading her stories, because she thinks we won't approve of the subject matter. I suppose this has some truth to it, because a lot of the stories she writes have homosexual main characters, and my dad isn't the most tolerant guy. But she'll leave her handwritten copies of stories lying out in the open for us to read. And recently, I came across an outline of a story she was writing lying around on our couch. It listed the major events in the story. Apparently, this was a sort of self-insert thing, as the main character was named after her.
Here's where it gets disturbing: the last two plot events were: her character being raped by her love interest, named after the afforementioned friend, and her character being hauled off to an asylum after her friends find her catatonic.
And so, here's what I ask of you, Escapists: Should I feel badly for thinking that my sister is overreacting? Is it wrong of me to think of her "molestation" as just the normal curiosity of pubescent children? Should I be concerned about how she's fixating on the event? Is it wrong of me to be disturbed by the way she's handling this? Should I tell her what I think of the situation, or is it better to stay silent?
EDIT: Thanks for your advice and support, everybody. I really appreciate it. For those who've been asking, she just turned 14, but she was 13 when she told us.
