Not necessarily, but people around here are suspicious of being jerked around, as does happen from time to time. There was the “fake tranny” incident from a couple of years back which resulted in a huge meltdown. I’m not the most trans-friendly guy on these boards, but even I regard as lower than pond scum anyone who’ll make a genuine transperson’s road one inch the bumpier by pretending to be one for shits and giggles.
When people round here think someone’s been lying on a hot-button topic, well, it’s like there were werewolves in town. And really, if you saw someone telling untruths about the kind of experience you yourself have had, wouldn’t it be like someone ripping your own wounds open afresh and rubbing kosher salt into them?
Do you suppose it would be helpful to some other readers to start a discussion about the dichotomy of sexual desire in victims of sexual abuse? Some of your supporters here indicate that this conflict is a common side effect of abuse; and some of the detractors have made it clear that the apparent contradictions are implausible.
Of course, I don’t feel that you have any responsibility to stick your neck out for other survivors or abuse- but any stab at increasing the education and awareness of the general public might be helpful.
We’ve also had a young man who claimed his brother died suddenly - I don’t think we ever got a clear answer on the veracity of that one.
There was also a well-loved poster who apparently died; it later came out that there was some doubt about that, too.
I think we do pretty well with taking people’s stories at face value, but knowing the history here would help posters to understand why we can be quite gun-shy about people jerking us around.
The best rule I’ve heard about posting personal stuff on a public message board is to not post anything that you wouldn’t want on the front page of your local newspaper.
Perhaps I’m a bit cynical, but I think if you’ve been around the board long enough, you know that can post a clear, true, researched, airtight OP totally consistent with every post you’ve ever made and with cites, and you’d still have someone come in and question you, insult you, pronounce you a liar, or tell you to stop crying and get over it, etc. It’s the inevitable truth and in the future I do recommend taking a step back at posts like that and asking yourself if it’s really worth it to fuel the flames.
FWIW, I have recently in therapy come to the realization that I was abused by my parents emotionally and physically (but not sexually). I hope that your recovery is successful and that you can unlearn the mental habits that abused kids develop that cause great pain in adulthood. You deserve to live a life free of fear and pain. Good luck.
I’m not saying that. However, it was naive of you to think that absolutely everyone was just going to 100% support you, there would be no doubt, that inconsistencies would be pointed out, questioned, etc., when you put your OP in the Pit. I’m not sure what you expected, maybe nothing and you were just venting. This is a live and learn situation, though, and some lessons, as you know, are pretty painful.
I try to post my personal shit less on these boards, after I got firsthand and observed thirdhand some (IMO) unwarranted, nasty shit said in the Pit. I decided it wasn’t worth it to flaunt my most intimate details here, esp. if I just wanted to vent, not to get raked over the coals for something that was already upsetting me. That’s what my friends are for, or maybe my therapist, if I had one.
I’m sorry you had to get this kind of static, but I can’t say I’m surprised. It’s a fact of life, and one that exists for valid reasons, even if the recipient of the doubt and skepticism in any particular thread is undeserving of such a reaction.
Based on subsequent posts, I get the feeling that my post wasn’t interpreted as I meant it. So I’m going to give it another shot. I’m going to try to explain my own words here to see if it’s clearer. Disclaimer: IANAD, and the only info. I know is based on google and what I read here.
I remember reading a statistic about 10 years ago that 25% of women in the US under the age of 18 have been molested. (After this, I’ll use “M” for this word because this is MPSIMS and because there’s a lot of baggage associated with the word.) A quick google today shows this article giving the figure as 20-40%. And the statistic they gave for men is 10-20%. So it’s a fairly common experience. If 1 in 4 women up to almost 1 in 2 women have experienced something that could be called “M”, it’s statistically likely that olives, or any woman here claiming something happened to them really had something happen to them.
But one of the reasons I think the statistic is so large is because it encompasses a large range of activities. For example, the way I read the list of prohibited activities in this webpage, olives’ aunt’s behavior would also fall under the category of “M”. But generally when people read the word “M”, they think of the most egregious, violative and invasive types of examples. But as one can note from the list of prohibited activities, the range of activities that falls under “M” is very large. For instance, I just read on another thread where handing out a condom to a minor can get you on the registry. That’s not to say that all of the activities are not potentially harmful, because they can be. But people are different, and some are affected differently than others. Some people are hurt by the same activity that others don’t have a problem with. And that’s the same with pretty much all activity including emotional abuse, including yelling at children. Some people are hurt and others are not. That’s why I said that it doesn’t matter what really happened, but just that someone was hurt. Generally, I take people at their word that they’re hurting, absent other factors.
So this is where I’m having the issue. The “other reasons” I’m talking about don’t have to do with lying altogether, but just using the experience for other purposes.
If the OP was posted only for support and encouragement, I don’t have a problem with it. But there are indications in the OP and the OP’s further posts that indicate other reasons for the post. For instance,
indicates a crusading motive. Other potential motives are educating others about the issue or gaining more sympathy than would otherwise be gained by coloring the facts.
Now, none of these motives are bad in themselves, but in my eyes, there’s a lot of misinformation in the OP and subsequent posts and those can’t be questioned in a support OP. So the roles must be clearer. If the motive is crusading or education, there needs to be clearer information and not extrapolation from one person’s experience to a whole complex field. And the OP would need to be open to questions, sometimes tough questions and dissent from those that disagree. Otherwise, it’s one person’s experience only written for support and any misinformation can be written off as grief expressing itself. If everyone is clear that this OP is just one person’s experience with any misinformation being expressed because of grief and that one person’s confusion, then I think it’s a lot clearer and might bug me less. One person’s misinformation is not so bad if it’s not being spread.
What I meant by this is that the OP wrote at least 3 and probably more very perjorative terms for her stepfather. And only glowing terms for her aunt. Now, if we’re just reading this as one person’s anger based on their own perspective, I’m OK with it. But if the OP were meant to engender a response in others to educate, inform, motivate or crusade, then I would consider it hate for hate’s sake because it’s trying to extrapolate from one experience to a class of people. Extrapolating one experience to a class of people is generally not a wise decision.
I once had a very close friend, much older than I, who not only was molested as a child (age 2 and later) but raped as an adult on two occasions: Once by some soldiers, whom the judge let off because they were bound for Vietnam, and my friend was married, so the crime wasn’t nearly as bad as raping a virgin. Honestly. (I sometimes wonder how those guys, once they got to Vietnam, treated the local women.) Once by a police officer, and by that time in her life she didn’t even see the point in reporting it – who would believe her against him?
She responded to all this, not by becoming sex-phobic, but by becoming an uncontrollably primiscuous nympho, for a time. And it was not a time of her life she later recalled with much relish. (Nor with any shame.)
I guess different minds deal with traumas in different ways. Who can say which is better?