I need advice on how to explain to my mom that what you wear won’t stop men from assaulting you.
⚠️ TRIGGER WARNING (mentions of abuse)⚠️
I asked my mom the other day why she genuinely thinks that it is partially the victim’s fault for being SH or SA. I’m going to try my hardest to make sure I am speaking close enough to her actual words and then how I interpreted those words as to give my mom a fair chance in this disagreement we are having.
Growing up, my mom didn’t teach me anything about sex or consent. Any time I tried to ask her about sex, she told me I didn’t need to be asking about that because I’m not having sex until marriage. My favorite babysitter actually ended up being the one to one to give me the sex talk. Honestly, she made me feel less scared and ashamed about it. It didn’t make me want to have sex. It just made me feel less guilty about normal teenaged hormones and how I should only do what makes me comfortable. That’s between you and your body and no one else. At least my babysitter said something along the lines of that. I wish I listened to her more.
Once I was too old for that babysitter, her words were absolutely drowned out by the fear my mom put in me. My mom even told me a couple times that she would have me sent away to an all girls boarding school (which would have not stopped me considering I’m pansexual) if I ever had sex before marriage. She would teach me that I needed to dress more conservatively so I wouldn’t give boys and men the wrong idea. She even told me to not wear shorts when her guy friends came to our house. I was grounded for having a “bad additive” when I asked her why she was bringing men around that she think would look at me that way. She used the “That’s just how men are.” Thus it was imbedded in me that all men treat women like garbage.
I had secretly bought those cute Nike shorts that went viral back when I was in middle school. All my friends had them except me because my mom said they were too skimpy. She would say mean things about my friends and their parents who let them wear something so revealing. I was wearing those and my favorite band shirt from Hot Topic.
I remember thinking that what happened to me was my fault because of what I was wearing. I thought “Oh my god. My mom is going to be so angry if she finds out what happened.” Again, I didn’t know the different between consensual and non-consensual sex, so it was my perspective that it was sex until it was explained to me that the fact that I told him no multiple times and he kept going meant that it was not consensual. While my babysitter taught me about consent, when you keep having your mom tell you otherwise, you think “Well, she’s my mom. She’s the one that’s going to protect me.”
I’ve always tried to explain to my mom how these words affected me negatively. She had said sorry many times before, but I think I just wanted a sorry without having to demand and beg for it from her. I’m tired of her always wanting to be right. This isn’t about who’s right and who’s wrong. This is about how her words hurt me and had a negative impact on me and my perspective on what it means to be a woman.
I went to therapy many times for what happened to me. I was diagnosed with PTSD. I use to have hallucinations. I would hear voices that weren’t really there. I knew the difference between real voice and what weren’t luckily, but it was still terrifying, not just the voices, but having people think I’m a crazy person who should be locked away. I had a lot of friends who were sent off to camps or boarding schools and then came back with terrifying abuse stories. I was a psychology major with a scholarship before I dropped out. I dropped out because of the mental toll the assault took on me. That was when I finally started opening up to people about what happened to me.
I remember telling my mom and dad about what happened to me. Telling my dad was devastating. I watched him cry when I told him. My dad is not a man that cries a lot. He’d only ever cried when his parents passed away. Telling my mom was a completely different experience.
When I told my mom I was raped, she asked a lot of question. When? Where? With who? I thought those were the hard questions. Those were the easy ones. These were the hard questions. “Well, what were you wearing?” I told her what I wore. “Well, what did you expect wearing that?” It was always “Well,” disguised as a question, but I know she was really insulting me. I already know she didn’t mean to hurt me or insult me. She always says she doesn’t mean to, but then she does it over and over again.
Forgive me for the awful grammar and the way this story jumped around. I have not been in my right mind because one of my most trusted friends who supported me when I struggled the most with these things passed away. It brought back a lot of good, but also bad memories of me crying and her hugging me and reassuring me that what happened to me was not my fault. She kept telling me that over and over again, like she wanted to make sure I didn’t forget.
I just really need advice on what to say to my mom too. I’m going to wait for when I’m feeling better about my friend passing. I need time to process these emotions and I’m not sure how long that will take. I’d love to hear from you all. I’m considering reading some responses to my mother, but I do not want to make a decision now in my state of mind. I just keep feeling pulled back and forth between feeling everything and nothing at all.
I’m a mom to a wonderful little boy. I’m going to go make us some strawberry pancakes and eat my feelings and watch some Pokemon with him. As hurt as I am, I like to remember the wise words of a tortoise.
“Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift. That’s why they call it the present.”