Friday, January 6, 2012

Considering reporting childhood ual abuse now as an adult?

As a child, I was ually abused by a family friend and nothing was ever done about it. My parents never took care of the situation as they should have, and for years I have dealt with severe post-traumatic stress. Recently, my therapist suggested that I explore options for making known what happened to me to help me gain a sense of peace. In a way, I want to pursue this. I am also hesitant because my abuser is now so old that he is no longer a threat to community safety. I have been discouraged by my family from doing anything about it because "no one is going to take you seriously if you accuse a 90 year old man of this." I am concerned about the possibility that reporting it could also get my parents in trouble because they knew about the abuse and did not report it to the authorities when I was a child. I don't want to cause a rift with my family after I have worked so hard to heal past wounds with them. If I were to report this, I don't even know where to begin. I now live in a different state than where the abuse occurred, and I don't know who I would go to. My main questions are: 1) After such a long time (more than ten years after the abuse ended) can anything be done in the first place? 2) If I were to report anything, where would I go to do that? 3) Would my doing so be potentially placing my parents in any legal trouble?

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