I know that the originator of this post most likely will not be looking at this. I certainly hope she does. and if not that what I have to say will help others who might read this. I can sympathize both as a mother whose children had been molested by a pedophile and as someone who was similarly victimized.
As the mother of children who were victimized, my greatest grief is from the fact I feel I did not instill enough trust in my children for them to come to me and tell me. If you were or are being victimized the first thing that is compromised is one's ability to trust. Even the trust of those who love and want to help you. More than anything one must make oneself tell someone they feel they can trust. It will make your heart pound, but it truly will help you. I know it is hard, very hard. I have lived as both victim and parent of children who were molested.
Of my three children who were victimized by the pedophile. Only one was considered old enough and mature enough when it came to light (14) the others were 12 and 8. We had known the man for 7 years. He was a trusted friend, or so we thought. But, we also knew beyond a shadow of a doubt from his behavior that he was and would continue to molest children if he were not stopped. My child that had to testify is now the one closest to me. We went through a year of court and postponements.
I know now, that it was only a year because he did finally take a guilty plea. In that case living through the trauma of going to court was the right thing to do. We went through it together as a family and we at least have the comfort of knowing he was stopped.
That was 12 years ago. We still are dealing with the effects of what happened. On the other hand, the friend's father who molested me. I somehow managed to tell my mother, I cant even remember how we ended up talking about it. Now we are talking in the time frame of roughly 1970. In those days one didn't go public. but mom told me if he ever tried to touch me again when I went to visit, to scream. He did, and I did. It was in the middle of the night. of course everyone came running and he was in his underwear. He was shocked and embarrassed and came up with that he had run into the room when he heard me scream. I had no idea what to say so I left everyone think that I had had a nightmare that made me scream, but he knew, and so did my mom. The amazing thing is that in his case I believe he realized that what he was doing was harmful when I screamed. His behavior toward me changed after that, not negatively, but positively or maybe I was more confident. But I was never again afraid of him and he never again tried or even said anything untoward toward me again and our families remained friends until he died.
I know that case is a rare instance and I also know that I probably have some psychological affects remaining to this day for when we had the case involving my children the memories of my own experience came flooding back.
I have since what happened to my children sought out help from group therapy with other victims of molestation as well as individual therapy.
11 years and still counting. I have learned a lot in ways to help myself and even to share and help others. But the path to peace is not exactly the same for everyone who has been through molestation. The one thing we all have in common is the truth that we cannot find peace alone and there really are others out there who understand and can help us along the way.
So far as going through the process of the legal system. That too has to be up to the victim and family at the time. It is a difficult and traumatizing process. For us, it was the right and the best thing to do. My child, now an adult, who testified is also still in therapy. Maybe someday we both will have complete peace, but for now we work toward and for that future with hope and with being able to completely trust each other. There is nothing that we will not discuss with one another now.

