AITA for telling the truth about my family and cutting them off?

This is going to be a long one, and I apologize for that and the content is heavy, so massive trigger warning for child abuse. I have been kept quiet for fifteen years, and I am so done being a part of protecting horrible people just because I’m related to them. I am going to say everything from past to present as best as I can so bear with me. I’m sharing this for the justice I never got and for the current situation that I’m in with my family. My family has a consistent habit of protecting the wrong people and I will no longer be a part of it. 

I (29F) was molested by my grandfather, when I was fourteen. It was a hot summer day and I loved swimming but I didnt have a bathing suit for the family reunion since I didn’t think we’d be doing anything other than sitting around a table eating and talking. Since we were with family I thought it would be okay if I went swimming in my sports bra and jeans. I was so wrong. Almost no one wanted to swim besides me and my very young cousins at the time. My uncle was far away playing with his kids in the water when it happened. I dissociated through it so there was no crying for help, and no one noticed anything. 

I told my sister (32F) the day after it happened. I knew we had young cousins and something needed to be done to protect this from happening again. My grandfather, along with everyone else in the family was extremely christian, going to church every sunday, where many people feel safe to bring their children. To me, time was of the essence. When I told my sister her shock didn’t last long enough to protect me from her judgment for wearing what I did into the water. She promptly told me that we needed to tell my father and even though I felt like the color and feeling had drained out of my world I knew through the cloud when it came to telling my father there was terror and dread. 

My fathers shock was also palpable but he did something even worse than my sister. He made me repeat it multiple times from start to finish and even made me act it out on my sister. We both disagreed and obviously didn’t want to but our father was insistent that he needed to see it. We both cried through the whole thing. I thought my dad being a correctional officer and a man of God would mean that he would do something to protect me. He was always so quick to say that if anything ever happened to us that he would have no issue going to jail for his daughters but it turns out he was all bark and no bite. 

Over the next couple of days my father made me repeat what had happened an unthinkable amount of times. He swore it wasn’t because he didn’t believe me but because he was calling my grandfather, his father, to then ask him his version of what had happened, and he was waiting to see which one of us would change our story. My father was so persistent about this, to the point where he followed me to summer camp that year to continue his “investigation”. He went so far as to alert some of the pastors (it was a christian camp), and my camp counselor, who had been my nanny when my sister and I were little. I remember some of the pastors holding my hand, apologizing and saying that they would pray for me. My nanny read me bible verses that she thought would make me feel better. I had loved summer camp more than anything, and I hoped that if anything could make me feel better it would be camp, but I was unable to feel anything but this weird grey emptiness. I had been a really cuddly kid before, but after what happened I remember being confused that people hugging me or holding my hand made me feel gross or sometimes emptier than I already felt. 

After some time, anger crept in and the worry for my cousins persisted. I thought that if we reported what happened to the police, everything would be okay. My cousins would be safe, grandfather would get what he deserved and then maybe I would feel better. My father and I would have long talks about this, and his excuses for his father were endless. He’d inform me that grandfather was old and if he were to go to jail, that could be a life sentence for someone his age. He’d say things like “You don’t really want that, do you?” and when I said that I did, he would disagree and talk about “what would Jesus do.” I remember him talking so much about anger and forgiveness, that it was God’s job to be angry because he was the only one who could have “righteous anger” and that it was my job to forgive and “give it to God.” My dad tried over and over again to change my mind about wanting legal justice. He’d go so far as to even tell me about his abuse as a kid. Surprisingly for him, it wasn’t my grandfather, I feel weird sharing what happened to him since it isn’t my story but just know it’s awful and he never told anyone except for me to my knowledge. Looking back I think he told me this to try to show empathy, to show that I wasn’t alone, to say he never got justice either and his belief that God would do it, or a combination of this. To me, it felt like he made it about him. He would say “It was MY dad” and “This is happening to ME too.” I’m not a parent, and I don’t plan to ever be, but I’m certain that this isn’t how a parent in this scenario is supposed to go about this. One night he even got drunk and cried to me about "how could he do this to ME" meaning himself.

My father went lengths to keep me and others quiet in order to keep his father out of jail. When I entered highschool that fall I remember breaking down and being sent to the guidance counselor. I told her everything and she really made me believe that she would do something about it. I don’t remember if I told my dad that something was finally going to be done, but I do remember him being angry, driving me back to the school that evening. I remember waiting outside the guidance counselors office for what felt like hours, as my father spoke to her behind a closed door. I’ll never know what was said, if he paid her, or just pleaded, but nothing ever got reported. After this my dad tried harder to get me to empathize with his father. He told me that my grandfather was losing a lot of weight with the stress of wondering if I was going to report him. My dad went so far to even say to me “What if it had been me? Would you want to send me to jail too?” As if that wouldn’t make me feel even worse. The eerieness of him saying this has sat with me ever since. 

A letter came to the house from my grandfather, addressed to me. I wanted to burn it immediately. My father was very against this and asked me if he could read it. I agreed and told him I wanted nothing to do with it. He read it, told me that he would keep it in case I ever changed my mind, and told me some of its context. In the letter my grandfather details why he did what he did, that he’d been watching child porn for over a decade, that he was sorry. My anger and rage at the excuses were to big to contain, but they weren’t something my dad knew how to handle. I remember telling my dad that those were poor excuses and my dad probably gave me another speech on forgiveness. I don’t like the word forgiveness and still struggle to use it.

My two aunts, who had been at the family reunion, one aunt with two small step children, and Aunt Emily with a very young daughter and a son on the way at the time. My poor Aunt Emily lost her son to sids, just days after he was born. My father was quick to use this information, to say that she needed her dad through this, and that I shouldn’t report him in order to let him be there for his daughter. After her son very sadly passed, she allowed my grandfather to move in with her, her husband and very young daughter. I was horrified and my dad promised me that he told her what my grandfather had done, but growing up that decision never made sense and I was always suspicious if he really told her, and enraged at her if she was in fact, told about what happened to me. 

If you’ve wondered where my mom was for all of this, don’t worry, she was there, she knew everything, and never spoke to me about it. Later in life, in family therapy, she said something about how “it wasn’t her place.” I think she thought this because it was my dad’s side of the family so it was his to “handle.” Back then though the closest we got to talking about it was when I started showing signs of PTSD, and I no longer wanted to be around my dad without his shirt on, since he was the spitting image of my grandfather.  My words might as well have been a slap to the face to him, and my mothers rage was immediate. She yelled at me, saying my dad would never do what my grandfather did. Protecting the image of her husband was more important than her own daughter. Her youngest daughter. I was her baby but that didn’t matter. All she could think about was how I was hurting them, and not how hurt I had been and how much I needed them both. My father said in the most demeaning tone “What? Do you need therapy?” as if he was trying to hurt me back. At the time it did, but now I wish I could go back and say yes. Yes. Please help me. 

I think my mom defending my dad so automatically really spoke volumes about what was happening. As time went on what was happening only grew more apparent. As I got to junior and senior year my dads behavior towards me got even worse. I remember talking to a friend in my highschool about it, because my mother adored my fathers behaviour towards me. She’d say things like I was “the apple of his eye” and thought it was adorable how he liked to watch me sleep. I would wake up to him in my room, sometimes watching me, sometimes just sitting there dozing off. I thought it was intensely off putting but it was so downplayed. As a teenager some nights I wouldn’t always be wearing a shirt, so this behaviour to me and my highschool friend was creepy as fuck. But there was nothing I felt like I could do. Around this time I even had to ask him to stop kissing me on the lips. He was really disappointed and I hated having to grapple with wanting boundaries and managing his feelings for him. It’s so surprising to me that no one could see how creepy he was. Regardless of how many guests he would take into his and my mothers bedroom to show them the portrait of my mother when she was late teens/early twenties and would openly tell people how sexy she was, and how I look JUST like how she did. 

Time went on, after I got my license I was careful to spend as little time with my parent as physically possible. I got married at 19 in order to get away from them, in my then christian and immature mind I thought this made sense and was the only way to get away. I remember sending the longest texts to them about how awful they both were, but I was careful to never name the creepiness my father emitted and stuck to only the emotional and verbal abuse. At the time they didn’t believe that I could ever say such things to them and they were convinced my husband was the one who was pushing me to do cut contact with them. Going no contact was peaceful, outside of a horrible and immature marriage that neither of us was ready for or knew how to navigate. After the divorce though, I knew I needed therapy. My rage and anger at everything that had happened would come out in toxic ways and I would lash out at the people I loved the most. My first therapist didn’t help, she was an elderly woman and used puppets lol. A horror movie just waiting to happen. After giving up on that, I thought maybe family therapy would help. Might as well tackle the biggest elephants in the room right? My parents were over the moon to hear from me again and agreed to go to sessions with me in order to establish contact again. The therapist though, I think was new to the field. I remember telling him about my grandfather, what happened, the fallout and how much it hurt to not have my parents be there for me. I remember looking up at him and he had tears in his eyes when he said “and how do you feel about that?” and feeling like he didnt know what else to say to me. I think he tried to get us all to see eachothers perspectives but my parents only made me angerier. They reacted defensively and somehow my mother still gave me the feeling that I needed to protect their reputations to the therapist, but I did no such thing and her defensiveness grew. They would tell me that I wasn’t perfect either, and how awful it had been for me to leave them. Eventually the anger only kept getting worse, and the sessions weren’t helping. I figured I’d give individual therapy a shot again. The family therapist encouraged me and told me that he had someone in mind for me. I guessed that he had told another therapist about the situation, and this therapist in a way chose me. It was nice to feel like she already knew the situation, and I didn’t have to explain everything all over again, and her empathy for me felt immediate. She made me feel really safe, and to this day almost a decade later, we still work together doing EMDR and my life has changed so much, and become happier than I ever could have imagined. 

Working with her was great and the anger felt smaller and smaller emotions are so much easier to manage and express now. But even with this, that doesn’t make the anger go away. What they did and continue to do is still awful and I’ll never forgive them for it. The ten year anniversary of what my grandfather came around and it was like my body knew? I was low contact with my parents but I decided that I was finally ready to read the awful letter my grandfather had sent me. When I called my dad and asked him if he kept the letter like he said he had he sounded sorry when he said he had no idea where it was, and I told him what I remembered of the letter and asked him if there had been anything else that he could remember and he told me that my grandfather never admitted to what he had done and that he didn’t know where I remembered that from. My reality shook, one of the most disgusting details that I could remember was this letter, and now I was being told that it wasn’t true? That doesn’t make any sense. Feeling alone was an understatement and all of the decisions that every adult made when I was a kid only made me feel like no one really believed me. This only made that feeling worse, and simultaneously made my suspicion towards my father grow intensely. After all that time, why would he still protect his father? The suspicion never died, and one day I finally got the courage to message my Aunt Emily and ask her if my father really had told her the truth about what happened. She cried with me and she said yes, she knew. She was so sorry that my father used the death of her son against me. She said that she had confronted my grandfather and he cried and openly admitted what he did and went through every detail with her as just like how the letter had originally sounded. I ended up blocking her eventually because to forgive a pedophile KNOWING what he’d done? All of my sweet memories of my times as a child with my aunt might as well have been thrown into a fucking dumpster. And her daughter? Did she not give a fuck at all about the danger she was putting her baby in? 

I am so done with hoping that the people in my family will grow and finally be the people I needed when I was a kid. The situation is so fucked up and writing this all out is disgusting but I’m happy to feel some semblance of justice doing exactly what my family would least want me to do. I’ve tried to hard to make amends with people who should be trying to make amends with me. I think my parents tried once, my mom never apologizes for things, but she buys you things as if that will make it better. In this case she bought me tickets to go to her home country, to see our extended family that I hadn’t seen since I was little. I was so excited to see them and I guess I really thought that my mom and I were getting better. There was a small feeling of safety with her once when we went to one of our favorite restaurants. I felt like I could really open up to her and I told her that I was still dealing with PTSD even as an adult and how angry I was at Aunt Emily for what she’d done. My mother ripped that wisp of safety away from me as she angrily said in the middle of the restaurant “Don’t you dare tell anyone in Panama about this.” I was shocked and I shut down. I couldn’t believe that even then her reputation was more important than the pain her daughter was in. I enjoyed the trip though very much and I will never tell which panamanian relatives I told everything so that if she ever does find and read this she’ll have to wonder which of her family members knows what an awful mother she was and continues to be. I hope that anxiety plagues her forever. 

Back to my sister. She had a beautiful baby with my brother in law and I am so happy and worried for them. At the baby shower, my sisters childhood best friend brought her daughter. After the shower we convened at my sisters house. Both of my parents, my sister, her husband, me, my sisters childhood bestie, her husband, and toddler. We were sitting around making idle chit chat when I saw my mother talk about how soft babies skin in and how much she loves it. She reached her hand down the back of this babies shirt to then feel her skin. I was nauseated and disgusted by this and memories came rushing back to me. My mother used to put her hand down the back of my pants and underwear to feel MY skin when I was in highschool. She wouldn’t say a word before or after doing it either. I didn’t know how to process these memories at all and worked in therapy about them all while maintaining contact with my family and trying to act normal. My parents wanted to go to the movies with me to see the new Snow White live action. My mother was so excited and I had a feeling of obligation to go, and I’d just been through a break up and honestly welcomed the company of people who were supposed to care for me. I didn’t want to go alone though so my friend told me her daughter really wanted to go and that maybe we could all go together. It was nice to know that I wouldn’t be alone, but looking back I feel gross knowing how close her daughter was to dangerous people ie my parents so I made sure that I sat inbetween them. So it went my dad, my mom, me, my friend, her daughter and her daughter wanted to bring her boyfriend. Her daughter and boyfriend are 14 so looking at them was jarring for me to see how young that really is and how much I had to go through alone at that age. My friend also knew what kind of people my parents are as we’ve swapped childhood stories. I think she just wanted to be there for me, and to make having a relationship with them easier for me, since at the time that was what I wanted. But this was the final straw. My mom kept reaching over into my seat to caress my upper thighs. I cringed and held her hand firmly on the armrest, I maintained the touch for as long as I could and then left her hand there and went back to watching this god awful movie. My mothers hand kept coming back. I removed it multiple times and the final time my body reacted for me with an audible disgusted noise and I threw her hand onto her lap. She finally stopped but I couldn’t do it anymore. Not only did I want to gouge my eyes out from the movie but I wanted to crawl out of my skin. I also felt that with my friend there I couldn’t leave. I made it through and decided that that was it. It was only my leg, and I wrestled with that, but the memories that surfaced on top of the baby shower? As well as my mother knowing I had PTSD and still touched me like that? It’s like they think that just because their relatives that their creepy behaviour doesn’t matter and I wont put up with it anymore. I told my sister that I would be cutting contact with them again. She argued with me telling me that I should set a boundary with them, we went back and forth to the point where I broke down to sobs and told her all the awful things that came back about the both of our parents and that I should never have to tell anyone to not touch me inappropriately. Especially a family member. She softened and told me that the decision was mine to make and that it would make things hard for her with them but at the end of the day it was for me to decide. After her and my brother in law processed what I told them they wanted to know about their babies safety and I was honest about how I thought that our parents shouldn’t be trusted. If they don’t have the capacity to understand or care about boundaries; ones that everyone should know and ones that we have to say then they shouldn’t be trusted around children who physically cannot speak up for themselves. My sister disagreed and thought that our parents could change if she could communicate boundaries well enough. I told her outright that they have never gained that capacity for me, so why would they now? She’s determined though. Now I’m wrestling with the fact that my sister, after everything, is doing almost exactly what my Aunt Emily did. I was able to move passed what she said to me after what happened with my grandfather. We were both kids, and people grow up. I don’t even know if she remembers that she said that to me. In recent years she’s told me that she’s blocked out a lot of her childhood and that I remember a lot more than she does. With this I feel that her baby is in even more danger, since without the memory of how much worse our parents used to be, she might feel safe with them and that they can be reasoned with. Although I have no idea if she got the extent of what I did. One night we had a sleepover, and she told me that she can reflect on the aftermath of what my grandfather did. She said she used to think I got so cold, distant and straight up mean, but how before I had been an optimistic ray of sunshine. She held my hand and told me how sorry she was for not seeing how hurt I was and how she wished that it had been her so she could protect me from this awful fallout. She mentioned how this awful anger comes out every few years and it feels like it keeps coming back. I’m not sure if this is ever something I’ll stop going through though, or if this is even something that anyone can ever really move past. Her babies first birthday came and went and I couldn’t bring myself to go because she invited our parents. The anger I had was so awful, it was my Aunt all over again. She knowingly invited dangerous people around her unknowing friends and relatives and their children. I’m so hurt. It also felt like like she picked them over me and with her decision not making any sense it was like I wasn’t believed AGAIN.  I told her after how I felt about the safety of her child and her reaction was to be defensive and say that she was hurt that I was criticizing her parenting. Is this really happening again but in a different font? Pieces of me that want to believe the best about her are genuinely unsure. But others have a quiet knowing that my family isn’t safe and may never be. I’m so sad I just want her child to be safe and happy. I think with this I’ve done my due diligence. Right now I’m taking space from my sister and am struggling with wanting just one fucking safe person in my family, or am I just continuing the trauma by keeping my hope alive? I’m wrestling with what to do but I know that I can’t have people in my life who are totally okay looking past pedophilia. I'm so sorry this was so much, and I know there's things I missed, thank you to anyone reading.