Recognizing My Mother Was My First Abuser (Triggers)

Recognizing My Mother Was My First Abuser (Triggers)

John67

Registrant
Through journaling and EMDR I’m able to recall much more about my mother’s abuse. It pains me to call it abuse, it never clicked with me that what she did was abusive, because there was never any contact between us. I chalked it up to her being open with nudity (she made it a point of telling my wife the first time they met that she had always slept in the nude and don’t be alarmed if she got up during the night to use the bathroom, sometimes she forgot to put on a robe when guests stayed over).

In reality, she was an aggressive exhibitionist and voyeur, and as I got older I sought and welcomed some of her behavior.



***** Triggering Examples*********

My mother had no boundaries around nudity, hers or mine. She would never close the door to the bathroom when she was using it, or allow me to lock it when I was in the bathroom (since we only had one bathroom sometimes “we had to share” she said.) All of these are post pubescent incidents. She did these things around and to...her 13 year old son, and repeated it often until I was 17.

My mother would sit across from me on the sofa in a short nightgown with nothing underneath and casually spread her legs, so I could see her genitals. She would come into the bathroom when I was getting out of the shower and undress in front of me to get ready to shower. Often she would sit on the toilet and urinate, with her legs spread so I could see. Often I would become aroused and be embarrassed that she could see. I would attempt to cover up early on, but she told me that she had seen my penis every day since I was born, I didn't have to be embarrassed by her seeing it now.

She would come into the bathroom while I was sitting on the toilet to take a bath. In the two feet of space between the toilet and tub she would bend over to run her bath, completely exposing her genitals to me at eye level. I know she could see I was aroused.

I have memories of coming home from school and seeing her bottomless on he bed with he legs and genitals spread masturbating. I believe she knew I was watching. I believe that she would also stand outside of my room and watch me masturbate.
 
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Yes, that was abusive John. This is all tricky material because of our confusing attitudes toward boys and sexuality. The idea is we want it any way we can get it and if we do, we're lucky. There is a whole genre of pornography about boys and mothers, girls and fathers as though this is great stuff. It can take a lifetime of messed up relationships and confusion about our sexuality to discover that introduction to sexual feelings and behaviors with a family member is going to be fraught with problems. Sadly, these things happen much more often than one would expect, especially so with a group of men struggling to make sense of their own sexual experience.

For most of my life I didn't remember what happened with my mother when I was very young. When I did remember I discounted it as important, despite the fact my life had been fucked from the very beginning. It was only within the last year and a half that I've finally come to understand how her behavior really destroyed my life... my capacity to feel secure in my body or safe in the world.

You're unpacking all this material at the moment, which is a very good thing. Yes, it can be unsettling and even painful to remember but we can only heal when this material no longer holds us in its grip. By that I mean when we carry this material but unconsciously, we will act out our feelings. The way we act out is uniquely our own, the product of our life experience. We'll keep doing that until we no longer need to do so. That is when we've told the truth and finally released ourselves from the bondage of the past. Then we will have compassion for ourselves as survivors of the trauma we experienced. This is exactly what you're doing at the moment... and coming to terms with what you mother did and what she didn't do is important.
 
In reality, she was an aggressive exhibitionist and voyeur, and as I got older I sought and welcomed some of her behavior.

Hi John67,

I think when we are children we don't know the meaning of what is taking place when something like this happens. I definitely agree this is a form of abuse and how could it help but not confuse you when you are the age you were when this was going on? I mean if this is all you have ever known, and you were a child it would be overwhelming. I am not a psychologist, I am a computer guy and this is a different variety of abuse than I was subjected to. I would think, or conventional wisdom would lead one to think, because this was your own mother, it would be particularly devastating. Don't get me wrong all abuse is bad and it causes trauma and it damages us in terrible ways. I also agree getting this stuff out is the only way you can really heal and get on down that road in a meaningful way. It is so unfortunate that you had to go through this, or any of us here what we had to endure. I hope that as you continue your journey, you are able to get all of this stuff out and be able to move on in a good way. All any of us can do is work on it and try which seems to me that you are doing.

With Deep Respect,
jrperkey010101
 
here is something about the exhibitionism dimension of sub clinical narcissism


on the whole men tend to sub-clinical narcissism more than women except for the dimension of exhibitionism

so maybe your mother was a narcissist, and in that case maybe the vast literature on narcissistic abuse could help you too

As for myself it is obvious, exhibitionism is one of the foundations of the - still - so "invisible" sexual offences perpetrated by women
 
This is all tricky material because of our confusing attitudes toward boys and sexuality. The idea is we want it any way we can get it and if we do, we're lucky. There is a whole genre of pornography about boys and mothers, girls and fathers as though this is great stuff.

I’ll give my mother the benefit of the doubt and assume that there is some sickness she picked up in her own childhood that caused her to be the way she was with me. Perhaps as someone mentioned it was strictly narcissism. Maybe it was as simple as her feeling validated that as an obese woman in her early 40’s she could elicit a physical response from a teen aged male.

I chose to ignore the implications for the longest time. I could convince myself then that we weren’t being sexual. In reality her “accidentally” allowing herself to be seen masturbating was completely sexual even though there was no physical contact. It occurred to me that she was posing the way that women in magazine’s did…until she actually pleasured herself. I certainly believed that she was watching me and displayed myself accordingly. In reality it was mutual masturbation…just without acknowledging that we were being watched.
 
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Honestly, I don't imagine any of us come to distorted sexuality without earlier experiences that led us in that direction. One of the things that spending time on this website has done for me is show me how much brokenness there is in families, even the families that might look normal on the outside. As we tell our stories on these threads a window is opened and others peer into the distorted reality in which we lived.

I live in a cottage behind a family of lovely individuals whose way of relating is quite disturbing. The daughter has an infant whose father shows up from time to time... a couple of meth addicts trying to get their lives together. I told the young woman a few days ago what a fine job she is doing with her daughter. Yesterday as the woman screamed obscenities at her mother I imagined what this six month old girl was taking in. The anger wasn't directed at her, but it was her mother's voice raging. The infant has no way of rationalizing what is happening. She doesn't know the rage is directed at someone else. There is no telling how these behaviors will affect this child but you can imagine the world isn't feeling too safe in those moments.

I mention that to say simply healthy development is dependent on an environment in which we feel secure in ourselves and safe in the world. There are many things that happen in families to disturb that process. Physical and sexual abuse are surely the most damaging, but then so is neglect and so is chaos within the system... The folks who find their way here have an abundance of damage to contain, to work through. What happened with your mother happened in the context of everything that came before both for you and for her as she grew up. Your challenge is to make sense of all of it... hopefully with compassion.
 
Hi John 67. I was sexually abused by my mother as well. She was constantly wearing flimsy nightwear and exposing here body to me constantly. She was and is still an incredibly needy woman. My father had a full time job plus no less than four outside work related interests that kept him away from home. That left me to be her surrogate spouse and she groomed me for it. There was never direct sexual behavior between us but she often exposed her body and was not reluctant to make sure that she had free access to viewing mine. She did touch my genitals once (at my objection) justifying it by saying, like your mother, that she had seen my penis before and checking me now was just her being a concerned parent. No boundaries. She had disappointingly failed to be a nurse in her youth but still acted and thought that she was one somehow. More than that was the emotional incest where her attachment to me as her favored child caused me to have very poor relationships with my two sisters. That is my greatest loss and constant tear filled regret to this day. I don't think that abuse by women on young men is rare at all. After all, mothers are responsible for raising their sons. But, for me, an absent father who allowed his wife to manage the children without his influence was destructive. I've been in therapy off and on since my twenties (I am now 68) and, even though I am still in contact with my mother regularly, she no longer has much power over me. I often see her frustration at no longer being able to manipulate a man who now thinks and acts for himself. It obviously pisses her off and it's my treasured revenge and satisfaction seeing it. But my mother was startlingly adept at impression management and the result was that the community saw her as the perfect mother with a perfect family even though her only son was morbidly obese and trying to reveal the truth by physically acting out the shame. No one would have believed me anyway even if I had had the ability to articulate my pain. Years ago I discovered that she had intentionally omitted me from her will. Initially I was outraged and took the time to reach out to an attorney. I spoke to him about the abuse and asked if I had cause to challenge the will at the time of her death. His reply was sobering. He said "I'd call what your mother did bad parenting but I wouldn't call it sexual abuse." And I put the idea away as I realized that we live in a culture where this kind of treatment on boys by women is not well defined and goes neglected. There is a fine book about mother/son incest called "Come Here". If you haven't read it please do so. You and I are the lucky ones. We remember. We do not mistake our mother's false attention as nurturing. So many men don't recognize the truth and simply go through life acting out with addictions and indulging in sexual afflictions they cannot attribute to the past. You're doing great. Let your outrage guide you but with clear intention. Be kind to yourself and everyone you meet. Norm (Please consider this a hug from me.)
 
Thanks Norm.
 
I’ll give my mother the benefit of the doubt and assume that there is some sickness she picked up in her own childhood that caused her to be the way she was with me. Perhaps as someone mentioned it was strictly narcissism. Maybe it was as simple as her feeling validated that as an obese woman in her early 40’s she could elicit a physical response from a teen aged male.

I chose to ignore the implications for the longest time. I could convince myself then that we weren’t being sexual. In reality her “accidentally” allowing herself to be seen masturbating was completely sexual even though there was no physical contact. It occurred to me that she was posing the way that women in magazine’s did…until she actually pleasured herself. I certainly believed that she was watching me and displayed myself accordingly. In reality it was mutual masturbation…just without acknowledging that we were being watched.

My mom had borderline personality disorder. Didn't really figure it out until I brought someone in to evaluate her over a month. She started playing us against each other from the start and boom there it was. When other family members were interviewed based on what they said she had it from childhood. She made it to the point where the guy she married and I hated each other for many years and she would sit back and watch the fallout, usually I got my ass beaten for something she started. I was happy the day she fell and I got to send her to a nursing home. I know it was her that set me up to be raped by the neighbor. He had naked photos of her when I went into his house and took the photos of me there was mom.

Mom used to arrange so I could see her without clothes and even sometimes my friends would see her.
 
Dealing with my mother was one who has caused me issues not the I would ever tell her. No we did not like have full on sex but yes it was over the line on things such as nudity, bathing sleeping together. I don’t think she meant to harm me honestly I don’t but it has caused me issues. She was the one person who comforted me crap in my life as a kid. It’s messed up I feel for everyone who has mother issues or family issues. So much good stuff normal stuff then the other.
 
This resonates with my abuse, except it is only voyeurism, no exhibitionism. Healthcare constantly has patients undressed and exposed needlessly. It is institutionalized to the point that most people accept it. They dismiss you with things like "you don't have anything we haven't seen before" or "this is the way we have always done things." Those of us abused under the guise of healthcare recognize these behaviors as abuse rather than necessity.

The same excuse that I have heard from survivors on this thread that their mothers said to them: "you don't have anything we haven't seen before..."
 
I'm late to this post, but I've been with you all my life. I was my mother's surrogate partner as well, and she had no boundaries between us. I don't remember any physical sexual abuse, but there are a lot of things I don't remember. The sights, smells, and situations I do remember are quite enough. Thank you so much to all of you for sharing that you've been through this. I've told therapists and my wife, but never have I been lucky enough to encounter anyone who has been there themselves. I hope you know how much it means for someone to understand something so central to my childhood without the impossible task of trying to explain it.
 
I'm late to this post, but I've been with you all my life. I was my mother's surrogate partner as well, and she had no boundaries between us. I don't remember any physical sexual abuse, but there are a lot of things I don't remember. The sights, smells, and situations I do remember are quite enough. Thank you so much to all of you for sharing that you've been through this. I've told therapists and my wife, but never have I been lucky enough to encounter anyone who has been there themselves. I hope you know how much it means for someone to understand something so central to my childhood without the impossible task of trying to explain it.
:) Same.
 
When an 11 year old realizes his mom is undressing him, "her tall dark and handsome", with her eyes...
 
I guess I can say I had the "lite version" of the above. (for lack of a better way to put it) There were bounderies. Much wider than normal but it always stopped short. Like it was carefully orchestrated to be so. Never total nudity but lots of voyerism and "showing off" while making it appear to be nonchalant or inadvertant. Straddling me at bedtime while I was under the covers and she was above me wearing nothing but a robe and making sure I knew it. Having intermittent bedwetting till almost 16 she'd come in my room and feel around under the covers. If I was dry she'd take me to the bathroom and watch me go till at least 14. If I had already wet she'd make me change the sheets then change pj's while she'd stand there and watch.

And the good cop/bad cop routine. Sometimes she'd be highly sympathetic and understanding. Lying next to me holding me and telling me I couldn't help it, it's our secret etc Other times she'd raise the roof and be quite demeaning of me and my anatomy, calling me a baby and threating to tell all my friends I was a bedwetter.
 
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