Friday, March 4, 2011

Questions and Answers (Part 5 of 7)

"Should I confront my perpetrator?"

A man needs to decide that for himself. One female and one male abused me and both of them are dead. Even if they were alive, I doubt that I would confront them.

If you feel you want to confront, ask yourself one significant question: What do I want to accomplish? If you want the person to confess, that probably won't happen. Perpetrators usually molested more than one boy and he's probably become an expert in denial. "I would never do such a thing to you. I loved you, but I never did anything wrong."

Or worse, he may turn it around and say, "You asked for it. You were always clinging to me and demanding love."

If you feel you must confront, I urge you to take someone with you—someone who can stop your second victimization by accusing you or twisting the reality. Remind yourself that the person deceived you once and stole your innocence. He can't do that again, but he can confuse you or bring doubts.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Yes, my perpetrators are gone now as well. I also don't think I would have had the courage to confront them even if I could have, after all I was that kid who craved attention and didn't recognize it at the time as abuse. Any attention I seemed to take as something I needed, even the bullying was attention, how horrible is that.

I have never confronted anyone but the advise to have someone with you would be absolutely necessary.