I always thought she & I were closer than with her mother but now I'm not sure.
Your closeness to her could be the very obstacle now, especially in matters of sex. husband was always closest to easy child, but I was the one who had "the talk" when she came home from visiting her boyfriend, and had a Urinary Tract Infection (UTI) she didn't tell me about until it progressed to incontinence. I immediately tackled her about the Urinary Tract Infection (UTI) - when you were visiting your boyfriend a week earlier and you're 16... she couldn't deny it, especially when I pointed out that girls developing UTIs when sex was NOT involved is not only rare, it requires investigation for possible serious urogenital defects.
But she couldn't talk to her dad about it. She could barely talk to me about it for years, still won't discuss sex with us.
How accessible is her blog? She is your daughter; if it is out there, it is there to access legitimately. husband lurks here all the time, reads everything I post. Always has (so I can't vent about what a ratbag he is! Just kidding!). It's normal for us, for him to lurk and read. Not checking up on me in any way - just staying in touch. He will check in during his lunch break or sometimes in the morning. We've even had the odd situation where I've been posting here on my laptop in the bedroom, while he is up the other end of the house on HIS laptop, also posting on the same thread!
She is scared you will think badly of her; after all, she feels badly about herself. And the scenario you describe - sadly common. And these boys do not consider it rape because the girl consented. Was desperate for it, in their eyes. You can tell the school, but I doubt they'll do anything about it. This is where sexting also is an issue - people blame the girls, but again, it is a boy saying to the girl, "If you want to be popular with my in crowd, you have to do this. All the girls do."
Virginity is no longer what it used to be. What is far more important these days, is a girl's sense of personal integrity and self-worth. here is where it can go nasty - what has happened to her can damage her self-worth and sense of integrity, and make her more vulnerable to similar exploitation, even if right now she feels she is sadder but wiser. No, she's only sadder.
The best you can do is show her you love her unconditionally. Tell her she will always be your little girl, you love her regardless. Do not talk about this being rape or coercion - in hr memory, she CAN find the part of her that at some level enjoyed the wooing, the excitement, the feeling of being in love. She will be MORE confused if you try to explain that it still is legally, rape. Sadly, trying to take action is only likely to do her more harm in a number of ways. Sadly too, this is why this stuff continues. Because it generally is more damaging to the girls, to try to stop it. And it won't stop, it just goes deeper underground.
So - love her. Hug her. Tell her you are not angry with her in any way. If you are angry, it is that she was taken advantage of and that her first time was not what it should have been for her. But that it will not matter to her in the long run, if she can find that bit of her inside that is strong, is resilient, and knows she deserves better.
Therapy - certainly. But a big start, I think, will be your love and reassurance. Don't ask for details. If she tells you, listen and hug her. But don't probe. Don't interrogate. That will also make it clear that you love her unconditionally.
And as for us - don't compare. You have problems with a typical teen that I thankfully don't have to worry about. Last Friday when we were at difficult child 3's correspondence school, I was talking with one of his favourite teachers. This year, now he is 17, there is a compulsory subject he has to study, all about personal responsibility with sex and drugs. Neither of those is on difficult child 3's radar at all. He may not even understand the topic. Similarly with his older brother, I knew I would never have to worry about him using drugs. My biggest concern is with easy child 2/difficult child 2 who occasionally binges on alcohol, but seems to be settling down even there. She was out drinking one Christmas with her friends and her husband, all in one large group, at a different bar to their usual, and was slipped a mickey finn (probably GHB). She could have died, nobody realised at the time. Whoever drugged her probably thought she was there as a single girl, her husband was up the other end of the bar with the other guys while she was hanging with the girls. When I found out, I wanted to rewrite the laws of our country, to allow me to take that bar apart (and its staff). But we had absolutely no evidence - it was too late for blood tests by the time she was with it. Her husband didn't realise, just thought she was drunk, but she had zero memory for about 36 hours. It was only what she could piece together from what her friends told her, that she began to realise. And she was ill for months from the after-effects.
She did nothing to put herself in danger; far from it. She is a careful girl even when drunk. She covers her glass constantly. From what I have since found, this particular bar in Sydney has a bad reputation for this, the bartender is suspected of being involved in a group who do this regularly - get one girl doped up, then lie in wait for her as she leaves the bar. They 'help' her out if they can. Then a group of them have their fun, secure in knowing she won't remember a thing. But it backfired in this case, because she thankfully was not there unpartnered.
Your daughter has had a very nasty lesson in the dark side of humanity. it sadly will not be her last, but you will need to allow, even encourage, a certain amount of hardness and cynicism in her, to help shield her from more nastiness.
I am so sorry you are going through this.
Marg
hang in there. unfortunately our kids dont' come with-manuals and they really should!
