I’m not sure if this is the right place to post this, but I’m not sure where else to turn.
I was just visiting my parents for Thanksgiving (I live about 2000 miles away from them), and we were reminiscing about the “good old days” before all the drama in my parents’ friend group. We got on the topic of one family who was shunned from the group when I was about 10. I didn’t understand what was happening besides Family X now hated Family Y, which meant I couldn’t see some of my friends at the same time anymore. Now that decades have passed, I asked why the families hated each other.
Well, Family X has a son who is non verbal autistic. Let’s call him ‘A’. A doesn’t speak a single word despite now being in his 30s. I should note though that despite not being able to speak words, he does communicate decently well with hand gestures, facial expressions, and grunts. He’s doesn’t know sign language or anything like that, so he can’t express complex thoughts, but he can express basic thoughts like being hungry, wanting to play videogames, or being attracted to someone (this is important later). Well, apparently about 20 years ago the mother of Family Y overheard that A (around 12 at this time) had sexually assaulted another child in the friend group. The mother of Family Y called CPS, starting a whole shitstorm for Family X. Ultimately nothing could be proven, but Family Y was shunned from the friend group. My parents stayed friends with both families for a while, but eventually slowly stopped hanging out with Family Y.
Hearing all of this unlocked a few memories of mine from when I was a kid.
- My parents asking if anyone ever touched me inappropriately. Luckily the answer was no.
- I overheard A’s older brother saying that he walked into a room and A was “having sex” with another boy in the friend group. I remember which boy they were talking about, and he was around the same age as A, but I have no clue any of the context outside of this. I don’t know if it was sexual assault (possibly even the sexual assault that was reported) or just two boys having sex at too young of an age. I can’t remember when this was, but I would guess they were both 12-14 at this time.
- When I was a little older, maybe 14, I was at another family’s house who had removed themselves from the friend group a few years earlier. I was talking to the daughter of that family alone. Let’s call her B. B was my age and my best friend from ages 4-8. Probably my earliest memory is riding tricycles with B in her backyard. Anyway. B told me that she always got creepy vibes from A. A would make hand gestures and whistling noises at B, making it clear that he liked her. The families made B go on a date with A, despite her protests. Eventually A tried forcing himself on B, and she fought him off. Immediately after this, B’s family moved an hour or so away, and she was happy to be away from him.
These are old memories, and I probably have a lot of details wrong. But there is enough information here for me to believe that A is a sexual assaulter with no doubt in my mind.
Fast forward to about 3 years ago. A’s older brother is married and has a child. The child, who was being potty trained at the time, said that Uncle A touched him inappropriately (I didn’t get the details of what exactly this meant). A’s mother said he was just helping the toddler go to the bathroom. But with A’s history, I just don’t believe that. The kid had help going to the bathroom hundreds of times and only spoke up this one time. Something was different this time. Toddlers don’t just make this kind of stuff up. A’s brother got a divorce over this, as the child’s mother took these accusations seriously, but A’s immediate family dismissed it. Now they are in the midst of an intense legal battle over custody. The mother doesn’t want her child near A, but that family currently has partial custody.
I don’t know if the child’s mother knows about these other times that A was accused of sexual assault. I would like to help in any way I can. Since everything I know is unreliable memories from non-direct experiences, I’m not sure it would be helpful for me to get directly involved. But I would like to potentially get the child’s mother in contact with B. Maybe B can testify against A in this custody battle. Unfortunately, I have completely lost contact with B. I don’t have her phone number or anything. Additionally, I don’t even know the child’s mother’s name. She married A’s brother long after I stopped being around that family regularly. I maybe met her twice at large social gatherings.
I just feel like I might be in the unique situation where I have heard many sides of this story over decades, and I might be the only person who put it all together. I want to help, but I don’t know how. I don’t want A to keep being able to sexually assault more people. I feel if I do nothing right now, any future sexual assaults A commits is partially on me.
What can I do?
I’m not sure. That’s a good question. I would guess no. His parents have been negligent to the point of being abusive with him. Based on the stories my parents have told me, they refused to take him to see a doctor when he wasn’t talking as a baby. They did eventually bring him to a doctor, but years after they should have. They would usually pay other kids his age to work with him on learning exercises from workbooks. He never went to school. They didn’t try teaching him sign language until he was a teenager, and even then they didn’t stick with it or try very hard.
That is definitely neglect.
I used to teach disabled adults and we saw a lot of this sort of thing, the parents considered their disabled adult children like toddlers, we were residential so we got them in house and realised that this 23 year old had never even poured himself a glass of water, so we’d spend all first term teaching them to cook their own food, wash their own clothes, clean their own environment, do their own shopping, just all the things parents hadn’t.
Then they’d go home and the parents would do everything for them again because they loved it. No regard to this adult man feeling crappy cause his mom wouldn’t let him out of her sight.
One thing I always think about, which did happen sometimes, were those ‘kids’ who had come to us after their parents died. You have a 40 or 50 year old woman who’s never been away from her mother for one minute suddenly thrust alone into the world with zero skills. It’s cruel to do that to someone.
And of course, in these groups, physical and sexual assault did happen because they were impaired in some way in understanding and nobody had tried to teach them appropriate behaviour, so what chance do they have! It need education and management to keep everyone safe.