False Allegations-says her dad is a rapist

Family
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I’m looking for any advice, or encouragement regarding what is going on with my family. If you have gone through the same thing I would really love it if you took the time to reply.
Allow me to explain…

Back in March my oldest daughter (age 22) told me that her step dad (my husband) had been raping her from ages 9-19. This came out of nowhere. When I asked her for proof she said that she had none. She had mentioned to me that her step dad “summoned her” through Snap Chat and Snap Chat only-no texts or any other Social Media. She had zero proof of these snaps and said that she never collected any sort of DNA evidence which I found odd, but I was willing to believe her. I asked her if she had ANYTHING that could at least show that she was telling the truth about her allegations and she said she had nothing. I asked her what prompted her to come forward after waiting for so long and she told me that it was a book called Spilled Milk which was written by a young lady who lived in NE Pennsylvania. Her friends had been talking about it on a road trip that she took with them about 6-8 months prior to her telling me about the allegation. She said that the character seemed a lot like her (good grades, kind, hard worker) and that her dad raped her. This also takes place in the same area that we lived for 6 years when she was between the ages of 6-12. She felt that after reading the book she would need to be brave enough to approach me and inform me of everything.

Initially I believed her because she has never given me any reason to think or believe that she is a liar. She was always a very well behaved child, never gave me problems in her teenage years (never really fought me or disrespected me), a straight A student from the 6th through 12th grades, graduated high school with honors and received a full ride scholarship at the school of her choice which also happened to be the number one school in the world in her chosen field. She graduated and now she has a job in her field but of course is the low man on the totem pole. She has been living on her own since she left for college. I don’t mention this to brag, it’s so you understand her basic behavior. She appears normal, she is easy to like/love, articulate, and just an amazing young woman. My husband however is very grouchy, has a problem with everything, very few friends, no long lasting friendships, is not easily liked…so I think you can see why I was so quick to believe her and not question much. I should also add that during her teenage and young adult years she was closer to her step than myself. Told him everything, just had a better relationship with him than me. But I also worked quite a bit so maybe she found him more easily accessible? So this really comes out of nowhere. She never appeared afraid of him or unhappy or uneasy-unless he was in a bad mood. But, no one feels easy around people in a foul mood.

A few months later she went to the police. Since going to the police she now all of a sudden has evidence from Snap Chat that she never had before, and all of a sudden, magically there are text messages that my husband supposedly sent her that are sexual in nature. The only thing is, he is adamant that none of it is true-and yes I believe him. There are other reasons why I believe him, but to keep it short I started noticing inconsistencies in her stories and a few times where her stories had changed entirely. Whenever I called her out on it (three times total) she would freak out and start yelling or screaming and then end up crying really hard. It was kind of bizarre and I couldn’t quite figure out what in the heck was going on because that isn’t normal behavior for her.

Both her bio-dad’s family as well as my family has a history of mental illness. It’s peppered throughout both of our families. Her bio dad has a mood disorder of sorts (bipolar but there’s something else going on too), so did his dad and his paternal grandmother. His mom’s side has depression, mood disorders and personality disorders. My family has all those same illnesses but also two past family members (that I am aware of) with Schizophrenia. It came to me one day that this must be (at least in part) of what she is suffering from. She has not been diagnosed to the best of my knowledge, but after doing much research (mostly on this site) it appears to me as if her behavior mimics that of the stories of family members talking about the young adults in their family suffering from Schizo-affective disorder. In fact, it seems right on the money since the similarities are right on.

I do not think she is being malicious. She truly believes that all of this happened. You can tell when she is telling you about it, but I now know for certain that it is all a fabrication. She continues to work, live on her own, has a boyfriend. So it’s like this is just a new reality in her life.

My family has gone through so much since July when it all came out. Like I mentioned above, I initially believed her so I filled out a restraining order against my husband as well as filed for a divorce-I have not followed through with either due to her change in stories. After the police spent nearly six months investigating, my husband received a charging paper in the mail this week that requests him to appear in court next week to either plead guilty or not guilty. He read a small part of the summary page (charges from the prosecutor) with his attorney yesterday and it is full of falsehoods and garbage.

Here is where it gets VERY interesting. We ordered the book Spilled Milk on Amazon and started reading it. There are MANY similarities between some of the characters and our family (my daughter and myself are much like the main character and her step dad behaves like the author’s father) AS WELL as timelines of when things happened to the character that coincide with my daughter’s abuse timeline. I’m not done with the book yet, but from everything I have read it appears as if my daughter read it and somehow inserted herself as the character and actually believes that this was her life. I suppose it doesn’t help that the character in the book (which is based on actual life events that happened to the author) lived one town over from we were living and was roughly the same age as my daughter was when moving to that area. I haven’t spoken to my daughter since August (she has blocked me on pretty much anything and refuses to respond to email) so we have not had a chance to discuss how she is feeling…

I know that people on this forum have had similar things happen to them involving false allegations made about child sex abuse from their (mostly) Schizo-affective disorder young adult children. My questions are:

  1. How long does this last? Do they “snap” out of it? When do they “see” what they are doing is wrong? Or do they end up snapping out of it and following through with their allegation because they are so deep in it?

  2. Does anyone have a family member who suffers from this who has also read a book (or watched a movie) and after reading it somehow believes that this is their life?

  3. Has anyone had a similar experience involving the police or a District Attorney? How did you navigate your way through this? Do you have any advice you can offer?

  4. I’m fairly certain that my husband’s attorney will eventually be requesting a mental evaluation, but is that something that can be easily passed or teased? She is a great test taker and not dumb by any means.

  5. We aren’t ready to tell our younger children what is going on with their sister. The middle child knows about the allegations, but not what we think regarding the mental illness portion of this. Our youngest is 12 and we have kept her in the dark. How do you go about telling your kids about something as big as this? We haven’t even told them that their dad is officially being charged with a heinous crime.

Thank you in advance. I know this was a lot to read, but we are in such an awful situation and are looking for those that have been through this or are currently going through something similar.

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@Worriedmum Let me start by saying I’m so very sorry that your family is going through this. I don’t really have any answers for you, but you’re not alone.

I have a 20 year old daughter that started showing signs of mental illness a little over a year ago. She too has made some awful allegations against her Dad. It’s heartbreaking for him and I’m not sure their relationship will ever be the same. My daughter’s behavior is very erratic and it’s pretty obvious that what she’s saying isn’t true. Like you, I don’t think she is intentionally lying. We attended a few support group meetings and found out this was very common. In our group at least, the child had made some sort of claim against one of their parents. Usually it was the parent of the opposite sex.

Unfortunately for awhile my daughter was able to appear “normal enough” and we were not able to force her to get help until things escalated out of control. She ended up getting arrested and spent six months in jail. Oddly enough she agreed to take her AP medication once she was arrested and after about a month her delusions stopped. She’s been out of jail for three months and things have been going ok. My husband is still very uncomfortable around her though. Unfortunately something has felt different for a couple of weeks now. I worry that she’s stopped taking her medication and the delusions will start again.

We only have one child so we did not have to address issues with siblings. However, I have a younger niece and nephew that idolize her and they are very close. At first we tried to shield them from everything. We ended up telling them that she was sick and we were trying to help her get better. We did stress that she wasn’t a bad person and that nothing going on changed how much we love her.

Best of luck. Stay strong.

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My 41 year old son’s delusions about his dad become fixed delusions and have remained. At one time he called 911 and accused both of us of sexually abusing him through some computer game. Neither of us played any sort of computer games. Sounds like you have been reading some of the threads -good job. There is the story of a family where the daughter started accusing the brothers, went to college and made rape accusations there as well. In her successful work life she continued to report coworkers and neighbors of rape. The parents actually believed their daughter for years. Their sons refused to attend any family gathering that included their sister.

My son will wake up from a dream and believe his dream really happened. Not just with scary stuff, every day stuff as well.

When our son started reporting his claims to law enforcement, relatives and friends, we began letting people know he lived with schizophrenia.

Depends upon the depth of the experience of the evaluator. Most of our children are highly intelligent.

Children should be told the truth when they ask, no matter what their age. The reply should vary, based on the age and follow up questions. Stick with the truth. Seems wrong to tell them their dad is charged with a heinous crime when the accusations have a very strong possibility of being false.

Good luck to you and keep reading, hope

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Nearly two years ago, my 70 something uncle “remembered” that one of his brothers and his brother’s wife molested him when he was a child. But that brother didn’t meet his wife until they were all adults. He continues to believe this to this day, even though he never mentioned anything about it over the decades. He was first diagnosed with schizophrenia in the '80s, but sometime in the last few years (so the story goes) a doctor said he didn’t have schizophrenia, so he stopped his shots (that were mandated for years) and takes no meds for schizophrenia.
…
Over the years he has covered a tv with a blanket saying it was watching them (or stealing their thoughts, or something), said the meds they were giving him in the mental hospital reminded him of DDT, calls mom with racing thoughts that are all over the map, is often very angry now and cusses about things that make little sense, is poor but wastes his money (and tries to get money out of everyone), and (I think I got this story right) smashed the tv of his brother that he accused of molesting him. He was helping them move, and for whatever reason smashed their tv into the asphalt outside (on purpose: this was 3 or 4 years ago, but he had covered their tv in the '80s with a blanket, insisting it was watching them or whatever, which I think is the first time he was hospitalized). As you can imagine the brother and his wife were not happy to have their tv smashed, and shortly after that he “remember” they molested him.
…
What is worse is that that aunt passed away last night. I really hope this uncle stays away from them because I am not entirely certain her children know what this uncle has accused her and their father of. And if he cracks even more due to the stress of this death in the family, the last thing they need is him ranting about being molested by their now deceased mother when it’s clearly not true (it’s literally impossible)

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Hi There.
Wow, so many similarities here. My heart was breaking for you as I read your story. To answer one of your questions, yes, my son has adopted or perceived himself to have experienced trauma he watched on TV movies/ documentaries as well as the actual life of one of his close friends. He has made numerous accusations of me, his Mother, his brother, and his Father. We have been accused of sexual molestation, mental cruelty, murder, drug dealing and drug abuse. He actually told people I was as just like some serial killer’s mother and had treated him similarly. Total nonsense, but we now know he really believes these things. He actually did have a close friend in HS whose Father was a serious drug dealer and had gone to prison for it. Our son has recited various events, that occurred in this person’s life, as if they occurred in his own. He even told this friend about it, which was shocking to the friend b/c it was his story- and one he had told him years ago in confidence. Our son now believes it happened to him. He takes benign events from his past and converts them into very dramatic horrible events that he blames us for, although it is nothing like what we had created it to be…and there was no convincing him otherwise. A psychologist who diagnosed him(unofficially) stated the s behavior was called some term that I cannot recall right now, but it was an indicator of severe psychosis and he was in great need of medication.
We have not had any luck b/c he refuses to acknowledge his illness or have any relationship with us. I’m so sorry I do not have a more encouraging response for you. :heart:

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Hello @Worriedmama and welcome. Firstly, I am sending my solidarity and condolences during this incredibly difficult time.

Your experiences reflect other posts that I have read in this forum. But also I have a very similar post regarding a book.

I was studying an MA in writing and thoroughly enjoying the process- I even posted a few stories on a blog that I had created.

Before my sister was diagnosed, she suddenly became incredibly paranoid that my stories were about her. At first I was upset and defensive as they simply had nothing to do with her and I had lived quite far away and in my own bubble. I noticed though that she was pointing out “hidden codes” and clues behind my writing - this was infact one of the first times I felt sure that she was schizophrenic.

She posted videos about me online (tiktok videos) dissecting my writing and pulling it apart for hidden meaning. Whilst this was hurtful, it became clear that she was seeing something that wasn’t there.

I then discovered that she had taken Kristen Roupenian’s book - “Cat Person" from my bookshelf and this was in one of her videos.

This author has been at the centre of a scandal for using somebody’s real life and incorporating it into her fiction. My sister appears to have taken what happened with Kristen Roupenian’s book - “Cat Person" and mistaken it for our lives. I own about 200+ books and barely skimmed some of this one so her obsession with it was incredibly jarring until we understood her illness.

I can’t say for certain that this is the case in your situation but I will tell you that it took almost 2 more years to get her diagnosed. She has also claimed implausible abuse and insists that I have had an abortion.

Listen to your intuition and think rationally about the timelines in these allegations - i hope this can bring you some guidance.

Sending you solidarity again x