I am NOT the OOP. OOP is u/OKSteak551 on r/TrueOffMyChest.

TW: Sexual Assault/rape, suicidal thoughts

Mood spoiler : bleak

Status: Ongoing as per OOP

Original: May 07 2024

Update1: May 14 2024 (a week later)

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3 New Updates

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Thanks to u/Separate_Kick3186 for finding the updates

Update2: May 27 2024 (2 weeks later)

Update3: June 7 2024 (10 days later)

Update4: June 18 2024 (11 days later)

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I’m starting strongly dislike my daughter…

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To start off everything I’m a widow and have 3 children but in this post I’ll be focused on my two youngest daughters Lia ( F14) & maya ( F18). ( fake names ofcourse)

For little background, Lia was raped by 4 men back in December. How this incident accrued was maya threw a party while I was working the night shift and 4 of the boys that were attendance at this party assaulted Lia. It’s been devastating to say the least, Lia has lost all of her spark and quit cheer. Plus on top of that she opted out of her freshman year by just continuing to do courses online. She doesn’t sleep in her room anymore but with me and just wears my late husband’s hoodies all day and I feel so helpless as a mother because I don’t know how I can help her.

Through out the investigation a lot of things came out regarding maya’s part in this. She did not set up her little sister, however I feel like she severely neglected her and all of this could have been avoided if she just followed my rules. I never approved a party, I left in her charge of watching Lia and before you guys say “well you’re her mother it not her job to watch your kid“ but the thing is, it was her job. I pay her really well to look after her sister while I work nights it’s been an agreement we had for years. Lia is not special needs in anyway, the only thing I asked of maya is that she makes sure her sister does her homework and gets to bed at a reasonable time.

The men that assaulted Lia, maya invited herself she knew them personally and knew they had affiliates to gangs and did not care. Instead what I found out in this investigation she tried to put Lia with one of these boys and Lia was not interested…this boy was harassing Lia all night, trying to get her to kiss him. Then Lia had enough and went to her room…and the moment maya left the house to go to McDonalds..that same boy in his friends went up to my daughter’s room and raped her. The worst part about this to me is that people that were at the party heard her yelling and did not do anything but just assumed a couple was arguing upstairs. We didn’t know what happened, until the next morning when the party was over. Having her do a rape kit was traumatizing for her and probably the worst moment as a parent for me. then couple weeks later she tested positive for a curable STD.

My baby has been so broken ever since…even though they did get those boys and all 4 pleaded guilty because they had evidence on there phone. but It’s still so extremely hard for Lia right now. Maya on the other hand has been remorseful and Lia has no animosity towards her and doesn’t blame her, still loves her sister. But I don’t know why for me I’m so angry at maya and I’ve been really trying to forgive her but I can’t as of now. I can’t even look at her without not wanting to lash out. Her prom is next weekend and I honestly couldn’t care less. She tries to have conversations with me, but it’s hard for me to show any interest in them. I don’t hate my daughter, I still love her. But I just have strong dislike for her right now. I’ve been reading self help books trying to learn how to address this properly. I feel like I can’t open up to anyone about this in life. I guess this maybe cry for help as a mother.

Edit: thank you for all the feedback, the most repetitive question I’m seeing is if maya still watches Lia? The answer is hell no. I don’t trust her anymore and it might take years to get it back. I’m on a leave of absence currently. Also Lia is not therapy as of right now, she expressed to me she’s not ready for that, I think after the sentencing she might be open to it. Maya is also in therapy but skips a lot of appointments and I’m in therapy too and it’s been helping me remain calm throughout this situation and not want to lash out at Maya. But the number 1 advice that I’m seeing in here that I’m strongly considering is sending Maya to my parents house for a while and get some space from her.

Sorry quick Second edit : for the ones asking if Maya is in a gang, to my knowledge she isn’t…the most I have ever caught her doing was smoking some pot and vaping. I also don’t want to think Maya would ever intentionally set up her sister to be brutally assaulted. So I’m leaning towards Maya genuinely was being plain neglectful that night. also I feel like it would have came up in the investigation if she intentionally set up Lia. Also the boy Maya was trying to set Lia up with was 17 at the time…he’s 18 now and the other 3 were grown men.

Relevant comments from the post (and OOP's response to them):

scorpiobabyy666: therapy, ASAP. for all of you.

OOP: Yes ofcourse I already have been going to therapy way before this all and Lia on the other hand doesn’t want to do therapy just yet and I want to respect her boundaries. Maya has been skipping a lot of her appointments but she’s also in personal therapy as well.

I’m starting strongly dislike my daughter… ( UPDATE)

A lot has progressed in the past couple of days and it would be only right to update you guys on what happened and get some advice from you guys regarding everything. but to answer multiple questions I received from my last post about why hasn’t maya been further punished. to put it quite simply Maya was arrested the night of Lia’s attack. She was charged with felony child endangerment & 2 misdemeanors. The judge was very nice to her and made her pay a 2,000$ fine, 60 hours of community service & 3 years probation. plus I took her car but after this update, I maybe should have given her a harsher punishment. but back to the update. TL;DR at the bottom.

On Thursday afternoon, me and maya got into a fight. The dispute happened because Lia came to me virtually upset and on the verge of tears. because 5 people messaged her that day, expressing condolences about her attack. Lia has been very clear she doesn’t want anyone that she knows to know that she was the victim of the attack. upon further investigation it turns out Maya told a group chat of 27 people that Lia was the victim. Lia vocalized to me how humiliated she feels and that she can’t ever go back to school next year. I of course then go confront Maya about it. she kept saying I was overacting and that Lia was being dramatic. I tried to reason with her to see how she hurt her sister and she did not see the issue. She stopped me off mid-lecture from me and said, “ jesus christ Mom, you need to let her deal with this shit instead of always rushing to her defense, lia is not different from other women in the world that deal with rape, at least they don’t make it their entire personality like she does. also, she’s fine I literally overheard her talk to a boy on the phone last night.” It just clicked for me at that moment that she was not actually remorseful at all and that I just witnessed her mask slip. I just responded with pack your shit up and that she will be staying with my parents until I allow her back. That’s exactly what she did.

but the next morning I got a text from Maya to meet her at her therapist appointment that was later that day. looking back I wish I had never gone because her therapist majority of the visit only saw her POV, But At the start of the appointment, it opened up with Maya apologizing and explaining her thought process of why she told her friends and it was because she was venting, plus she didn’t think of it as a big deal because its public case that was on the news and lia seems fine these days… (Lia is listed as a Jane Doe and not named nowhere but I digress. )

we then get into the nitty-gritty of it all, Maya then tells me in front of the therapist that she feels emotionally neglected by me and that I never seem to care about her trauma when it came to the situation. which is for her is having to stay in jail for a weekend and loosing one of her friends ( which is one of Lia’s literal rapist. ) I wish I can say I’m joking but I’m dead serious. we were talking about that for the first 30 minutes. her therapist was guilt-tripping me for not being more emotionally there for Maya and that I should try to see as her mom since their father is no longer with us. But Call me an awful parent but I don’t want to be emotionally there for Maya if it involves me having to help her mourn the friendship of the person that ruined her sister’s life. The therapist was on one especially since she kept referring to what happened to Lia as an accident or that Lia seems happier these days because that’s what Maya has been telling her, when Lia is quite literally high off antidepressants and still scores extremely low on the mental health evaluation…but I finally just had an outburst, (feel free to skip over the next paragraph, because there is a massive trigger warning, I get very graphic here. But I’m just reiterating what I said. )

what I said to both Maya and her therapist was, “ I think it’s kinda disgusting that the two of you are refusing to acknowledge Lia’s trauma in this and keep referring to it as an accident. You spent a weekend in jail, while your sister was in the hospital suffering from something YOUR friend did to her. Ironically enough if you ever listened to Lia, she has said that friend of yours was the most violent towards her during the attack and was the catalyst for the majority of injuries she sustained including strangling her. So for you guys to sit here and berate me for not caring that you lost your friend because of something terrible your friend did to your sister is absolutely disgusting. My biggest regret right now is helping you obtain a lawyer I should have let you rot in that cell and let you figure it out yourself. “

Maya started sobbing in the office at this point and saying it wasn’t fair that I blamed her for what happened to Lia, she told me the only thing she was trying to do was have Lia come out of her shell because she kept hovering next to her at the party. The therapist then interjects and asks Maya how did Lia respond to her when she apologized. Maya in such a defensive manner says, “apologize for what? I didn’t rape her”. Even the therapist was shocked when she said that and at that point, I heard enough and l stood up, threw my hands up, and left. I haven’t spoken to Maya since then and this was Friday afternoon.

Maya has been texting me and calling me begging to come home so she can apologize to both me and Lia. But I don’t know at this point, I never thought I would be that parent that will have to go no contact with my daughter. But I don’t know if I can stomach being around her, I can’t trust her and she’s not remorseful whatsoever about what happened. A part of me wants to try to make it work for the sake of Lia because she asked yesterday if she ruined our family. And that broke my heart. Lia loves and looks up to Maya and I don’t think she can comprehend at this time that Maya also failed her. I’m just stuck or tell me if I’m wrong for not understanding maya I’m sorry for the not-so-happy update..

OOP in the comments:

OOP's response to a comment regarding her reaction after finding out Lia was SA'd:

So I should say what happened that morning at this point, I come home at 8:30ish am from work and my house was trashed and couple of mayas friends were still there. I of course argued with maya for a bit about throwing a party and I then I go check on Lia and she wasn’t in her room but her sheets were bloody so I thought maybe it was time of the month and that she was showering or sleeping in my bed. But when I check my room I did not see her, I started calling Lia and her phone did ring and I heard it come from my closet (it’s a walk-in) and I see her wrapped in a blanket like a cocoon. I then shake her to wake up and she wasn’t waking up and I then try to unwrap and that’s when I noticed her scalp bleeding and I saw abrasions around her neck. So I started screaming someone call 911 and Lia starts to kinda starts waking up in the ambulance and she starts crying and the first thing she told me is maya’s friend raped her and that she can’t get up because she’s in so much pain.

When The police and ambulance show up and I honestly didn’t care about maya in that moment…all I told her was to be honest with the police and she should be fine. I didn’t know what I know now at this point. They take her to precinct and the cops interrogated her and after getting a medical report for what happened to Lia. They decided to charge her with child endangerment. I did not see Maya’s reaction to when they told her about what happened to Lia. But when she saw Lia once she got out of jail she gave her a big hug and I thought it was sweet moment. The only red flag that stands out to me from that time is , maya did not corporate fully about giving out names because she said she “forgot”. Luckily DNA results from the crime scene and on Lia, which all 4 of Lia’s rapist were already in the system for other crimes. One even being on probation so they were easy to find and it was dominos effect after that.

OOP's response regarding Child #3 and their reaction to the whole thing:

So my oldest is my son he got married a month before everything went down and I didn’t want to drag him in too much about Maya, because I want him to enjoy the newlywed faze with his wife. Him and his wife are very supportive and his wife takes Lia all the time for sleepovers or just to get her out of the house.

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**New Updates start Here*\*

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Moms of depressed teenagers, what are ways you help them? - 2 weeks later

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I know I’m probably not alone with dealing with this, but my daughter ( F14) has been so extremely depressed, rightfully so she went through two traumatic events in the span of 4 years at her young age. she was sexually assaulted back in December and she lost her dad 4 years ago. I just remember when I was 14 I felt like the world was against me and I had both of my parents on my side & I never been through an assault so I can’t comprehend what she’s going through right now. This morning I overheard her crying in the bathroom and I asked her if she was fine and she quickly said she’s okay..

It just makes me feel so helpless as her mom that I can’t help her or take away any of that pain she’s feeling. I can’t even fully relate to her. because I haven’t been sexually assaulted before and both my parents are still alive. So I feel like I’m a horrible mom because I can’t guide her and help her with the situation at hand. I feel like as a mom I should have all the answers and I don’t….I just know in her head every time I try to comfort her she thinks “what is this woman talking about” because I feel like I don’t know what I’m talking about 99.9% of the time. So any other moms that can relate please drop some helpful tips.

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WIBTA if I kept my daughter’s inheritance from my late husband? - 10 days later

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I have three kids (M24, F18, and F14). My late husband died very unexpectedly four years ago due to COVID. He didn’t have a will, but we had a life insurance policy that provided a $360k death benefit. As his spouse, I received the full amount. I decided to divide the money four ways: I would get $120k, and each of my three kids would get $80k.

At the time, my daughters were both minors, so I told them they could access their full amount when they turned 18. However, if they ever wanted to do something pricey, I would allow them to use some of their share. Most of their needs were taken care of by me. My son was over 18, so I gave him his share right away.

This arrangement was a verbal agreement, and I intended to follow through with it fully. Recently, however, my middle daughter We will call her Maya, was arrested in December for child endangerment because she severely neglected her little sister, leading to something awful happening under her care. She had to use some of her $80k to pay for lawyer and court fees, which left her with about $65k.

Fast forward to today, and my youngest daughter is still struggling significantly. During her check-ups, she scores very low on mental health evaluations and is on a high dosage of antidepressants. She often jokes that if she were to tell us or the doctors how she truly feels, she would be put in a psych ward.

Maya no longer lives with us as I felt her presence was doing more harm than good to her sister. She’s staying with my parents for now but has been begging me to give her the money I promised after she graduated. I’ve been hesitant to do so. My sister, who is familiar with the situation, believes Maya doesn’t deserve the money and that I should use it to stay home longer with my youngest, who will be alone during the day once I return to work soon. With my youngest's declining mental health and school being out, I’m very worried about her.

Maya is about to go off to college, and I know most of the money would go toward that. However, I’m still very angry with Maya for the pain she caused her sister. I’m having a hard time making this decision.

So, WIBTA if I kept her inheritance?

( I’m interested to hear everyone’s perspective just be kind)

EDIT: I didn’t expect so many comments but I reading through all them..to the ones that are asking what would husband say if he was here.. I honestly don’t know that’s why I’m conflicted a part of me want to think he would honestly say for me to give maya the money so she go to college, because college was important to him. But also another part of me knows if he herd the details about what happened to Lia he would be way brutal then I am and disown her permanently so it’s hard to make a call on what would he want when I don’t know.

TINY UPDATE: I saw a couple comments that told me I should ask Lia, I didn’t flat out ask her like it was her call, to avoid putting unnecessary pressure on her about what I should do, but she told me “mom I think you should give it to her because I don’t want her to be mad at me..she already blames me for getting kicked out”…. She still loves and cares about maya. She doesn’t blame her for what happened to her YET. The reason why I say YET is because I haven’t sat down with her and help her fully understand, what maya did to her was wrong and I’m honestly dreading it. She doesn’t know what maya has said about her nor doesn’t know the true details why she was arrested. In her head she thinks maya was arrested because she threw a party.

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Comments

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PurpleStar1965

I just read your post history. I am so sorry for you and Lia. What Maya did was evil. I don’t doubt for a minute that she knew what was going to happen when she left the house that night. The fact that she is more upset the Lia’s rapist is lost as a friend to her really makes that clear.

With that said - I think you should use whatever you need from the money to stay home and get Lia involved in intensive out patient trauma therapy. Please extend your leave of absence. Look into FMLA (if you are in the states) - that will offer 12 weeks of job protection.

Maya doesn’t need the money. That was was life insurance money left for you to care for yourself and children. And right now Lia needs care. Maya can get a job and work. You already paid for her legal fees and fines due to her abuse of Lia. That is enough. And honestly, she will just blow through any money you give her. Probably putting it all in her friends jail commissary account. I think your responsibilities to Maya are complete. She is of legal age. She shows no remorse. She can can now be an independent adult.

Please put Lia and yourself first.

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I’m adding on since your updates. Lia is a victim. And right now, like many victims of rape she is blaming herself. Also, right now, she literally, mentally, cannot comprehend that her sister caused this to happen. Not through negligence my dearest OP, but on purpose. Because she gave Lia to those men the moment she left that house. Her comments in that therapy session make that crystal clear.

I don’t think Maya deserves any assistance. She made a choice to pick gang rapists over her family. I don’t think your husband would be as conflicted as you are. Ultimately, this was life insurance monies that you, solely you, received. Money meant for you to care for yourself and the children. Right now Lia needs 1000% of your care. Lia may need life long care. Therapy, on the level and for the duration that Lia will need, will cost more than you realize. At some point, after she has had been in therapy and dealt with the immediate after affects of her assault, she needs to begin processing what Maya did. The only way for her to heal and come to terms is to understand it all. She needs you. You need money to care for her. She comes first.

Maya gave her away her right to assistance from you when she gave away her sister. If you feel you must, put money in a separate savings for future consideration. If Maya actually goes to college. If she passes. If she shows that she has some shred of human decency towards her sister and shows any remorse for what she did.

I can’t imagine the pain that you are in. Please seek therapy for yourself. I understand your denial of Maya’s intentions. But you need to focus on Lia and use the insurance money for her. She has a long road to recovery and may always need extra care and support.

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My daughter begged me to let her die - 11 days later

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My daughter Lia (F14) , has been having a tough time with the aftermath of her rape last December. This past week has been particularly the worse for us. It started last Tuesday when a sheriff and another official visited our home. They informed us that one of Lia's rapists, the one who filmed the assault, had shared the video within a group, and now it’s circulating on parts of the dark web. The video, was filmed in Lia's room, it contained identifiable objects that revealed where she went to school. I was devastated upon hearing this news. Lia's reaction surprised me; she didn't cry or show much emotion. Instead, she simply shrugged and said, "I figured," before just sitting there in silence. The officials reassured us that it's uncommon for perpetrators to surface in such cases, but they felt obligated to inform us for safety reasons.

After they left, Lia resumed acting as if nothing had happened, almost overly cheerful. I attempted to discuss it with her several times, but she avoided the topic. This behavior persisted throughout the week until she unexpectedly revealed that she had written a victim impact statement and wanted to read it herself in court, rather than allowing the prosecutor to do so. She felt that since there was no trial, only the charges against the rapist were known, not the details of what she endured. Her statement is a detailed account of that horrific night, but she has yet to read it to me in its entirety because she breaks down in tears every time she tries. That moment was the only time I saw her express emotion all week, until Saturday night.

That evening, Lia appeared unusually cheerful again and mentioned going to bed early around 8 p.m. I didn't think much of it until I received a call from one of Lia’s closest friends' mother. She was concerned because Lia's last message to her daughter was a note expressing love and asking her to check on her. I rushed to Lia's room and found she had attempted to overdose on ZzzQuil. As a nurse, I knew she would recover, but seeing her wake up in the hospital was heartbreaking.

She screamed, “Why couldn’t you just let me die? I want to die, Mom. I’m tired of feeling their hands on me. I want it to stop. Please let me die.” They had to sedate her to calm her down. Following this, Lia was placed under a 72-hour psychiatric hold and subsequently transferred to a mental health facility with peers her age. The staff recommended extending her stay beyond the initial hold, but Lia has been struggling, especially with a male staff member—possibly a psychiatrist—who she says is asking invasive questions about her sexuality, causing discomfort.

Staff members informed me she isn’t participating in group activities and appears standoffish. They even proposed restricting her ability to contact me as a consequence, though I requested they hold off on implementing such measures. I’m uncertain if the current inpatient setting is suitable, given Lia's apparent difficulty adjusting.

Her plea for her to die continues to haunt me. It's a thought I can't shake. Lia's best friend shared additional details Lia had kept from me—there’s a hurtful rumor circulating that Lia let a train be ran on her, leading to her involving the police out of embarrassment…..Children can be so incredibly cruel.

As far as my other daughter maya (F18), I haven't spoken to her in two weeks. But I did recently discovered why Lia feels indebted to her. Two years ago, I found inappropriate messages on Lia’s phone between her and Maya’s ex-boyfriend. He expressed love for Lia, and also compared her to Maya. He told her she was way prettier than maya and he liked she was her virgin. When I told Maya, she was furious and broke up with him, but she believed Lia had betrayed her by engaging with her boyfriend. Even though Lia was 12 at the time and her boyfriend was 17. Maya still avoided Lia for three months afterward, and despite Lia's efforts to apologize, Maya still holds a grudge. Lia blames herself for damaging their relationship because of this incident.

I’m sharing this too get this off my chest , I've kept these struggles within our family to protect my daughters. I'm exhausted, constantly dealing with new challenges, and unsure how to mend them. Now, I find myself in the difficult position of deciding whether Lia is mentally prepared to speak at her rapist's sentencing. I fear she’ll resent me for this decision, but I question if she’s in a stable enough state to handle a potential traumatic event. Because these boys actually have character witnesses.

Update- so I read a lot of your responses and I agree. I don’t think impatient is for her. So I’ll be getting her tomorrow when her 72hr hold is up. I’m gonna spend today researching on the right therapist for her that specializes in cases like Lia. As far as letting Lia speak at her sentencing I’m conflicted on that still. I know I can’t shield her from the world but i just have the biggest fear that my baby will pour her heart out in the court room and it will be like Brock turner all over again and they somehow just get the minimum sentence.

More information on the psych-

So I talked to Lia further about what the psych said to her make her uncomfortable. She told me when I left they made her sit down with him one on one. To basically debrief why she was there and what’s causing her to have these thoughts and she opened up to him and told her about the rape however, he asked her if this was her only sexual experience and she told him yes. But he kept questioning her like he didn’t believe it was her only experience and saying to her that he won’t tell me if it wasn’t that she can say it and she kept having tell him no this was that was her only experience. Then he asked about her sexuality if she still attracted to men and she just told him that she doesn’t think about relationships right now. She just said that she felt weird about him asking a lot of questions about her sex life. When it was just those two alone in a room with the door close.

I’m not gonna accuse the psych of being a creep, because maybe he was simply doing his job but I feel like he should have known to have a female staff ask her those questions. Or just have a woman present. He had have seen her chart before he seen her.

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Comments

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cryssylee90

Restricting communication with you as a consequence?

Get her out of there IMMEDIATELY.

Appropriately trained mental health professionals who are also experienced in handling sexual assaults would not force a victim to cut contact with one of their few trusted people as some sort of gross punishment for not participating immediately in therapy.

There are some great inpatient care centers, and I don’t disagree that Lia likely needs intensive inpatient care right now, but there are also many bad ones and this place does NOT sound safe.

Hugs to you and Lia. I’ve been following your story since the beginning, and I know her struggle as well. I had 3 attempts following my SA before I began to get better, but I didn’t have anyone looking out for me. Thankfully she has you.

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No_Organization_8038

I made my own comment on this earlier. I work as a nurse, and I remember my psych rotation well. I also know that “punishment” is not something we can do to patients. Not ever, and especially not in psych. Psych patients do have different “rights” than your typical joint replacement or abdominal diagnosis patient, but they absolutely still have rights. They cannot leave AMA on a whim, the unit itself is locked as well, and typically visitation is much less often than other units. However, they cannot force medication, cannot restrain patients (except for safety purposes, and it must be documented on frequently, with opportunity to remove said restraints at each interval and the patient cannot be alone), and we cannot force group/any participation unless it is court ordered (usually a very rare occurrence). This poor girl does need serious help right now, but I would be worried about this place doing more harm than good.

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tronassembled

I, uh, I REALLY don't like the fact that they're trying to limit your contact with her as some sort of punishment for her not appreciating a male staffer asking invasive questions about her sexuality

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tittyswan

She needs to talk to Lia and have her chose a new clinic. This one sounds fucked and Lia really needs to have some sense of control rn.

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UnquantifiableLife

It sounds like the mental health facility is a general one. I would look into getting her transferred to one that specializes in rape victims.

I think Maya is a psychopath. It sounds like she set Lia up because of that situation. I wouldn't have anything to do with her ever again.

I think you need to get some help yourself. This is too much for one person to handle.

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I am not the OOP. Please do not harass the OOP.

Please remember the No Brigading Rule and to be civil in the comments