YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

Ladies and gentleman, I have a question. I am a 50 year old guy who is raising an amazing 10 year old granddaughter.

I hear so many of you who have gone through sex abuse, violence and way too many horrible things. I did as well at the hands of an older kid, He was 13, I was 12. He made it feel consensual, and in ways it was, but I sure felt creepy and embarrassed afterwards.

Now, this girls mother has issues, but I do believe we got the little one out of the house before she saw, or went through anything.

We do homework together,and have a great relationship. I go overboard at times as I feel for her and I do try to be mom, dad, grandpa, and anything else she needs.

I get more out of this than she does, as she is everything to me in a good, positive way.

Now my question.. I'd like to keep it that way. What can I do? We talk a lot, and she is close to me.

I'm fully ready for "YOU HAVE TO DO THIS! and "NEVER DO THIS!" Please let me know and I'm there.

thank you

I'm not sure exactly what you're looking for, but speaking as a woman who was (obviously) that age at one point, I'd just have some basic advice on that.

She'll soon be reaching the age where she'll need to have some privacy, or at least feel like she needs more privacy, and as a result she may share less with you. It might be hard to feel her pulling away a bit, but you should let her do it and give her her space. It's totally normal, especially true for a father/daughter relationship. But always let her know that you are there for her, and that she can talk to you about anything no matter what. And also let her know that if she ever feels the need to talk to someone else, that you'll make that available to her.

My parents are (mostly) awesome, and I went through this phase of me sharing less with them, but now that I'm an adult, we're pretty close again. (I fought with my mother a lot as a teenager, but things with my dad were generally always good.) They also weren't positive about mental health, and weren't open to getting me the help I needed when I clearly needed it. So even as an adult when I was getting help, I took a while to tell them about it, afraid of how they would react.

I don't know how touchy-feely you are with her (and I don't mean that in a bad way! Just appropriate parent/child affection), but I know around that age, I started to dislike that sort of thing from my father (and again, I mean appropriate kind of touching.) I'm just not a touchy-feely person in general though, so maybe that's just me.

You sound like you have her best interests at heart, which is wonderful.

Murphy, What I am looking for, and I just realized this, is..

I'm a long time service guy. Often times we are asked to work on equipment we are not familiar with. In this case, one grabs a service manual. Thats what I'm wishing for!

Your comments are wonderful, and thats what I need.

SO often I hear the ladies stories and this usually includes an "I wish I could have gone to my mom/dad/teacher etc....."

I hear,and wonder what those folks did that made them unavailable as a support system, and dont want to do that.

When shes 30, I want her to be able to say, "This happened, but I went to Grandpa....."

Oh good, I hoped I was being helpful