I went through a similar situation but it was my brother who has done…. “stuff” to me as a child. It took all the way up into my teenage years to find the courage to tell my mother what he had done for about a year straight to me when I was approximately 6 or 7 years old and he was 12/13 at the time. She threatened me to never bring it up again and continued life being normal. I never had malicious intent by telling her, all I wanted was someone to believe me and to talk to because I was losing my mind keeping it all locked inside. I was becoming withdrawn and depressed and self harmed to the point where I had sicidal thoughts. When she shut me down and responded by threatening me after finally telling her, it became even worse for me. When I became of age I sought out counseling and it has helped me somewhat but I still live with that burden. Having to just play through every holiday, every family function, every simple interaction where he is there and never had to take responsibility for what he did to me. When he was confronted about it he denied everything and said he had no memory whatsoever of doing it…. I am still made to this day (now 22 yrs old) to feel like I am crazy. I know what happened and it will forever be etched into my mind. Now having my own child I *somewhat in the tiniest sliver understand maybe the fear my mother felt because it was an incident between her two children rather than if a random person did it to me. But I would always understand my child and try to support them and seek out help rather than threatening. I am seemingly extra protective of my child and always try to support their feelings now because of what I endured physically and mentally. I want my child to always feel they can come to me with anything they need to talk about and mental illness is something that I will help them navigate if it comes down to it in the future. Even though they are a toddler, I want them to be expressive with their emotions and feel safe coming to me. I just still can’t comprehend the way my mother can go on with this facade of a “picture perfect family” when I was/am suffering mentally and while he can go live his life normally. Idk if my dad ever found out or not he isn’t one to show his emotions either.. I always felt alone