Answer
In this counseling answer:
“If you want to help your sister, you should remind her that people are resilient, and a person does not have to live as a damaged fruit. Allah (swt) has given each person a personality and natural ways to deal with bad experiences. What we should do is help people find the best way for them to recover, support them on the path they are on and question them if they are making bad decisions to help them clarify the situation.”
Wa ‘Aleikom Salam,
May Allah (swt) reward you for reaching out. A person always has options when dealing with traumatic experiences – they just don’t know it. If you want to help your sister, you should remind her that people are resilient, and a person does not have to live as a damaged fruit. Allah (swt) has given each person a personality and natural ways to deal with bad experiences. What we should do is help people find the best way for them to recover, support them on the path they are on and question them if they are making bad decisions to help them clarify the situation.
An example of this is a person who has had a troubled life and feels that people generally always feel sorry for them. They go through life seeing themselves as a person that people have pity on because they have so many people in their life offering help to them. This is a narrative that a person can give themselves. When we look closer, we find that this person becomes skilled at drawing people to them that can help. The point is that sometimes society will take a person’s strength and turn it into something against a person.
It’s important to find our strength and use it as a tool for recovery, and when we do that, we develop knowledge of self. We gain self-knowledge when we can look at the ways we have overcome difficult times in the past. It teaches us about ourselves and lets us know that we have tools to overcome adversity. People should view themselves as survivors and not victims; resilient but not damaged.
The example above is just one example. Another person could use creativity, art, humor, morality; others will have a deeper level of insight into situations and have the ability to see things as they are while others just don’t get it. Others will use the drive of an initiative to be the type of person who does not just wait for good things to happen to them, but they go and make things to happen. Everyone has a resiliency and what you want to do is help her to discover hers and support her in using it to recover.
I would also suggest getting this book about being resilient in a troubled family. It’s important for people to have support people and a library of healing books so they can take the time to work through these challenges. If she can have access to a therapist, that would be a great resource to add as well, as long as they are offering counseling and a sort of talk therapy. You may consider reading the book with her so you can show her that someone is on her side, and you will both learn together about being resilient as you go through the book.
If there are other girls in the family, they should be notified that your grandfather is a child predator. They have a right to be warned about him. I really believe the community needs to know because if just one more soul is harmed, it will be too many. Allah (swt) teaches us not to join together in sin and transgression. Sometimes being silent does that.
Don’t forget to seek help in the religion. Sitting with her as you read the biography of the Prophet (saw), pointing out stories of resiliency, and having a discussion with her about certain topics can also open the doors to healing. Don’t be afraid to ask her “how can I help you get through this difficult time”. Sometimes, when we ask the people how we can help, they will tell us exactly what they need. All we need to do is let them do the work while we just support them and encourage them, and let them know we love them. It makes all the difference in the world when a person knows they are not alone.
As far as the family goes, you should not take part in any conversation that leads to yelling and enmity for other members of the family. Remember the Satan is the enemy, not your parents. He wants to put hate between you. Forgive your parents as no one is perfect and try to mend the relationship with them. They may see some of your actions strange as you see some of theirs. You may consider having a family meeting, and if you need to invite someone who everyone in the family, including your father, respects to lead it, so be it. It may be an imam. Have a family discussion about how the situation has caused enmity and yelling, and how it would be in everyone’s interest to work out some of these disagreements to bring the hearts together.
If you feel that such a family discussion would only spiral out of control, then call a “silent family meeting” with rules; no one is allowed to talk, but only write responses on paper and pass them around. This can be a way of being heard without the conversation going the wrong direction and backlash.
Remember, you can’t get people to do anything they don’t want to do, and you can’t control other people – it’s a futile action. All you can do is invite them to a better way. It was the same way with The Messenger of Allah (saw); all he could do is invite people to Islam. He (saw) did not have control of their hearts to convert them.
Make sure the way you react to things are healthy and give the rest to Allah (swt). Sometimes we can worry about our loved ones, and we may notice we have started to slip in the quality of our own relationships, faith, or schooling. Ask yourself how living in such an environment has affected you and what steps you can take not to be negatively affected by the environment you are in. A troubled household affects everyone who lets it affect them.
May Allah (swt) help you,
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