Thank you for all of the suggestions! (Keep them coming please!)
Jon, I particularly want to thank you for the observation that school counselors are conditioned to re-frame things in "least icky" terminology for themselves. That's EXACTLY the sense that DD got from her conversation.
Now, who knows what the counselor was actually thinking, because DD is someone who ASSUMES that nobody will believe her. No wonder, either-- because this abuse has certainly conditioned her to think that way. Every time she tried to bring up something that was done/said to her in private, the turkey denied it and turned it around on her (or denied that it ever happened at all), and then told her to "shut up." Which she learned to do in short order, it seems.
She has little in the way of proof. She also has little in the way of behavior which was: a) documented (remember, the abuser kept ERASING evidence from chat sites after she'd had a chance to read it, but before I could screen shot things), or b) witnessed by a third party (other than me, in ~30% of the cases).
He was WAY different with her when he wasn't being observed. (Red flag, much?)
He also portrayed
all objectionable behavior and interaction as "mutual." As in, yeah, YOU should stop that and I will then, too. Which left my DD completely dizzy, since she WASN'T being obnoxious, demeaning, or abusive. (And really, anyone who knows her very well would know that she isn't capable of this kind of behavior. Truly.)
Why won't we name names? Well, because my DD is a high school junior (note, emphasis on "junior" as in think college application machine) and is involved with several different elected/appointed positions in the community and her school... even the taint of "you're hysterical" or "why are you lying about this honor student" turns into "{DD} is a kid who is willing to destroy another kid's future." Some of her activities are those where a false accusation (or even suspicion of one) would be grounds for removal/expulsion. For my DD, this isn't really about the resume, either; it's about doing community service. She especially loves working with children, and I think it's clear that ANY contact involving the authorities re: "abuse" is a red flag that never goes away in a background check.
This is EATING at both of us-- I mean, sure, we can get
her away from him, and probably help her. What we can't seem to do is get something on the record about HIM being a budding serial abuser, or keep him away from other vulnerable kids. My DD and I both are just SICK that he's going to do this to other girls.
I realize that must be secondary to my daughter's self-interest, but she and I both struggle with that being "selfish."
We have little in the way of proof. His family is... er... well, his family are "pillar of the community" types, let's just say.
I do have such a "log." It's not what I would give to authorities, because it is not "clean" emotionally-- it's more for the purpose of a therapist assisting us/her. I have 14K words worth of it, and about 50% of it is controlling or abusive. What I was THINKING about at the time. Why I let things go, or what I told DD about them. At least 15% of it is so sadistic that it made me cry to remember it. It was VERY upsetting. That's stuff that I either SAW, noted, or discussed with my DD at the time; the thing is, I didn't see the "big picture" at the time, or it would have been crystal clear that it was pervasive ambient/emotional abuse. One thing which really surprised me in producing that from memory was just how difficult it was to place particular interactions in true chronological order without any externally referential information. So a meeting at {public location} between the two of them, which was frequent, I have to rely on what I was thinking about at the time, what DD was WEARING that day, etc. to know WHEN it happened. This was a first for me-- ordinarily, I'm so good at organizing/ordering things chronologically. I finally realized why it was so difficult--
there was no cause-and-effect flow to things. Each and every contact/interaction was more or less independent from any other, and often (which is what my poor DD kept trying to tell me) had nothing to do with anything SHE had done or said, either. At least not in any rational way.
I have also applied pressure to DD to produce her own "narrative" of what, exactly, happened between the two of them, as clearly as she can recall. She is not keen to do that, but I think that the reason is that she knows, deep down, that there were red flags early on, and that she ignored them because she was willing to ignore almost ANYTHING for someone of similar LOG/cognitive ability who (seemingly?) had so much in common and wanted a close friendship. Heck, WE were willing to let some things slide that we shouldn't have.
