Anonymous
“The Same Age”
I look at my daughter in the back seat. We are on the way home from school. She’s chatting about her friends, what she’s learned, what we’re having for dinner. Her mind is running in a million directions all at once and it makes me laugh.
She is six. An amazingly smart, precious and precocious six. A six-year-old that’s ready to take on the world now that she’s figured out that 15-8=7 and the difference between alligators and crocodiles and water boils at 100 degrees “fahwenhweite.”
She reminds me so much of me.
And then it hits. She is the same age as I was when I was sexually abused, or at least the first time I can remember it happening.
I was confused. I wanted attention. I became a pawn in a battle that had nothing to do with me.
My abuse was about power, not about sex.
But I wasn’t old enough to understand that. All I knew is that my daddy thought I was pretty and liked my silky lavender polyester nightgown. I liked sitting on his lap. I liked being allowed to stay up late watching Dallas as we laid on the living room floor. His cuddles became pets. The pets became touches. The kisses became…different.
It didn’t feel right, but no one told me it was wrong. My mother would walk into the room, shake her head and walk out, sometimes even closing the door. Her silence lent permission. It didn’t feel right, but if the woman who corrected my every misstep didn’t bat an eyelash, how could this be wrong?
We didn’t talk about it. I would watch TV in their bedroom after school and wait for him to come home. We’d lay there and watch the news. We watched Three’s Company. I wanted to be smart like Janet. I wanted to be funny like Jack. I wanted to be pretty like Chrissy. He told me I was pretty. He made me feel pretty.
I found his books and magazines. Literature that showed me and told me what men wanted. Pretty, pliable girls with wavy blond hair and ample bosoms, anxious to please. That’s what he wanted. That’s what he wanted me to be.
It felt wrong, but how could it be? He was strong, well-respected, professional. We were middle-class people in the LA suburbs. We had a nice house and nice cars. We took cool trips and did fun things. People like us didn’t do bad things to their kids (or at least from a six-year-old’s perspective).
So, I would withdraw. I would avoid him for weeks, pout at dinner, and retreat to my room. She would chastise me for being sulky, and moody. I was accused of attention-seeking. So, I would apologize and re-enter family life and, eventually, we would laugh again. We would have great times and wonderful memories.
And then it would start again. The hug would be too long. The clothes would come off. And then he asked me to kiss “it.”
My instincts took over. THIS WAS WRONG.
I don’t remember how I got out of the room, but I did and I don’t recall ever going back to their bed. Not in that way, at least.
The specter of the molestation hovered about me through puberty. It became a mess in my emotional closet. A mess that was too icky to clean. Too painful. A mess that was best piled behind holiday dresses and old toys and forgotten about. We were a proper family. Things like this didn’t happen to families like ours.
But he was there. In my life. Every day. Every time I saw him, every interaction we had was tinged with the confusion, anger and worry of what happened between us. Even through the pain, was good there that I wanted to salvage.
So I spoke out. And our lives changed. A lot. There were trips to police stations, a foster home, social workers, courthouses, and therapy sessions. There were arguments, accusations, tears, threats, and sleepless nights. There were also apologies, hugs, and healing. There were so many lessons learned…the power of a sincere “I’m sorry”….the catharsis of tears that wash dark and damaged souls….the empowerment I achieved from true forgiveness…for myself…for him…for her…for everyone who had their suspicions and chose denial over choosing me. I came through the other side stronger than I ever thought I could be.*
It’s been more than 25 years since I started cleaning out that closet. I spoke up so I could break the cycle of abuse. I promised myself that my daughters and sons would not have to endure what I went through.
Occasionally I revisit the memories and they hurt. There are sensory memories that float in, but I’ve learned to not let them shock me anymore. I will never be able to detach from my past, especially when I hear the stories of another person’s sexual abuse. I cannot bear to watch or read reports about the sexual abuse of children, especially now that I am a mother.
And now that I am a mother, I worry. Now that I am a mother to a six-year old, I fret. Now that I am a mother to a six-year-old girl who’s starting to discover the joys of her femininty, I lose sleep. Now that I am a mother of a six-year-old girl who is becoming aware of pop culture messages about sexuality, I panic a little a little on the outside and a lot on the inside.
I can’t help but see myself in her overachieving, attention-seeking, blond-headed, elf-self.
How do I protect her? How do I teach her to trust her instincts? How do I teach her to invest her trust carefully and love cautiously, but fully? How do I keep her safe? How do I teach her to protect herself without robbing her of her innocence?
*I still have a relationship with my parents and we’re very close. They recognize the gravity of their sins and have done substantial work toward healing themselves and our family. I realize that I am in a very rare and precious minority and that some readers see my ability to forgive them as a misguided delusion. Be that as it may, forgiveness was my choice and I believe the best choice in my situation. In most cases, continued relationships between victim and perpetrator are not advisable. As much as I try to embrace the healing that has occurred, I am learning that I will always be affected by my abuse in some way or another.
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Brenda
“This that remains”
“You could get pregnant!”
At first I didn’t hear her. Her, being my foster/adoptive mother.
“Hunh?” I said as soon as I had enough breath. I had been crying uncontrollably for what seemed to be hours.
“You could get pregnant. Why would you do this?”
I was stunned into silence. How could she be thinking that? I didn’t ask for THIS. I didn’t want any part of THIS. THIS was done to me. THIS was forced on me. I stared incredulously at her and felt the tears roll down my cheeks.
THIS was sexual abuse, rape, intimidation, fear and loneliness. I couldn’t understand why THIS could be my fault. I didn’t ask for THIS and I sure as hell didn’t want THIS to happen to me, and it had been happening for almost six months. I was threatened with the loss of the only “safe” home I had ever known. Intimidated and tortured into thinking that THIS would cause me to be put back into the Alberta Foster System again.
THIS that has caused me years of insecurity and bad self-esteem. THIS that has helped me make the worst mistakes and decisions of my life. THIS has caused me to doubt myself, doubt my beauty, and doubt my own worth. THIS on more than one occasion has caused me to try to commit suicide, as I felt I just wasn’t worthy of living.
THIS was a 16 year old boy, another foster child, and also my foster/adoptive mother’s nephew. I was safe from him while my own biological brother lived in our foster home, but he had been gone for almost a year. I don’t know at what time a prepubescent, chubby girl with braces became the object of his sexual desires, but I do know once it started I no longer had a voice about it. I think now, as an adult, I was an easy mark. Trapped on a farm with a hormonal teenage boy who had his own issues coming from an alcoholic abusive home. THIS was a crime of opportunity. I was subjected to fondling, grabbing, pinching and full sexual intercourse, without any form of birth control. Then I was tortured and degraded into thinking I was the cause of all these bad feelings, bad thoughts, and the bad things that were happening to me.
It went on until I was 14-years-old. The gods had different plans for me. That is the only answer I have on why I didn’t get pregnant. I think if I had been pregnant I would have tried harder to kill myself, which is what brought on THIS conversation. I had tried unsuccessfully to swallow a bunch of pills. Other than sleep for a really long time and some temporary loss of my hearing, I had no lasting effects from the attempt. I still suffer from the effects of THIS.
I still suffer from poor self-esteem and doubt about my own worth and beauty. I fight everyday to find something good in me, something worthwhile and worth loving. When I am unhappy I search for food to comfort me. I have deep, dark moods that can go on for days. I get insomnia and I have Seasonal Affective Disorder in the winter. I get introspective and search out those dark days and chew them over and over again, until none of it makes sense. My brain screams out WHY, over and over again and I lash out at people who are only trying to help me. Now almost thirty years later THIS remains a part of my dark past and history and some days still points me in directions which could harm me. THIS was with me when I married a man who was totally inappropriate for me, one who fed off my insecurities and lack of self-worth and reveled in making me unhappy.
THIS made it impossible to enjoy any form of sexual release unless I was blotto drunk. THIS helped make me into a tyrannical, penis-hating, raging, uneducated feminist. Try being that and raising a male child.
But THIS is what made me strong enough to know I needed help. THIS is what drove me to numerous psychologists and psychiatrists who made me talk about THIS.
THIS is what does not kill you makes you stronger.
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Michelle at Mommy Loves Stilettos
When I walked in the house the air smelled stale. I wasn’t prepared for the overwhelming feelings I felt when I walked through that door. The living room was trashed. It looked like a crack house, to be honest. Looked like those dirty houses you see on Cops and wonder how the hell people live like that. I couldn’t believe what my eyes were seeing. Beer cans and bottles everywhere. Empty bottles of hard liquor littered the entertainment center that was now leaning to one side. The practically new carpet was ruined. I walked into the bedroom oblivious to the things my parents were asking me. The things they were saying were distant, I felt like I wasn’t even in the same house. Like I was hearing them from far away. I was in a daze and really couldn’t have made out what they were saying if I tried.
When I walked in the bedroom I saw condom wrappers all over the floor–funny, I knew those weren’t ours. Then I looked to the dresser and saw an 8×10 picture frame with a picture in it of our daughter. She was 3 months old in that picture and smiling so big. The glass was covered in cocaine residue and I don’t know why but I was shocked at what I saw. I guess I knew all along how bad his problem was, but sniffing lines of coke off of your daughter’s picture is oh so low. And I really never expected that of him. Some drug addicts do have a conscience, I’m told. That sent me into hysterics. I remember my mom and my stepdad just looking at it in awe. They couldn’t believe what had become of this house in just one short week.
His mother was there. To keep me from “taking his things” of course. I went from ignoring her, to cussing at her and telling her how much I hated her son for doing this to me and my daughter. She of course defended his actions and discounted what he had done. She’s always been that way, and still is. My parents and my uncle helped me get everything out of the house and loaded into a UHaul. It was really difficult. I loved that house. It was the first real house I’d had. It was only a rental, but going from living in a shitty little duplex to that was pretty awesome. And it was Katelyn’s first home.
As we pulled away with all of my stuff jammed into that UHaul completely unorganized I thought about the events of the week before. I was at home with Katelyn – she was about 7 months old at the time. My friend Adrienne was there keeping me company. He had been gone for about two days–drinking and using. The usual. At that point I didn’t care anymore as long as he wasn’t there with us. I preferred him leaving and going elsewhere so that we didn’t have to deal with his constant mood swings. We were in the kitchen and Katelyn was in her highchair. I was sitting in a chair with the highchair between my legs, feeding Katelyn some baby food. I heard him come home and my heart dropped. I knew this wouldn’t be good. He came with a friend so I assumed everything would be fine. He didn’t typically do anything around his friends because he didn’t want them to know the truth. Little did I know, this time would be much different.
He stormed in the house drunk and high and started screaming at me for god knows what. To be honest, he was so fucked up that I couldn’t have even tried to figure out what he was saying. He stormed past Adrienne and reached around Katelyn’s highchair and knocked me out of the chair. I was sitting about a foot from the basement stairs and I started to fall. I caught myself thank god. If I hadn’t I could’ve broken my neck without a doubt. I used my cell phone to call 911. Before I could get out all of the information, he stole my phone and smashed it. He hit me in the face and spit on me and then he left. Just like that.
The police came. At the station they took pictures of the bruises all over my face, arms, and legs. I had to go there to file an official report. Adrienne went with me for moral support. I decided that night I had to move out. I took what I could in my car and Katelyn and I went to my mom’s. When we moved all of my stuff out a week later I really believed I was done. My parents believed that I was done. But no, I wasn’t. I went back for more just a few months later. And guess what? It didn’t stop. It happened again, and the next time it was worse.
Abusers don’t change. They don’t get better. They don’t transform into new people. They are who they are. No matter how many times you hear the words, “I’m sorry.” ”I’ll change,” ”I won’t drink anymore,” it’s all bullshit. I hope that any of you that are reading this that happen to be going through something similar understand that. It doesn’t get better. It never will. Get out now while you can. Find local advocacy agencies that can help you get out of that situation. Easier said than done. I know from experience. But I promise you that there is life after that. You can find YOU again. You can build a better life. You don’t NEED a man. You deserve so much more than this. Never forget that.
If you are in my area [St. Louis, Missouri] the best resource for you is ALIVE. Amazing women. They really are. And they can help.
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Michelle writes at Mommy Loves Stilettos. This post originally appeared on her own blog in May 2010.
Stephanie
However unintentionally, my young widowed mother abused me from the very beginning. It was most subtle and not of a sexual or physical nature. But I’ve come to learn that emotional, mental, and psychological abuse takes away one’s personal freedom in such a way that it is, indeed, physical violence nonetheless.
My body was so bound up with invisible cords of violated emotion, mind, and psyche, that I could only feel and know and live and believe myself to be the binding. I lost my sense of self and the knowledge that I have the right to choose. Every angry, controlling word and look with which my mother had both silently and expressly threatened me, were all that was operative. She did not hold and touch me lovingly and so I learned no loving touch. From her own personal need to self-protect, she petrified her heart against the whole world, and that world included me. My own loving heart then learned a perverse sense of vulnerability and unconditional love. It made me ripe for further violation.
So when my ex-husband’s sexual disease entered my sphere, I knew no defense. I could not see it for what it was. As his, not mine. It was as if I needed to be perpetually wrong and wronged. So it became mine. It became my nightmare to live and re-live. And it seemed I was helpless to change it.
The abuse from my ex-husband was of the very subtle type. That is, no one on the outside would ever know. We were both well educated, had respectable professional careers, a beautiful home filled with fine art. We were responsive to our families’ interests, we had nice cars, and we took great vacations.
The violation occurred in the bedroom. He was able to make me believe that he somehow owned my body for his too-hungry, unloving hands, mouth, and penis. It became sexual contact that I did not want but gave into. I didn’t know I could say, “No,” when I didn’t want him to touch me. I didn’t know – or want – to call it rape when my own spouse simply took from me the sexual contact he wanted, in the way he wanted it.
So I have lived the days, and nights, of my life as if I had no voice of my own. I lived not knowing to express any choice of my own. No thoughts or feelings of my own. There were only the same angry outbursts I learned from my mother. Outbursts which were always irrational and irrelevant. Anger directed not at the source, but skewed and deflected and seemingly insane. These painful, crazy-making outbursts became more frequent as all aspects of this not-right further infected me.
Fortunately, six years ago, he found another and left. Fortunately, each day, I’m more and more able to release the inner binds formed from my mother’s rage.
The place in me that rightfully knows and speaks and does, “Yes, I respect the person I am” and, “No, you cannot violate the boundary of my personhood,” had been hidden from me for my entire life. It’s only now, with help from many others, that I’m beginning to heal for real. It’s only now that I’m beginning to emerge as my own knowing, my own voice, my own actions, and my own loving. I’m learning, as my fundamental human right, to live all of my life as myself.
I am sincerely grateful for some great invisible kindness that’s at work in my life. I’m grateful, too, for this public place to tell my story and for you who hear me. Thank you.
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