Jo (@MinnesotaJoy)
I can’t remember how old I was when my mom met him. He had a dog named Nika. He wore a cowboy hat. He was handsome, with black hair and blue eyes. He didn’t smoke or drink anything but Pepsi. My mom loved him and I was his girl. I called him Daddy and we went fishing and drove around in his truck singing along to Charlie Daniels and Dolly Parton. I loved him.
My mom married him and had two more babies. She’d been married before and I have a little brother from that relationship that I rarely saw. There is a picture of my brother, and my stepdad and me with Nika that is from before they were married. I was perhaps five or six and my little brother a few years younger. I can’t remember that day but I remember that I loved the outfit I was wearing. The look in my eyes is too sad for someone who is only five or so. Perhaps it was going on even then.
I don’t remember how old I was when he started making me do stuff that made me uncomfortable. I remember the feeling of dread when my mom was going to leave the house.
I remember specific incidents and acts that I was made to perform. I remember pain, gagging…feeling sick. Feeling WRONG. Dreading being alone with him but at the same time feeling a strange sense of happiness that I could please him. He told me I was a good girl, a pretty girl. He told me what a good job I was doing. I still have trouble accepting praise some times because it reminds me of him.
There was a time when my mom came home and found him in his bed naked, a single long blonde hair on his body. I can’t remember much, but I do remember that he pushed me off of the bed when he heard the front door close. My mom said I denied that anything happened. I think she knew the truth even back then.
I remember going to the hospital at some point. A male doctor examined me and made me cry and hurt. What he was doing didn’t make sense to me. I was hurt ‘down there’ but not where he was checking. I cried and fought to get free. The doctor told my mom that I must have made things up because of a book she read to me about how babies were made. He figured I was jealous of her relationship with her new husband.
Time passed. I remember my mom getting ready to leave for her bowling league. I cried and begged her not to go and told her I was afraid. That’s the day when I learned I couldn’t ever count on her to keep me safe. She slapped my face and told me to stop lying and then left. I can still see the fancy rug on the floor in the entryway of our house and remember how I didn’t even get a chance to leave that room before he made me pay for telling. My mom came home with a friend later that night and had been drinking. She made me run laps around our block in the snow for lying and said I couldn’t stop running until I told the truth. I ran for what seemed like forever, lungs burning and coughing until I threw up. It took a long time before I finally gave in and told her the lie she wanted to hear.
I stayed overnight at a friend’s house once and he did too so that he could babysit. I remember him calling to my friend in the middle of the night. I stayed in the bed and pretended I was sleeping. When she came back she was crying. A short time later I remember my mom screaming at him and fighting because we had to move again.
We moved from Iowa to Florida. The abuse continued. My mom continued to drink and be in denial that anything was going on. One of her drinking buddies moved into a camper behind our trailer. He tried to do stuff to me but I would just pretend I was sleeping. One day he did it when I was awake and I told him I was going to tell my daddy. (I knew telling my mom wouldn’t work because she’d hit me or punish me again.) He cried and pulled out a gun and threatened to kill himself if I told and said it would be my fault if he died. I didn’t tell.
One day, my mom picked me up from school and said we were leaving. She’d packed a few things and we went to her aunt’s house. Then I went to stay at my grandparent’s house while my mom figured things out. I never saw my brothers again and my mom moved away.
I eventually got kicked out of my grandparents’ house because my grandmother (who was pretty much nuts) accused me of stealing. I went to live with a friend of my mom’s that she met in alcohol treatment. Eventually my mom moved me to Minnesota.
In Minnesota, I shared some nightmares I was having with my junior high guidance counselor. She was a mandatory reporter so my abuse was documented. I was videotaped telling what I could remember. The social worker who had my case cried when she heard my story. They called Florida and my abuser was arrested, but the charges were dropped because the statute of limitations had expired by then. I was twelve. My mom went on about how she just KNEW something had happened and acted like she was the victim in all of it, then crawled into a bottle. Eventually she decided to seek treatment again.
Because I was living in Minnesota and didn’t have any relatives nearby, I was placed in foster care. I graduated from high school, aged out of foster care and moved out on my own. Years of counseling made me understand that none of what happened was my fault. Years of bad relationships helped me learn that I deserved better than what happened to me. I faced my abuser and he admitted (after years of lying about it) what he’d done and he asked my forgiveness. I forgave him.
I met a wonderful man and got married. He is the stepfather of two of my kids and we have two children together. He loves me and isn’t afraid of my past. He is supportive and funny and I’m happy. I have a close relationship with my daughters and we have talked about my childhood. I have done everything I can to let them know that what happened to me was not ok, and that they could talk to me about anything. I refuse to let my daughters believe the lies that I did.
I am ever vigilant to the moods and expressions of my children, always alert in case they ever start acting differently. I am always watching to make sure they stay safe. No one will EVER tell my children that if they tell that their mom won’t love them anymore and will leave them. My children trust in my love enough so that they’d never believe it.
My name is Jo and I am a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. I am not a victim.
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Jo writes at Minnesota Joy and tweets as @MinnesotaJoy. She asks that you please keep all comments here on Violence UnSilenced, rather than over on her blog.
Thank you for visiting Violence UnSilenced, a speak-out platform for survivors of domestic abuse, sexual assault, and sexual abuse. If you are a survivor and it is safe to do so, we encourage you to share your story here. If you are not a survivor but you want to support those who are, please click around this site and find out more about what you can do.
Auntie Jill (by @OhJennyMae)
[Editor's note: Today is the 7th Annual It's Time to Talk Day, sponsored by Liz Claiborne Inc.'s Love Is Not Abuse coalition. We wrote more about that over on BlogHer today, and encourage you to do the same in your own space. Here on Violence UnSilenced today, OhJennyMae is speaking out in honor of her Auntie Jill, who no longer can.]
My favorite aunt, with the chuckling laugh I can still hear so many years later. With the strawberry blond hair and freckles on her fingers and toes. She wrote like my mom, but neater since it was right-handed. She was one of my favorite people of all time and she was gone before I ever had the chance to truly know and love her like I should have done. Only a child’s heart knew her. Only a child’s heart was shattered when Aunt Jill was beaten down to her final breath through disease and drug abuse, words and stones. The disease wasn’t her decision to make. She was dealt the disease. And although her rebel’s heart traded insulin for heroin, the words and stones hurt the worst.
The fifth of six kids born to my grandparents, Jill marinated in the early 70s when hard drug use was easier to get in small-town America and the kids in bell-bottoms were looking to score more than ever before. And with hypodermic needles already part of her everyday life, she had one less thing to procure before she would shoot up.
She married Uncle Ronnie in the front yard wearing a sundress and rubber platform sandals. He accessorized with his feathered hair and Fu Manchu. they loved each other so, but their rampant drug use wasn’t helping either of them. She took steps to walk away and their double-helixed downward spiral ended with divorce, his death from cirrhosis, and her pathway to a second and much more dangerous marriage.
Steve was good. He doted on us kids. Treated her right when we were around. Made her happy. It wasn’t until after the tux and many-buttoned wedding dress came off that his gloves came off, too. He became possessive. Like an animal. He was good enough to be oh, so terribly bad. He knew when to put on the charm and he could light a fire in his eyes quick as a whip.
While cardiac arrest may be written on the dotted lines of her death certificate, her heart had given up long before. Her heart stopped when he strangled her, broke her ribs, twisted her leg to breaking, broke into my grandma’s house to beat her, and killed her dog. When he made the decision to overpower her and beat her down with his threats of never seeing us again, she gave up. She gave in.
In the end, she was just a shell of the former aunt I knew. Not the aunt who would make a bowl of cookie dough and let us eat as much as we could stomach. Not the aunt who would let us sneak a sip of peach schnapps when we stayed over. Not the aunt who would giggle with us under the covers as we read Garfield together. Not the aunt that never let her addictions and afflictions get in the way of her love for us kids.
He did that for her and took her away.
Do we know that she didn’t take care of herself? Yes.
Do we know she could have changed numerous times before her diabetic body gave out? Yes.
Do we give a shit? No. Not in the least.
She is not here for a multitude of reasons, but his beating the crap out of her is the thing she couldn’t control. He took her from us when he beat her down to nothing. He took the pen from her hand and he rewrote her story.
I just hope that you have the strength to rewrite your own story so your niece doesn’t have to write the ending because this is not a story I wanted to tell. I love my Jilly, but I didn’t want to name my daughter after my dead aunt. I want Auntie Jill and I’d rather my baby was named after someone else, anyone else. I want a different ending for me and I wish the same for you.
Aunt Jill by @OhJennyMae on Violence UnSilenced
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@OhJennyMae writes at www.OhJennyMae.com.
Thank you for visiting Violence UnSilenced, a speak-out platform for survivors of domestic abuse, sexual assault, and sexual abuse. If you are a survivor and it is safe to do so, we encourage you to share your story here. If you are not a survivor but you want to support those who are, please click around this site and find out more about what you can do.
It’s Time to Talk Day 2011
This Thursday, December 8, 2011, is the 7th annual It’s Time to Talk Day, a day that is, in the words of Violence UnSilenced board member Stacy Morrison, “dedicated to just this one goal: to start and continue conversations about relationship abuse, domestic violence, and emotional abuse, to join together in making an effort to raise awareness and reverse the humbling statistics:
1 in 3 women will be in an abusive relationship in her lifetime.
On average, more than three women a day are murdered by their husbands or boyfriends in the United States.
Teenage girls are reporting dating abuse at rates higher than women, which makes them the most at-risk group for abuse in America.
One in five tweens—ages 11 to 14—say their friends are victims of emotional, physical or verbal dating violence.”
These are sobering stats, but we here at Violence UnSilenced are ever-reverent of the power of simply talking about abuse, of bringing it up out of the shadows of secrecy and shame and giving voice to what was once unspeakable. We do it all year long.
We encourage you to participate in It’s Time to Talk Day. I will be doing so over on BlogHer.com on Thursday, as Stacy further outlines below:
Don’t be paralyzed by these statistics. Know that the best action any of us can take is to talk about it: with our friends, our sisters, our daughters, our bosses or employees. So please, join BlogHer and Liz Claiborne Inc. and LoveIsNotAbuse.com ON DECEMBER 8 to help women everywhere know that this is not their fault, they are not to blame, and that all of us care about them and believe they deserve love that does not hurt.
Here’s how to join in to this conversation:
•Commit to writing about relationship abuse on December 8, and share the link to your post in the comments of my post kicking off It’s Time To Talk Day here on BlogHer.com on December 8.
Have a conversation with a friend, sister, daughter, son or husband about how pervasive relationship abuse is and how it disproportionately affects women. Help them understand that it is not a “choice” of “leaving” or “staying,” but a systematic takedown of a person’s self-esteem and sense of worth that leaves her believing no one will care. That the perpetrators of abuse need help and attention, too. That no one wants to be in an abusive relationship.
Run a link to the post on BlogHer.com that will run December 8, written by Violence Unsilenced’s Maggie Ginsberg-Schutz, who launched a site for speaking out and healing, where men and women can anonymously or publicly share their stories of survival.
Simply run a notice on your site that says the following: “LOVE SHOULD NOT HURT. If you are a victim of relationship abuse, know two things: It is not your fault. And there are people who want to help you.” And include links and phone numbers to the hotlines, which you can find for your post on Violence Unsilenced or Love Is Not Abuse or the Domestic Violence Hotline or Futures Without Violence or one of many other sites whose sole purpose is to reach out and help when someone needs it most.
Thank you for caring. Thank you for considering taking part in this important day and important conversation. Thank you for daring to take the time to USE YOUR WORDS to help those who need help the most. Here’s to women, and our endless reserves of resilience and compassion. Let’s shine it out there for all to see on December 8, and help change some lives. Because It Is Time To Talk About It.
We hope you’ll join us.
