Anonymous
When I was about eight-years-old, I learned of something I should never have known about until much later in life. One night, while not being able to sleep, I noticed that my “dad” had put a big piece of cardboard on the side of the t.v. blocking my view from watching it from my bed. I, being curious, stood up on my bed and was able to see over the cardboard just enough to make me plop back down and get under the covers once more. My “dad” was watching porn. I didn’t know it was that of course. All I know that it didn’t feel right to me. I immediately layed silently and tried to block what I had seen. I eventually slipped off into sleepy world.
It was shortly after that, give or take a month or two, that it started. I believe that since my “dad” was not sexually active with my mom, and turning to porn made him even more sexually frustrated, he turned to me for relief. My mother worked nights, so that’s when he made his first move. He came and got me out of bed, and sat with me in his old recliner. He then turned the t.v. to the channel where I had seen all those awful things. He began to explain what they were doing. I was scared, wasn’t sure why he was showing me those things, and I didn’t feel good about it. I wanted off his lap. I was tired, I exclaimed, I wanted to go back to bed. He didn’t let me. Instead, he tried to “interest” me in something else. He started to masturbate, and teach me how to do it to him as well. He purred his “trust me,” his “if you love daddy,” his ” it’s our secret” words, and he grabbed my hand and started to masturbate himself with it. I dared not to look, because it felt awful. Only a few moments later did he tell me to go back to bed, almost disgusted with me that I had shown no interest and was trying to wriggle away from him.
It kept going like that, so many nights doing the same things over and over again, until he wasn’t satisfied with just that. He forced me to put my mouth on him and go until he needed to “spit” as he called it. Eventually that wasn’t enough. He started in on me, fondling me, and doing things only a lover should do with their lover. He never did penetrate me with ‘himself’, but he wanted to, and for some reason that was the one thing I was “allowed” to say no to. This went on for a good couple years with him. Night after night. I never did sleep well. Whenever I awoke to the darkness, and I smelt his cologne nearby and heard his footsteps, I always wanted to scream out, or pretend that I was dead, so that he would just leave me alone.
Thankfully enough my mother quit her night job and the night episodes stopped from that point on. I was never so thankful to have my mom home every night. Little did I know, though, she alone couldn’t stop him. She saw peculiar things between him and I, several different times, but never put two and two together. Nothing seemed to stop him, except my age. I got older, matured a bit, started my period at 11. That was about the time that he stopped. It was also the time another started in on me.
My grandad was always a weird one. He was old, scraggly, and pure evil pierced through his eyes at every moment. I was always noticing him touching himself. He would always do it out of sight of anyone but me. He did this for as long as I could remember, so I thought no differently and ignored him. Only when my “dad” was doing what he was doing to me did I realize just what my grandad was doing. That’s when I got scared. I wasn’t safe at my grandfolks home either. At this point I felt safe nowhere.
My grandad was not as subtle as my “dad” was. He moved in awful quick. The second us kids started getting older and were allowed to be dropped off at his house to do the chores outside, was when he started exposing himself more and more. He then got the idea of fishing trips. Fishing trips in his truck with my brother and I. We would get to our destination and he would send Jbro out to check the water, and then wham his hands were down my pants. He was a lot more aggresive then my “dad” was, so he pretty much turned me into a frozen person whenever that happened. There were a lot of fishing trips for a good two years straight. At one point it was both my “dad” and my grandad doing different sexual things to me, or forcing me to do sexual things on them, at the same time. Neither of them aware of it, either.
My granmom caught us a couple times, and she would always just tell him to “put it away” and get me out of the room, where she would then scold at him for it. Yet she never stopped anything really. It was only when one of her daughters, at that time middle aged, confessed that my grandad had done terrible sexual things to her. It caused a chain reaction, and another six females in the family confessed. Even I confessed. He was off to jail the same day. My granmom had finally come to her senses and did something right for a change. My grandad didn’t get what he deserved, he was already old and sicker then a dog. He lasted only 7 months before he died of a heart attack inside the jail.
My mom pulled me aside that day in the kitchen and asked if my “dad” had done something to me, or anyone else for that matter. I replied no, simply because I was scared. She was devastated at the fact that her own father had done things to me, and to her sisters. I just wanted her not to cry anymore. I remember getting home that day, after my “dad” heard the news, he then pulled me aside as well. “Remember our little secret?” he said. “You didn’t tell mom, did you?” I replied, “No I didn’t. ” You could palpate the relief he felt at that moment. At the same time, for some reason I felt the rebellion, and the power of the confession I had made earlier along with my other family members. I felt like I could tell my mom, I wasn’t afraid anymore. It was amazing. I was 13 at the time, yet felt like finally I was an adult, and I could handle this.
Two months later I confessed to my mother. I saved her from beating his head in with a frying pan, and got her on the phone with the cops. He was shuffled off, and I never saw him again. He was released from jail this past year, and lives only an hour from me now. While that scares me, I won’t let it bother me. I won’t let him take another minute of joy and happiness I posses.
I won’t ever be rid of the awful memories I have of the dark times in my life. I have flashbacks every now and again, and sometimes I am unable to shake those away before it completely slaps me in the face, but I am stronger. I have a family of my own, a loving wonderful husband, and a long life ahead of me. I intend to live fully, and happily.
30 Responses to “Anonymous”
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Thank you for sharing. * hugs *
I hope that your story reaches out and touches someone else in need of it – thank you for sharing it here.
thank you for sharing.
I am so sorry that you lived through such hell. You are so brave to tell your story. I am in awe of your strength.
Thank you so much for sharing. I love your positive attitude and refusing to let him claim another minute of your future after he had so much of your past. Good for you!! ~Susan
This was so awful, and so hard to read. I am tremendously sorry for what you went through, and for your childhood stolen away.
Thank you for sharing. But more than that, thank you for having the strength to write, “I intend to live fully, and happily.” I’m in awe.
i’m not sure what i can say except i’m so proud of you for standing up and speaking out. the less we are silent, the harder it is for others to get away with this. i’m so sorry you had to experience any of that in the first place and i wish you so much peace.
I admire your strength, then and now. Thank you for sharing your story.
Wow. You are amazing! Thanks for sharing your story.
What struck me as I read this was the way you kept using the word “confessed”.
“Another six females in the family confessed, even I confessed…
…two months later I confessed to my mother…
…the power of the confession I’d made…”
It all sounds like you feel you’d done something wrong, that you had to make some confession in order to gain absolution. And I’m sure that you know, in your mind, intellectually, that you’ve done nothing remotely wrong. But the way you say these things sounds like — to me anyway — that somewhere in your heart you believe that you had some fault in what happened to you. that you did something “bad”. Something that you need to “confess” to. And that troubles me. Because it makes me wonder if you’re truly as free of the hold your abuse gained over you as you say — even as free as you think.
It’s not even a tiny bit unusual for victims to feel like they’re to blame for the crimes committed against them. In fact, it’s tragically common. Even after years of therapy, years of other people telling them, reinforcing the idea that they are not to blame, there’s a part of them deep under the surface that still doesn’t believe.
And mainly — I think — that comes from the control that the abusers holds over the victim. In cases like yours, this was someone you should have been able to trust with your very life if need be. Someone that you had every right to expect would protect you from the very kind of thing he was doing to you. But instead, he used that position of trust, of authority in your life to compel your silence. So when you broke that “rule”, when you broke that silence, perhaps you felt you’d betrayed a trust, betrayed a confidence.
There was, in fact, a betrayal here. But it was not yours. He, or more to the point, they betrayed you, not the other way around. You gave them the trust of a child and they twisted and perverted it into something evil.
You’ve heard all of this before. I’m sure of it. Heard it over and over from people who genuinely do care about you. But I’m telling you again, because I don’t think it’s possible to say it too many times.
You are not at fault.
You did nothing wrong.
They were the “grownups” — or they were supposed to be at least. You were just a little girl. No matter how old or grown up you might have thought you were at the time, you were still just a child. A child who deserved to feel safe, protected, loved in the ways a parent loves a child.
I’m glad you had your mother at least. Many in your position don’t even have that. Or don’t feel like they do at least. And my guess is that if you asked her, she would tell you she feels the guilt every single day for not recognizing what was going on. For “failing” you. But she is not to blame either.
I hope you will one day be able to rid your heart of the guilt you’ve rid your mind of already. That someday you’ll find a word to replace “confession” in your story. A word that puts the burden of guilt where it belongs.
On the abuser. Not the victim.
Thank you for your courage, both then in the telling, and now in the retelling. It cannot have been easy to do either of those things. But I hope they’ve helped you.
I know — and believe — they’ve helped someone else.
Thank you everyone for all your kind words, especially you Mojo. I’ve never realized that play on words meant that much. It was a confession at the time. It was a confession of his “sins” so to speak that I had to unburden. That’s the way it felt like.
I am hopeful that all of these stories on this website will help others share their story, or get out of their bad relationships, or seek justice on those that have done wrong to them.
Peace, love, and courage to you all!
((((((Baby girl))))) So sorry you went through all that, but very glad for you that you told, and your molesters went to jail.
that you for speaking. that is so awful.
thank you. so much. for sharing. all my best wishes for your full and happy life.
I’m sorry and I’m glad for your optimism and strength. Keep on healing!
Thank you for your bravery. As painful as it is to dredge up all that pain, I hope it helps you rid yourself of as much of it as possible. And know that you have helped someone else in the process. Maybe someone who isn’t lucky enough to have the family you have today.
It sounds like you have been able to move on, closer to the peace and happiness you deserve. That is a wonderful thing.
You are so brave.
Thank you for sharing your story.
My abusers never spent any time in jail. I’m curious as to if you felt some sort of vindication or justice or something along those lines. The fact that my abusers were never “punished” by the system is something that bothered me.
(((u))) As a fellow survivor of the nighttime awakenings, makes it hard to sleep soundly even now, huh?
Blessings and peace to you.
The strength and courage it took to stand up with the other women in your family and point at the person(s) who were supposed to be your mentors and guides in life with men – kudos.
Thank you for sharing. I can’t imagine the strength and courage it’s taken for you to overcome the pain. You are amazing. I hope your future is full of happiness.
Thank you for having the courage to survive and to share your story.
your strength is wonderful.
You are very courageous to share your story, please stay as strong as you are and never ever let those demons own you, you are so much more.
Sending you hugs and healing thoughts. Thank you for having the courage to post this.
Thank you for sharing your pain – and your bravery with us. Knowing you not only survived, but are thriving, could very well be the light at the end of the tunnel for someone else…
God Bless you for coming forward, and for sharing your story.
My heart skipped so many beats for you while reading this. Your past and present strength is truly amazing.
Your intent to live a full and happy life is a testament to your power.
It sounds like you are living a happy life with your wonderful family, and knowing that gives hope to many others.
Thank you so very much for sharing your story.
I am so sorry you got the double whammy of stupidity from the guys in your family.
I am so happy to hear that you have your own true family now. Here’s to your happily ever after!
Thank you for sharing your pain and your story. I’m so sorry for your lost childhood and the terrible things that happened to you. Living fully and happily is certainly the best revenge.