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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19 Comments | February 14, 2011 | Filed Under sexual abuse, survivor story