A word about the VU Anniversary Video
I missed somebody and I feel terrible.
I am not a videographer. I’ve got a decent Macbook with some great software that came pre-installed, but before I made last week’s anniversary video I’d never so much as blown the dust off it. It took me all day (and many frantic emails to savvier friends) to figure out how to cobble together what I did. I am proud of the result, but let’s just say I won’t be making another one anytime soon.
There were many survivors who were not pictured in the video, either because they weren’t comfortable with putting their faces out there or they weren’t able to get a photo to me–no big deal. Unfortunately, there was someone who sent me a photo and somehow, someway, it fell through the cracks. I didn’t discover my mistake until today, as I was cleaning out my email inbox. Keith never said anything; I only found out by accident.
I can’t tell you how terrible I feel about this.
Keith Smith is a survivor. He was one of the first survivors to post his story on VU, and he is one of the few males to have done so–which makes his story so vital, because men need safe places to speak out and seek support. I’m honored he did so on VU, and I’m deeply sorry I messed up.
Keith, I’m so sorry I missed your photo in the video. I would redo the whole thing if I didn’t think it would take a week and possibly ruin it entirely. I hope you’ll accept my apology.
Thank you all for the incredibly warm celebration you gave VU last week. For your comments, your emails, your Tweets, your posts, I am eternally grateful. Thank you especially to all the survivors; those who have already spoken out, and those who are still patiently awaiting their turns.
And, to Keith. Thank you.
Eileen
It’s hard to know where to start…
Do I start with the earliest clear memory? Me at 6 years old with my oldest brother asking me if he can watch me go pee. He is 11 then. I remember clearly thinking it is gross and telling him no. Of course, the no’s only work for so long…
Or do I start with that foggy memory of me at 4-years-old. Sleeping upstairs in my grandparents’ home. My mind’s eye can see the pants in front of me and the hands that pull down the zipper and then pull out the ugliest body part I have ever seen. My wrist feels the tight gripping pull towards the body part as I try to resist. My ears hear the squeak of the step… fourth from the top… as someone is coming up the stairs. Quickly, the hands and body disappear.
Do I speak of the years upon years of constant, daily sexual abuse by two of my three brothers? Never being able to sleep for fear of who may walk in that night. Never having friends stay over – to keep them safe from the hell I am living in. The bruised body along with the wounded soul… beaten for saying no. The eyes that watch me shower. The head between my 11 year old legs as I awake one morning. Do I dare share the day when my father walks in and catches my oldest brother molesting me? I am 12. My father asks my brother to move out. Nothing is ever talked about. He is just gone.
Do I talk to you of the day after school when I arrive to find that I am home alone with my middle brother? The most violent of them all. How can I describe the rape that wasn’t the violent event that most people imagine when they hear that word? After years of violence, I had learned it was safer to succumb. To take leave of the room in my mind – leaving my body to suffer the consequences of their actions. I can hear the fan in the room as he pulls down my shorts and pushes me into the chair. How many minutes does it take? I don’t know, honestly. I only know that I have a record album in my hands. I hold it up and read it over and over and over again. I don’t know what album it was. I only know he finally finishes and he walks away. I am 13 years old and, unbeknown to me, that day I become pregnant. Three months later, my mother sees what I didn’t know but she knew – stretchmarks on my young breasts. There is much hollering and fuss and then my father finally asks me who the father is. When I tell him, his response to me is, “Did you want this to happen?” I still don’t understand that question. He leaves my room and moments later I hear my mother crying and screaming, “My baby! My baby!” But she never comes in to console “her baby.” A few days later, I pee in a cup. A few days later, I’m told by my parents that I have an appointment. I am taken to a hospital for an abortion. Seated in a room with women older than I. A few hours later, it’s over and I’m vomiting my way out of the hospital. My mother offers me Nacho Cheese Doritos and Honey Buns to eat as soon as I get in the car. My middle brother is asked to leave our house then.
I start to get comfortable. Maybe that’s the end of it…
A few weeks later, I awake in the morning to my father’s hands between my legs. He asks me if it feels good. I reply that it doesn’t. He leaves that day, but returns morning after morning. And I am catapulted back into hell.
I attend a pizza event with some high school friends in October of that year. A conversation with a female friend leads me to reveal my suffering to her. She can’t handle it, but luckily for me there is a boy there who can. A boy whose mother works for CPS and who has the foresight to give him some of her business cards. He gives one to me that night.
I’m now 14 years old; I’m at the bowling alley after school with my father and my remaining brother. My father is at the counter, my brother is playing Asteroids and I am on the pay phone with CPS. They want to get me right then, but I ask for them to come to school the next day. And they do. I am taken that day to a receiving home which is the entry level home in the foster care system in California. A few days later, my mother is allowed to come to the home to bring me some clothing. She sits on the couch in their living room, crying. She wants to know why I did this to our family. I am stunned that she doesn’t believe me. She leaves crying and a few moments later, my father is at the door. Pounding, yelling, threatening. I am shoved into a back bedroom while the police are called. Shaken. My brothers are never charged with any crime because of their ages and locations. My father denies any wrongdoing at first. He claims that I abuse drugs and that I have been prostituting myself for cash. Eventually, he finds out that if he pleads guilty, he will spend no time in jail. He takes the plea and gets sentenced to community service and counseling. I am moved to a foster home. My social worker arrives a few weeks later to pick me up. To take me to attend my father’s first counseling session. I refuse to go and am told if I don’t? I’ll be taken to juvenile hall for defying a court order. I am stunned. My social worker is visibly upset at having to tell me this. He lets me slide that day, but next time… I attend sessions with my molester for several months and then he is proclaimed HEALED and I am put back into my parents’ home. Yes. He starts abusing me again. This time, I tell my mother with the warning that if she doesn’t make him stop, this time I won’t rely on the system to protect me. I will just leave. The molestation stops. The violence begins. I endure.
It’s hard to know where to end my story…
Flash forward… I meet, then marry my high school sweetheart when I am 19. When I am 21, I give birth to our first daughter. Four years later, our second. When my oldest daughter turns five, I began having difficulties. Episodes of disassociation and panic attacks send me into counseling. I begin with group sessions and then move into individual counseling. I speak to my therapist in one particular session about seeing my father in a store and having to run to the bathroom to vomit. She asks me why I still associate with him. My response is that it’s just something I have to do. It’s then that the sweetest words ever are spoken. “You know that you’re an adult now? You know you have a choice?” A few sessions later, I write my father a letter and ask him to stay away from me and my family. That was 17 years ago now.
Four years ago, I did some research on the internet regarding child abduction laws and I stumbled across a piece of legislation that was set to go before the California Senate that year. This piece of legislation was to change the incest exception law. Was to ensure that predators who “grow their own victims” receive the same punishments given to all molesters. It had gone before the Senate the year before and failed because the California legislators refused to believe that this sort of thing happened. I contacted the Senator who wrote the bill and offered my support. The next thing I knew, I was sitting at the Capitol speaking in front of a Senate Committee. Sharing my story. It waffled back and forth, but SB 33, The Circle of Trust Bill, passed. Three years ago, I was back in Sacramento again testifying. This time on behalf of legislation that would stop criminals convicted of a sexual crime from ever obtaining custody of their victim or any other child ever again. This piece of legislation passed as well.
I’m certainly not healed completely. My story doesn’t end here. I had limited contact with my mother for years but have since discontinued the contact because it became to harmful to me. I don’t know that I’ll ever forget her asking me, “When are you just going to get over it?” I’m twice divorced. Searching for my happiness still but I’ve raised two gorgeous, brilliant daughters who have never been abused. That is what I am most proud of. I am also proud that I was able to change the laws to hopefully help the children we all know are still out there – suffering. Perhaps eventually, I’ll be able to write more of my story. This time? With a happy ending.
First Anniversary Celebration, Violence UnSilenced* UPDATED
One year ago today, Violence UnSilenced launched.
I find myself at a loss for words, so I’ll just let this video do the talking.
Thank you all, so very, very much.
UPDATE: I missed somebody! I feel so terrible. Please read this.
If you would like to join these survivors, email your post to maggie [at] violenceunsilenced [dot] com. If you would like to support these survivors, please read and comment on the stories posted twice weekly here. If you would like to offer further moral support to Violence UnSilenced, visit the pledge page to add a badge to your site. To learn more about Violence UnSilenced, read the about page. Thank you.
Tanis
In a small town, there was a young girl, barely 17-years-old, who could be described as neither beautiful nor smart. She was just a plain girl, a quiet girl, the type of girl most people overlook; she was invisible.
Invisibility suited this girl fine. She preferred it as her weapon of choice, learning early on in her troubled life that she could avoid trouble, avoid pain, if she remained quiet and stealthy. No one quite knew what her pain stemmed from, what her story really was, but the haunted look in her eyes broadcast the certainty her storybook did not contain the pages of much happiness.
An older boy saw her, barely a year older than her, but legal in the law’s eyes and for the first time she dropped her cloak of invisibility. This boy saw her when so many others didn’t. He was her dark-eyed prince who made her feel invincible.
Together, in each other’s arms, they found solace from their troubled upbringing and united in their love they stood side by side against the world; ignoring wisdom and advice until one day they discovered they were pregnant.
They would be a happy little family.
But life isn’t so easy and the world’s harsh realities pressed against them at every turn. It wasn’t long before the girl abandoned her common sense and sought refuge with drugs, with her boy beside her.
The baby inside her could only take so much and soon her body rebelled, the drugs forcing an early birth of their baby. After only 24 weeks of pregnancy this girl and this boy were soon the parents of a 1 pound six ounce baby boy.
This baby boy fought for life, surprising everyone with his strength of will. He shouldn’t have survived his birth; his lungs were too fragile, his bowels perforated, his heart weak.
But survive he did, and thrive he began. To the doctors’ surprise, the girl stayed steadfast beside her baby’s side. The baby’s father, fancying himself a real man now, worked during the week and visited his child on the weekends.
This routine went on for five months until the child grew strong enough and big enough to be released into the custody of his young parents. The baby was a miracle, they declared. They had no explanation for how healthy and normal he was, instead attributing it to the boy’s will to survive. The doctors worried about sending home this child they had worked so hard to heal with such young, uneducated parents and they tried to prevent it but in the end the young lovers were able to carry their child out of the hospital as a small family and begin their real life.
It took only a month before the grim reality of providing for a wee infant proved to be too much for the young father. The young mother tried, but she too, was overwhelmed by the stress of life and once more they allowed intoxicants to soften the glaring hardships of their life.
In a fit of rage and stupidity one night, the young father picked his wee healthy boy child up and lifted him to the heavens yelling at the child to be quiet, yelling at the child’s mother to shut the kid up, while shaking the baby like a dog does a rag doll.
Thirty-one days after the baby boy had been released from the hospital, doctors stood over him once more, trying to again save his life.
An investigation ensued and soon the young father was taken away in handcuffs as the mother sat beside her baby, dazed and confused as the drugs wore off and the doctor’s words sank in.
Her perfect healthy boy was no longer perfect; the swelling in his brain too severe to overcome, brain damage, blindness.
For three months the boy fought to live inside that hospital, while his father remained in custody awaiting trial. Social services promised to protect the boy, to help the young mom, to do everything they legally could to ensure this baby grew up as healthy as his now damaged body could. The doctors, again amazed at the boy’s survival, shook their heads as they watched the mother take the boy home. Their hands were tied.
For another three months, the baby was safe as his mother stayed clean and doing everything she could to provide for her child. By all accounts she was a loving mother, a gentle spirit and for the many things she had done wrong, loving him was never one of them.
But the legal system failed the baby boy and soon the young father was released from jail. The restraining order ended and social services slowly slipped away from the young mother, taking their promises of safety with them.
The young mother tried at first to distance herself from the man she claimed to love. She wanted to do right by her child but time and life wore her down and slowly the father crept back into their daily lives, bringing with him turmoil and drugs. The young mother wasn’t strong enough to say no to either.
For almost six more months life carried on quietly, the world having forgotten what this young father did to his son, the young mother losing her resolve to protect her child. She loved her child but she couldn’t stop loving this boy who saw past her invisibility.
Then one fateful night, while the stars twinkled quietly and the booze flowed freely, something went terribly wrong. To this day no one knows where the mother was at the time, and to this day the father maintains his innocence.
But in those moments of time as the world stood still, the wee baby boy, barely eighteen months old, blind, mute, and barely 14 pounds heavy, fought for his life once more and was left to die.
Fate finally intervened, and in the morning hours of the next day strangers found the child and stuffed him into a taxicab. His young parents didn’t want to call an ambulance because they didn’t want the police to question them.
The boy barely made it. For three days the left side of his brain hemorrhaged. The doctors fought valiantly to save the boy’s lungs, to treat his chemical burns.
The boy endured another five weeks of hospitalization as the doctors worked to repair the damage. His hearing couldn’t be saved, his brain damaged beyond a level where any normal adult function would ever be possible. The doctors and nurses, horrified, whispered of attempted murder, sexual assault, and other such savagery as they bandaged the boy back together.
The police stood guard to ensure the boy stayed safe, trying to banish the image of the child’s broken body from their minds.
The young parents never saw their child again. The young mother abandoned any pretense she held about being able to care for the child, of being able to protect him, and signed over her parental rights.
The boy’s young father fled, worried he’d be arrested as the government and the police worked together to investigate the violence. Eventually he was caught, but justice was denied his child as the courts ruled there was insufficient evidence to proceed to trial. Social services took no chances this time and terminated the father from his rights to the child.
The baby boy, more so a baby now than ever before, helpless in his own body, found his way to one foster home after another. Eventually, with the seeds of love and the blankets of safety wrapped firmly around him, he began to heal and grow into a new version of himself. A version that never should have been.
Then one day, just over a year ago, the baby boy found me. His social worker, while searching for a forever family, stumbled across my name. She was looking for a family who could see past his limitations, his disabilities and instead see the boy with the spirit of steel and boundless joy.
She said she knew this boy was meant to be our son when she read my file. We are survivors, this boy and me. Our family, desperate to be healed, had the one thing this boy needed: love. Together, she thought, we could heal one another.
She was right.
I’ve waited a year to tell this story, Jumby’s story, of how he came to be, of who he is and what he endured to finally find the family every child deserves to have. It’s taken me this long to find the words to deal with the horror of his past.
I waited a year to tell his story because my son was a victim of violence and his perpetrator remains at large, unpunished for these crimes.
I waited a year to tell his story because I was unsure whether I wanted my older two children to learn of their brother’s past. To do so would mean stripping more childhood innocence away from my kids, who were already robbed of so much when they buried their brother.
But the time has come to share Jumby’s story, now that he is safe and legally ours. I publish these words here, at Violence Unsilenced because I’m not ready for my children to read them just yet, but I needed to write them.
I need the world to know that Jumby is more than just an adopted child. He is more than just a child who is blind, deaf, mentally disabled and quadriplegic to boot.
He is a survivor.
He was a child who was robbed of his health. His future was stolen from him, first by drugs and a premature birth and then by the violence delivered unto him by the very people who were supposed to protect him and love him most.
The promise of who he could have been and what he could have achieved was stripped away one violent act after another until all that remains is my sweet boy’s unconquered spirit and his joy for life trapped in a body so broken there is no hope for release.
He deserved better than that.
All children deserve better than that.
Jumby survived. He was lucky that way.
But there isn’t a beat of his heart that I’m not reminded that not every child is as lucky as he was.
Jumby is more than my son. He is my hero.
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Tanis blogs at Attack of the Redneck Mommy.
