Disclaimers:
1.
This will NOT be my typical light-hearted
ramblings. This is me doing my very best
to initiate something positive from a dark past. But after this I promise to limit my
philosophical carrying on.
2.
The time I’ve taken to deal with and heal from
this is one of the various reasons I have been MIA from the blog I barely
started last year. Well that, and then I
had no idea how to explain what I was going through. While it’s still difficult
to put to words, I know that it’s time.
“The World suffers a
lot. Not because of the violence of bad
people. But because of the silence of good people.” - Napoleon
When I was in the first trimester of pregnancy with our first baby, in
2007, I was on the phone with my sister.
She had argued with our step-father and mentioned that she still had a
hard time getting along with him because of what he did. I didn’t have to ask what she meant. I knew what he did…but then, she APOLOGIZED
to me for bringing it up! I realized in
that moment that my very own little sister had no idea that our step-father had
also molested me.
So, I said it.
“I was sexually abused.”
Now, I’ve said it to the World Wide Web. Well, I’ve typed it and uploaded it to my
tiny blog.
But there it is nonetheless.
It’s a quarter to midnight, and my hands shake as my fingers poke at
the keyboard. Having been barely able to admit this to myself for a decade,
saying it to others still almost shocks me. I’m wondering what you are thinking and feeling about this. Unfortunately, I know that
it is likely sympathy. I know some of
you reading this have survived similar abuse.
Something I’ve learned since being able to talk about this is that WAY
too many people say, “It happened to me too,” or “It happened to my sister/mother/friend.” If this is true for you, you understand… and
I’m sorry. I fear that some of you will
question why I would bring this up, but I hope that someday I won’t fear that –
and that other victims won’t have to experience that fear.
The thing that is driving me to find these words is hope. I have so much more hope than fear, that I am
driven to share… so I’ll continue.
Before I could feel our baby kick in my belly, my memories, my fears,
came rushing to the forefront of my mind.
I knew my fear was not enough to excuse me from actively protecting our
child from the possibility of this abuse.
I knew I would have to go through the pain that I buried. Up until that positive pregnancy test, I was
still in survival mode. I denied my past
to myself so that I could function on a daily basis. When I saw that second
pink line, I entered protection mode.
The excuses I had made for the man who molested me, all the coping
mechanisms I used, they fell short of being enough when I put my own child in
my shoes. If my step-father molested my
child, it wouldn’t matter that he might have been drunk. It wouldn’t matter if he has been sober for
years now, it wouldn’t matter that my mother is still married to him, it
wouldn’t matter that people would hate me for reporting it. I came to the realization that simply, none of that mattered, period. I had to forget the excuses in order to
ensure that my step-father would never molest my child.
So, I began working through what had happened to me. I worked very hard at sorting out the pain
before our first baby boy was born. In
the first two years of our son’s life, it was enough for me to avoid my
step-father. I tried not to let him hold
our baby. I would never allow my
step-father to be alone with our son, and we turned down all requests for
overnight visits.
Truth fears nothing but concealment. ~Proverb
As time went on, I started to open up to my friends, and I was hit
again with a realization that my current methods for handling this past fell
short. I knew what my step-father did,
so I could choose to protect my child from him.
But almost no one else knew. When
I told my best friend in the world, who was in her third trimester of
pregnancy, who was my maid-of-honor, who is the dearest friend I’ve ever had, I
realized how horrible it was to not speak up; I was ashamed that I had not told
her sooner. She had a right to know, she
had a right to protect her child just as much as I did.
I went home that night and typed into the Google search bar “molest statute
of limitations”, but I was still a ways off from doing the right thing.
Nearly three years after that first phone call with my little sister,
and after a lot of soul searching, I was ready to take the information about my
abuse as far as was necessary. I
approached my little sister. I let her
know that I was considering reporting the abuse to the state police, and asked
how she felt about it. She barely let me
get it all out when she agreed it was the right thing to do and said she would
also report what happened to her, although she had a lot more to lose by
reporting (my little sister… she’s a tough cookie).
So we reported it. Then, we
waited. In my naivety, I hoped for a
particular phone call - from my mother, or others in the family. I hoped they (my family) still loved me. Many of them didn’t… love us, that is. At least they didn’t love us enough to face
holding a child molester accountable - even if that person is their husband,
their father, their friend. Each phone
call that never came was a new wound to heal from. I am still healing. Still now, when I see young men that are the
same age as my dear brother, and I wonder what he might be like now, nearly
three years since I last saw him; it takes my breath away. THAT loss is the biggest I have faced since
the first night I was abused.
The truth will set you free, but first it
will make you miserable. ~James A. Garfield
While I went on in disbelief, reeling from the continued and surprising
betrayal from friends and family, the investigator found more victims. When I would learn that someone else had been
abused, that they tried to report it, my heart broke. But I had so much hope that this was the
opportunity for that wrong to be made right. There were four victims found in
the investigation.
We were patient as we fought politics.
Yes, somehow when a little girl is violated by a grown man, politics
matter. The prosecutor in office at the
time never returned any of my 3 dozen phone calls. When a new prosecutor took office, the
investigator on the case submitted the case again, and we still waited, more
politics. Finally, 16 months after we
first shared our story with authorities, our case was handed over to a special
prosecutor (you know, to avoid politics – I’m groaning and rolling my eyes as I
type this).
Charges were filed, then dropped for further investigation. Finally, there was a GRAND JURY
INDICTMENT!!!! What does that mean? A
jury reviewed all the evidence and ordered several arrests – on 6 felony charges!! Others were also indicted for neglect of a
dependent, official misconduct, and assisting a criminal (one of these two
people was my step-father’s brother)!! Folks, WAY too many adults knew what was
happening to us girls. They knew it was
happening, and they kept their heads down.
They allowed us girls to bear the weight of their fears, their
egos. We paid the price. We were the currency offered up to continue in
their lives the way they knew it.
It is error alone which needs the support
of government. Truth can stand by itself. ~Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia
Then suddenly, with no warning at all, not even the courtesy of a phone
call from the “special” prosecutor, ALL CHARGES WERE DROPPED! That was it.
The prosecutor would hardly take our phone calls. No call from ANYONE! We just fell off of everyone’s radar. When the prosecutor finally did answer my
call, she blamed it on the statute of limitations. The same statute of limitations that we spent
so much time studying early in the case, that she had consulted with her colleagues
so often about. Apparently, Indiana
State Law says that we weren’t afraid enough to justify not coming forward as
children. What’s worse? The man that
abused me and at least three other girls from 1986 to 1998 is now fighting to
erase his arrest record!
Seriously?! A GRAND JURY thought
this man should be charged with 6 felonies!
Just because he was not successfully convicted due to the statue of
limitations, does not mean he didn’t do it or that the arrests were
unwarranted. Thankfully, the Indiana
Attorney General’s office seems to be outside the reach of the political circus
that has tainted this case, and I have hope that they will be successful in
defending the arrests, thereby leaving at least some public evidence of what my
step-father is capable of. This
situation, though, supports an ominous truth… not everyone that belongs on the
sex offender registries will be found there.
You can change that by holding yourself and everyone you know
accountable when you know of this type of abuse. It is hard, but it is harder for a victim to
survive abuse than it is for the rest of the world to survive facing our own
evils.
Unfortunately, none of these details of our case or the charges matter
one bit to the little girl I was when I was so terrified about what was being
done to me. None of these details matter
an inkling to the child that is the next potential victim. I’ve made every single decision I’ve made thus
far in an effort to protect other children just as precious as my very own
children. Countless people in positions
to help further this goal have failed us, but my wounds are becoming scars, my
fears are becoming lessons, my regret is becoming respect. I am on the receiving end of an incredible
amount of love that gives me all the strength I need. I am no longer a victim, but a survivor. I have survived what could have defeated me,
and what remains to bear… is bearable. I
am happy, but that is not enough.
We do not err because truth is difficult to
see. It is visible at a glance. We err because this is more
comfortable. ~Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Wrong is wrong, no matter who does it or who says it. ~Malcolm X
I remain unconvinced that my actions thus far have had the impact that
I wish them to have. So tonight, while
my three children and husband sleep, I write.
I write to ask no small favor of you.
Do not pray for me. Do not have
sympathy for me. Do not think that there
is anything you could or should do for me…
What I ask is that you hold yourselves and everyone around you
accountable, your neighbor, your mother, your best friend. If you must pray, pray that the people in
this world that are responsible for the protection of our children will protect
them, from their own husband, their own cousin, sister, or co-worker. Pray that the next time a child is abused, the person that can protect them thinks first
of the child and not what it will mean to piss off the community by shining a
light on the inconvenient truth. While I
appreciate that most of you care that this happened to me, please know that my
scars are not only from what my step-father did to me, but from the world that
didn’t protect me, from my mother choosing not to know my children because I
came forward about it, from my children never knowing their Uncle who, as far
as I can tell, hates me for what his father did to me, from those that could
have stopped it and didn’t, from those that could stand by me now and don’t.
Stand by me and stand by all other victims in this world by saying to
the abusers and the enablers that abuse is unacceptable!
Do not stand idly by when you see evidence of the abuse.
Do not remain silent when the victim’s name comes up in conversation.
Let it be KNOWN that you will not tolerate such complacency!
It is not enough to believe what someone did was wrong, you have to let
it be known. Your silence is your
acceptance of what happened. If you do
not speak up, you are guilty of feeding this society that allows the
abuse. When we enable abusers to
continue in their abuse to avoid our own discomfort, we make the world nearly
unbearable to someone less capable of coping with such pain. When my mother avoided the pain of leaving
the man that was abusing her daughters, she forced upon us a pain that we would
bear for the rest of our lives. If you
are strong enough, if you can survive the discomfort, I ask you to face that
fear so that a child with less strength doesn’t have to.
“The World suffers a lot.
Not because of the violence of bad people. But because of the silence of
good people.” - Napoleon
I am no longer silent.
