A few months ago I was speaking to a local community organization on the subject of child sexual abuse. The President of the organization had invited both my husband and myself to dinner for their weekly meeting and I had been excited about another way to reach the community regarding the seriousness of child sexual abuse, a problem the Centers for Disease Control are calling an epidemic.
The Verde Valley area where I live is rampant with child sexual abuse keeping the local Child Protective Services with their hands full. It is also an area where drugs, especially meth, are a huge problem. Almost every week our local paper screams headlines about yet another murder, more arrests, more drug problems and especially domestic violence problems.Whoever I speak with about the problems, whether it is a neighbor, someone from church, my hairdresser or local residents, are adamant about how child sexual abuse and domestic violence are two of the largest problems in the area I felt on solid ground in speaking about this problem with some of the local people.
As I began my talk I noticed that little by little the other members averted their faces from me. To my surprise, one of the members stood up, turned his chair around and spent the entire talk with his back turned to me.During my hour presentation the only person who was actually watching while I spoke was the President who had invited me. After several minutes I became frustrated and changed the direction of my talk, saying:
“I know this is an unpleasant topic for you to have to listen to and I apologize if I have offended anyone. If you went home tonight to discover you had been robbed and that your television, your computer and your jewels were gone, would you call the police? Would you tell your family and friends? Would you tell your neighbors? Would you be angry and feel that you had been violated? Of course you would. Then why, if someone violated your daughter or your grandchild or your niece, would you not be equally outraged, in fact even more outraged. Televisions and computers and jewels can be replaced but the life of a sexually molested grandchild is ruined.
This story underlines the biggest problem in trying to stop child sexual abuse. No one wants to hear about it.After my youngest daughter was raped at gunpoint when she was 17, she called her Dad to tell him what happened. He immediately asked her if she’d seen the latest television series. She was angry and hurt as she should have been. Then she went over to visit some friends of her brother’s that were close to her. She told them what happened. They turned the television on and began talking about subjects not even related to what had happened to her. She came home in tears. Do we really think we’re going to make any headway on a subject that no one wants to talk about? Unfortunately, the main way we can make this subject a topic to be discussed with comfort is to “normalize” it. That means tell your story, tell it without shame, Stand Up and Be Counted (on my blog at www.thelamplighters.org), start a Lamplighter chapter in your area, reach out to those who have been abused and treat them with compassion and understanding. Most people don’t understand what a huge problem it is and the deadly impact it has on the life of the victim. This was illustrated by a phone conversation I had recently with a dear friend of mine. When I proudly told her that we now had 48 chapters in six countries, she said, “Isn’t it nice that you have a hobby.”
Even people who are aware of the problem and know what I’m trying to do are reluctant to give it a name. It would mean talking about the dreaded words, “childhood sexual abuse.” Pictures flicker in to our brains at those words, pictures we don’t want to look at. If you are someone struggling with the aftermath of being sexually molested yourself that is understandable. But remember that until we identify and RECOGNIZE (the first stage in my REPAIR program) what has happened to us we can go no further in turning our life around.
I’ve heard people whose past is littered with sexual affairs, failed relationships, suicide attempts, domestic violence and addictions insist that they had a happy childhood. While there may be a small percent of people with this kind of past that did actually have a happy childhood, they are the exception, not the rule. The biggest percent had some kind of abuse in their childhood and John Bradshaw, the guru of sexual abuse healing, says if you have secrets in your family you can bet they are about sex.
I spent decades telling people about the “happy Catholic family I came from. I blithely described the joy of growing up in the Midwest: ice skating on rivers, climbing trees, Christmas Caroling, baking cookies, sitting together wrapped around a radio that told us stories of suspense and mystery while we munched on buttered popcorn, packages from grandparents and aunts and uncles hidden in my parent’s closets at Christmas time, nighttime prayers said as we knelt in a circle around my mother as my father watched benevolently. The list of joys in my childhood was endless. I talked about my father as if he were a god. I spoke in glowing terms about his talent on the piano, his wealth of knowledge about every topic, his affection with the Finnish kiss, the Eskimo kiss and the Scottish kiss, how handsome he was, how intelligent he was.I even asked him one time why he wasn’t President of the United States. Surely we were the luckiest children in the world to have a father we idolized, following my mother’s lead whose motto about him was “Even when he’s wrong, he’s right.”
I didn’t speak about the day my mother pulled up my Solemn Communion dress to show him my nylons and garter belt, my underpants and my budding sexuality. The look in my father’s eye changed towards me from that point on. I didn’t speak about the night he entered my bedroom where I slept with a rosary under my pillow and raped me. I didn’t speak about the horror of the night my mother drilled my father in an attempt to find out what he was doing during his middle of the night raids. I didn’t speak about how I was awakened by my father to walk into the living room and endure my mother’s interrogations. I didn’t speak about the belt my mother had my father beat me with until I confessed that it was my fault, not daddy’s. I didn’t speak about the next five years of abuse that was so bad that after a beating that almost killed me I ran away from home. No, I was too busy talking about my happy Catholic family.
#1 by Heather logan on April 17, 2010 - 1:33 pm
You push and push Marjorie. Make them open up to the reality of what’s going on behind closed doors..good for you I say, too many horrors getting away with abuse, because of people’s fear they won’t be listened too…or believed!!
Three years ago, I went to grief counseling, my mother wrote me a letter, saying what she had to put up with and listed, how I’d ruined my life and how my ex hubby didn’t want me….as she knew old wounds would be opened if I continued on my grief counseling course….selfish to the bitter end..a bully to the highest degree..it was all about her, when in reality, it was about me…finding life hard, and not knowing which way to go from here….and the dreaded past I’d hidden to help, myself cope…which included interrogations, verble abuse, phyical abuse, from my mother. I was the kicked child at the age of, 50,the little naughty girl..who wouldn’t do as she was told.
when in fact, I’d been the one who brought up my mother’s children..along with my grandmother..after my mum had run away with a man when I was only 11.
On her return..in my teens..age 19…after the guy had run off with someone else, my siblings were looking upon me, as their mother..or family elder. From there it’s been an ongoing battle. Mum resents me. At times I feel she actually hates me. My brothers contact me if they need support but when mum is around they push me aside, as they know.the silent struggle, it causes. I’ve allowed this to happen for years. That was untill Mark my eldest brother died…4 years ago. We got the phone call. Mark had been involved in a hit and run. Our family gathered at the hospital. There were 5 of us.Three went home after saying their goodbyes. They left me and mum to sit and wait for the end. I saw my mum for the mother she should have been. She got onto Mark’s bed and sang him nursery rhymes, talked to him and told him she loved him. Mark died in his mum’s arms. All the while she was saying, “No one’s getting him. He’s my son. I said his dad would come for him. She said he was an arsehole. I said well then my granny will come for him. Let him go mum. She said no. She took my kids off me. By this time I was getting in a panic, as I knew through spiritual teaching some one was coming for Mark to lead him into the afterlife. Then a nurse appeared, just as Mark took his last breath. The nurse said, “Mr O’rielly has just passed so we need to close the curtains”. Just then Mark passed over. I know it sounds strange but I think Mr. O’rielly took Mark to guide his way because mum wouldnt let anyone come for Mark. I sat and watched Mark’s aura dwindle from gold speckles to pale gray,then nothing…my brother who helped me cope when mum had left us. Then we had the silent train journey home back to Newcastle where we waited while the undertakers arranged for Mark’s ashes to arrive at mums address…. after a short funeral on that Wednesday. My sister was working and my other brother had to work also. I arrived at mums. The ashes had just arrived.She said, “Heather you and I are going to spread Mark’s ashes in the river”. I said, “No mum. They will go out to sea. He needs to be buried. Quick as a flash, she went into the shed and came out with a spade. So we buried him under a tree by the river where he had played as a boy. I dug the hole mum put his ashes in. Then I covered him up..my knees buckled and I cried all the way home. Mum said he’d love it there as he’d hate a grave yard. Too many old folks in there for him. As the weeks passed after Mark’s death I was grief stricken. I couldn’t believe the way I felt. I’d be driving and tears would roll down my face. I’d just sit day in day out. To be honest I thought I’d finally cracked up. Mum hit the bottle big time and would phone and say he was my son, not yours. How would you know what it’s like? These calls came almost daily. My sister, would phone drunk and chatter about nothing..and look for the slightest, disinterest from me, then start an argument.. I realized I wasn’t allowed to feel grief. After all I’d been told he wasn’t my son and I wouldnt know how it felt to grieve. I was just simply a person on the end of the phone line to be abused and so I went to the doctors. By this time I was a wreck. The doctor said, “You’re not cracking up. You’re in deep grief”. He put me straight on the grief counseling list. I had the most wonderful counselor, Georgie! One of my appointments I turned up with this letter from my mum. Georgie said, “You’ve been bullied for years Heather. In order to stop you addressing the fact that your mum left you while you were in your mum’s care as a child. You had been sexually abused, not once but twice, once by your mum’s brother, and by an old man left babysitting. In fact you were actually the saving angel of the family, plus your gran. This is why, you’re still abused to this day”. She explained to me why mum treated me with contempt. Basically I was the one old enough to remember what had gone on. My sister tried to abuse me while she was drunk because she had learned how to minipulate me. After seeing me in mum’s company..kick the dog syndrome..!!! And that is why I married a drunk and found drunken men more attractive as I subconsciously recognized abusive people. In my warped sense of security, I’d associated them as ok folks….as I didn’t know any better. I read about the Celestine Prophecy and how there are four types of manipulation. I was aloof, hiding away from fears of my past, scared to enjoy life for fears of shameful hurts coming back to haunt me. No more I say. Good for you Marjorie. Open up every door and let folk’s heart’s soar………………….Heather
#2 by Heather logan on April 17, 2010 - 1:44 pm
ps…please put at bottom..of my comment…full name Heather Logan, UK.
An old friend of Marjorie and Tom…
#3 by Marjorie McKinnon on April 19, 2010 - 11:39 pm
Heather, You are such a strong and wise person now. The telling of your story will inspire and encourage others who are sexual abuse survivors. Thank you for your courage.
And you are, most definitely, an old friend of Marjorie and Tom.