Mother-Daughter Incest

This topic is probably the most uncomfortable subject matter in the field of child sexual abuse that I have ever written about; it is also one of the most requested. Like many others, whenever I hear of this type of abuse I want to throw up, block out images and decide everyone who ever said this happened to them probably made it up. I have known for more than twenty years that my mother sexually abused my three siblings and me when we were ages 2, 3, 4 and 5. I locked those words in a closet hidden deep in my mind and threw away the key. It never happened; it wasn’t really sexual abuse; the therapist I shared it with didn’t know what he was talking about when he said it was. He called it ritual sexual abuse of four small children by a mother who was sexually repressed because her husband was away in the Marines.

Yesterday, I looked at a website called Making Daughters Safe Again at http://mdsa-online.org/. I was looking for information to help a friend of mine whose perpetrator was her mother. There, under the title, “What is Mother-daughter sexual abuse?” I read the words describing exactly what might constitute mother-daughter sexual abuse. As I read, I began sobbing as reality reared its ugly head. There was my mother; there was me. I mustn’t let anyone know. If they thought my father’s incest was disgusting and should never be mentioned imagine what they would think if they knew this? I would look like a perpetual victim. I remembered. Oh how I remembered, the pain, the shame, the humiliation, the confusion, the terror, being a part of the group sexual abuse, my siblings and I, my beloved siblings who all led an extremely troubled life as a result, living in half shadows, sometimes not living at all, full of confusion and terror about the world they lived in.

Why is this type of abuse so much more shameful? Mothers are supposed to protect and nurture us. Mothers rock their daughters as they hold them close, whispering words of love. Moms are there when we skin our knee, get a bad grade at school, have a fight with a friend or wake up screaming from a nightmare. This is what mothers are for.

Our mothers betrayed us in triplicate, something not the same as father-daughter incest. They carried us in the womb for nine months; they labored hard to bring us into the world; for most of us they were our primary caretaker, especially in the first few years of our life.

As per Making Daughters Safe Again (MDSA) at http://mdsa-online.org/mother-daughter-sexual-abuse/:

Survivors of mother-daughter sexual abuse have an added evil to contend with – the extreme isolation in feeling that they are the only survivors of this form of abuse, and that no one will believe them. These fears are not unfounded. Mother-daughter sexual abuse is a topic that receives little attention from researchers, support services, or the media. Survivors of mother-daughter sexual abuse often report being met with disbelief or shock by friends, family, and even mental health care professionals, and survivors of other forms of sexual abuse.

The incidence of mother-daughter sexual abuse is unknown because it is a grossly underreported crime. Less than 1% of MDSA members report any intervention as a child.

Mother-daughter sexual abuse is not about homosexuality. In fact, the vast majority of abusers are married and heterosexual. This form of abuse is about a mother’s distorted views about herself and her daughter. The mother may be a survivor of abuse and act out her own experiences with her daughter. The mother may find it unbearable to see any part of herself in her daughter, and displace her own anger and shame over her sexuality onto her daughter. The mother often wishes to dominate and control her daughter, while also seeking emotional support from her, sometimes resulting in a reversal of roles.

Reversal of roles? I remembered how, after my mother found out about my father’s nightmare raids into my bedroom, she lay in bed sobbing, having me bath her and shave her legs, wash her face, as if I were the mother and she was the stricken child. How could I have gone so long with this abuse locked in my closet? The locks tore open as I read further. The truth poured out. I had nowhere else to hide. Now I knew why I had written the following poem years ago in the midst of my recovery as I realized one dirty little secret after another.

My attic is filled with fragments of time,

That make up the essence of me,

Memories of love and friendship and joy,

And some I don’t want to see,

Compartments I locked like a security guard,

And watched so no entry was made,

Secrets of grief and stress that I chose,

And lessons whose dues I have paid,

The contents are rich with scraps of my soul,

And chapters I waded on through,

With hidden remains of skeletons there,

And puzzles without any clue,

Sometimes at night, when I’m tired and lost,

And the doors are bursting their seams,

All of the memories start screaming at me,

From the depths of bottomless dreams,

Then the assault bursts forth, as the lock gives way,

And pictures I’ve lost are reborn,

Drenching my heart and splashing my soul,

Leaving me weary and worn,

So I crawl up the stairs and open the doors,

And turn all the trunks on their side,

Tear open boxes rotted with age,

Spill everything trying to hide,

Open the windows and look at the sun,

And breathe in all I can find,

I remember it all, the essence of me,

And savor my “attic in mind”.

I opened up Word Press, where I make changes to my website. There under my Credentials in the section called About Marjorie McKinnon underneath the bullet point saying I was an incest survivor by my father, I added the sad, sad words, “And by her mother from the time she was age two until she was three and a half years old.” I had torn open another box rotted with age. No one will ever know what courage it took me to write those words.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *