Tag: CSA

It’s not our little secret.

When I was eleven years old I was a young eleven.  Certainly by today’s standards, I was a very young eleven.   I was a compliant eleven — just the kind of girl who wanted to please everyone.   I was just the kind of girl who wanted everything to work out well — to be happy — to be a family.   Just the kind of girl one could trust to keep a secret.

Initially (and I believe this is most often the case with sexuallyabused girls) I didn’t grasp or understand what was really happening, nor that it was completely and absolutely inappropriate behaviour.

So, when I was praised for being Daddy’s good little girl and then was told that these things would be our little secret. I obeyed.  Because that’s what I did — that’s the kind of girl I was: obedient.  Daddy’s good little girl.  [This Daddy was not my dear birth-father, nor the man who is my dear step father today.  Just to be clear.]

It would be another year or so until I began to feel afraid, awkward and guilty about those “little secrets.”   And I think this was part of the death of innocence , death of trust, death of freely loving others — and the beginning of fear, doubt, shame and deception in my life.  Still earnestly desiring to please, to be a good girl and to be loved, I continued carrying “our little secret.”   But in time I would avoid situations that would isolate me with him and I would feign sleep when he would come into my bedroom at night — then stirring just enough to frighten him off.   Daddy’s good little girl was beginning to grasp that this behaviour or these activities were wrong in this context.

I recall the day I stumbled into the sickening reality that this “little secret”  really was wrong — not normal — not okay.  During homemaking class at school one day, there was a group of girls huddled together over a paperback book.   And as they were reading excerpts from the book, they attempted to muffle their gasps and laughter.  A large area of that homemaking classroom was divided into several “kitchens” for cooking assignments.  I could hear them in the adjacent “kitchen” and I remember being assaulted by the reality of sexualbehaviour and having mixed emotions — youthful curiosity mixed with the desire to be in their group.

What was my revelation?  I was suddenly deeply sobered by guilt and gripped with shame over knowing what they were talking about.  As I listened to their talk, it dawned on me that they didn’t have their “facts” straight.  I wanted to say: “no, it doesn’t happen like that.”  And then I knew.  I knew at that moment that I knew what I shouldn’t know.  It sank in.  And another part of me died.

I wish I could say here that I immediately rushed home and told my mother.  But I can’t, because   I didn’t.  I didn’t tell her then for some of the very same reasons girls grow up to become women who still carry the deep secret… and that reason is: fear.

[correction in this paragraph] I’m sure people wonder why girls and women don’t tell.  It’s no different from any other “forbidden” or “naughty” thing.  No one wants others to know they have had “bad” things going on… whether that bad thing is/was pornaddiction, drugs, theft, bulimia, anger, abortion — and the list goes on.   I don’t know why we all fall into that bondage, but I’m going to guess it’s the oldest reason in the Book.  Fear.  They’re afraid.   So it is for little girls who are being abused.  They’re too afraid of the consequences of telling. I was afraid.  I knew I needed to tell my mother.  But I was afraid of what would happen to her if I told.  I was afraid of what would happen to me if I told.  Because, part of the “our little secret” was: “we don’t want to hurt mother.”   A child doesn’t grasp the subtle nuance of what “hurt mother” means.  They, like all of us, only know what they know — and to a child, hurt means: hitting, burning, falling, cutting, killing… stuff that causes hurt.

More months would pass…  I knew I needed to TELL.   I was beginning to be afraid of what would happen to me if I didn’t.   Soon I would muster up the courage to tell “our little secret.”

Why Tell?

That’s a question I asked myself for a long time.  After I told my mother about my father sexuallyabusing me, it would be a long time before I would talk about it again.  I didn’t say, it would be a long time before I thought about it again — just a long time before I would talk about it again.  And there would be good reason for that — or so I thought.  I was sort of under the delusion that if I talked about it one of two things would happen: I would be labeled _____ (fill in the blank with any number of negative or pejorative comments), or it would, simply by bringing it up, happen again.

So, though always ignored, why attempt to contact him over the years?  Why write and send him a letter (nearly five years ago), now.   And why post it online when he refused to accept the registered letter?  Why the desire to tell on him then — and still?

I believe that when a man continually abuses a little girl, he must face the consequences (legal, moral, societal, etc.).  And, yes, I want to add, I am a born again Christian… redeemed by the blood of  Jesus.  And, yes, vengeance does belong to the Lord.  —-Just wanted to be very clear on this.

I think I, like many I’ve talked to and/or corresponded with, finally had the courage to stand up and say: What you did was wrong.  What you did forever crippled ways I see, think, do things… destroyed part of my life.  And… finally, I mustered the strength and courage to stand up to you.  And… I can contradict you.  That wasn’t “our little secret.”  That was your big lie.

Drumming the phrase into my mind over and over again:  “Let’s not tell anyone about this… ” Well, no.  No more.  And so… finally I had the courage to TELL.    Somehow just telling my mom (who *fully* believed me, did and does stand by me),  just telling her only solved part of my problem.

That was actually (though it took three years of abuse to finally muster the courage to tell her what was going on), the easy part.  The hard part wouldn’t be  tackled for many, many years.   Finally gathering the courage to stand up to — and then to act on that decision to face — an abuser is the hardest part.   Telling someone — simply eases or spreads the pain and fear a bit.  Facing the abuser is terrifying.  At least for me (and for the many who’ve written or talked with me through the years).

Telling my story has been sort of cathartic — and retelling it makes it easier to bear.   All through this, I want to assure you, dear reader, that I didn’t face the worst treatment, abuse, trial, yada, yada, yada.  It was/has been, however, my worst ongoing experience.  I say this bcz it’s a ploy of the enemy to say:  well, heck, you didn’t go through what so ‘n so went through — so kwitcherwhinin’.  A sexuallyabused girl/woman sort of dies a little more with every thought like that.  She wrestles with the emotions, the fear, the broken way she deals with relationships and she still can’t make sense of it all.   Then when faced with the condemnation that she should just buck up and deal with it… well, she can’t — not easily, anyway.

She can’t bcz she knows deep down she must tell on him.    It’s only one part, or the first step, when she tells of being sexuallyabused.

She keeps knowing that one day… someday… she is going to tell on him.  And she’s going to let him know that the little secret ISN’T.  Anymore.

CSA = Tell Someone

It’s a tough topic – a tough thing to deal with, a tough thing to talk about.  And that’s why it isn’t. talked. about.  It’s also not talked about because of fear — a deep seated fear of reprisal.  It is deep and it is real.

I don’t talk about a lot of things specifically here on the blog… you know — it’s risky to share stuff.  Once you publicly share stuff, you run the risk of being pegged as something.  You know how you say to someone: I love teddybears and suddenly, every gift you receive from then on is a teddybear something.   Or, you share, you were once addicted to meth and you’re forever a meth-head.   Or, you share you battle depression… and, well,  you get the picture.

Well, it’s like that with sexualabuse.   You talk about it and suddenly that’s all you’re about — one note sally.  And none of us are a song of one note.  We’re all songs of many notes.  CSA is just a heavy note.

Women (and men) don’t talk much about CSA (childsexualabuse) because of the reaction of others.  Talking about past abuse always generates some reaction.  Some react with sympathy, some react with indifference and some react with smug rejection.  CSA survivors quickly find out the painful truth that for most people, unless something’s been personally experienced, it’s “not that big a deal.”  Or, worse, CSA survivors often deal with comparisons  or qualifiers.  They hear things like, O, yes, so-n-so was sexuallyabused by her father only it was much worse.  They hear things like, O, that’s not that bad, let me tell you what happened to me! The survivor is then left holding the bag of shame or guilt or a mixture of the two.  And she makes another personal pact with herself to never bring this up again.

But it does come up again.  It comes up again and again.  Sexualabuse is like that — because it so deeply scars the soul of a woman (or man) it never really goes away — it’s never really very far from the surface.

Just like with most every topic or experience — the advent of technology is making it much easier to get things out in the open.  The more something is talked about, the easier it is to talk about it.  There are up-sides and down-sides to this, of course.

The up-side to talking about current or past sexualabuse is that, among many things, the reality can be dealt with — and that’s the first part of healing: the revelation of the truth.  The down-side of talking about sexualabuse is that the “victim,” in choosing  to be vulnerable, risks questions of doubt or denial by others and/or retaliation by the abuser.

Knowing my own story, my mom’s friend sent her an article she’d clipped from the Orange County Register last week.  The article’s about a young girl and mom’s fight to end CSA.   Their message is the same as mine:  Tell Someone.  The name of their site is: I am gonna tell.

I have two pages on A Christian Home website that deal with CSA.  Here and here.

This, from one of my pages:
Why do so many sites and organizations have a similar message or name?  Why do you read over and over “slogans” like: Stop the Silence, Silent No More!, Just Tell, I am gonna tell and my own site and story: I’m Telling On You.

Because, it’s like this:  We all were told virtually the same thing by our abuser:  Don’t tell. Don’t tell anyone… This will be our little secret.  We don’t want to hurt anyone. We don’t want to tell anyone else about this, okay, sweetie?  You’d better not tell anyone about this little incident.  Nothing really happened.  We’re not going to make a big deal about this, okay?  Don’t tell…

And we grew up with the lie.  We lived with the lie: “Don’t tell.”
And most of us wanted to die with, or because of, the  bondage of the “Don’t tell” lie.

We all have the same story and because somewhere along the way we mustered up the courage to tell someone… Our message, collectively, is: Don’t remain silent ANY longer.

SILENT NO MORE.
 Tell SOMEONE !
TELL someone!!

Some Home Making’s

Some Home Making’s February 13, 2006

I had (late last night) decided that in the morning I’d like to share “Some Home Making’s” for today’s blog—and how faithful is the LORD—I had a direction late yesterday and He showed that He had a purpose for it today.

Our friend sent us an email this morning: “Type in your home address or a family members’ address. The web site will bring up a map of your neighborhood with small colored boxes on it. The small House icon represents your address; the colored boxes represent sex offenders in your area.   Click on the colored boxes and it will bring up the offender’s photograph and the locations, names and employers.  Click ALL AROUND, you will be amazed at the information you get!”   http://www.familywatchdog.us/ So, out of curiosity,  I did a check and was also amazed.  I also found that I just was reminded to be more careful about “strangers” and to talk to the children about “strangers” and the need to be cautious as we go about our business in town or at the park, etc.  I find that I need these simple reminders to talk to the children about the realities of life.

I think, as mothers of many children, we might sometimes tend to be lax or think we’ve covered the bases, so to speak, and sometimes forget “who knows what” as far as the different children in the family are concerned.  For example: the other day I was asking one of the younger children to do a particular task and they sort of glazed over and didn’t know what to do—and so I smiled and asked, have I not taught you that yet?  No.  No, I hadn’t.    Teaching, teaching, teaching.  It never stops—it mustn’t stop.  But we get weary in the well doing sometimes.  But again, we mustn’t let weariness lead to neglect or indifference or wavering—or worse: giving up.  That’s not an option—it may feel (some days) like an option—especially if we listen to bad counsel or the coarse talk of the day that is obnoxious and rude about the precious value of motherhood, parenting and children.

We need to stop and assess, from time to time, the understanding or knowledge of each of the children.  Not just a “what are their strengths and weaknesses” sort of assessment, but: do they know this or that basic skill.  Do they know particular numbers, protocol for different situations, how to find information they need, what would they do in this or that circumstance, etc., etc.  I always amazes me when I realize that one of the younger children missed a particular teaching and how they just went on without it or compensated for it in some other manner.  This could be anything from handwriting (how they come up with a particular formation of a letter that looks alright but is incorrectly performed) to sewing, cooking, math, cleaning, personal hygiene (bathing, flossing, tooth-brushing, wiping, etc.),  housekeeping or whatever.  Skills need to be learned, perfected and maintained.  But it requires attentive attention.  (sort of the way the LORD told the disciples:  “And he said unto them, With desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer.”  –Luke 22.15)

It’s attentive attention.  It’s hearing *and* listening.  With desire we must desire to parent and care for the children.

So, this has led to some “drilling” around here.  Perhaps not all at once and not in a scary or confrontational way, but it has meant asking questions (from time to time—for clarity and reinforcement)  of different age groups of children , from basic questions like: what is your full name, what is your address, what is your age, what is your phone number, what is your dad’s and mother’s name, what is your birthday, what do you do if a fire starts here or here, what do you do if the toilet overflows, what do you do if someone comes to you in the yard and mother is in the house, what do you do if a person we do  or do not know tells you to do something we have told you not to do,  what do you do if someone touches you inappropriately, what do you do if your are cut or injured or whatever, what do you do if someone tells you not to tell mother and dad about something—and you know it’s not a birthday surprise or something you need to discern as a “good” secret, etc., etc.   All of these things require discretion.

And then, to older children, we need to evaluate from time to time, their responses to some of those similar questions that would be occurring in their lives.   They need to know all those same answers throughout their childhood, but the scenarios will necessarily be different as they grow and mature and as their activities increase and their circle of freedom increases.  They’ll have more and more opportunities to be “out” for parental sight or supervision and will be in settings where they will have to have earned privileges and trust and will have opportunity to demonstrate maturity and trustworthiness.  For the older children, whether in home or public school, I think it’s vitally important to ask and receive answers to these and many more questions resulting from dialogue each day.  I guess we cannot just assume they know answers and right responses and we must be very careful to correct wrong assumptions and wrong responses.  This is easier said than done if the teens are older and communication has been compromised or limited.

Talking, talking, talking trough the years—and it’s never too early, I’m convinced, has astoundingly important implications and results.  Totally open communication really and truly appears to be key in any relationship—-most especially in marriage and parenting.  I’m also pretty sure it’s never too late.

So, what did all this have to do with the registered sex-offender link and information?   Everything.