WHY VICTIMS OF #CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE and #INCEST STAY SILENT

In the video above,  meet the writer behind this blog, and the author of a true story of incest,  NO TEARS FOR MY FATHER, Viga Boland.
This morning, one of the members of my private Facebook group, SPEAK OUT FROM UNDER CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE IN FAMILIES, told us:
"I can't stop crying its getting too much for me. Why!"
She sounded distraught. We rushed in to console and support her and probe what was causing the endless tears. She stated something that I think every victim of childhood sexual abuse says, not once, but many, many times: 
"Why, why did it have to be me?  What did I ever do wrong?"
Why did it have to be her? What did she ever do wrong? Why did it have to be YOU, who are reading this, or ME, who is writing it? What did you, or I, or that member ever do wrong to bring unwanted sexual abuse of our bodies? That was like the final question I asked my father in my book, NO TEARS FOR MY FATHER:
"Why? Why couldn't you have just been my dad!"
The thing is, when did I ask him that? I asked him that question in the year, 2000, over thirty years after the abuse had ended and he lay dead on his bed, no longer able to hurt me or my mother or anyone else. Brave, wasn't I! Such a brave person that it still took me until a few years ago to finally tell my husband and children the truth about my past (learn more in the video above). So brave that I got up the  courage to write a book about it all and tell the world about what my father put me through ... over 40 years after it all happened!
You know, that's one hell of a long time to keep a secret that eats at you day and night, that keeps you crying on the inside if not on the outside. WHY? Now I ask WHY? WHY do we keep quiet? Why don't we tell? That member, and almost every other member of my group gives the same reason:
"I am so scared of talking about what happened. I spoke about it 10 years ago however I felt so alone and felt like I'm hurting my family so I stopped talking about it.  For 11 years I have been pretending everything is fine but deep down, I hurt so much!"
We don't talk about it because we're so afraid of hurting our families. So we hurt ourselves instead, not just for a day or a month but for years and years. We protect the family, their sensitivities, their honour, their reputation. And then friends and family all look at us and wonder why we cry a lot, are distant, maybe even bitchy, or act up or act out, or become hopeless alcoholics, or addicted to drugs or prescription pills ... need I go on? Mothers brush it off and laughingly tell their friends, "Aw, it's just that time of month" or "she's just a bit crazy sometimes".  They wouldn't dare tell their friends "her father has sex with her instead of with me!" Now, how would that look? So, childhood victims of sexual abuse bottle it up, keep quiet, protect the family, suffer in silence and everyone's happy, right? WRONG! So damn wrong! 
I went out on a limb recently when 2 sisters were fined $125, 000 for defamation of character. They had alleged their uncle had sexually abused them at 4 - 6 years of age. Their story couldn't be proved but the judge felt he had proof they had set out to deliberately malign the uncle's reputation. I was quoted in a news article by CBC Hamilton saying I felt the ruling in this case would deter victims of sexual abuse from telling their stories. I was also shocked by the judge's statement that, had this been a case of child sexual abuse, and had it been awarded in favour of victims of abuse, they would have each been granted $35, 000. It was incomprehensible to me that child sex abuse was deemed so much less important than defamation of character. I wasn't questioning the outcome of the case! I didn't even know it wasn't a child sex abuse case but a defamation case.  I was just disturbed that child sexual abuse is still, simply, not a big deal. Tell that to the thousands of abuse victims out there who, like that member above, can't stop crying, who won't tell so she can protect her family or hushes everything up simply because, as I was, she or he is scared ... scared of the abuser, maybe even scared for her or his life.
Many comments have been left on that CBC article. Most of them shoot me down. Most of them are by men who intimate they wouldn't want their reputations sullied by some hysterical female alleging abuse, allegations which are most likely, false in their considered and informed opinions. You can read what they had to say on that CBC site.  Then there's the guy on DIGITAL JOURNAL (where I'd written an article about this case, prior to the CBC article) who made this comment on my article:
"I have now read the full judgment in this case, and wondered if anyone else who has read this article has, including the author, who has clearly used it as a shameless plug for her book which contains allegations of a sexual nature against her father. She makes no mention here of his being convicted of any offence, presumably she would have had this been the case, so would I be right in assuming he is now dead and can't defend himself?"
How very astute of him. Yes, I had seized an opportunity to inform people about my book which I feel is an important book for victims and non-victims and I'd love to see millions of people read it.  But to then question the veracity of what I have disclosed, with such complete honesty in my book, NO TEARS FOR MY FATHER as he has done, well that's like kicking a dog after it finally got back up on its feet. Thanks for nothing pal! You just re-affirmed why for years, we keep
"pretending everything is fine but deep down"  we "hurt so much!"

IS THERE A POSSIBLE MEDICAL EXPLANATION FOR AN ABUSER'S COMPULSIVE SEXUAL ACTIONS & ERRATIC BEHAVIOUR?

So, one of my readers/reviewers wrote to me the other day with this question:

"I have been thinking about something you said and I can't get it out of my mind...you mentioned that your father began molesting you around the same time he was experiencing migraine headaches....could it be at all possible that your father suffered from a brain tumor?  I read recently that certain tumors can trigger compulsive sexual actions and other erratic behavior....just a thought.....perhaps you can speak to a neurosurgeon who would know whether or not your father displayed any such symptomatic behavior.....if so, it may be some small comfort to you, that he had no control over his actions.....just a thought I felt I needed to share...."

I was very pleased she came out and asked me this question, primarily because it's really good to know your book has left a reader still thinking about the why's and wherefores ... just as I've been doing all my life!

In fact, I'm pretty sure my own reading habits ( I love psychological thrillers) stem from my never satisfied need to know why my father abused me sexually, mentally and physically.  After all these years, even though I'm reasonably well-healed and have achieved further closure by writing my book, NO TEARS FOR MY FATHER, not a day goes by that I don't ask myself, as I did in the closing lines of my story, "WHY?" Why did daddy do that to me?

Was there something, as the questioner asks, medically wrong with him i.e.  a tumour? I told my reader I didn't think that was an explanation as he had begun having the migraines, sporadically, shortly after we moved to Canada. He would have been stressed, looking for work etc. and he had always been a perfectionist, e.g. when as a child I'd proudly showed him I got 98% on a math test and he replied:

"What's good about that? It should be 100%!"

From what I've read, perfectionists are prone to migraines. Furthermore, he would have been in his mid-thirties when we came to Canada ... but he was nearly 80 when he died. So a tumour is an unlikely reason for his "compulsive sexual actions and other erratic behaviour." It would have been nice if indeed, that had been the reason: it might have been easier to forgive him.

But now, thinking about the question in the title of my blog post, if there isn't a medical explanation for why sexual abusers abuse, then what is the explanation? What goes on inside their heads? What makes them think it's okay to have sex with their own children? For that matter, why do rapists rape? Were they themselves perhaps, the victims of sexual or other abuse as children? Rape is an angry act. It's also an act of insecurity. It's a need to feel powerful. Does that spell a loss of power, security way back in the abuser's own childhood? Or is rape, sexual abuse of children, or any kind of abuse all about being narcissistic ... of feeling one's own needs supersede everyone else's? Do these abusers have a sense of entitlement? Were they perhaps spoiled as children to the extent that they believe they can have whatever they want when they want it?

I know from what little my father told me of his early childhood that his own father was a high court judge, and his son could have whatever he wanted. My father was used to having his own way, even as a child. Then suddenly, his mother passed away from TB when he was 10. He lost something he really needed: his mother, and no amount of money could bring her back. So he grabbed onto love, my mother's, mine, and then did everything in his power to hold onto it, including, in my case, forcing sex on me when I was too young and too scared to stop him.

Have you been a victim of incest? Are you, like me, always seeking an explanation for why it happened to you? Are you forever asking yourself 'WHY?" Why did my father molest me? Why did my brother force himself on me? Why did my grandfather touch me sexually? Have you come up with any answers? Do you know enough about their pasts to shed some light on the reasons for their behaviour? I'd be interested in your thoughts and comments. Thanks for reading.

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TO PURCHASE YOUR COPY OF NO TEARS FOR MY FATHER, VISIT MY WEBSITE: VIGA BOLAND

NO TEARS FOR MY FATHER: A TRUE STORY OF #INCEST

Well, it's done! My life-long dream of writing a book is finally a reality and it's quite daunting to think that people all over the world could now know all nasty details of my life from ages 11- 23. 

Do I regret baring my soul so publicly? Not for a moment!

Was it the book I always wanted to write? No way! 

In fact, it wasn't the book I wanted to write or ever planned to write ... but it was the book I HAD to write! And I know I'll never regret doing it.  This story had to be told to help increase awareness of the effects of child sexual abuse and to encourage other victims to speak out from under incest. 

But what's really interesting for me now is what is happening in my own mind as comments and reviews start to come in from those who have read it. Those reviews and the 5-star ratings I'm receiving are fantastic and very rewarding ... and you can read what people have said so far at my GOODREADS AUTHOR'S PAGE.  I am so grateful to those who have posted there and hope there will be many more over the months ahead. 

But when I refer to what is going on in my head now, it's more to do with what I am now learning about myself from my readers! They are saying things about me that I either didn't know or have denied  to myself for over 40 years. They speak of my childhood as "horrific"; they say my story is "gut-wrenching", made them want to vomit and more. And I read all this and I'm quite shocked. I ask myself why my story doesn't have that affect on me?  Am I that far along in my healing?  Am I that "strong" that I could just turn off the pain like that? Or am I perhaps, numb? Have I that effectively shut down all the pain valves and buried all that happened so deep I can no longer find it? 

And I'm scared too, in a way. What if suddenly it lurches up and slams me in the face, like that time I went under hypnosis and cried for 3 days and had no idea why I was crying. Or did I cry it all out then and move on?

This is quite amazing to me. Some have asked me if writing the book was therapeutic?  Well of course, but I think I had come to grips with it long ago or I might not have been able to write it yet.  But what writing NO TEARS FOR MY FATHER has done is given me closure. Yes, at last, I have closure on my abusive past.  I feel fully liberated. Now when folks say "Oh, you've written a book. What's it about?" I no longer swallow, gulp, blush with shame as I see their reaction to the word "incest". 

In fact, I feel the opposite: I feel proud, yes proud that I can say I survived incest and now am on a mission to help others get over incest and child sexual abuse. And I am proud that I have found a way to help them through my book.  From the beginning I've pushed the idea of "speaking out from under incest" and by practising what I preach, I now know how good that can feel. And I know NO TEARS FOR MY FATHER was the book I had to write!

I want to thank all those who have purchased my book this past week. It's only been available for 4 days and already, so many of you have bought a copy. I am truly humbled. I never dreamed this could happen for me. And it's what those readers are now saying that has restored my faith in myself, raised my self-esteem and proved to me that what my father drilled into my mind for years wasn't true: I wasn't ugly. He was! I wasn't a whore. He made me one.  I wasn't stupid, clumsy, all the other things he told me I was. And this wasn't my fault: it was all his!  And I wasn't a bad daughter as he said time and again, but he was a bad father. 

Included below are a few more photos of the book and its contents. If you would like to purchase a copy, you can do that HERE or at the highlighted links above. And if you're so inclined, I invite you to 'LIKE' my new AUTHORS PAGE AT FACEBOOK.  Thanks for reading and subscribing to this blog.  More posts coming in the future along with a new Author's Website where the blog will appear once it's fully created. 

And please do share my blog link with others who need and want to SPEAK OUT FROM UNDER INCEST!

NO TEARS FOR MY FATHER is 291 pages, printed on easy to read white paper. 

NO TEARS FOR MY FATHER contains photos of myself and my family, along with my poems.

NO TEARS FOR MY FATHER has a beautiful full-colour glossy cover, front and back.