KEEPING INCEST A SECRET EATS AT YOU & TEARS YOU APART

“I believe when you are attacked, either as a child or as an adult, that you are put in a position of choice. You can either allow it to consume you and watch it destroy you or you can fight against it. Only you can make yourself develop the courage to overcome it and talk about it openly. When you carry it as a secret it will eat at you and continue to tear you apart.” 

(Patricia A. McKnight, My Justice, 2011)

With these words, Patricia, one of the bravest women I know, brings the last few pages of her real life story of abuse and incest to a close. I have never met Patricia in person. We are friends on Facebook now, but my first encounter with her came when I was researching incest on YouTube and found her video that I shared in this earlier blog post here. As she gave a few details of the sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of her step-father for 12 years, I was shocked, but compelled to read her book, My Justice, available as an eBook at LULU.COM, or as a soft cover at Amazon and other online sites. 

As someone who is now writing her own story of incest, I had to know how she wrote her story and how much detail she provided. As a fellow survivor, I had to know about the reactions of her family, friends and others had to her terrible disclosures and most importantly, what have been the long-term effects of the dreadful abuse she suffered, not just at the hands of her father but several other abusers who took over where her step-father left off. 

My Justice wasn't an easy read, for me, not so much for the violence Patricia suffered (which was often-times horrific) but for what it said about her own mother's denial, ignorance, and lack of love and support for this poor child with the brilliant blue eyes. Throughout her 40 + years of abuse, Patricia tried time and again to win and hold onto her mother's love. She desperately wanted a good relationship with her mother, some acknowledgement that "Trecia" was indeed a good person to whom bad things had happened at the hands of her own husband. And her mother never, to this day, gave her that vital pleasure. This mother, for me, is as loathsome as the step-father. In the criminal justice system, people are charged, tried and convicted for aiding and abetting a crime. I can think of Patricia's mom in no other terms: she aided and abetted this ugly, abusive step-father who took her virginity by ramming a rifle up his step-daughter's vagina! Patricia's mother stood beside this monster till his death, but she never once stood up for or protected her daughter. For me, this is the saddest part of My Justice. 

The last few pages also drove home another ugly fact about incest when the family doesn't know the details, or when it does, turns a blind eye toward the truth. The accuser becomes the accused: the abuser is believed over the abused. What's wrong with this picture! In my Facebook group, SPEAK OUT FROM UNDER, it's heartbreaking to learn from other victims that this is the reaction in their families too. We rail against the honour killings in other cultures, but by insisting incest and child sexual abuse be covered up, hushed up, not talked about, how different are we? These children die too ... just more slowly. It may not be a physical death, but unless they can open up and someone believes them, they die mentally and spiritually. Death by the long term incarceration of silence as opposed to hanging. Which is worse?

And then there's the effects on the children of an abused parent. It's heart-breaking to read how Patricia's past has negatively affected her relationships with her daughters. Her past made Patricia ill-equipped to handle the ups and downs of motherhood, though it's obvious she loved her children more than herself. Sadly, they don't see it that way. They saw her constant searching for a kind, non-abusive male companion as whoring.  At one point, her own children were now calling her what her abuser had called her: a dirty, ugly whore. 

How Patricia has survived all this mental, physical, spiritual and sexual abuse is something only she knows. It's something each of us who have gone through similar, easier or worse, knows. We all have different levels of strength and resolve. Some of us can take more, some less. Some of us can come out from under enough to talk about it privately, or as Patricia and I am now doing, publicly.  But it's never easy and even after it's done, it's still fraught with anxiety, worry and insecurity that we are doing the right thing by talking about it at all. But silence is deadly. 

I thank Patricia for showing me the way with her book. While I had decided to write my own book before I'd ever heard of her, MY JUSTICE has given me the courage to continue writing. My conversations with Patricia via Facebook and private emails have shown me the beautiful, caring person she is and has always been. She is a classic example of what it's like when bad things happen to good people but she has come out on top and is now devoting her life to helping others who are suffering as she did. I urge you to not just read Patricia's book, but to join her newest site at PATRICIA MCKIGHT'S JUSTICE and to follow her blog at SURVIVOR'S JUSTICE.

Don't let YOUR secret "eat at you and continue to tear you apart." As Patricia says in the final line of her book:

“If your world is not what you want, then I hope that you can find the strength to survive and move forward away from the pain.”

COME OUT FROM UNDER!

WHEN THE ABUSE IS SO BAD YOU HIT ROCK BOTTOM #INCEST #SEXUAL ABUSE #BULLYING

I hadn't planned to write on this subject today. In fact, I had a whole different blog, already half-written.

But this morning, my heart broke as I  looked at the photo of that beautiful 15-year-old girl, Amanda Todd,  who committed suicide when the bullying and her subsequent pain became too much to bear.

From what I gather from newspaper items and her sad YouTube video that was a cry for help and understanding, when she posted the video, she was  staying strong, struggling to hold onto her self-esteem, fighting as it were, for her life. And in the end, she gave up. How incredibly sad!

How much bullying and abuse can a person take before he/she breaks? How do some survive the taunts, the name-calling, the kicks, the punches, the beatings, the bruises and eventually emerge battered but alive, while others succumb. They just can't take it anymore.

As you know, I've been reading Patricia A. McKnight's "My Justice". While the details of the sexual abuse by her step-father are truly revolting, even more so than my own in a way, it's actually the physical, mental and verbal abuse she suffered that has bothered me even more. Her step-father was an ogre. But to then see her move on to her first real "love",  so happy to be finally away from her abuser, only to find that her first love is even more abusive than the step-father, made my jaw drop. By the time she got away from him, she'd suffered 2 concussions and sustained so much other physical damage that it just boggles my mind to think she's still alive ie. that one of them didn't kill her or she didn't kill herself! How much abuse can a person take? I don't know that I could have withstood what she did.

And as I read the posts made by members of my Facebook group, SPEAK OUT FROM UNDER, and indeed the many posts I'm finding on other group pages, I am simultaneously shocked and saddened by what I read, but at the same time, I'm in absolute awe of these brave victims who are now survivors and didn't end their lives despite the horrific abuse so many have experienced. Some of them are "coming out from under" bit by bit. Some are impatient with themselves for not healing faster, but the point is, they ARE healing, however slowly, each time they face the demons, talk about it and don't give in to ending it all. 

If only poor Amanda were older, maybe she would have found the strength to hang on. If only someone had recognized her pain, had truly listened to her and went out of their way to help her, maybe we wouldn't now be reading about her suicide. And yet, like Amanda,   like me and like you who are reading this, so many victims have cried out for help, turned to their parents or a relative, told them the story, only to be disbelieved or ignored. Patricia's mother refused to do anything though she knew all along what was going on.

And when some do finally tell all, like KYLIE DEVI, there is so often more abuse to face: those who ask "How could you tell all that!" "How could you shame our family with your lies!" "Just who are you talking about ... who did this to you?" That last one, in Kylie's case was asked by one of her abusers for heaven's sake!

It's too late for Amanda. Maybe if her parents and others had "filled her bucket of self-esteem" high enough, these bullies wouldn't have worn her down to where she hit rock bottom. If there is any goodness to come from such a sad story, it's that once again the rest of us are reminded of how devastating bullying is, especially to fragile young psyches. But now, what will be done about it? I hope Amanda's story isn't wasted like her life was. R.I.P. Amanda Todd.

HOW CAN A FATHER SEXUALLY ABUSE HIS OWN DAUGHTER?

Currently, I'm reading two books, My Justice by Patricia A. McKnight and Mummy Knew, by Lisa James. Just as Tricia warned me, her book is hard to read. So is Lisa's. It is impossible to read books on incest abuse by a parent when one has themselves been sexually abused by a parent. With each word these brave women write, revealing intimate details of their own abuse, memories spring to mind. Visions pushed so far back and so far under over the years that you wonder if maybe you had just imagined them all, spring to life and affirm that yes, daddy really did abuse his little girl. The similarities between their stories and your own are jarring. You find yourself saying "Yes, that's how he got to me too!" "That's how he got me to keep quiet!" "That's how dirty I felt!" "That's how frightened I was!" 

And yet, both Patricia's and Lisa's story have one big difference from mine: in both their cases, the writer's mother had married low-life, foul-mouthed abusers whose brutality and abuse was exacerbated by their drinking. These creeps were their step-fathers, not a birth father, as was my case. I suppose it's easier to understand (if any incest can be understood) why a non-birth father who is essentially a pedophile to start with, could be drawn to a child, who is, after all, not his own, especially when she conveniently lives in the same house and must obey him as her new parent. What a huge advantage he has over her! It's interesting that both Patricia and Lisa felt some kind of instant revulsion and mistrust of these men when they were introduced into their lives by their mothers. They say puppies and dogs can sense evil in a human. These children did too but they were powerless to do anything about it.

My case, however, is different. With my mother, my father created me. His DNA runs through my blood. His advantage over me was huge but never would I have thought my birth father, someone I trusted with my life, whose job it was from word go to protect me from any harm, would take that kind of advantage of me. I didn't sense evil in him despite the harsh punishments he meted out for infractions when I was a child. I just figured they were deserved. So great is the belief and trust we have in our birth parents.

I watched a woman pushing her 3-4 month old in a pram today. The little one's eyes were glued, as best she could focus, on her mother's face. She gurgled and smiled as her mother talked to her. The baby's face glowed with delight and love. No doubt, or let's hope so, she has that same glowing love in her little eyes when she sees her daddy. And all being well, as time goes on, the other thing in her eyes will be trust, complete trust, trust he will never misuse.

I was looking at some photos of myself as a 6-month old baby a week back. There I sit happily on daddy's knee. Mommy is by his side. He looks proud and protective as he holds me. Where did that daddy go? Now as I sift through photos taken during my adolescence and even into my 20's, I see a different man there, a man who was my father by birth only. Though I long ago came to grips with what happened in my life and have been happily blessed with a fine husband and 2 beautiful daughters since,  I still cannot understand how the person who gave you life can destroy his own child's trust for his own selfish needs. To me, this is beyond comprehension and always will be.

Why ever did you make me, your child, the object of your lust?

How could you take your own child's heart and fill it with mistrust?

With every thrust inside my body, you double thrust my soul

Stripping me of my self-esteem and leaving me less than whole

I was your own flesh and blood;  you were half my life

How is it that you blurred the lines and turned me into your wife?

Wasn't mother good enough? Couldn't you find another?

No, instead you had to choose your child and destroy both me and mother.

And when I finally got away like a lamb who had been slaughtered

You piled the guilt upon my shame and said I was no daughter 

Well what on earth did you expect when you stopped being dad?

When you died, my only tears were for the father I never had.

© Viga Boland 2012

INCEST! THAT COULD NEVER HAPPEN IN MY FAMILY!

It's absolutely amazing how many people think that incest could never happen in their family. Yet, for every one who says that, there's one who can tell them otherwise. But the reality is none of us, mothers included, could handle or accept the idea that their husband, the men they married and committed themselves to for life, could actually sexually abuse the child whom they together created. The thought is so odious, so even if they suspect, they close their minds to the possibility. Avoidance is easier than acceptance.

I'm not sure if my own mother ever suspected anything. Could she have been that dumb, given my father hardly ever had sex with her over all the years he was abusing me ... 11 years. She knew he wasn't having affairs. He was only ever at work in a factory or at home, watching TV in the evenings and encouraging her to go take a nap so he could have his way with me. I mean, really, does it make any sense she never suspected what was going on? But here's the thing: even if she did, she too was one of his victims: she was scared to death of him. Since the early days of her pregnancy, he'd been abusive. At one point, as she told me years later, he kicked her repeatedly in her swollen belly while she lay in pain on the floor of their bedroom just because she had refused to kiss his little finger when he commanded her to. Megalomaniac! Yes, he was all about power and he powered over both of us so he could live with his own shortcomings and insecurities. It was his way of controlling his own life which somewhere along the way had gone out of control. At least that's how I see it today.

Still, as a mother myself,  I cannot quite grasp how a mother could let such a thing go on if she knew. I love my husband very much. We have a great relationship and two wonderful daughters. But I told him the other day as we discussed this very thing,  that if I ever saw him touching them in any way, he'd be toast. Of course, he never has, and never would, and he deplores what he knows of my past. It is he who encourages me, along with my girls, to speak out now. He hopes, as I do, by my doing so, I can encourage some other mother who suspects something is going on between her child and her spouse to confront him and rescue that child before she ends up like me: holding in her dirty secret, wearing her shame and guilt like armour and blaming herself for something that wasn't her fault ... ever!

I mentioned in my last post how doing this has put me in touch with some amazing women, victim/survivors who are taking all the negatives in their lives and turning it into a positive for themselves and others by speaking out and coming out from under. One of these ladies is Patricia A. McKnight of Survivor's Justice.  I came across Patricia a couple of days back after reading her hard hitting poem, "Where is God to attack this Devil?"  Patricia spares no-one's sensitivities in her poem. She tells it like it was and it's brutally honest. She shocks but it's all good. It's necessary, and those who have commented applaud her as I do. I then followed up on her, researched her and found her videos on YouTube. She too cannot get over the fact that her mother knew what was happening and did nothing to help her. I understand her pain and now, her mission, to help save other children by getting them to speak up. There must be someone who can help if their own mothers can't, for whatever reason.

Patricia has a radio show, runs various websites and is behind the very important site, Dreamcatchers for Abused Children. I hope you'll check it out and tell others about it too.

If you have time, and care, watch one of Patricia's videos which I have posted below. Listen to her message. She's also written a book that has received 5-star ratings. She has "come out from under". You can too.