Childhood Sexual Abuse

Image credit: http://www.colorlines.com/content/what-you-need-know-about-childhood-sexual-abuse

The statistics in the image are heartbreaking and shock a lot of people. Childhood sexual abuse doesn't shock me. It doesn't stun me, and it doesn't surprise me. I never wonder how it could possibly happen. I never have wondered. I never will wonder.

As early as any of us can remember, this body was used sexually. We have hints of memories prior to the age of 3 years old. We have definite memories as early as 4 years old. It started so early and went on for so long that we grew up believing it was normal. Our abuser was in the home daily. Outside of the home he was a devout church member. He sang in the choir and was a deacon in the church. Friends love him, other kids thought we had the coolest step dad ever. He always seemed to be wonderful. He fixed bikes, went camping, took us on vacations, and videotaped all typical childhood events. To the outside we had the perfect family.

He never paid for what he did. The mother worked hard to defend him. The police said there simply wasn't enough evidence. Our case never made it into a statistic. The above statistic doesn't include us. If it doesn't include us, how many more cases like ours are not included? What are the actual numbers? How many children are being broke, split, and shattered because of not reporting? How many are being taught that help isn't coming because of not being believed?

Its time to pay closer attention to the world around us. You can make a difference to one child if you can save that one child. Had any family member really paid attention, we could have been saved too. Its not their fault, they didn't know. I just believe that a little more diligence, attention, and time can make a huge difference to a child. We don't have to save all children, but we can all save one. We removed our children from a situation that was abusive in other ways. They are now supported, healthy, and growing. We are here with them, yet we are not raising them. We have no ability to raise children. We are still small children ourselves.


Alayna

Memories of Mothers

Alayna woke up this morning. She was awake for about an hour when she realized that Sunday is Mother's Day. Our adopted mom is cool and we adore her and this will be our first Mother's Day with her.... but our bio mom doesn't inspire great thoughts or warm fuzzies. It was only a few minutes after thinking about it when Layna became overwhelmed and the posts and memories started coming. After hours of her reliving memories she made the choice to call our bio dad and talked to him about everything. He listened, as he always does, with patience and compassion. He had no part of the abuse, and no way of stopping it. He offered to help with remembering and dates. From there the rest of our day has been intense memory work, placing together times and years and people. 

Emotions are all over the place. Memories are in pieces. Pens and papers are everywhere. This headache is unreal.

Reflection

So I just read an article. An article that caused some heavy thoughts and some goosebumps. I'll link the article to the bottom of my rambling because I want to process this out. In short summary, the article was about the author's opinion of comments made about a 14 year old girl who completed suicide after having a sexual relationship with her adult teacher. The author herself had a past filled with willing sex with adult men. She wrote that she was 25 before she realized that the men who consented to sex with her were pedophiles.

That struck a chord with me.  This body's first sexual partner was 40+ years old when the body was 4 years old. By 14 this body was having cyber and phone sex with grown men who knew the truth about our age. By 17 we had miscarried a baby, not with our original abuser, but from an adult man who introduced us to the BDSM lifestyle. One we entered willingly and thought we needed. At 18 we allowed ourselves to be prostituted.  We met our husband online at 17, married at 21, and had an active BDSM life with him until we hit mid 20s and started to realize that something wasn't right.

We consented to nearly everything.  We initiated a lot of it. We grew riskier at every turn. But looking back now, we weren't emotionally equipped to consent to sex. We had no business at all consenting to these relationships. I doubt if we are emotionally equipped to consent to sex now (one of many reasons we are no longer with said husband). 

We learned to use sex to manipulate situations at a very young age. We learned to submit to the desires of grown men in exchange for affection and we called that love.

What we didn't learn was boundaries.  We didn't learn self control. We didn't learn self respect, love, affection, or mutual desire. We didn't learn self worth or value. And it took until this year, when Mom and Dad took us in for it to become obvious to us.

Reading that article brought it all home for me. I'm not sure all of us get it now, but the article wrapped it up in a neat little package and threw a bow on it for me. It also explains our crazy strong reaction to our 46 year old neighbor having a relationship with the 17 year old across the street who has been in and out of the foster care system.  Yes, she's consenting, but she's got about 5 to 10 years before she really gets it. And I ache for her.  And I loathe him.

This protector gets its now.

Kaysie

http://www.xojane.com/issues/stacey-rambold-cherice-morales

When the Parents are the Monsters

I found this image on Pinterest when looking for writing prompts. It is incredibly tempting to create a beautiful story to go with this quote, but it hit a nerve and so this won't be some made up story. 

You see, there are those of us in the world who can understand and relate to this one.  

From the age of 3 the monsters in our life were our parents. More specifically our biological mother and her second husband. He entered our life right after the bio-mother forced the bio-father into leaving. Possibly even before then. Those two had a long history, dating back to the bio-mother's teenage years when she babysat his children from his first marriage. 

From what we can remember, the sexual and emotional abuse and manipulation began right away. Years later, while trying to process everything, I believe we have come to terms with the fact that we were an easy target and quite possibly the only reason he married her. We were 4 when they married and we were someone else's child. Bio-mother was so intent on having her picture perfect family that she kept bio-father as far away as she could, and she turned a blind eye to the things in her life that didn't fit into her perfect family. She was all about appearances. 

Even at 4, (I'm going to use "we" here. It's more comfortable for me.) we knew that we weren't good enough for bio-mom. He told us that on a regular basis. He groomed us to be available to him and he made sure we understood that we had no hope of her ever loving us. By the age of 6 we had been told that she hated us. She hated us, and would be jealous and hate us even more if she knew we were getting his attention. We didn't know... we had no idea that this wasn't happening in every family. We didn't know there was only supposed to be one of us. We had no idea that anything was wrong on a conscious level. 

On a subconscious level we knew. We were a** full blown bulimic by the age of 9. By 12 we were hugely overweight and made to weigh ourselves in front of the family so that he could tell everyone how fat we were. He was sure to tell us that no one would ever want us, we had no hope at a family, marriage, love, or children. We were expendable and not wanted and the only reason we had a roof over our head was because he pitied us. All of this was being fed to us while he abused us sexually. She - bio-mother -  was rarely home. She went out with friends, went to school, went to work... she talked to us on the phone after school everyday but that was simply to tell us what chores she wanted done. When we were alone, the bad things happened. To this day we feel rejected and struggle with nearly paralyzing anxiety when we are alone. We lose time badly and often forget the children are here and rarely remember where they are or what they are doing. 

At the age of 14, we told. We told a camp counselor, who told the camp director. We were at an overnight camp for a week. They reported it all to social services and then sent us home. Bio-mother told us all about how our report was going to cost her the house and her cars. She told us to "shut up about it". She told us that we weren't the first girl it ever happened to and that we probably wouldn't be the last. She told us all about her anxiety, and how her feelings needed to be protected, and how she needed us to give her space to deal with her emotions. She made sure to tell us how hard her life was and how she needed her space. It was 3 years before we heard her say she loved us. As a matter of fact, aside from necessary conversation she pretty much ignored us.

She didn't leave him. We were forced to continue to live with them. It was the early 1990s and reports weren't handled like they are now. She wrote a letter asking social services to close the case and made us sign it (she says it didn't happen like that). They closed the case and left us with them. We spent some time in counseling but that ended when bio-mother was done taking us. 

We left that house at 17. And I wish I could say that was the end of the abuse, but we left there broken. Broken and split. 

How I wish there had been a monster under the bed to protect us from them.

** I understand that there are some issues grammatically.  It was done intentionally and in a way that makes sense to us.

Alayna Jade