part 62

I’ve decided to launch a campaign to expose abusers. I kind of know what I am doing, but I think this will most likely be a learning experience.

I think one of the first things I will do is organize an event. I am thinking some sort of silent protest type of thing, possibly in front of my old neighborhood. Nothing big – just a couple of signs that say something like “EXPOSE PREDATORS” or “IS YOUR NEIGHBOR A RAPIST?” or “IS YOUR NEIGHBOR A PEDOPHILE?”

The thing is, I am pretty frustrated by my lack of action in response to the things that happened to me. I want to tell people – and by people, I mean anyone whose ear is within range of my voice – that sex trafficking of children happens in upper-middle class suburban neighborhoods; that child molestation and rape do not discriminate based on race or socio-economic status; that it IS possible that your neighbor you have known for thirty years is a sexual predator, and you have never noticed.

I have been thinking about how much it hurts to know that the people I grew up with are not going to do anything about the fact that their husbands and neighbors molested and raped me. I can empathize with them and see where they are coming from, how it would be so difficult to acknowledge these things.

This is one of those things that pulls the rug out entirely from under people’s lives. It is a painful, abrupt process.

I can even imagine being in those neighbors’ shoes – what would happen if a girl who grew up on my street came out and said that my husband molested or raped her twenty years after the fact?

I can imagine it would be terribly upsetting, even devastating. I would ask myself how I could have not been aware of this character in the person I have been married to for decades. I would ask myself if I did actually recognize this character in the person I have been married to for decades, but chose to look the other way. I would ask myself if I am at fault, if I will be harmed by someone if I don’t adamantly deny the accusation, if I will lose everything I have if I even consider the possibility that it may be true.

I was married to my ex-husband for about two years. Facing the failure of that relationship and seeing everything I invested of myself in it slipping away was very difficult. I did not want to be married to that person any more, but I had such high hopes for the future, and such confidence in my determination to make it work. I did not want to accept that everything I put so much time and energy and love into had failed.

That was after TWO YEARS. I cannot even begin to fathom what a threat to a THIRTY or FORTY year marriage would be like.

I mean, that’s what I am doing by telling on these men. I am putting their wives and children and all of the other neighbors in the extremely uncomfortable position of having to make some sort of choice about what their reaction to this information will be.

There are a lot of options, and combinations of options. On one end is the option to acknowledge and accept what I have said as being true, and to make that position known. On the other end is the option of completely denying that what I have said could possibly be true, and to hire a lawyer in an attempt to intimidate me and/or refute my allegations.

Right in the middle is the option of not doing anything at all. Nobody has to acknowledge or deny – to themselves or anyone else – that this subject was ever even brought to the table.

It doesn’t matter what anyone thinks of anyone else, or what anyone does or does not do. I personally do not have any control over whatever the reaction to this is going to be.

I can control telling people about it, and I have. I can control walking down that street with my head up high, and I have. I can control how I go about voicing my opinions and expectations of the people involved, and I have.

I cannot control what those people actually do, though.

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter what has been alleged or proven or claimed or exposed. It also doesn’t matter if society says that the right thing to do is to renounce those men and state unwavering support for me.

The actual definition of what is “right” does not even matter.

I can feel sad and indignant and deeply hurt all day long about how the village that raised me did not do anything to keep me safe when I was little, and is not doing anything to support me now.

I do feel sad and indignant and deeply hurt. What the hell am I supposed to do with that? My feelings and expectations may sway some people one way or another, but they cannot make what happened to me go away. They cannot erase what those men did to me, or what others did not do to make it stop.

Also, feeling sad and indignant and hurt – while certainly valid and even understandable – is not fun. It is not peaceful. It is not happy. It is not loving or safe or hopeful. There is nothing content or satisfying in feeling that way.

But those feelings have a lot of power in them – they are “powerful emotions.” Power is something I can work with. Power is something I did not have when I was growing up.

Did getting this power require going through horrendous experiences and feeling unspeakable physical and mental pain? Is that how it works? Is that why there is pain in the world, why there is suffering? So that power can be materialized in individuals? In me?

I don’t fucking know. I know that I have gone through horrendous experiences and that I have felt unspeakable physical and mental pain. I know that I have acquired power as a result of these things, but that power is limited to myself only.

I have the power to do what I can do in each moment, and if I am frustrated by my lack of action in response to revealing the things that happened to me, then I guess I should get off my ass and start acting.

I can stand at the entry to my neighborhood and hold up a sign that says “IS YOUR NEIGHBOR A PEDOPHILE?” or “IS YOUR NEIGHBOR A RAPIST?” or “EXPOSE PREDATORS.”

I can do that. I have that power. I have that courage.

If you see someone standing in front of your neighborhood holding up a sign that says something about exposing predators and rapists, you can know that person has that courage and power, too.

And you can think about who your neighbors are – who your husbands and wives and parents and children and friends are – and ask yourself if you have been looking the other way when you could have been helping to keep a child safe.


*** addendum*** I am not going run off half-cocked and randomly march around and yell in front of different peoples' houses. I would like to clarify that I am actually considering doing an actual campaign - one that involves careful planning and includes obtaining the necessary permits from the city.

part 61

I have been thinking a lot about the whole concept of “believability” in our culture. We use phrases like “the truth is stranger than fiction,” and “it’s too good to be true,” but when it comes down to actually believing something good or strange we insist it must be fiction.

Where did this whole notion come from? Is it a result of the exposure to media over the past hundred years throughout which our society has been inundated with images and ideas and stories that change and shift what our views of “bad” or “evil” are? Have we been desensitized to shocking acts of violence against each other?

Is it because we believe that exposing anything that has garnered attention previously will be seen as merely an attempt to garner attention?

We use phrases like, “I can’t believe this could happen to me,” and “this is something that only happens to other people, or in the movies, or on TV, or whatever.”

Why? Why does knowledge of something that has been expressed via a fictionalized construction make that something from then on fiction?

Why do we say we never thought it could happen to us? That is such a stupid thing to say, as “it” happens to “us” every day. One in six women will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime. One in SIX. Simply going to college significantly increases the chances of being sexually assaulted for women in the United States.

(for more statistics – and the source of my citing these statistics – go to www.rainn.org)

I understand that it is logical to assume that if there are six sticks and only one of them is short, you will be more likely to not draw the short stick. That doesn’t mean the short stick is not there. It does not mean that the person who drew the short stick cannot somehow be connected with all of the other sticks.

It does not mean that if someone next to you has told you “I drew the short stick” they are only trying to get attention or to feel special because – statistically speaking – they are more likely to not draw the short stick.

If drawing the short stick is analogous to being sexually assaulted, the denial that any individual could possibly have the short stick is the denial that any woman could possibly be sexually assaulted, and that is ridiculous.

We all talk a big game. When there is an overt, proven-beyond-any -doubt act of sexual assault, we are all aghast. How could anyone do anything like that to someone else? Of course most people will adamantly oppose such behavior as acceptable. After all, there is no ambiguity – the act has already been proven to have happened.

If we can’t get around acknowledging that something is real, such as a proven-beyond-any-doubt sexual assault, then we can’t get around remaining neutral or apathetic as to whether or not something is okay or not. We love – LOVE – to judge, and when an opportunity such as a proven-beyond-any-doubt instance of sexual assault is presented, we LOVE to speak strongly against it.

Anyone failing to speak against it can be grouped in with the monster who actually committed it.

What does it take to get to proven-beyond-any-doubt, though? That is a standard that we – as a society – demand be met before acknowledging that a sexual assault ever even happened.

Law enforcement will not even look at pressing charges against someone accused of rape unless there is more than the victim’s own account of what happened. There is no such thing as “circumstantial evidence” when it comes to proving rape or other sexual assault. The voice of this kind of victim carries no weight all by itself.

As a victim, that has made it very difficult for me to even acknowledge to myself that what my abusers and assaulters have done to me is actually wrong. Especially at the beginning of the process of confronting what happened to me, I looked and looked for some sort of physical, tangible evidence that it was true. I held the standard of proving-beyond-any-doubt that these things happened at all to myself.

My OWN SELF. I mean, the shit happened to me, and I am demanding that I prove to myself beyond any doubt that it happened to me before I even start to think about accepting in my own mind that it really happened.

My mind is very slippery. It tries to take me to all kinds of places rather than to the point at which I know how I was hurt and who it was that hurt me. Having been brainwashed by my dad, and having that brainwashing reinforced by so many people who lived around me as I grew up, has made getting to that point all the more difficult.

Experiencing those things has been in itself bad enough for me to deal with. The gigantic mind-fucking that has accompanied those experiences has turned pain into torture. It is madness knowing that something bad happened to me, but believing that I am not credible enough to my own self to accept that it was real.

Having been on this recovery journey for about five years, I am seeing that all of the work I have to do to get beyond the mind-fucking and the torture and the pain has rendered whether or not anyone else believes me as much less significant than before I went through all of this work.

I am extremely and eternally grateful for the people who believe what I have told them and who support me without question. However, being able to believe myself has gotten me to the point where I really feel strong enough to ask all of those supportive people to join me in exposing this kind of abuse.

Well, maybe not that strong, but definitely strong enough to ask myself to work to expose this kind of abuse.

I really feel the time has come for some serious boat-rocking.

This is going to be an interesting summer.

part 60

So now what?

I’ve done what I wanted to do with the neighbors – they know I’ve called them out. My goal was to get the truth out in the open, and I have done that.

Other than ostracizing my mom and claiming that they have hired an attorney (for what, I do not know, as I am telling the truth, and they would only look like complete idiots if they sued me), these men have done nothing.

No one else has really done anything either.

I don’t know what I was expecting to happen. I don’t know what I was wanting to happen. I just know that I wanted to tell people, and now that I have, I want to do something about what they did to me. I want to do something about what other children have to experience at the hands of predators. I want to change something, dammit, not say, “oh, okay – that happened, it’s shitty, we are all going on with our lives now.”

I was not able to go on with my life after these people hurt me. It is thirty years later, and I still have no concept of what “going on with my life” even means. I am still hurt, and I am still feeling pain.

I am also much stronger now, and much less fearful. I am more knowledgeable and confident. I am a grown-up – I have a voice. I have POWER.

Having power is pretty significant. It is something I never had, and never recognized as something I could have until very recently in my life. There is power in the truth – the thing about the truth is that it will always be true.

It doesn’t matter what anyone denies or threatens or sues over, it will never change the truth.

The truth is that I was passed around that goddamn neighborhood like some sort of toy. The truth is that no one believed me then. The truth is that a lot of people are choosing not to believe me now.

Where is the outrage? Where is the anger? Where are the emotions?

I am again puzzled at how I continue to be disappointed in the people in that neighborhood. I was not treated well growing up, why should I be treated well now? I guess I just have some sort of expectation of respect – I expect them to recognize and respect that I am an articulate, intelligent, sane adult. Even writing that sentence just now seems ridiculous, though.

Of course they are not going to do that. If they did that, they would have to acknowledge all of the other shit I’ve written about in previous posts.

An impression that I have been repeatedly getting is that showing emotion will somehow weaken my power. Emotion will take away from the respect I get. It will take away from the legitimacy of my argument.

One of my biggest and deeply-rooted psychological fears is that I will be dismissed as crazy if I show any emotion.

That is what I was taught growing up – one more thing shoved down my throat. Any expression of emotion was an immediate out for my dad in any argument.

I would be angry about something and confront him with it, and I would be expressing some sort of emotion, and he would tell me, “you’re being irrational,” and then shut me down and no longer even acknowledge that I was standing right in front of him.

He demanded that I be “rational” when addressing anything at all with him. In hindsight, it did not really matter what the actual definition of “rational” was (or is) – my dad made it fit his needs regardless of whether or not he was technically correct about the mechanics of the English language and human communication.

He was really good at doing that – at convincing other people that they were crazy or in some other way incapable of making sound judgments and conclusions. He was very happy and enthusiastic when other people touted his own judgments and conclusions.

He LOVED being idolized, seen as someone holy, as all-knowing. I really do believe that he believed he was god.

But he wasn’t.

When I found out my dad was dead, I tracked down the place where his body was and asked them to email me a picture of his face. They complied. The funeral director took pictures of my dad on a gurney wearing a hospital gown with his chest and neck covered with a towel and sent them to me via his Blackberry.

I looked and looked at those pictures of my dad. I tried to find any sign that he might still be alive, or that this dead person was not actually him. Then I looked at all the ways I knew his face, his skin, his hair, his nose, his mouth, his eyes, his forehead, his chin, his ears – they were all so familiar to me.

There was a smudge of blood coming from his nose. His ears were purple at the bottom. His hair was much thinner and it was obvious he had not aged well in the seven or so years since I had last seen him, but he was still so, so familiar.

It was weird.

It is weird to think of myself and to think that man was my dad. I was able to make my dad fit in my life where other kids’ dads fit into their lives. I was able to look at Father’s Day cards and relate my own feelings to the words composed on the pretty, masculinely-decorated paper.

I could watch commercials and TV shows and movies where a dad would act tough when a boy knocked on the door for the purposes of picking up that dad’s daughter for a date, and I could apply that concept easily to my own life, and to my own dad.

I made him normal. He was just my dad.

Accepting that he is also a monster – a dead monster – is tough. On the one hand, all I have to do is recall any incident at all involving him to know what a monster he was. It baffles me that people could be baffled by this description of him, or of any human being – are there really not that many monsters among us?

On the other hand, I can not really accept how I made him fit into my life. I cannot reconcile the manufactured normality of my dad’s role in my life with the monster he actually was.

I don’t understand how people did not see that in him. I absolutely do not believe people could look at him and think he was in any way normal. I do not believe anyone could get to know him even a little bit and not somehow sense he was a threat of some kind to some body.

I understand that I could be wrong in that belief, but I still believe it.

I believe my dad is a monster, and I believe the dad next door is a pedophile, and I believe the dad across the street is a sadistic rapist. I believe the dad who used to live on the corner is also a pedophile.

So now what?

My dad is dead and the pedophiles and sadistic rapist are still just sitting there doing what they want to do. I wonder about their children, those young people who were my contemporaries growing up. I wonder what those pedophiles did to their own kids. I wonder what they do to their grandchildren.

I know I was not the only girl molested and raped by any of those men.

I wonder if anyone would come forward with that information, especially after seeing that it doesn’t matter. The pain and fear of coming forward doesn’t matter because nothing happened to them, and almost no one believes me.

I don’t like that. I don’t like the idea that coming forward with this information about these specific people was for nothing.

I have all summer off – maybe I will make something of it.

part 59

One of the big things that sucks about being in therapy for so long is that I don’t stay constantly angry the way I used to. Instead, I get angry and then begin the process of recognizing the pain and fear behind the anger.

I have been very, very angry for about 95% of my life – that is a lot of pain and fear.

My anger with the neighbors – every single one of them – has led me to realize how much it hurts to know that all of those people who watched me grow up could have done these things to me, could have watched others do these things to me, and find it easier to look the other way.

Another big part of my anger is realizing how much it hurts to recognize that none of these people see me as anything more than the manufactured image they have always had of me.

It hurts because of how much I have worked and grown and changed and overcome. It hurts because I have been able to do these things in spite of them and in spite of what happened to me. It hurts because it has always been easier – and is still to this day – to write me off as crazy rather than look at what is true.

I can admit I may be wrong about how these people are today, but they have offered me absolutely nothing to lend any change to my conclusions about them.

It also makes me angry to recognize that I give a shit about what all of these people think. Part of my survival and the process of recovery has been to write off and dismiss as much as I possibly could about what the neighbors think. I always felt like a freak there, and I still do.

That was not all in my head. Even the wives of men who did not abuse me still actively participated in perpetuating the idea that I was crazy and a liar – to everyone else, and to myself.

It was very difficult knowing that no one believed me growing up, but it was more difficult knowing that people were trying to convince me that I did not believe myself.

You don’t have to molest or rape a kid in order to hurt them or make them feel unsafe. Treating them like they are a freak and reiterating that you believe they are lying whenever they say almost anything can also really do a number on them.

It did a number on me.

And now I am coming to the point where I am confronting the pain of that – how painful that has been for my whole life, including now.

The piety and pretention of these people is so incredibly frustrating. It makes me very angry. And then I am again reminded of the hurt.

Acknowledging and feeling that pain, though, allows me to get beyond fear. By accepting that they are mind-fucking assholes who have been selfishly hurting me my whole life, I am able to write them off as mind-fucking assholes who have been selfishly hurting me my whole life.

Instead of yelling that I don’t give a shit what they think or believe or say or do, I can simply not give a shit about what they say or think or do.

My survival – physical and psychological – depended on believing that everyone in my home and in my neighborhood did not want to hurt me. I didn’t have a choice – I didn’t have anywhere else to go or anyone safe to run to.

I have had to really twist and contort what is logical and real about myself in order to believe I was acceptable to them.

Another very present and giant fear behind all of my anger is of the rapist across the street physically harming me. He lives so close, and I have no doubt that he would very easily hurt me if it benefitted him in some way.

I know that it would not be logical or good for his reputation to do anything to me at this point, after I have been telling people what he did to me. However, what is logical and good for his reputation has not necessarily been at the front of his mind.

How logical is it to rape a fourteen year old girl and successfully tell yourself that she had it coming? That she deserved it? That the fact that her father accepted money from you to allow you to rape her again, and then again, meant that she could be written off as a dirty little whore?

That doesn’t seem very logical to me, so the whole consideration of what might be logical to this man does nothing to comfort me or make me less afraid of him.

I am tired of my fear of him being so paralyzing. I am tired of fear in general being so paralyzing.

The paralysis comes and goes, ebbs and flows. One of my biggest accomplishments throughout therapy and everything has been the ability to accept the way I am affected by what happened to me without shame. For example, I did not leave my house at all from Friday afternoon until last evening.

I did not spend that time in my house doing things constructive, like cleaning or organizing or doing yoga or taking especially good care of my family. I spent it in my bed. I watched TV and ripped images from magazines and made collages and ate chocolate and drank coffee and stayed in my bed for over 48 hours.

I can recognize all of that as a part of the effects of what happened to me, and what is happening now. I don’t think it is good, and I don’t think it is healthy, and I certainly do not want to live my life this way, but I also don’t believe I am a lazy, crazy, fucked up worthless human being.

Instead, I know that I apparently need some rest from the outside world, and am confident in the fact that I have gone through periods of time like that before –A LOT – and that I do my best to get beyond them and to be free from that fear.

I know that just because I can’t even handle being out of my room for two days, it doesn’t mean that I will always be in my room. It is simply a way that I can heal, it is a part of that process.

Feeling less ashamed about that makes a huge difference in the way I look at myself, and in my overall ability to carry on and be the person I want to be. It makes it EASIER.

It also makes it possible for me to acknowledge and accept and feel and process the pain that has always been a part of me.

I may have stayed in my bed all weekend, but it is Monday now and I am considerably less fearful than I was on Friday. All of that pain and fear and anger I have been experiencing intensely has greatly subsided, or even just been filtered out.

It is much easier for me to see the people I have been angry with and hurt by as the small, inconsequential people they are, and not as the jury that makes the decisions about whether or not every little thing I do is crazy.

It seems so silly to let those people have such an immense influence on the way I think about myself. That doesn’t mean I automatically don’t let those people have that immense influence, but recognizing how silly it is – and how it has hurt me over my lifetime – is allowing me to view those people and what they believe as what they really are.

Right now I don’t even feel any of them are even worth the energy of conjuring the words to describe what they are.

I just know that I am not nearly so angry, and not in nearly so much pain.

That was A LOT for me to accomplish over the weekend, even if it just seemed to other people that I sat in my bed and did nothing.

part 58

***TRIGGER WARNING***

Apparently when people hear that I’ve said the neighbor across the street raped me when I was fourteen, and then worked out with my dad to pay to do it two other times, they are not terribly shocked. They actually find it easy to believe.

What the FUCK?

I am angry. There were things going on in that neighborhood for years and years. I really don’t give a shit about who claims to have known nothing was amiss, they all had opportunities to do something to help me. ALL of them.

I’m talking about these men’s wives, and other neighbors who were close with that same group my parents were in.

Of course, everyone knew the rapist-neighbor across the street also beat the shit out of his wife and kids, and nobody did anything about that either.

Why?

Why don’t people speak up? Is it fear of being seen as crazy or a troublemaker or rocking the boat? Is it that the allegations of child abuse have such serious consequences when everyone starts to learn it is true? Is it a fear of having these feelings that something is going on, but not wanting to falsely accuse anyone?

Is it because it would mean looking at yourself and what possible part you could have played in the abuse happening?

All of the reasons are based in the fact that all of those adults were too concerned with themselves and how they might appear to others if they shook things up.

They should be sick with the guilt of opportunities lost to help an innocent child. They should feel terrible that they chose to believe the ridiculous lies that were told to them rather than see what was clearly right in front of their faces. They should feel sick they have done nothing NOW, when it is out in the open, but continue to hide in their pretentions.

People were preying on the girls in that neighborhood. Why wasn’t anyone outraged enough to do anything about it? Why?

Did people think that they just wouldn’t let their own daughters go to any of those predators’ houses and so it wouldn’t be their problem?

It hurts so much to think about how I saw these people day after day after day, and not one of them went out of their way to try to help me.

I really, really don’t give a shit how innocent and ignorant any of them may claim to have been about what was going on back then. I honestly don’t believe they all knew exactly what was going on, but they saw something bad and dark and scary. Did they not want to associate it with themselves by saying it out loud? Did they think that by attempting to interfere on a child’s behalf that they might be ostracized or look bad?

All I really have to say to every single one of them is GO TO HELL.

Fuck all of them and their feigned innocence. Not one of them has done a single thing – with the exception of my own mother – to renounce what their husbands and neighbors did over years and years and years of it happening in their own homes, on their own street, in their own neighborhood – right in front of their faces.

I have had a tremendous amount of support from so many people – except the people who live there, where it all happened. To me that only makes their guilt and shame more obvious.

I have been open to anyone. I have been available to anyone who wants to talk to me about this. I have gotten one email from one person who also grew up there. I have gotten one phone call from one other person who grew up there.

Where the fuck are their parents? Where is their outrage? Where is their disgust? Where is their acknowledgement that bad, bad things happened so close to them and they chose not to see it?

Are they all so ashamed that they have been perpetuating the notion that I was crazy? That I was a trouble-maker? That I just wanted attention? That I was a liar and a slut and a whore?

Do they want to continue to pretend all of these things about me are true so that they do not have to look at themselves?

They all make me sick. Literally, physically sick.

I will walk down that street any day and hold my head up and look into any of their eyes without shame or humiliation. Why are these people hiding from me?

I can’t find any answer to that question beyond guilt, shame, and a continued desire to not be associated with any of it.

When I am not overcome by images and feelings and smells of being ripped into and penetrated and threatened and raped, I am able to sleep soundly. I am sleeping soundly more and more as time goes on.

Maybe when those people are tossing and turning and trying to find some rest anywhere in their bodies or minds, they will be reminded of the pain I went through, and of how they could have done something about it.

part 57

I do not like it when I wake up feeling just as anxious as I did the night before. That is how I feel this morning. I had bad dreams and did not sleep well.

I have been reading “The Courage to Heal” again. I think if that book applies in any way to your life, you have a special place waiting for you in heaven. And I don’t even really believe there is a “heaven.” It is that rough.

Anyway, the things I have been reading about are related to ritualistic abuse. Ritualistic as when a child or person is abused by a group as part of ritualistic practices. Probably the most recognized of this type of group in our society is the satanic cult. It has been portrayed in mainstream media enough that I do not feel the need to go into detail about what satanic cults are, and the freakish atrocities associated with satanic rituals.

I don’t really believe satan is real, either…but that is an entirely different philosophical discussion, and the things that have been on my mind are really the mechanics of ritualistic abuse.

I was not abused in a strictly ritualistic-group way. I wasn’t involved in any cults, satanic or otherwise. Groups of people did not gather and chant and perform horrendous acts all in the name of ritualizing some bigger group or power.

I believe it does happen, though – even though it has not happened to me. What a concept! Just because I have not experienced some specific horrible thing, it doesn’t mean it hasn’t happened to anyone else.

“The Courage to Heal” references a guest on the Oprah show in the 1990’s. He was a survivor of the holocaust of the second world war, and he described his experiences on the show. Oprah made mention of how unbelievable the things he went through were, of how the very concept of one human being participating in that kind of sadistic and disgusting abuse of another human being is beyond the comprehension of most people in our world.

The man, Elie Wiesel, responded to Oprah’s comment by saying that “the enemy counted on the disbelief of the world.”

This resonated very deeply with me.

It seems that in almost all of the cases of sexual abuse – in all of the different kinds of sexual abuse – that the perpetrator’s reliance on other people’s inability or reluctance or refusal to believe that one human being could do things like that to another human being, especially a child, is how they get away with it.

It all ties back in to the theory that the only way these types of abuses can be stopped is by exposing the people who participated, and by hearing the account of victims while keeping in mind that all of the crazy things they describe can most certainly be true.

One the reasons sexual abuse is so easy to get away with is that the perpetrator can be very confident in the “disbelief of the world.”

In addition to the typical public reaction of accounts of ritualistic abuse, the experiences of the survivors are remarkably similar to my own. Ritualistic abuse employs the application of brain washing and programming victims to act and respond, or to fail to act or to fail to respond, in a predetermined manner that is favorable to the abusers.

I believe all abuse affects the mind of the victim in ways that are twisted and difficult to overcome, but the ritualistic abuse seems to be on a different level in that there are more than one person perpetuating the brainwashing and programming – thereby making it much more effective - and that the instances of abuse occur repeatedly over an extended period of time – thereby more deeply embedding the validity of the experiences to the victim.

My dad employed many of the brainwashing techniques associated with ritualistic abuse, and the fact that there were multiple people involved in abusing me probably added to my experiences resulting in similar effects on my mind and body and soul as those involved in ritualistic abuse by an organized group as a whole.

Another thing I was reading about in “The Courage to Heal” is that many times telling people what your abuser did to you can be a very uplifting and relieving experience. It also mentioned that some people who tell feel much worse afterward. I am intrigued by that notion because I have been a nervous wreck about telling anyone anything at all about what my dad or anyone else did to me.

That’s what my bad dreams were about – that my relationships of the past were being damaged now as a result of my telling what happened to me.

One explanation for the overwhelming feeling of guilt and anxiety about telling is that the method of keeping the victim silent involved repeated affirmation that telling would hurt people they love. This is what my dad did to me. I remember very distinctly the guilt and shame of just thinking about telling people what happened to me and how much it would hurt my mom and sister and brother and, of course, my dad.

I do feel the guilt and anxiety and shame that comes with telling what happened to me.

I fear I am bettering myself at the expense of other people’s lives and worlds and families. Then I remember that I am not responsible for these other people’s lives and worlds and families. I remember that taking care of myself and doing what I need to do does not need to be hindered by my concern over the ways my abusers have victimized everyone in their lives and worlds and families.

Of course I am capable of compassion, and even of empathy. I know what it feels like to have a predator for a father. I know what I have had to go through to come to the point that I could even acknowledge that my own father is a predator capable or hurting so many people – and hurting ME, his daughter he said he loved and needed so much.

But I wonder if it would have been better to have just kept my mouth shut.

Then I realize that I honestly would not have been able to even begin to comprehend what it would be to not tell.

Why am I telling? There are a lot of reasons. Seriously, though, I don’t know that I am capable of keeping all of that shit to myself.

These things happened. They are real. There is no such thing as letting a sleeping dog lie, because that dog has never been asleep. It has always been awake in me, hurting me, damaging me, holding me back – but it is what I have.

Why am I telling? What the fuck else am I  gonna do?

part 56

******TRIGGER WARNING *******

I am not interested in hiding anything. Hiding things is what makes the continued abuse of women and children possible. It is not comfortable not hiding things, but it is what I can do.

I do not wish to deter any sort of discussion on all of the things I have written about, especially concerning the neighbors. I was made to keep silent for years through shame and fear, and I will not attempt to do that to anyone else.

It is okay if people do not believe me. It is okay if people think I am crazy, or vindictive, or whatever people think to avoid believing the things that happened to me really happened.

I cannot say it doesn’t mean anything when people I have known my entire life find it much easier to consider any alternative to what is real rather than considering that what I am saying is true. It does not feel good, but it is understandable. I don’t know if it is justifiable, or logical, or empathetic, or excusable. But it is certainly human, and at the end of the day I can’t really begrudge anyone that.

I don’t have to accept it, though.

I know very well that it doesn’t matter what anyone says or does or believes or threatens – none of it will make what happened to me not real.

The opposite of real has been shoved down my throat for my entire life. It is a pretty effective method of keeping anyone quiet, particularly the vulnerable, such as children. Like I said though, it does not make what is real not real anymore.

Regardless of who says what, or feels any certain way, or views me in any way, what happened to me really did happen to me.

My father raped me repeatedly. He tortured me. He brainwashed me. He used me. He took money to let other people rape me and abuse me. He produced child pornography and used me as the child. He got me pregnant and then called me a whore. He tied me naked to a tree and then called me crazy.

One of my neighbors molested me when I was little. He pretended to be performing some sort of habitual and necessary form of ensuring proper hygiene and then put his fingers in me. I was five. When I was about twelve, that same person made a monetary arrangement with my father to rape me. He was sweet and flirtatious. He acted like we were somehow both voluntarily doing something we would both enjoy.

That guy was not able to “seal the deal,” and then he and my dad had a monetary disagreement. I don’t know anything more about it than that.

Another of my neighbors made a very successful transaction with my father. My dad told me to go over to his house to get something, so I did. The guy invited me in and very politely took my pants off and turned me around and raped me in the middle of the day in the middle of his living room. When I got back home, my dad asked me if I brought back what I was supposed to have retrieved. I had not, and so he told me to go back to that house and get it.

I did what he said. It was an envelope with cash in it. I got it from the neighbor and gave it to my dad.

A third neighbor violently raped me in his basement when I was fourteen. When I was seventeen, my dad made an arrangement (again monetary) with him to rape me as punishment for voluntarily having sex with someone else. It was at a hotel. When it was over, my dad took the cash and pulled a twenty from it and gave it to me. I took it.

My dad and that one neighbor both made me believe, on different occasions, I would die at their hands, and made me believe that I deserved it it. They both strangled me to the point that I knew I was going to be dead. I didn’t die, but I have not forgotten what that felt like, and what it looked like to look at them killing me.

I believed I deserved it then, but I don’t now. As I said, it doesn’t matter what anyone says or believes or accuses or threatens, nothing will make those things not real.

I will sit down and talk to any of those men any day. I will remind them face to face of what they did to me. I will tell their wives and their children and their friends and neighbors face to face what they did to me. I don’t care how angry they are. I don’t care how much it might make other people’s lives uncomfortable. I don’t care if they sue me for slander or libel or whatever. I don’t care.

I don’t have to care about any of those things because what they did to me was real, and what they did to me was wrong. It was horrendous and disgusting and revolting. There is nothing anyone can say at any time to make me believe today that I was somehow responsible for the things they did.

I wasn’t responsible. I am not ashamed. I’m still scared, but I’m getting used to living in spite of it. I don’t care what anyone thinks or threatens or does or says, because nothing anyone can accuse me of or believe about me will ever excuse what those men did to me, or make it as though it never happened.

It seems crazy because it is. What happened to me, how I grew up, how people got away with hurting me, it is all crazy. It is very difficult to believe that such circumstances could exist at all, let alone in a predominantly white, predominantly Christian, predominantly middle class neighborhood in a predominantly white, predominantly Christian, and predominantly middle class town.

I mean, we all had health insurance. We all had regular dental care. We all had new clothes and shoes and free-standing single-family dwellings. We were all what we believed we were supposed to be, so how did this happen?

I don’t fucking know. I just know that it did, and nothing will ever change that.

I wonder if retaliation will come in the form of physical harm, to me or to my family, or to anyone else I love. I wonder if writing all about it and knowing that A LOT of people read what I write and know exactly who I am talking about would be a deterrent to beating the shit out me or killing me. I mean, there is no way they could get away with it, right?

I am sick of this shit. But I’m still here. I’ve survived worse before and do not doubt I will survive this, too, even if it is only figuratively.

I’ve done what I wanted to do. People know. It is out there.

And now I will stop thinking about this and go live my life some more.

part 55

So this whole outing-the-neighbors thing has been really difficult. I didn’t expect it to be easy, but that doesn't detract from the pain and hurt and anger. Not just my pain and hurt and anger, but that of everyone involved.

I have really never felt more empowered, though. I continue to shake like a leaf (in a hurricane) whenever I talk about it or even think about it. My voice doesn’t falter so much anymore, though. That’s pretty awesome.

The whole experience has been another of those dark tunnels of excruciating anxiety and heartbreak and sadness that I have come to associate with “processing trauma.” Going through this last tunnel has been very difficult for the past few weeks, but I am very grateful to have a light heart today (I mean, on this very day, not in this time of my life or whatever).

The tunnel is still there, but I am starting to get into the part where the light is shining in. My thoughts about my childhood have been retrospectively much clearer. Of course a lot of thoughts applied retroactively are much clearer, but these thoughts are the ones that have been very muddy up until now.

I can clearly feel what it felt like to go get the mail or mow the lawn or turn the corner onto the street I grew up on. I can clearly feel that I do not have to feel that way now.

I have never been able to go into that neighborhood without a sense of dread, or with my head held high. The place is the temple of doom for me, and has been my whole life. But it is starting to not feel that way anymore. It is starting to feel like I can go visit my mom without cowering as I go up the driveway.

It is starting to feel like I can sit at the kitchen table in front of the big bay window without feeling the vulnerability of someone in the scope of a sniper.

It is starting to feel like I am stronger than those houses and that street and that whole neighborhood and every single person who hurt me. I feel like I am not a little kid people see as dysfunctional, or a crazy teenager. 

I feel like an adult. I feel like I have my feet planted firmly on the ground. I feel like there are people who very badly want to knock me down, who have kept me knocked down for most of my life, and I know they can’t do it anymore.

Huh. It feels nice.

I do not feel impermeable to pain, or to fear. However, I do feel like pain and fear can exist simultaneously with strength and determination. As much as fear and pain can cripple me, I know I have a choice to keep standing back up and get through it.

I guess I am having a lot of feelings today. That’s usually very exhausting for me, but these feelings are good, and I am lighter and calmer and more peaceful. These feelings are giving me this strange energy and motivation to do things like take care of my student loans, and pay the bills I have been dreading opening, and facing other things that are daunting for me.

I don’t feel high or speedy or invincible, I just feel capable. It really, really is nice.