So. Jerry Sandusky.
When the State Attorney General spoke following the
announcement of the convictions, she talked about people like Sandusky hiding
behind their status in the community, behind their job titles, and behind their
money, and how this particular case was proof that some people can't hide
forever. It is also proof of how difficult it is to accuse someone like
Sandusky of child molestation, how someone with money, a wife, kids, and a
particular career can be such a gigantic hurdle for a victim to get over before
they even begin facing the public and all of its judgments.
Another thing the Attorney General said was that each of the
victims, when questioned about why they had not reported Sandusky earlier, was
that they believed no one would find a kid credible. Then she went on to talk
about how she would believe a kid if they came to her, and the county (or
township or whatever) would believe a kid, and how the state of Pennsylvania would
believe a kid. I found this assertion irresponsible, opportunistic, and
obnoxious, mostly because it is a bunch of bullshit.
How many parents have been told straight out by their five
year old daughter that the next door neighbor put his finger in her vagina, and
then not done anything? People who are parents, or want to be parents, or are
idealistic in any way, would want to believe that they would take action to
protect their child (or any child), and to report the creep-show-neighbor to
the police; at the very least, they would not allow their child to be around
that particular neighbor ever again.
It didn't happen that way when I was the five year old
daughter, and it doesn't happen that way for A LOT of victims.
Here's the thing: as taboo as the act of harming a child is
- as much as people cry out in righteous indignation about how they would never
let anything like that happen to a kid - turning your head when you are
confronted with it is about 90 billion times easier than acting on it.
I mean, who are child molesters? They aren't anything that
can be seen or detected from a mile away, though that is what people want to
believe. We have this mindset that if a predator was ever in our midst, it
would be obvious, and so if anyone ever came forward and accused that person of
indecency, it would be readily accepted.
But that's not who child molesters are: they are your
fathers and mothers and sons and daughters and wives and husbands and brothers
and sisters; they are the neighbor, the bus driver, the youth pastor, the baby
sitter; the pediatrician; they are people you know - YOU personally and
individually know these people. Child molesters are people who go in and out of
YOUR life everyday, without it even occurring to you that they might not be the
nice, loving, peaceable, harmless friend or family member or acquaintance they
purport themselves to be. They are like germs - YOU can't see them, but they
are there nonetheless.
When someone is accused of molesting a child, it is a BIG
DEAL. It might not ever become a big deal to anyone other than the victim and
the person hearing the accusation, but it is a BIG DEAL. Harming children is
not something tolerated in our society; once that label is placed on a person,
it never comes off - it's like a tattoo. It is NOT forgivable.
What IS forgivable, though, is a confused child, or a
"misinterpretation" of events or actions, or even an angry spouse manipulating
their own kid to make you the ex look bad. But the actual reality of that
accusation is not something people are apt to consider for more than a few
seconds, if at all.
My mom sexually abused me. It was only once, when I was 14,
and it was to "prove" her "loyalty" to my dad. I doubt she would
have done such a thing - ever - had my dad not been standing there goading her
into it. I mean, the bitch hated me, but I have a hard time comprehending the
notion that she regularly performed sex acts on helpless, teenaged girls. Or boys.
The pleasure she got from doing that to me was in her relentless ego, her
all-encompassing narcissism. She hated thinking my dad could manipulate her,
and she LOVED winning an argument, regardless of whether she was right or not.
My mom took her marriage vows very seriously, and there was no
way she was not going to stand behind them. I don't think my dad took the vows
that seriously, but he knew that my mom hated to admit ever being wrong about
something, even if was something said when she was twenty years old and decades
before.
Anyway, my mom was trying to convince my dad that she would
do anything to prove her commitment or loyalty or some shit, and my dad was
pushing her buttons, saying that he did not believe her, that he knew she was
not completely loyal to him. What would she have to do to prove it? She told
him she would have done anything. ANYTHING.
I don't know why my dad told her to do that to me. I don't
know if it was because he really did not believe she would sexually assault her
own child, and that she would be forced to admit that she was not so loyal to
him after all, and he would be the winner, or if he knew that she would do what
she told him because it was the only way to validate her argument, and he knew
that she would choose to do those things to her own daughter rather than admit
she might not be as loyal as she was convinced she was, or wanted him to
believe she was, and he could relish in the absolute power over her.
I don't know. But he told her to do it. I was right there,
watching them. When he told her what to do to me, she got a shocked and
horrified look on her face, but only for a second. Then all of the muscles in
her face went slack, and her eyes turned into dead green glass, and I could see
she was falling into that place where she felt nothing but her own superiority
with being right. And then she did it.
She told me where to sit and what to do, and I did what I was
told, and then she did probably the most horrific and evil thing a mother could
do to her child, and as broken as I already was before then, it felt like there
was nothing left of me at all - no fear, no anger, no sadness, no tears, no
pain, no hope, no devastation - just a shell, a robot, completely void of any
feeling at all.
And I just stayed that way. That's who I was in that house. Every
now and then some feeling would come back to me, and I would smile or laugh, and
it was so nice when that happened. But it didn't take long for something to
remind me of what she did, and I did not acknowledge it in my head at all, but
just go back to being a robot.
Up until that Attorney General lady said that about Sandusky
hiding behind his reputation and social and economic status, I could not fathom
telling the world what my mom did to me. But one of Sandusky's own kids, Matt,
had approached the prosecution the evening before his dad was to testify, and
he told them what his dad had done to him. He also told them he would be
willing to testify against his dad. And that was that. Sandusky was absolutely done
for.
But so is Matt's relationship with the people he has known
and loved for most of his life, including his mom and siblings. I wonder if he
has any idea how much pain he is going to feel as a result of doing what he
did. I did not realize the amount of pain that was in store for me when I told
my brother and sister and uncle that my mom had sexually assaulted me, but it
was like I couldn't stop it. I was so angry, and indignant, and it was all so
big in my mind, I don't think I would have been able to not tell people what
she did to me.
Matt Sandusky was immediately thrown under the bus by his
family. His mom and siblings, and Jerry himself, have invoked anything they
possibly could to discredit that kid. He was adopted, he has always had something
wrong with him, he was having trouble being able to support himself - all of
those things are things that anyone who chooses to look the other way and not
confront the reality of it all can use to make themselves feel better. They can
think of those explanations, and not feel so nauseous, or dirty, and completely
wrecked as they had been when they first heard what Matt was telling people.
Because it is DEVASTATING to do what Matt Sandusky did.
Maybe his mom and other family members will come around to
accepting the truth someday, and maybe my mom and other family members will do
that, too. But until then, they are choosing to believe the shit she put out
there - she said I am getting revenge on her for not doing anything about my
dad abusing me, I'm psychotic, I'm a sociopath - I have all of the excuses she
came up with in an email she wrote. That's how she told me she would never
confront that truth about herself, in an email.
Of course, I did initially confront her in an email. In one
of her responses she told me that what I was accusing her of was
"disgusting." I don't know why, but her use of the word
"disgusting" in denying the things she actually did makes it easier
for me to not miss her as much.
At various other times in her emails responding to my
accusations, she pitched her theories that people who did not want to believe
the truth could believe instead. My sister called me and said that I probably
had a "psychotic break," my brother called me (and my husband and my
son) and said how I was "like him" (our dad), and my uncle called me
and didn't try to deny any of it at all. Instead he asked me if it could have
been my dad's idea, and not hers, and I told him, yes, he was standing there
the whole time, and I didn't think she would have done it on her own.
And my uncle said what he's been saying for years, but that I
hadn't really heard until that moment: "I've always believed your father
had some sort of Svengali effect on her." When he said that, I knew he
believed me, that it was not difficult for him to conclude that it could have
realistically happened as I'd claimed. I knew that the pieces were rapidly
falling into place for him, and hoped he would stand behind me, but he didn't.
Those are all of the reasons why I feel that Attorney
General's claim was irresponsible and opportunistic and obnoxious - because I KNOW
what the real story is. I KNOW that is not something that will ever be true for
the great majority of victims. I KNOW Jerry Sandusky will be only one of
thousands to be confronted with what he did in a court of law.
But that lady also said something else that I heard loud and
clear - that other victims can feel stronger about coming forward with their
own stories, and she encouraged us to do that.
And she was right - I do feel stronger about it, and coming
forward with my own story is what I just did.
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