My Story by Patty Hite
Oct 11th, 2009 | By Patty Hite | Category: All Posts, Our Stories
No Excuse for Abuse – Part 1
In Honor of My Sister, Darlene
Abuse has followed me around like the boogie man hidden in the shadows. My earliest and most overpowering experience with sexual abuse started when I saw my dad raping my sister. I was six and she was sixteen.
The incident that led up to that was the day my sister pulled up to the curb in front of our house with my dad was sitting next to her. She was blowing the horn to let the whole neighborhood know that Dad had bought her a car. My mom was standing in the doorway crying and yelling for them to come inside. The next thing I remember was my dad living in an apartment a few blocks from home. My brothers and I would walk there to visit him and this particular day, I ran ahead of them to get to Dad’s first. When I opened the door I saw my dad and my sister, naked in bed, having sex. They ran around putting on their clothes and dad threatened me with a look, and the words, “You better not tell anyone what you saw.”
It must have been extremely frightful because I forgot about it until many years later. I escaped within myself, disassociated, to my hiding place, a place which became very familiar to me most of my life.
My sister was sent to an all girl catholic school and my dad returned home. I was told she wanted to become a nun. The few times we visited her were miserable. She was always crying and I thought to myself, ‘if you hate it here so much, then just come home’.
As we all grew older my sister would visit us and bring different men with her. She openly flirted with any man she saw and I saw her drunk more times than sober. Every woman who knew her kept their husbands and boyfriends away from her and family and friends began to call her a whore, a drunk, ditzy and stupid. I always felt sad when I saw her. When she was supposed to laugh, she cried. And when she should cry, she laughed.
When she visited, Dad treated her like she was an alien who landed in the living room and if Mom talked to her too much, it always ended in an argument. The times I visited her as a teenager, she slept all day and stayed awake all night. She could barely care for her children. I always thought her eyes looked dead, and dark. I was afraid to stay too long.
During this time, my dad divorced my mom for an 18 year old girl my brother used to date.
When I was twenty-five, I was sitting at my table, drinking a cup of coffee and the gates of hell flashed memories and pictures of my dad and sister having sex. I thought I had lost my mind. I couldn’t sleep, eat or communicate with anyone. I thought the only way to end this torment was to write to my dad and so he could tell me it wasn’t true.
He called me as soon as he received the letter and admitted that it happened but blamed it on my sister. He told me that she was a whore and threw herself at him and how hard it was to deny her. I wanted to know when it started. He wouldn’t tell me. My dad, my father, my hero, my protector had just become one of them– a sexual abuser. He stepped into a class of people I dealt with most of my life. An enemy.
I didn’t tell my mother that I knew the truth until I was in my 40′s. I will never forget the pain in her eyes. I had four children and I wanted to know how she could abandon her daughter and allow a pervert to remain in her home with her other daughters. She felt she could do nothing else. She had eight children to feed and keep a roof over their heads. I talked to her about mending her relationship with my sister.
My mother died shortly after that meeting. My sister died a few years later. Neither one asked for forgiveness nor was able to forgive. My mother died with her children present. My sister died without a husband, a protector, she so desperately looked for her whole life.
It grieves me to know that my sister didn’t have the loving hugs from my mother, the instructions on how to bake a cherry pie or the discipline needed from someone who cares. I do thank God that I was able to tell her how much I always loved her before she died. At least she wasn’t alone, the moment before she left this world that was so cruel to her.
To this day, my brothers defend my father. We are at odds when it comes to him. They see him as an honorable man, a hard worker doing everything to provide for his family. I see him as an abuser. I am quick to remind them that our sister may have been sixteen at the time, but she was once a baby, a child. There is no excuse for abuse.
Just one dysfunctional act can affect someone for a lifetime. This one act of abuse set me up for years of sexual and physical abuse. It not only destroyed my sister and my mother, but it put a brand on me- “Abuse Me”. I learned how to keep the secret, how to protect the abuser. By keeping the secret, I not only gave the abuser permission to continue abusing me, but I also gave permission for him to abuse others.
No Excuse for Abuse – Part 2:
I was the baby of my family of five brothers and two sisters. When Mom and Dad went out, my brothers were in charge of watching me. Their watching me included every male friend of theirs at our house. This was always a scary time for me because a few of their friends took every opportunity to touch me sexually. I know this went on from kindergarten until Mom and Dad divorced, and the boys joined the service.
Before the divorce, our home was always filled with adults too, relatives living with us and friends of my parents coming over for parties. I remember walking out of our bathroom and my uncle reaching between my legs and asking me if I wiped. Another time, friend of Dad’s picked me up in the air, lifted up my shirt and sucked on my breast. Well, not breast yet, I was around 7 years old.
We moved to a farm near my dad’s family, when I was around 12. I remember one time being in my aunt and uncle’s car, on our way to their house. I loved visiting my cousins and was so excited that I was allowed to spend a few weeks with them. My aunt was driving and my uncle reached over the seat, put his hand between my legs and tried to reach inside my panties and said, “We are going to have so much fun, Patty Jane”. I closed my legs, and crawled within myself.
He said my name with such evil that I related my sexual abuse with my name and hated it. I stopped using the name Patty Jane and demanded that everyone call me Pat–a more grown up name, one with strength.
We only had two bedrooms at the farm. Mom and Dad were downstairs and my brothers and I upstairs. When relatives stayed, the boys gave up their bed, and I was left alone with whoever was staying. I would pull the covers up to my neck, tuck them around me and keep my foot sticking out because I got so hot. We never had air conditioning, but I would rather die sweating than allow my uncles to touch my skin. Oh, they tried. Right there, in the middle of the night, with their wives in the same room. I woke up many times with my uncle under my bed, his hands trying to reach under my covers.
For many years I kept silent, then one night I sat up in bed and asked him what the hell he was doing. He said he was looking for an ashtray. He never touched me again. I learned to be vocal from that moment on. If anyone touched me, I either hit them, or announced to the world for them to stop.
When I started dating, there were many times I told my date to stop the car and let me out. I would walk home. I was too afraid of having any sexual contact with them. Some slapped me and tried to force me. One time I had bruises all over me from someone trying to force me to have sex. My brother saw them and asked what happened. I told him the truth. He said he was going to beat the hell out of that boy. I told him he didn’t have to, I already did.
When I was sixteen, I married the town drunk. I didn’t care about having sex with him and he was always too drunk to do anything, and this arrangement was fine by me. I stayed with him until he started getting physically abusive. He would come home while I was sleeping and pour a gallon of milk on me, chase me around the house, and hit me. I learned that men hit harder than boys and knew I couldn’t protect myself by hitting back. It just made them angrier.
I married again and had a daughter. I was cared for, never abused, but didn’t have the attention I wanted. I left him only to marry an abuser straight out of hell.
I dated Bill for six months before I married him. He was gentle, kind, always buying me gifts, paid extra attention to me. The day we married, we were standing in the kitchen of our new home, and he hauled off and knocked me to the ground. He grabbed my hair and dragged me to the bedroom. He ripped my clothes, slapped me, hit me, and finally raped me. Afterward, he told me “I own you now. You will do what I say, when I say it, and how I want it.” I was told that if I told anyone, he would kill my baby daughter and me. I believed him.
The abuse became an everyday thing. He started using weapons in the bedroom. He stuck knives to my throat and guns inside my vagina. There were times I would do something wrong so he would beat me, to get it over with. I became very familiar with rape. I was forced to have sex with him any time he wanted it. Even if it wasn’t by force, I knew I had to do what he wanted. I lived in my hiding place constantly. I was able to disassociate myself while I was being abused.
The only thing good to come out of this ten year relationship was that I had a son. One day my daughter told me that Bill was touching her and my son sexually. I walked into the living room and Bill was sitting in his recliner. I put a butcher knife to his throat and told him that the kids and I were leaving that night, or someone was going to die.
After I left him, he broke into my house, put a knife to my throat and took my son. For a year I searched for my son. Every once in a while Bill would call me and tell me he killed my son and buried him and I will never find him. I had no where else to go but to God. One year later, Bill called and told me to pick up my son. Hallelujah!
I remarried my second husband, someone I knew was safe. At least I thought he was. During this time, I knew I had to do something. I lived like a zombie. Even though I was openly free from abuse, my mind still clung to the lifetime of abuse. Fear consumed me. I lived in fear, talked with fear and raised my children in fear.
I had been controlled for ten years in every aspect of my life. Even though I acted to everyone else as though my life was all together now, I knew inside that I had no identity of my own. I was afraid to wear makeup my way, afraid to shop at the grocery store, afraid to drive, afraid to talk to others. I recognized my whole life was now ruled by fear, and I knew it started when I was that little girl watching my dad have sex with my sister.
It took every bit of strength I had to find resources to begin my healing. The first step was recognizing I needed help. I couldn’t afford a therapist so I went to the library and whenever I had a few extra dollars I would buy books. I read self-help books, anything that had the words abuse on the cover. I had my yellow highlighter and marked things that pertained to me. It seemed that the best books to me were the ones which told of the abuse, then told of the changes which were done to overcome that abuse.
The one thing I recognized, no matter how much I read, was that I didn’t know what “good” behavior was. I didn’t know I shouldn’t yell at my kids. I didn’t know that other people actually slept with their lights off and their doors closed. (I discovered this on a trip with some women friends. We were all sleeping in bunk beds in this large room and someone turned off the hallway light and shut the door. I actually thought I was going to die. The light and the door being ajar was my safety, my way of seeing my abuser enter my room instead of sneaking up on me.) I began talking to my friends and it dawned on me that the way I act and felt is not necessarily the right way.
I hated what abuse did to me. I not only hated the abuser, but I hated the aftereffects. I hated all the attachments of abuse which clung to me like a cobweb. It was time to sweep my brain, vacuum my thoughts.
So now I was beginning to be alert to my actions of every day living. Why did I laugh when I should be crying? Why did I cry when I should be laughing? Why did I feel like I was going to die in the dark? Why did I become angry over silly things? Why did I have to be in control? There was so much, yet I was bound and determined to overcome this, to win, to get control, to stop the abuse.
I always loved God. I remember being very young, sitting under a tree and talking to God. I always seemed to be crying when I talked to Him. I do the same thing to this day, but during my healing I not only talked to God, but I began to read the New Testament in the Bible. To me it was a guide on behavior, how to act and how not to act. It showed me what true love is, and more than anything, it showed me how a father is supposed to love his children. I loved how Jesus told the disciples to allow the children to come forth, and I loved how Jesus cared about the prostitute. I read about God’s love, that He sent His only son to die for me, to help me become whole and healed. I loved that the fruit of God’s spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and self control. I wanted this. The Bible said that the acts of a sinful nature are sexual immorality, impurity, idolatry, hatred and discord, jealousy and fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissension, envy. All kinds of nasty things. This, I wanted out of me.
I took these nasty things and talked to God about them. I wanted my mind and my sub-conscious mind, my hiding place, to let go of them. Once I revealed them and started hating them, it seemed as though the gates of hell were coming after me. There are so many memories attached to the evil that was done to me. I cried, I shouted, I punched trees, I kicked. I did whatever it took to get the pain and hurt out of me.
Then I replaced the nasty things with love things. I wrote “love” phrases out and stuck them all over my house. “I am a new person. I am whole. I am destined for good things.” Anytime one of those ugly things would show up in my life, I would tell myself, “no, that is not me anymore” and then I would say, “I am a new person, I am full of love, goodness, kindness, peace, joy, etc.”
I knew I had to learn how to act differently, to be whole. It was more than remembering the abuse and everything attached to it, it was learning how to be a whole person, free from fear. Fear is the opposite of love. We become controllers because we are afraid of losing control. Fear. We become jealous, because we are afraid of losing someone. Fear. We become angry because we lose control. Fear. It goes on and on. I needed love. I needed to love myself in order to love others. I needed joy in my heart, not the joy that you show to others as a cover-up from the pain you feel inside, but the kind of joy that puts a hop in your step, that puts a smile on your face because you are alive. I needed patience for myself and others. There is so much that I needed in order to be whole.
Once I started doing this and making it an everyday thing, more of the old stuff revealed itself. If I was at the store and I started to get angry or fearful, I would literally stop everything, and start talking to myself (in my head, not outwardly, lol) and address those feelings right on the spot. Other times I would recognize them when I went to bed. I always did and still do, reflect on the day, kind of like reliving it to see if I became fearful.
It’s an ongoing process. I don’t want to discourage anyone into thinking it will never end. How long before I become totally free? I don’t know. But I can tell you this. I am one hell of a better person than I was. I am strong. My mind is clear and alert. I am not afraid to say I am sorry if I did something to others. I am responsible for my actions now. I do what I believe to be right for myself. I wake up everyday happy, I go to bed every night happy. When I think of my past, the abuse, I don’t feel like I am dying inside. I can look at it clearly and in strength. Instead of the memories being painful and pulling me down, they now raise me up. I am not that same person. I am a new person.
Sometimes I have my bad times. I get angry when I shouldn’t and I get in fear sometimes. After taking an MRI, I realized I was afraid of closed in places. Talk about panic attack. But that’s okay because I am not afraid to face it. I am strong enough to dig up the past and get above it, get free of it.
I have learned to put up boundaries with myself and with others. I can say “stop”. I can stand toe to toe with any abuser now, instead of shriveling. I can and will protect myself and others from abuse, because I have been there. I understand. I am not ashamed or afraid to tell others the truth, in love, and I can stand firm on what I believe to be the truth. I am not a people pleaser, I don’t do what others say I have to do, I do what I believe is right for “Patty Jane” to do. I look at the future in hope and faith for better days and more love instead of failure and hopelessness. I surround myself with people who love me and care about me, people who won’t criticize me or control me. Not because I am afraid, but because I have nothing in common with anyone who hurts others. I have learned to love others, to be patient, to be kind and gentle. I encourage faith and share joy. I am a new person and I like who I am now.
Children who have been sexually or physically abused are controlled by that abuse. You seldom see the “real” person. I always felt and have said that it wasn’t the act itself, but the abuser’s control over me that has molded me. We don’t like ourselves because we are filled with shame. We never asked to be abused and we especially didn’t ask to be put into a situation where we felt responsible for those around us, afraid to hurt our parents, our relatives, our siblings. No child should have to live in fear of abuse, nor fear of exposing the abuse.
Abuse touches everyone’s life. It forces sides, it demands an army for support, or can cause an army against us, and it creates us to be someone we are not. I never knew the real me until I was able to separate the abused Patty Jane from the real Patty Jane. I am not afraid to use my real name now.
This is an account of how I am getting free from abuse, the beginning of my healing process and what I did to overcome the shame and fear I lived with for most of my life. I hope it helps you on your quest to freedom, but understand that it may not be the only answer for you. Just as we are individual in our appearances, I also believe that our healing is an individual act. Whatever resources you use, just keep doing it. Keep searching for the freedom that awaits you. My heart desire is that you find peace and most of all love. Love within yourself, that you arise everyday in love with yourself in spite of your past.
For those who have never told, I encourage you to stop the abuse. Wait for the right time when you are safe and tell someone who will protect you and love you through this. If you can’t tell a family member, tell a friend. Just tell someone.
Patty Hite is one of five facilitators of Overcoming Sexual Abuse. A survivor of emotional, physical and sexual abuse, Patty has been tenaciously pursuing her healing for over thirty years. She’s a passionate advocate for all survivors and dedicates her life to inspiring emotional wholeness in others. Through her healing, she’s discovered hidden talents such as crocheting and quilting and spends many hours in her wood shop creating masterpieces for her family. As a former victim of spousal abuse, she’s delighted to find true love with her husband of five years. She’s blessed with four children and six grandchildren.
Does this resonate with you? Please join in by leaving your thoughts and feelings about this topic in the comments.
hi Patty, I just read ur story. awesome job….. going from where it all started, and where you are today…it gives a lot of hope and very inspiring……Its so hard to come from where we’ve been & finding our way to who we realy are….I thank God it is so much easier to look back and not get so overwhelmed like I did in the past when I, 1st started working on my abuse issues…..”FEAR” is a tough one for me, I do see where in my life it has overtaken me….expecially in raising my children…my fear of them getting hurt, being unable to protect them from others, probably at times caused more harm than good…..Im guessing thats because no-one was ever there to protect me as a child…
I like how you got into the diffrent resourses for help, like using ur library and religion etc…there realy are alot of good resources to get some help for free…using religion are part of some of my recovery, also the self help books, theraphy (if you find the right one), I even found alot in AA…I get what I need where I can get it.. I guess it all comes down to the desire..you have to want the peace/healing, and be willing to do the work, watever it takes…but when I look back to where I was and where I am 2day,….I am thankful, for I know i’ve done alot of work, but yet, gotta a long way to go……thankyou for sharing that story, very inspiring for continueing on my quest…;)
I hope this comment doesn’t sound insulting, but I think it’s disgusting to be having sex with your 16-year-old daughter.
So far, that’s all I can read. I lose the desire to read further every time I read that he was having actual sex with his 16-year-old daughter.
I’m sorry I can’t read further. It never happened to me, but it disgusts me beyond reason anyway. I’m positive I never had sex with my dad at 16, so I really don’t understand why I get so unbelievably bothered by reading that someone else did that with his daughter.
Anyway, I hope I can read further some day. I just can’t do it right now, b/c what he did disgusts me too much, and I feel like reading anything else that he did would cause me to break down or something.
Vicki, it’s ok. We need to be disgusted and angry about a father having sex with his kids. It angers me too. I have broken off my relationship with him because I can’t get over his act of violence against my sister. I refuse to allow her to be forgotten and tossed aside like she didn’t matter. I hope you can read the rest of my story. It is full of hope.
Hi,
I just read your story. You’ve been through so much. I’m glad you came to recognize just how much and have found ways to work through it. I especially liked the part where you talked about getting rid of bad things and then the great reminder to replace those things with “love” things. I need that reminder often as I slowly let go of the past. Each time I let go, I can fill that hole with something positive.
Whole instead of hole…
thanks for your honesty
Thank you so much for your story! I just recently started a blog. I have posted my story on there. I hope to expand on it and have a book one day. There are still a lot of major – life changing details to add to my story. I hope you could have a chance to read it. I am very encouraged by you. I am so glad you are truly blessed and the Lord has restored and is restoring all the years the locust have eaten.
I am finally able to begin my healing. After many years of sexual abuse by many different men, I fell prey to a man in “ministry.” I finally came forth with the truth. To my amazement he, eventually, confessed to everything. His ministry has been shut down…for that I am so grateful. I have a long journey of healing ahead of me but it is looking brighter all the time now.
Cara, I’m so glad your life is getting brighter. Healing does that for us. I’ve found that the more I heal, the more my story expands. There is so much change and view points now. I’m no longer tossing in the wind trying to find my way, I am standing on firm ground. another wonderful thing that healing does for us.
Keep digging and healing. You are worth it!
Hi Patty. I read your entire story and I can totally relate to your experience. I am so sorry you and your sister had such a horrible experience. While I was not sexually abused by my father, my brother and I were physically abused by him. He was an alcoholic who would at times go into rages and beat my little brother and & I when my mom was at work. I took the brunt of it to protect my brother. I witnessed many fights between my mom & dad, one of which my mother took off her underwear, showed them to my dad and screamed, “See what you did to me!” At the time, I had no idea what she meant but my instincts told me it wasn’t good or right. For some reason, admitting that my dad was a raging alcoholic doesn’t bother me, but thinking that he forced my mom to have sex deeply disturbs me. My mother never knew, at least I didn’t think, how violently my father would beat us. His “weapon of choice” was a blue suede belt with silver- lined holes cut into it. One time I remeber him wildly beating me all over, including my face. I would NEVER let him make me cry, so he would beat me harder. I had welts all over…didn’t my mother see them? I still wonder about this. Knowing what I know now about my mom, I doubt she picked up on the cues. My mom was sexually abused by her uncle from the time she was a toddler until she was an older child. I don’t know to what extent she was molested, because I never wanted to hear the sexual details…something I regret, which I will go into later. Much to my disgust, I learned from her that her abuse was not only condoned but facilitated by her grandmother. Where was her husband, my great-grandfather? My aunt witnessed mom being abused by their uncle. She told me that as far as she knew, it only happened once, and all he did was masturbate over my mom. She also told me that she got out my grandfather’s gun and told him to stop or she would shoot him. This is how my gram and pap found out about it. However, it was hidden and never spoken about for years, until my mother brought it up to them again. Mom told me that my pap said that he knew it was wrong, but that was his brother and he loved him, and that gram said she had 4 children to raise and didn’t know what else to do. I hate this because now it causes me to see my beloved grandparents in a different light…ugly and disturbing, in a way. I don’t hate them…I still love them and have great memories, but I feel the regret and shame of my family’s dark past. It’s like a sickness, a dark shadow that covers your soul. Before I go on with my story, I wanted to finish my mom’s. She stayed married to my dad, mostly because he became ill and she vowed to take care of him. He stopped drinking and calmed down, but he was still pretty much closed and emotionally unavailable. He told us he loved us, but, did he, really? Anyway, my dad died when I was 16, my brother 13. Mom took the life insurance proceeds and started a business that eventually failed. Her business partner turned out to be a pedophile and drug/alcohol abuser. I know he’s a pedophile because he sexually assaulted me at 16, repeatedly. We eventually lost the business and our home. This began my mom’s struggle with alcoholism, which eventually caused her death. The last few years before her death, her depression, anxiety and alcohol use was out of control, because she finally was trying to deal with her history of sexual and physical abuse. She took her life this past August. I feel that if I just would have let her tell me everyting about her abuse, maybe she would have made some progress in her healing. I just couldnt bear to her the gory details because: 1. I didn’t want to visualize my mom being victimized that way; 2. I struggle with my own sexual abuse issues, and 3. I didn’t feel equipped to help her. I’m wondering if her victimization numbed her to the cues that something was happening to me. When I was 12, I was sexually assaulted by an older neighborhood boy, who in turn told his friends. A gang of them sexually assaulted me a few days after that. I was ridiculed mercilessly by schoolmates. I had few friends and was robbed of a “normal” teen life. This led me to a life of promiscuity and a physically & emotionally abusive marriage (my 2nd). I am married now for the 3rd time and still have sexual issues. I have been struggling with anxiety, depression, low-self worth, shame and guilt for 30 years now. I feel ready to give up hope that I will ever be whole. I read stories like yours and feel that my stuff isn’t as bad. What’s wrong with me then? I feel like everything that happened to me is my fault. I feel that those who are truly happy are stronger or luckier than me; stories of healing are too good to be true. However, i still have a glimmer of hope left…thank you for your story!
Kim
I’m so sorry for all the heartache you have gone thru. Living in abuse and being abused seems too much to bare at times, but the good news is that there is hope for healing. I hope you remain hopeful and get help to help you sort out the pain and shame you feel. I started by reading books about healing and abuse. Have you visited our facebook support group? It’s such a help. you don’t have to comment if you don’t want to, but the information that is shared by other survivors is so encouraging and helpful.
I do hope that you stop comparing your life with others. Abuse is abuse. it doesn’t matter how much one has gone thru, what matters is how it effects each individual. We are all different and have lived thru different things, but abuse is abuse. There is none greater than the other, the effects are the same. You deserve to know that you are valuable and the things you have lived thru has caused you great pain. Understandable pain and there is a way out. A way to feel good about yourself and love life and be happy. And you deserve it. Hang in there. I care, and many more care. ((hug)) patty
It is so comforting to know that I’m not alone. Thank you for sharing your story. I believe in the power of community to heal wounds like these.
I’ve had a number of experiences, but the first (and worst) didn’t happen until I was 19. I started dating a guy that very quickly turned out to be abusive emotionally, verbally and sexually. He was a hard-core Christian, so the fact that we weren’t married meant that we never had sex, but he did force me (via guilt-trip) into sexual situations. I was never attracted to him, even from day 1. So how did I end up dating him? I was too afraid to say no when he asked me out. I was so terrified of “being mean” or hurting someone’s feelings… I’m sure you understand. It was six months of abuse so intense and terrifying that my therapist has actually said that it was one of the most intense cases she’s ever heard about.
This, as you might expect, led to promiscuity, usually with men I wasn’t interested in, and more abusive situations. Enter self-hatred and self-injury.
Eleven years later, relationships are difficult for me now, particularly sexually, and even my marriage is a struggle sometimes because of all these latent fears and bullshit expectations (that never materialize, because I married the elusive Reasonable Human Being). I have major trust issues, which may never fully go away.
In recent months I’ve come to a huge realization, though – that what this all comes down to is CONTROL. At some point in our childhoods, we’re taught that our bodies are not our own. We’re taught that appeasing someone else is more important than our own feelings. (There was actually an article on CNN.com a few weeks back called “I don’t own my child’s body” about how forcing children to give hugs and kisses to relatives and friends when they don’t want to can be very damaging and can lead to unhealthy situations like the ones we’ve experienced here). I was certainly raised in a classic authoritarian household, where every ounce of control was taken from me because I was a child, and in my parents’ eyes, not to be trusted.
I feel like I’ve been robbed of a crucial, joyful part of my life.
I’m just now learning that my body is MINE. That my body is NOT a democracy – it’s a dictatorship and the only person who gets to decide what happens to it is ME. This is an important first step for me, both toward sexual healing and learning to turn self-hatred into love. But even this step took me almost 11 years to achieve. I’m grateful for stumbling across this site, and looking forward to all the resources available.
Thanks again, Patty.
Lily,
Im so sorry for all the horrible things that have happened to you.
I am grateful that you are understanding the abusive world and the lies and false beliefs that we were taught as children and how it effects us today. there is hope tho and the more we heal, the more we can discover the truth.
Realizing that our bodies and what is done to it is a great achievement and one that can change us and help us with making choices and nurturing ourselves. We are valuable and we deserve to be treated that way.
Learning how to say NO was one of the hardest things for me in the beginning, but now, since I value myself, it has become very easy. Walking away from others who are harmful has become so much easier too.
Thank you for sharing and I hope the best for you. It’s never too late. Patty
I can’t believe that I am still ashamed of what happened to me as a child. I have only told one other person, my mother, and she didn’t believe me so I never spoke about it again. Growing up was horrible. I was neglected by my parents, abused by a couple of neighbors. My mother dropped me off at night once at this stranger’s house. It was a man she knew but one that I did not. This man had a son. I remember looking at the man as I walked in the apartment. He repulsed me because of his size and smell. I did not want to sit next to this man so I wandered around the house and ended up in the kitchen where the son was. All I remember were this guy’s glasses and dark eyes.
He asked me if I were hungry. I said yes. Moments later he came back into the kitchen with a plate of his feces. I began to cry quietly. I remember him saying ‘what, you don’t want it?’ I remember shaking my head afraid to leave the room. I left anyway, and went in to sit next to the fat man. The man was gross but he was not abusing me– this made him seem nice. I eventually fell asleep. I remember the next day I was home again and sitting outside feeling very heavy, dark and ashamed. I was hiding in the dark basement of myself. I came out momentarily to feel the warmth of that late afternoon and to watch the red/orange sunset and when I did this it felt like the sun was burning my eyes — like I had just come out of the dark and into the blazing light.
I realize now that the patterns throughout the rest of my life were fashioned after this abuse. My whole life (after this abuse) I’ve never felt like I existed. Life has always been a spectacle rather than something to participate in. I abused substances to forget– always ending waking up (literally and figuratively) in some dark place–always with a man who was abusing me in some way. I could never figure out why I was in these places. Despair, self-loathing, pissed that I was alive, suicidal: these were the staples of my life.
I am in substance abuse recovery now and am beginning to heal from all of the wounds. I do not think that I will ever be normal. I still hate myself tremendously–I am having a difficult time with accepting myself. I am having a the worst time with relaxing and just loving and feeling things. I find myself shutting off and ignoring my own heart– afraid something horrible will happen if I go there.
I just wanted to say this stuff out loud.
Anne,
I’m so sorry for how you were treated. I can’t imagine being dropped off at a strangers house like that, and the thought of doing that to my child, any child is beyond my understanding. I can certainly understand why you feel the way you do. You were treated with no value so of course you are going to feel that way thru out your life.
I”m so glad that you are in recovery. When the time comes, I hope that you continue to find a path to heal from your abuse. I do believe that we can be normal and have seen the results in my own life as well as others. It doesn’t mean that we will ever forget the abuse but it does mean that the abuse does not rule our lives. We can live life without punishing ourselves and blaming ourselves.
When the adults in our life doesn’t protect us and treat us as valuable, we are so quick to believe that we aren’ t valuable, which in turn causes us to treat ourselves that way. I ran to drugs early in my life and made some bad choices thru out my life, but the more I heal from my dysfunctional upbringing and my abuse, the more I care about myself. And that is what is so important. Once I started to care about myself, then it helped me to balance my life. I could then put up healthy boundaries, guard myself from others abuse, guard myself from doing destructive things to harm me.
I know it is a hard to believe that we are valuable when others have treated us like we aren’t. But we are. You are. Once I started to get angry about the way I was treated, then it was like I had a driving force behind me to do what ever it took to gain true self back. You didn’t deserve to be treated that way. You deserve so much better and there is hope of living without that abusive world guiding your path. ((hug))
Im 16, this story is really inspiring. Ive just spoken up about Sexual abuse that happened when i was 9 with my step dad, and how my mom covered it up. Im taking both of them to court now, im totally torn, and i hate that ive ruined my family. Thanks for your story, it really is amazing
Shay, You didn’t ruin your family. They chose that path by the decisions that they made. You are not guilty. It was torn apart long before you ever spoke up. I used to think that too because when I spoke up my siblings do everything to try and convince me that I am wrong, and I need to forgive and I need to get over it. But I finally realized that it wasn’t because I am talking about, it’s because they have always been that way. I was never good enough and I always felt like they shut me down. That I had nothing important to say. Well, it’s not any different now. They are still trying to get me to shut up.
Are you involved in any support groups?? I’d like to invite you to our facebook support group overcoming sexua abuse. it helps to know that we are not alone. And you don’t have to say a thing if you don’t want to, but reading other familiar stories like your own, may help you to realize that you are not at fault. Patty
My siblings do that too: try to act like I’m the one who’s done everything to destroy the dynamics (which is a laugh b/c there never WERE any NORMAL dynamics) and one of them even threatened to visit physical violence on anyone who brought up anything like it again.
They like to try to have everyone believe that THEY have reSPECT for the abusers but, if that were true, they wouldn’t have buried the abuser dressed in death the way she NEVER appeared in life and then told lies about who she was as if they were too ashamed to even represent the real her.
If that’s what they’re calling respect, I hope they have nothing but disrespect for ME when I die. According to The Grief Recovery Institute, that’s not grief work at all and will keep you locked in grief forever unless you change it.
But people in my family left and when I told and are still mostly gone. They seem like they’re never going to recall the truth or stop treating the abusers like enshrined people, whom can do no wrong, and I don’t even try to get them to anymore.
But its so hard to not think like that, i mean so much of my family think im lying and making it up. Theyre all telling me to stop but i dont have any control over this, child services are involved :/ No im not, that would be great whats it called?
Vicki,
I used to think it was my responsibility to make others understand how I was feeling. Especially my family. I wanted them to understand my pain. But after many years of trying I realize that I can’t be responsible for their decisions. I can only guard myself from them hurting me by their decisions. I just don’t care any more. I have more important things to do with my life, and I am living my life in spite of them. They have to live with their choices and I have to live with mine. I’ve surrounded myself with people who do care and support me and have replaced the need to have those who don’t believe me, on my side. Patty
The facebook support page is called Overcoming Sexual Abuse. It’s a great group of survivors who share their accomplishments and storys about healing and their struggles during this process. Hope you join us. Patty
Wow…what a story! I’m so sorry for all that happened to you!
For what its worth…I doubt your sister was only molested by your father that one time. The car was probably one of a series of gifts that were given to her over the years to buy her silence. The abuse likely went on for MANY years.
Knitted,
Yes, I’m sure that she was abused in one way or another her whole life. That is what is so tragic. I only wish that she could have been released from her pain before she passed away. A whole life ruined because of abuse. It’s so sad to know that there are many, many others who have lived this tragedy. Patty
I was 7…. I witnessed my father having sex with my 3 year old sister.
Later in life…the same sister at the age of 45 witnessed my father having deep throat with another woman.
…. today… my sister is a wreck. Thanks for sharing. There are other out there, and it is nice to know,…it happens to other. Regards.