~I Am A Survivor Of Abuse Not a Victim~
I received a lot of response regarding my last post. I am grateful for the people who wrote to me expressing their understanding of what I have been going through. It's sad to think how many of us don't truly believe that we deserve love so we ruin every chance to achieve happiness with another human being.
When I think about men and the part that they played in my life for so long it doesn't surprise me that I have become almost indifferent to the entire race. Don't get me wrong, I love men and I could not be happy with someone of the same sex, but when almost every man in your childhood was intimidating, abusive and less than respectful it isn't a stretch to have the next decade of my life be filled with confusion and fear.
Today a childhood friend messaged me on face book. She was helping her family member to deal with the billing for his small company that I deal with. She was e-mailing me to straighten out a payment that I had made. Anyway, I found myself in a strange place. Here was a girl that I grew up with, slept at her house, and, oh, by the way, her step-Grandfather was the one who molested me at 7, and she was non-chalantly messaging me about a bill. I felt like in all the world, of all the subjects, how dare she allow herself to come to me in such a manner. Not only because of what had been done to me by her own family member but also because we were friends for the first 10 or so years of our young lives. I just felt intruded upon.
So, anyway, once the bill was discussed and she realized that I had made the payment she was messaging about she asked me how I was and what I was up to. Wow, would I ever have liked to tell her. Still, before replying I sat talking to my husband about it. I remembered several things that I had always thought of when I played out a possible run in with this old friend. First of all, let's say I was to write back to her and start telling her about my life. Let's say I was to talk about the molestation, how it ruined my life and relationships due to the fact that I never trusted men. What if I had recounted to her all the times that, as a kid, after being invited to a friends house, I would come up with a million reasons why I couldn't go but when I finally did go I would often go into a comatose-like state of shock when I found myself in the same house with a friends father or other man-figure. What if I told her that when it was time to actually go to sleep I couldn't because I was so afraid the minute I would close my eyes a man would come into the room and abuse me?
Should I have told her that the place where it happened, the apartment building a town away, stood there to me like a dirty secret, a place that no matter how much I tried, would make me sick to my stomach and start crying sometimes when I would drive passed? Should I have told her that I felt so alone after it happened because once I went home I never again heard from her, that she stopped talking to me and inviting me to play? Should I have told her that it felt like it was all my fault? Perhaps I should have told her that all I wanted was to be able to talk to her, to know that I wasn't alone. That she was hurt but okay too. That even though I had been taught to respect my elders and do what they say, that what he had done never seemed right.That I was afraid if I told someone, my parents, a friend, that they would blame me and worse, be disgusted by me? Her Grandfather never threatened me like some men do but he told me it was a secret between us. He said I would get into trouble if I told.
I could have told her how I felt so low about my own body, and so dirty that I would have rather been very ugly (although honestly I did feel ugly) so that no man would ever want me...That I was a virgin for a very long time but that once I had consensual sex (the first time was not so ), I felt like I owed it to the man to just do it and not complain no matter what.
Maybe she should know that I never could trust men, even my husband of many years, because I associated being molested by her Grandfather while his own wife slept in the other room as a statement that all men must cheat and want young, innocent girls...And even now that I have learned to trust him when he comes up behind me and touches me I cringe and shrink away from him. He feels so hurt when it has nothing to do with him except that he is a man.
I might have told her that growing up, babysitting other children, I was overly careful, so worried that I might "turn into" an abuser. Although the feeling of wanting to do it never struck me, I always worried that I might do something to give someone the wrong impression. I heard many times that people who are molested that don't deal with it sometimes become molesters themselves. That idea scared the hell out of me. Even writing it now I am sick to my stomach. Years after it happened when I came out and told my Mother what had happened I soon got into counseling. There was no way I was ever EVER going to make any other person feel the way I was made to feel. NEVER!
I went to my friends house to have fun and sleep over. I instead was brought by her to her Grandparents apartment where my friend and I were molested. I went home the next day full of confusion, pain and a future of self-doubt and hate. should I have told her that?
See, here's the thing...I don't know if my friend has dealt with what happened that night. She may have blocked it out in order to deal with it. That night may have been the first time her Grandfather molested her or the hundredth time. My friend may have brought me there knowing what I was in store for. Or she may have brought me there thinking her Grandfather would only touch her and when he molested me too she may have become jealous. Yes, I said it. jealous. Believe it or not, when little girls or boys grow up being molested by a family member or any other trusted person, they start to believe that it is the way things should be. They might learn to (and I use this next word very carefully) Like it because they don't know any better. Sometimes they never like it but fear for a threatened family member. I am certainly not saying that my friend liked it or that she was or wasn't used to it. As I said, she never, ever spoke to me again after that day when she dropped me off. until the message on face book today I hadn't seen her for many years, She left our school and went elsewhere at some point. Immediately after it had happened I remember my friend and I going into the bathroom and talking about it. I remember being very scared but she was kinda laughing so I tried to pretend it didn't bother me. I remember everything that night but I don't remember why the hell I didn't run home. It's strange to think now that I had dealt with such a strange thing, something that I am pretty sure never happened to me before that night, and that I tried to act okay about it. It makes me furious with myself.
That's why I didn't ask her. What if she is blocking it out and I am the one to bring it forward or she doesn't remember and calls me a liar. What if I cause something to come out that she isn't ready to deal with and she suffers a terrible breakdown.
Then again, what if she does remember everything, every detail including the items on the counter and the television show playing on the tiny television? What if she has it so clear in her head but she does blame herself for me being there? I know what I can deal with but I don't pretend to know what other people can muster.
No, I can't bring this up to her. It's something that I will have to continue to deal with alone. Sure, I know that I am not completely alone, other people have dealt with molestation...Still, as each person who has gone through it knows, there is only yourself in the dead, darkest of night, crying, wondering if you will ever really get over the pain and emotional upset. In a room of a million don't we all, no matter what abuses or problems we suffer, feel alone?
And we are. So, I have learned slowly but surely that I need to trust myself. I need to listen to that voice inside of my own head when it tells me not to trust someone, especially when it comes to my two children. No one other than my own parents and Kevin's and a few, very close friends, have ever taken care of my kids. I almost never went out anyway but when I did, I would never leave them with just anyone. I see and hear of people who let strangers babysit their kids and my heart stops. I cannot imagine what these people are thinking, what kind of trust they have or how they have surrendered their need to protect their kids to plain old hope. It makes me angry when parents have more interest in going out to a bar than being sure that the person that they are leaving their children with are safe. Let's face it, there are too many people that we DO trust, that we think we really, truly know that let us down and do just what we were trying to keep our kids from...I know this predicament all to well too but that's a blog for a whole other day if I can ever bring myself to write about it...
The point is that life is too precious, our kids are gifts that we are so very lucky to have...It is our job to keep them safe No matter what. If it means not going out on the town, not working for a while till we find a good sitter, bringing our kids with us everywhere, we are their only real protectors. So that no child has to go through what I and many other kids have had to endure, please don't trust just anyone and never, ever teach your kids to automatically trust someone just because they are "their elders" or because they are priests, teachers, policeman, etc...Its tough to teach but there are ways to let them know how to get through life being respectful without being taken advantage of...Still, if (God forbid) something does happen to spite your trying to be careful and teaching your kids well, let your kids know that they are not to blame for being abused. That is the hardest thing about being molested. Not only do I live with what he did to me but because I chose not to tell anyone right away I also didn't get him in trouble. God only knows how many other poor kids he molested. My Mother still blamed herself for not making me press charges for the pain I felt. She used to tell me that I might have had closure if I had had a chance to put the jerk away. The thing is that I never would have had closure until I am ready to really deal with it. I just wish I could go back to save any other victims. Still I can't
Our society now is very open in educating our kids about strangers and abuse. Back when I was 7 we didn't have classes and forums about abuse. It wasn't until years later that a person came to our school to talk to us about molestation...Kids are taught very early now how to get help, who to tell and so on. When I was growing up I was never explained what had happened to me until I was a teenager. For years I walked around knowing something bad had happened, something that made me feel awful, but didn't know that I wasn't alone and that it wasn't my fault...
If a child is abuse to spite your best efforts to know their friends, where they are going and with who...If they are touched after you have carefully educated them about "good touch, bad touch", let them know that telling a trusted adult is the best thing that they can do. Let them know that they didn't do anything wrong, that it was the fault of the sick individual who did it. Don't force them but offer them the chance to bring their abusers to justice. If they cannot do it, if they find that they can't face their accuser, it is okay. It doesn't mean that you and others as adults can't keep a good eye out and make sure that other family's kids are safe for now on.
There is so much more to say about this subject but I will end it for now with this~ If my friend whose Grandfather molested me happens to be reading this, (or you are anyone who feels to blame for another person's experience with this) please know that I don't blame you. I don't hold any anger or resentment towards you. Even if you had been raped by your Grandfather before and knew when you brought me there that it might happen to me, I am not mad at you. We were kids,we had no control over where we went or with who. I have worried more about you in the past 20 years or so. I think about how you must have felt so very alone and lost. I can only hope that you too have gotten psychological help and that you, like me, have a way of dealing with your pain and grief for losing your innocence to a sick man.
I hope you have a great group of family and friends who support you as I do and that you don't let this get you down but use it to help others. If my being molested and talking candidly about it helps even one other person to realize that they are not alone, not to blame and are still beautiful and precious, then I am happy to be the voice for your pain.
We are all survivors of our abuse, our pain and experiences, not victims...Never Victims!
~Stacy J. Roosa
April 25, 2010
2am
When I think about men and the part that they played in my life for so long it doesn't surprise me that I have become almost indifferent to the entire race. Don't get me wrong, I love men and I could not be happy with someone of the same sex, but when almost every man in your childhood was intimidating, abusive and less than respectful it isn't a stretch to have the next decade of my life be filled with confusion and fear.
Today a childhood friend messaged me on face book. She was helping her family member to deal with the billing for his small company that I deal with. She was e-mailing me to straighten out a payment that I had made. Anyway, I found myself in a strange place. Here was a girl that I grew up with, slept at her house, and, oh, by the way, her step-Grandfather was the one who molested me at 7, and she was non-chalantly messaging me about a bill. I felt like in all the world, of all the subjects, how dare she allow herself to come to me in such a manner. Not only because of what had been done to me by her own family member but also because we were friends for the first 10 or so years of our young lives. I just felt intruded upon.
So, anyway, once the bill was discussed and she realized that I had made the payment she was messaging about she asked me how I was and what I was up to. Wow, would I ever have liked to tell her. Still, before replying I sat talking to my husband about it. I remembered several things that I had always thought of when I played out a possible run in with this old friend. First of all, let's say I was to write back to her and start telling her about my life. Let's say I was to talk about the molestation, how it ruined my life and relationships due to the fact that I never trusted men. What if I had recounted to her all the times that, as a kid, after being invited to a friends house, I would come up with a million reasons why I couldn't go but when I finally did go I would often go into a comatose-like state of shock when I found myself in the same house with a friends father or other man-figure. What if I told her that when it was time to actually go to sleep I couldn't because I was so afraid the minute I would close my eyes a man would come into the room and abuse me?
Should I have told her that the place where it happened, the apartment building a town away, stood there to me like a dirty secret, a place that no matter how much I tried, would make me sick to my stomach and start crying sometimes when I would drive passed? Should I have told her that I felt so alone after it happened because once I went home I never again heard from her, that she stopped talking to me and inviting me to play? Should I have told her that it felt like it was all my fault? Perhaps I should have told her that all I wanted was to be able to talk to her, to know that I wasn't alone. That she was hurt but okay too. That even though I had been taught to respect my elders and do what they say, that what he had done never seemed right.That I was afraid if I told someone, my parents, a friend, that they would blame me and worse, be disgusted by me? Her Grandfather never threatened me like some men do but he told me it was a secret between us. He said I would get into trouble if I told.
I could have told her how I felt so low about my own body, and so dirty that I would have rather been very ugly (although honestly I did feel ugly) so that no man would ever want me...That I was a virgin for a very long time but that once I had consensual sex (the first time was not so ), I felt like I owed it to the man to just do it and not complain no matter what.
Maybe she should know that I never could trust men, even my husband of many years, because I associated being molested by her Grandfather while his own wife slept in the other room as a statement that all men must cheat and want young, innocent girls...And even now that I have learned to trust him when he comes up behind me and touches me I cringe and shrink away from him. He feels so hurt when it has nothing to do with him except that he is a man.
I might have told her that growing up, babysitting other children, I was overly careful, so worried that I might "turn into" an abuser. Although the feeling of wanting to do it never struck me, I always worried that I might do something to give someone the wrong impression. I heard many times that people who are molested that don't deal with it sometimes become molesters themselves. That idea scared the hell out of me. Even writing it now I am sick to my stomach. Years after it happened when I came out and told my Mother what had happened I soon got into counseling. There was no way I was ever EVER going to make any other person feel the way I was made to feel. NEVER!
I went to my friends house to have fun and sleep over. I instead was brought by her to her Grandparents apartment where my friend and I were molested. I went home the next day full of confusion, pain and a future of self-doubt and hate. should I have told her that?
See, here's the thing...I don't know if my friend has dealt with what happened that night. She may have blocked it out in order to deal with it. That night may have been the first time her Grandfather molested her or the hundredth time. My friend may have brought me there knowing what I was in store for. Or she may have brought me there thinking her Grandfather would only touch her and when he molested me too she may have become jealous. Yes, I said it. jealous. Believe it or not, when little girls or boys grow up being molested by a family member or any other trusted person, they start to believe that it is the way things should be. They might learn to (and I use this next word very carefully) Like it because they don't know any better. Sometimes they never like it but fear for a threatened family member. I am certainly not saying that my friend liked it or that she was or wasn't used to it. As I said, she never, ever spoke to me again after that day when she dropped me off. until the message on face book today I hadn't seen her for many years, She left our school and went elsewhere at some point. Immediately after it had happened I remember my friend and I going into the bathroom and talking about it. I remember being very scared but she was kinda laughing so I tried to pretend it didn't bother me. I remember everything that night but I don't remember why the hell I didn't run home. It's strange to think now that I had dealt with such a strange thing, something that I am pretty sure never happened to me before that night, and that I tried to act okay about it. It makes me furious with myself.
That's why I didn't ask her. What if she is blocking it out and I am the one to bring it forward or she doesn't remember and calls me a liar. What if I cause something to come out that she isn't ready to deal with and she suffers a terrible breakdown.
Then again, what if she does remember everything, every detail including the items on the counter and the television show playing on the tiny television? What if she has it so clear in her head but she does blame herself for me being there? I know what I can deal with but I don't pretend to know what other people can muster.
No, I can't bring this up to her. It's something that I will have to continue to deal with alone. Sure, I know that I am not completely alone, other people have dealt with molestation...Still, as each person who has gone through it knows, there is only yourself in the dead, darkest of night, crying, wondering if you will ever really get over the pain and emotional upset. In a room of a million don't we all, no matter what abuses or problems we suffer, feel alone?
And we are. So, I have learned slowly but surely that I need to trust myself. I need to listen to that voice inside of my own head when it tells me not to trust someone, especially when it comes to my two children. No one other than my own parents and Kevin's and a few, very close friends, have ever taken care of my kids. I almost never went out anyway but when I did, I would never leave them with just anyone. I see and hear of people who let strangers babysit their kids and my heart stops. I cannot imagine what these people are thinking, what kind of trust they have or how they have surrendered their need to protect their kids to plain old hope. It makes me angry when parents have more interest in going out to a bar than being sure that the person that they are leaving their children with are safe. Let's face it, there are too many people that we DO trust, that we think we really, truly know that let us down and do just what we were trying to keep our kids from...I know this predicament all to well too but that's a blog for a whole other day if I can ever bring myself to write about it...
The point is that life is too precious, our kids are gifts that we are so very lucky to have...It is our job to keep them safe No matter what. If it means not going out on the town, not working for a while till we find a good sitter, bringing our kids with us everywhere, we are their only real protectors. So that no child has to go through what I and many other kids have had to endure, please don't trust just anyone and never, ever teach your kids to automatically trust someone just because they are "their elders" or because they are priests, teachers, policeman, etc...Its tough to teach but there are ways to let them know how to get through life being respectful without being taken advantage of...Still, if (God forbid) something does happen to spite your trying to be careful and teaching your kids well, let your kids know that they are not to blame for being abused. That is the hardest thing about being molested. Not only do I live with what he did to me but because I chose not to tell anyone right away I also didn't get him in trouble. God only knows how many other poor kids he molested. My Mother still blamed herself for not making me press charges for the pain I felt. She used to tell me that I might have had closure if I had had a chance to put the jerk away. The thing is that I never would have had closure until I am ready to really deal with it. I just wish I could go back to save any other victims. Still I can't
Our society now is very open in educating our kids about strangers and abuse. Back when I was 7 we didn't have classes and forums about abuse. It wasn't until years later that a person came to our school to talk to us about molestation...Kids are taught very early now how to get help, who to tell and so on. When I was growing up I was never explained what had happened to me until I was a teenager. For years I walked around knowing something bad had happened, something that made me feel awful, but didn't know that I wasn't alone and that it wasn't my fault...
If a child is abuse to spite your best efforts to know their friends, where they are going and with who...If they are touched after you have carefully educated them about "good touch, bad touch", let them know that telling a trusted adult is the best thing that they can do. Let them know that they didn't do anything wrong, that it was the fault of the sick individual who did it. Don't force them but offer them the chance to bring their abusers to justice. If they cannot do it, if they find that they can't face their accuser, it is okay. It doesn't mean that you and others as adults can't keep a good eye out and make sure that other family's kids are safe for now on.
There is so much more to say about this subject but I will end it for now with this~ If my friend whose Grandfather molested me happens to be reading this, (or you are anyone who feels to blame for another person's experience with this) please know that I don't blame you. I don't hold any anger or resentment towards you. Even if you had been raped by your Grandfather before and knew when you brought me there that it might happen to me, I am not mad at you. We were kids,we had no control over where we went or with who. I have worried more about you in the past 20 years or so. I think about how you must have felt so very alone and lost. I can only hope that you too have gotten psychological help and that you, like me, have a way of dealing with your pain and grief for losing your innocence to a sick man.
I hope you have a great group of family and friends who support you as I do and that you don't let this get you down but use it to help others. If my being molested and talking candidly about it helps even one other person to realize that they are not alone, not to blame and are still beautiful and precious, then I am happy to be the voice for your pain.
We are all survivors of our abuse, our pain and experiences, not victims...Never Victims!
~Stacy J. Roosa
April 25, 2010
2am
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