If you've been sexually abused you know the trauma we go through. Some of us are left devastated, unable to function. We take our own lives, we cut ourselves, we starve ourselves or overeat, we become sexually dysfunctional, we choose unstable and abusive relationships and we feel less than. We lack self-esteem, self-worth and lack confidence. We don't assume control over our own lives because our perpetrator controlled every aspect of our lives, yet we get angry when someone else tries to control us and we don't know why. We know we're suffering and we ask ourselves why? Why did someone do such a heinous thing to me? Most times it is someone we trusted. "What did I do wrong.." we ask ourselves over and over? Nothing! We did absolutely nothing wrong so lets stop blaming ourselves! Someone else decided to make us part of their dysfunction so let's start putting the blame where it belongs, on the perpetrator! I did nothing wrong! You did nothing wrong!
We need to start speaking out about our victimization. Committing sexual abuse should be taboo, not talking about it. We need to start exposing these predators for what they are, the person who is slick at manipulation and covering their tracks. This is a person who takes responsibility for nothing in their lives, the "blamer", the person who always looks for someone else to hold responsibility for what they've done, the parasitic blight who will stalk and destroy an innocent without blinking an eye.
In 1988 I began to break down, emotionally, physically and mentally. I was miserable and I didn't know why. In one month I gained forty-eight pounds and another forty pounds the next month. I was diagnosed with Epstein-Barr and it took me one and one-half years to get back on my feet to some degree of function. It wouldn't be until 1992 that I would find out what was wrong with me. Sounds funny doesn't it? What...was wrong with me...
I repressed my memories of incest until I was 49 years old. I began having horrible nightmares. I began waking up between 3:00 a.m. - 3:15 a.m. again. I'd started doing that around 1980, but after our home burned down in 1981 I was faced with new responsibilities of rebuilding our home so waking up at that time of night seemed to subside. I didn't know why I would awake at that particular time each night. A friend once asked me, "What happened to you at that time of night?" I didn't know. What I did know was when I awoke at that time, I was truly scared to death. I would barely breathe. I wouldn't even swallow for fear of making noise. I would lie very still, listening...for something, tightly clutching my blankets waiting, frightened beyond words, my heart pounding, but I didn't know why or what I was waiting for. Sometimes I would awake during the night, desperately gasping for breath, like someone was sitting on my chest.
I suffered horrible and disgusting flashbacks. I'd view, in my mind's eye, sexual acts forced upon an infant by my father. I knew that infant. It was me! These horrible acts took place on my father's bed in a home I remembered living in as a child on McKay Street in Norwich, CT.
I had trouble sleeping. I'd sit and cry for no reason. I had everything I needed and wanted, yet I wasn't happy. I began to isolate. I wouldn't answer the phone. If someone knocked at my door I wouldn't answer it. I began to lock myself in the house and would get upset if Dave went to work and didn't lock the door when he left. Nothing made sense to me and I was driving my family crazy so I went to see my family doctor, the only man I'd ever kept for medical reasons. All my other doctors were female. He listened, then advised he felt the chances of sexual abuse were 99% and told me not to face this alone and recommended therapy. We spoke for 3 hours that day, no charge. A man, outside of my husband, I hold dear to my heart. A man, one of few, whom I hold respect for and trust in.
I checked into a hospital in California that had coordinated a program to deal with issues of sexual abuse. I underwent intense therapy for thirty days and still did not want to accept what I felt deep down had to be true. I was in denial, afterall, daddy wouldn't do this to me....daddy's don't do this to their little girls...
I came home and found Dot, a wonderful therapist who I stayed with for a little over two years. Some survivors are not so lucky. It is felt as many as five therapists can be obtained and discarded before finding the right one. Don't be afraid to discard a therapist you feel uncomfortable with. This is the person you'll share and build trust with. This is the person you will be telling intimate details too. If you feel less than comfortable talking to this person, find someone else! It will only be to your benefit. You must remember that therapists come from different schools of theory and may not approach your therapy in a manner you may need. For instance, a therapist who believes in the "behavior modification" theory will try to modify your behavior, not treat the cause. Ask! Be informed!
Afterwards I decided to try and find someone who did regression therapy. It was being used as an alternative therapy and I'd heard some good results were being found. I knew I needed more therapy and felt I wanted to try it. Dot and I discussed this alternative method as we both felt I had gone as far as I could with her. I found a psychiatrist. He was well known, a speaker, a writer and published, charged a lot of money and had even appeared on television! This had to be the guy for me! I found out very quickly someone well known, a speaker, a published writer who charges a lot and a television guest doesn't mean they'll be a good therapist. I followed "the rule" and discarded him. All this man accomplished was to reinforce my feelings about mistrusting men. When I confronted him, yes I did so you know I was making some progress, I told him I didn't feel he was very ethical placing me in a "hypothetical situation" not knowing if I would react in a suicidal manner. He said, "Well Sheri...you know...you're much smarter than most of my other patients...most wouldn't have even figured that out." I also told him I would not return as his patient because he had violated my trust in him. Be careful choosing a therapist. If you feel uncomfortable talking about your abuse just leave and find a new therapist you can feel safe with. You'll know when that happens! You'll feel safe.
Somehow I still didn't feel "healed". There was no "closure" for me. During therapy with Dot she suggested I try writing my father an "anger letter", as a way of dealing with, and getting out my anger since I wouldn't be able to confront him. I did write that letter...and I mailed it. I mailed it to my father's place of work and I mailed it unsealed. I was taking a stand against my father for the first time in my life. I couldn't mail it to him at home because one sister still chose to live with him and I knew she'd tear it up. It is not unusual for victims to want to protect their perpetrator. I needed to know he'd gotten it. It was the only way I could strike out against my father and any closure I would know to date. At this point in his life my father had given up carpentry and taken a job at General Dynamics. I told him in my letter, "One day I'll be there, you're not getting away with this! I'll be waiting for you when you walk out that gate at closing time and in front of everyone I'll confront you. I'm going to tell everybody how you repeatedly raped your four daughters!" Within the month daddy retired. Now he didn't feel safe and for the first time in my life, I felt empowered!
In Connecticut it used to be if you didn't remember your abuse by age 35 you had no legal recourse. I believe it is now 3 years after you remember. My father should have been prosecuted as I had a strong case with witnesses, but due to the statute of limitations, I had no legal rights and once again my father slithered away, free from the responsibility of sexually abusing his four daughters.
My father, isolated me from home and those I loved. I never realized he'd done that to me until Dot and I discussed a perpetrator's need to isolate their victim and keep them from telling "the secret". Dot asked how I felt about visiting family members and friends now that I knew I could. She felt this was a time I needed the support of friends and especially family that had been taken away. I said the thought scared me to death, but I felt I wanted to do that and I did! It was the best time for me! I stayed with this friend or that family member. What really surprised me was most were not surprised at my story. Friends told me they always felt my father was "strange". One friend I've known since grammar school told me, "I know you didn't know it at the time Sheri, but when we'd go swimming your father would always hide behind the bushes and watch us. If we went behind your house to lay in the sun, he'd be behind another bush or I'd catch him watching us from behind the garage." She was right. I never knew, but this is not untypical behavior of a predator, afterall, he needs to know who you're talking to and what you're saying. Needless to say, I was not allowed friends.
Family members were now alerted to the fact their brother, uncle, grandfather, brother-in-law and father was a pedophile. Some members of my family didn't support me and this too is not unusual. Denial is a great state to reside in. When you live in denial you don't have to face the problem. Much to my surprise most of my family and friends did support me and I can't tell you how special that was to me! It's not unusual for the perpetrator of sexual abuse to silence his victims in any manner he deems necessary and I found out from relatives my father told them I was "too busy hob knobbing with the rich in New Jersey" since I had moved away from Connecticut. He told them I couldn't "be bothered with the family anymore" and I had "disowned the family" and "turned my back on the family" because "they embarrassed me". You can see how well liked I must have been and since the death of my mother in 1977, I did not seek my family out. You see, when I visited my siblings who still lived in Connecticut and mentioned I wanted to visit this aunt or that aunt, my father would say, "Oh boy! I just saw her last weekend and told her you were coming ...geez..what did you do to her!? Boy! Was she mad at you! She can hardly wait to see you to tell you off!" Even when my mom died my father didn't want me to attend her funeral. Why? That's where all my relatives and friends would be...we might talk. I bought my father's lies hook, line and sinker, afterall, why would daddy lie to me? So when I visited my sisters and brothers in Connecticut, I never went to see those other family members I was so close to. When you're raised with no self-confidence, no self-esteem, options are not a choice, as a matter of fact, control over your own life is also not something you are allowed to assume because the predator is always the person in control. The perpetrator controls who you see, where you go, the way you think and what you do. That's the way they keep their "secret" safe.
I was not allowed to talk on the phone. If my father found out that I did, he'd disconnect the phone wires until he got home, then he'd blame me because HE couldn't get carpentry jobs...no phone, no calls, no jobs, Sheri's fault! He was a self-employed carpenter before working for General Dynamics in Groton, and I now wonder how many youngsters he violated while getting paid on top of it! Did he quit because he was getting too close to being caught? Studies of pedophiles show victims usually number about 60 children per predator and let's be realistic...there is no better chance to violate than when a pedophile is self-employed like my father was, or a school bus driver or a worker at a school. Because of writing this page I have been told by one girl her perpetrator was her gymnastics coach! Why does this always surprise us? It shouldn't because:
My father physically, emotionaly and sexually abused me until I married Dave at age sixteen. Yes it was young, but the really unusual part is Dave & I are still married. This year we will celebrate our 46th anniversary. Dave is a very special man and I'm really glad he kept me. He has gone through hell with me because of the side effects and devastation of sexual abuse, another senseless victim of my father. I have three wonderful sons who encouraged me to come out with my abuse, but we need to add them to the tally, three more victims my father's abuse touched.
I don't talk to my father anymore. Yes, he's still alive, (it's year 2001), but I find there's no need for me at this time to say anything. He knows what he did to me and my three sisters. They, ironically, remembered their abuse, yet, we never discussed it. My sister, Darla, corroborated my memories of sexual abuse. We shared a bedroom and daddy would violate me while Darla covered her ears with her blankets, terrified, barely breathing, praying she wouldn't be next. She never forgot, I never remembered. Later, one of my aunts would also corroborate my abuse. Before my mother died she confided in her how my father had sexually abused me all those years. It would be the only way my mother attempted to "help" me. My father felt he was "entitled" to sex. I remember him yelling at my mother one day while she cried and pleaded with him as he was taking me down into the cellar. She begged him, "Leo, Please! Don't do this to her! She's so little.", but my father looked at her and spat, "This is my right as a man! And if you're not going to do it...she is!" I was not quite 4 years old.
He had produced 4 daughters and to him, a sexual harem, to pick and choose, delighted each time mom got pregnant and delivered another daughter, another victim for him to abuse. Sons were useless, "another mouth to feed!" I remember one day my mother was out hanging clothes on the line. I came home from school and went into the house. My father didn't hear me come in and I caught him molesting Darla. She was four years old! I ran outside to get my mother screaming at her, but when she came into the house my father was quietly looking out the front window over the lake we lived on. Mom questioned him and he said in a demeaning voice, "Who you gonna believe...her!? Or me!" As mom went to tend to Darla, my father looked at me, smiled, walked out the back door, got into his truck and didn't return until late that night. He'd won once again.
My mother died when she was only fifty-two years old and to this day I believe my father did absolutely nothing to help her live and did everything to help her die. I've spoken with some of my sisters and brothers and they feel the same. In 1995 while visiting Connecticut I was told by neighbors they had called the "Visiting Nurse Association" in our area to have a nurse, free of charge, come and take care of mom when she was so ill. They were appalled after visiting her one day and told me how she would lay in her own waste all day while my father worked, how she couldn't eat until he decided to come home. My father dismissed the nurse and was angry at the neighbors for calling the nurse in.
I needed to talk about my mom's death so I called Darla after returning from that visit to Connecticut and she told me how dad refused to buy needed medication for mom, even though General Dynamic's insurance paid for it all. Darla began to cry as we spoke about mom's early death, something we hadn't ever discussed before, no one ever wanted to. I told Darla I was concerned with all the weight mom had lost in such a short time...like she'd been starved. I began to tell Darla about the time I came home to see mom when she was in the hospital and how mom begged Dave & I to take her home with us because dad was starving her because she wouldn't have sex with him. Darla became hysterical crying and I had to ask why. She finally managed to say she too believed mom had been starved to death by dad because when she'd visit mom she said she would usually bring a sandwich with her. Darla said mom would grab the sandwich from her, tearing the paper viciously trying to get the sandwich out, shoving whatever she could pull off from the sandwich into her mouth. Eventually Darla confronted dad and he forbid Darla to visit mom again. Mom died shortly after that, and since 1977, Darla has never forgiven herself for mom's death. She felt she should have been more assertive and should have defied dad's demands. I ask, who's really to blame? How convenient for daddy dearest to have Darla carry the blame?
Further suspicions arose when I obtained mom's death certificate. I was startled to see the doctor my father called to attend mom's death was an old family doctor of ours, many, many years retired. He could barely scribble his name on the death certificate, but was a "safe" person to call. A neighbor told me my mother lay dead all day, yet my father never called anyone until she told him to. My father needed time to think, he didn't want somebody who would question mom's death and emaciated condition. I once asked my father why an autopsy was never performed. He laughed and bragged to me how he fought the State of Connecticut and denied that autopsy, "I told them it was against my religion." This monster wouldn't know how to pray if his own life depended on it, but the State of Connecticut bought dad's lies and mom was finally laid to rest without question.
I discussed all of this during my therapy sessions while I was in the hospital in California and the psychiatrist looked at me and said, "Why does your mother's early death surprise you...? Your father is a predator. What good was your mother to him? She had become ill. She was beginning to put a strain on him financially. She couldn't wash his clothes, cook his food, have sex, she couldn't take care of his needs anymore... she served no purpose...what good was she to him? To quote your father, she had become just another mouth to feed."
There is so much more to my story, but what's really important is where I am today because it's what survivor's struggle so hard for. Am I going to tell you my anger is gone? No. Did I forget what my father did to me for years and years? No, and I never will. What I do want to tell you is we all heal differently, but we can heal! We never truly forget what happened to us, even those of us who "forgot" our abuse...we really didn't. Memories too painful to deal with are just tucked away, until a better time in our life comes along, then our psyche says, 'Now its time for you to deal with this garbage because I can't hold it in any longer.' and forgotten memories slowly, but surely trickle out. Have I forgiven my father? No. I don't feel I have to and I'm comfortable with that. It's just not important. Am I angry with my mother? Absolutely, but the time comes when you have to say to yourself, 'What purpose does anger serve?' I think of my situation, all those years of unhappiness and I ask myself, 'Do I need to live the rest of my life trying to straighten out my past? Can I straighten it out?' The answer is no, there's nothing I can do to make my past right, BUT...I sure as hell don't have to live in it! I'm not going to continue to beat myself up over something I have no control over anyhow and I certainly don't deserve any more abuse, especially not from me! So what's important? Today, tomorrow, and the rest of my life! I'm going on!
It took me about five years to be where I am today. It feels like fifty! Somewhere during the middle of my therapy Dot asked me, "Is there anything special you would like to do with your life?" I said, "Yes, I really wish I could go back to school and help other survivor's." She looked at me and smiled, "What do you mean..'you wish'...? Who's stopping you?" I looked at her and realized for the first time in my life I was now in control of my life! I could do anything I wanted, so it pleases me to no end to tell you on June 3, 1995 at 11:54 a.m. I received my Associate Degree in Pre-Professional Liberal Arts.
I graduated Phi Theta Kappa and was graduation speaker! When I spoke about the obstacles in my life to obtaining an education I had to blink back tears because those obstacles were really blocking my life and for the first time on that day, June 3, 1995, I finally realized I had one! Almost everyone there knew something special was going on with me as most were aware of my background and when I received my diploma everybody cheered, whistled, yelled and applauded me! I looked at my friends who came and my family clapping for me, everyone of them passing tissues around.
In December, 1997, I graduated with my Bachelor's degree in Psychology with a minor in Political Science. I am so proud of me! It wasn't easy and I'm not going to lie to you and tell you it was. My mind was shot, I had trouble concentrating, I didn't know how to study, but I did it! It comes slowly, but I want you to know it can be done and you'll do it too, one step at a time. Until that time, be gentle with yourself and know you're not alone. Let the past slip away. Let it go. When you choose to hold onto it, you choose to live there and all the wonderful dreams you wish for can't be achieved. You deserve more than that.
Hugs! Sheri
"Update, December 20, 1997: I am a college graduate! I graduated with my degree in Psychology and a Political Science minor. I DID IT!!!!
Update, July 1998: I did not get accepted into Law School...this year! Think positive!! Maybe I am meant to go elsewhere and that's ok. I have decided to work for awhile, pay off that student loan and see what the forces of life have in store for me, but I'm not giving up!!! Maybe I'm meant to pursue further education in Psychology and help that way. We'll see! I know a door is never shut without a window remaining open.
Update, July 2006: Two years ago we moved to Florida and I love it here! Hubby retired and that was fun for a while, but staying home is stagnating for me so I am off to work again! I have applied for a Case Manager's position working with the elderly. Keep your fingers crossed that I get it!
Sheri.
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