Four year reveal: On a Friday afternoon, my seven and a half year old daughter came home from school in a panic. When I asked her what was going on, at first she didn’t want to tell me. We sat down and she finally said, “I think I touched George’s penis.” I asked her when she thought it happened? In line going into class and in line in the cafeteria. She was shaking and crying. (George had been her BFF since 4 years old.)
I asked her if she really did touch him or just bumped into him. She said she didn’t touch him, but her mind kept telling she did! Thank goodness for being empathic and mother’s intuition. I asked her if anyone, anytime, had touched her privates. “Yes.” She told me she was maybe three and it happened at “Lou’s house.” Louann, the daycare provider. (Louann was a licensed nurse. Highly recommended by many community parents. Louann’s daughter was pregnant and living in the small trailer outside but also in the house. The father of that child and his buddies would hang out across the street. I saw them one day when picking up my daughter. I asked the provider who they were, she explained who they were, and that they were never allowed in the home.)
I immediately called my therapist, who put me into contact with a pediatric counselor who got my daughter in on Monday. I was asked to stay in the room to support my daughter. After a couple questions, the counselor gave my daughter two dolls. Out spewed what happened. She had been holding it in for four years and it was like a geyser.
Louann went shopping. Her daughter was in the backyard with the few kids there. My daughter went to use the bathroom. One of the lowlife’s saw her and followed her into the bathroom and the sexual assault ensued. Details are not needed, but my daughter gave them quite clearly and explicitly. He threatened to kill her family if she told anyone.
She continued in therapy and after a year of still having major anxiety and odd behaviors, she was diagnosed with severe OCD. She is now 32 and lives with us. She released the molestation and it no longer comes up but she will always have OCD and other major physical issues (Crohn’s / POTS, etc.) Trauma affects the body, mind and spirit and it’s not a one-off. She may not have been raped but the assault was severe enough.
My son was molested at three years old by a 13 year old neighbor boy and also threatened if he told. He jerked my son off while everyone was playing hide and seek. It took my son a year to tell me and only because we were talking good touch/bad touch and so was his preschool. I sent him to school that day and notified them what he had told me, in case of any issues. I wanted him to have a normal day. I immediately called the police. A detective talked to him that day and my son also spewed out all that happened. The family was notified and they moved rather quickly. My son has had no lasting affect. He got it out.
Forty year later reveal: Every therapist I saw over the years, I told them that I thought I was molested. When I finally allowed the molestations to come up, forty years later, I then told my parents. i described where it happened but not what happened. I described the house and where in the house. My mother turned grey because I was describing the house my grand parents lived in when I was three. (That uncle was 18.) The other one was when I was four and that uncle was drunk and in his early 20’s and in a different house. She asked for details and I rushed to the bathroom wanting to vomit. I couldn’t go into the details.
The reason I’m sharing my own situation is because I took care of my children. I was not taken care of. A few years after I told my parents, they put an offer on a house in UM’s (uncle molester) area and called to tell me. Shock and numbness. I get a call two days later, “Are you okay if we bump into him once-in-awhile?” In numbness I say whatever. They moved.
They lived there for seven years until my father passed and my mother moved back to my town. It was when I was in therapy after my father passed, dealing with feelings that were coming up, that my therapist said, “Your father played golf and cards with the man who molested his daughter.” Wham! I woke. One doesn’t always know why they’re depressed until the light shines into the darkness.
I asked my mother, “Were you ever uncomfortable when you were around him?” My mother said, “Yes, sometimes we were but we only thought it was touchy feely.” I went ballistic and then I got, “Well why didn’t you tell us the details!?” She was a narcissist and would never, ever take accountability. (45 anyone?) It was my fault that they moved and therefore my fault that I suffered. Re-victimize the victim!
The Republicans are doing this to Dr. Ford and it’s happened to too many others. I’m dealing with PTSD as I’m sure others are too.
We will survive and thrive. We will fight. We will vote. The tiger has been woke.