My Childhood Sexual Abuse Story, Part 36

For most of my young life I was a competitive pianist.



 I started playing at 5, following in my brother Andrew's footsteps, and started competing at 6 or 7. Music became a huge part of my life. I started teaching piano at my teacher's studio when I was 14. I auditioned for one of the leading music colleges in the US at 17 and got in. I majored in music education and minored in piano and vocal performance. Half of my teenage years were spent sitting on a piano bench, the other half with my nose in a book.

When I was being abused by Floyd Rupple as a young teenager, the piano became my emotional outlet. I am an extreme introvert and sharing my feelings has never been easy for me to do (contrary to what this blog might lead you to believe!!). But when I played certain pieces, I'd let a little bit of my emotions seep out through my fingertips. Not much, I was way too repressed at that point, but just enough that it felt really good.

But after I got married the first time, started getting slapped around and then kicked the loser out, I lost my heart for playing. I very quickly, within a few months time, quit my teaching job and stopped playing altogether. Just looking at a piano made my heart feel like it was being wrenched apart. I don't know why. Even writing this paragraph is making my eyes tear up because I remember that feeling so well, like I had broken up with the piano. Like I didn't want to express myself ever again.

During that time period I'd started going country dancing on Sundays at the KP Corral in King of Prussia, PA. I fell in love immediately. They had "Family Day" on Sunday afternoons, and I'd pile my herd of nieces and nephews into my old Buick and take them with me. I would watch all the couples two-step and want to try it so badly, so I'd take the two-step lessons and then practice with my nieces the next Sunday.



One night, the local dance teacher asked me to two-step. I was SO nervous but I said yes. One dance and I knew this was for me. Two-step was about to become my new emotional outlet. I had something new with which to express myself. For the next 8 years or so country dance was my life. The only place I felt truly happy was on a sawdust filled dance floor beyond a pair of swingin' doors. I can remember many days, very dark days, where the only thought that kept me going was "at least you get to go two-step tonight".

I've never been comfortable expressing my emotions verbally. Spoken emotions embarrass me and make me feel weak. My husband and friends will tell you that I've gotten better at verbal emotional expression over the past few years, but I'll always be more at ease expressing myself through black and white ivories, quicks and slows, or written words. When I'm playing, dancing or writing, that's when I am completely free.

So this post is written to thank country music, Two-Step, anyone who's ever grabbed me and pulled me out on the floor for a dance, hardwood floors, dance boots, the UCWDC, cowboy hats, belt buckles, rhinestones, fringe, the Tush Push, the Barn Dance, heel flares and hitches, Wranglers and Ropers, the country bars, the numbers 5 6 7 8, and all my dance friends for being a part of what got me through the darkest times of my life.

My Childhood Sexual Abuse Story, Part 35

Worth-Waiting-For shared a great comment the other day, and I wanted to highlight it:

Hi Suzanne, I am currently reading Judith Herman's "Trauma and Recovery," and I just read a chapter that touches on what I think you're getting at in this post so I thought I'd share the following quotation from her book: 

"Sharing the traumatic experience with others is a precondition for the restitution of a sense of a meaningful world. In this process, the survivor seeks assistance not only from those closest to her but also from the wider community. The response of the community has a powerful influence on the ultimate resolution of the trauma. Restoration of the breach between the traumatized person and the community depends, first, upon public acknowledgment of the traumatic event and, second, upon some form of community action. Once it is publicly recognized that a person has been harmed, the community must take action to assign responsibility for the harm and to repair the injury. These two response - recognition and restitution - are necessary to rebuild the survivor's sense of order and justice. (Page 70)"

(From wikipedia about Judith Herman: Judith Lewis Herman (born 1942) is a psychiatrist, researcher, teacher, and author who has focused on the understanding and treatment of incest and traumatic stress. Herman is Professor of clinical psychiatry at Harvard University Medical School and Director of Training at the Victims of Violence Program in the Department of Psychiatry at the Cambridge Health Alliance in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and a founding member of the Women’s Mental Health Collective. She was the recipient of the 1996 Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies and the 2000 Woman in Science Award from the American Medical Women's Association. In 2003 she was named a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association.)

Thanks so much for that, Worth-Waiting-For! It came at a great time, stating in such a beautifully clear way what I've been trying to say with these posts. You made my night when you commented! I wish knew you so I could thank you in person and chat over some kind of chocolate dessert. It's funny, I mentioned your comment to Melissa, and her mother had given her this book to read a few years ago and Melissa loved it. Now I'll have to get it.

I think this is especially true for a child, as their sense of order and justice is still developing. As an adult, I can admit and accept that some people have personal issues that keep them from being able to recognize the harm that was done by Floyd. As a child, I just assumed their lack of action meant they didn't think it was a big deal.

For me personally, I don't even need restitution. Don't get me wrong, those who do take some form of "community action", be it a public comment on my blog or an email sent or a removal of oneself from Floyd's company, those actions bless me above all I could ask or think. But my bottom line is that I can't live with a lack of recognition anymore. Those who don't recognize the enormity of what Floyd did and the harm it caused the family, or those who immediately follow their recognition with a long string of "buts", are going to alienate themselves from me for the time being.

And I accept that there are some who might make that choice.


(Someone emailed me last week to ask where my relationship with God is in regard to these traumas. I just wanted to reassure them that the post answering that question is in the works!)

My Childhood Sexual Abuse Story, Part 34

So there are stages of grief, we've all heard that. There are 5, or 7 depending on the model you reference (I referred to them as the 12 stages of grief yesterday, math is just not my bag...5 + 7 is 12 though, right??). They were originally written for people with terminal illnesses but I guess now are used for anyone experiencing a trauma.

Anyway, is there a timeline for how long it should take a person to get to the last stage, to "get over it" as some might say? I've written now for 34 days. After 25 years, I feel like I'm just now starting to figure out my life and why I am who I am. Putting my thoughts to virtual paper has opened a floodgate in my soul, and I feel as if that floodgate has propelled me to make leaps and bounds in my understanding of myself, my marriage, my children and my family.

I can't go any faster than I can go.

1. SHOCK and DENIAL-
2. PAIN and GUILT-
3. ANGER and BARGAINING-
4. "DEPRESSION", REFLECTION, LONELINESS-
5. THE UPWARD TURN-
6. RECONSTRUCTION and WORKING THROUGH-
7. ACCEPTANCE and HOPE-

My Childhood Sexual Abuse Story, Part 33

Here are a couple of interesting questions with which to start off your week.

1) My mother sent me an interesting article yesterday. It seems that Moldova (which is a country in eastern Europe, not part of the female genitalia) has passed a law that legalizes mandatory chemical castration for foreign child molesters who are convicted in their country. Does chemical castration work to stop child molesters from their deviant behaviors? I have done a minuscule amount of research on the topic, but the opinions seem to be divided. Some doctors/therapists say it works for some offenders, some doctors/therapists say that child molestation isn't a crime of sex, that it's a mental disorder. But whether or not castration cures a molester, maybe a law like that would at least deter a few child molesters. I did read that some US states, Texas being one of them, perform castration on child molesters if the offender signs off on that "treatment". Any opinions on chemical castration of child molesters and pedophiles? 







2) Catholic priests who molest boys, are they gay? Someone brought this up to me one day a few weeks ago, can't remember who...My immediate reaction was that child molestation, again, is rarely about sex. It's about control, violence, insecurity, etc. Also, there are no "altar girls", only altar boys. Am I right? So priests have the most contact with boys. The big question is, I guess, does the priesthood attract pedophiles? Or does the priesthood create pedophiles? 

My Childhood Sexual Abuse Story, Part 32

Some interesting comments yesterday, thanks! One had a question that I'd like to answer:

I don't think I get it anonymous , why does there have to be a correlation to the number of suicides of "women" molested or raped? What about young boys or immature young men? I would provide that they are equally affected, along with gaining a very confused sexual identity. (Yes, I am one of the grown men that in the statistic of 1 in 6 men were sexually assaulted.) 

As far as a correlation, I don't believe there is a difference in the damage that is rendered on the individual as to whether the perpetrator is brought to some kind of justice. I think that the damage is brought about by the trauma. For instance, in another example, if a husband is murdered and his murderer is sentenced to death, does that make the wife better able to cope with raising her children without the love and affection of the father? My perpetrator was not brought to justice, but once I was removed from the situation, I was able to begin to deal with the damage. 

I ask Suzanne, how do you feel you would be different if you family had reported Floyd, and he served time in prison, and is now released and reports as a sexual offender?

That's a great question, by the way. I appreciate you sharing a little bit of your story, and am so sorry for the trauma you suffered as a child. In my situation, while the abuse stopped, I still had to maintain a relationship with Floyd and watch my entire family maintain THE SAME relationships they had with him before they found out about the abuse. Nothing changed, except the fact that I wasn't being physically abused by him. That was a huge relief for me. So huge that I had no idea how much damage it was doing having to watch absolutely nothing happen to him.

While Floyd going to prison wouldn't have necessarily made him stop being a child molester, it is just a natural consequence of an action. Children need to see natural consequences occur to have some sense of stability in their life. Otherwise they have nothing to stand on. If a man can molest them repeatedly and get away with no punishment, that changes their whole sense of what's right and wrong.

Children need to know that their family is going to stand up for them. I needed to see someone get angry at Floyd. I needed to see someone say, to his face, HOW DARE YOU! Instead, what I saw was people saying, "I forgive you!", completely skipping the anger part. So to a young girl that gives the impression of, "Oh, I guess what he did wasn't that big of a deal..." That created a huge black hole of chaos in me, because it seemed to me internally that what he had done was a HUGE deal, but everyone around me was acting like it was nothing, so I was so conflicted.

As an adult, maybe it's not as earth shattering when the abuser isn't punished in any way. It might be annoying, but it doesn't mess with your psyche during its formative years. In your example, the murderer being brought to justice doesn't change what the wife has to deal with in terms of her loss and her children's loss, for sure. But maybe it brings a bit of peace to one little corner of her soul. Or maybe it doesn't. But I'd argue that it doesn't matter what it does for the victim, it's of the utmost importance to the criminal and the community that he's punished for his actions. Otherwise he will just continue. Lack of punishment only emboldens a person.

I didn't tell anyone about the molestation for so long because I assumed everyone would freak out. I assumed there would be punching and yelling and screaming and threats and my brothers holding my dad back from killing Floyd and my dad holding my brothers back from bloodying his nose and my mom crying and slapping him across the face and my sisters-in-law looking at him in disgust and police and court and a divorce.

None of that happened. Not even one of those things happened. Everyone was nice and calm and polite and Christian. To this day, not one person in my family has said anything negative to Floyd about this issue. Floyd has never heard, "You are a disgusting child molester, I hate what you did to my daughter/sister/aunt, and you deserved to be punished for it". Which is crazy to me now. Absolutely bat-shit crazy. AT THE VERY LEAST you'd think someone in my family would have looked at him with disgust and said How Dare You Lay A Finger On Her. Nothing. We had a pleasant family picnic the next weekend in the backyard, everyone pretending to be normal.

So my point is, if my parents had reported Floyd at least that would have shown my young girl self that my family cared about what had happened to me. That it was wrong, and they weren't going to treat it like it was just a little glitch in the matrix, no big thang. Even if Floyd had never gone to jail, I would have been able to hold on to the fact that my family reported it, that they actually did something.

Even if someone had just punched him in the face, or cursed at him, or SOMETHING, anything, that would have been something for me to hold on to. It wouldn't have even had to be reporting it to the police, JUST DO SOMETHING!! All of my twenties were spent with me believing that I wasn't worth standing up for. Because the one group of people who should have stood up for me didn't.

So now, after 25 years, I do it for myself.

Hope that's at least the beginning of an answer, Anonymous! I could go on and on (shocking, I know!).

*I don't usually do this, but I'd like to add something to my answer. First of all, I'll never be able to say for sure how I'd be different if my abuser had been turned in, because I'll probably never get that opportunity. Also, along with the community benefiting by having the criminal punished in some way, the young women in my family and others around us would have benefited from seeing Floyd punished. They would have seen a good if/then in action; if you are abused and you tell your parents, THEN the person who hurt you will be punished. As it happened, I wouldn't expect any girl in my family to ever tell that she had been molested. They've learned that most likely, they'll suffer the most by telling. I'm hoping to change that misconception. I want girls to TELL, even if in the telling they hurt some feelings or cause some drama.

My Childhood Sexual Abuse Story, Part 31

On Monday we talked about the level of depravity in someone who molests a child. The reason for that was so that we could now discuss how punishments should correspond with the level of depravity of the wrong that was committed. I give you my Depravity Line (can you tell graphic design isn't my forte?). There are three sections, each with a few example wrongs.

Not much in life is black and white, but I think if you polled the population, a large majority would agree on a few black wrongs. Not 100%, nothing in life is 100%, but definitely a majority of substantial size.

The first area of the Depravity Line is for really minor wrongs, things that little children would do. Most people would agree that these wrongs are not a big deal, comparatively. They are things that aren't necessarily even wrong, but are a result of disobeying or not following rules properly. We punish our kids for those things, not because they've committed a grave atrocity, but because in learning to obey us and follow rules maybe they won't stray too far down the Depravity Line as they grow older. Sometimes it doesn't work, but as parents we feel compelled to try.

The gray area is where most things fall. Things that to some might be really bad, and to others might be not so big a deal. Some might be crimes, some might be moral wrongs, some might be sins, some might be a combo, but they still fall in that gray area. Not everyone agrees on them. The punishments that people assign to those wrongs can be wildly varied, but they're usually greater than things in the first section and less than things in the last section.

But the last section is where people start agreeing again. Things in that section are hands down, across the board EVIL. The punishment for these wrongs can be agreed upon by a majority of people, if not specifically, definitely generically. A long lasting, extreme punishment.

We're all born depraved, but we don't start out in the third section. Most 5 year olds don't murder people.( I know some have, but there is usually mental disorder involved in those rare scenarios.) As we get older, we move on down the Depravity Line. At some point in our lives we reach a spot on the Depravity Line that feels comfortable, and we tend to stay there. That spot is different for all of us. But most of us stay in the Gray Area. Most of us don't venture into the third section.

For those who do, the level of punishment needs to equal the level of depravity they have reached. If you don't punish those people in an extreme way, a way that's different from gray wrongs, you're saying those crimes are gray too.

The people who have moved into the third section have pretty much reached the end of the line. They're as depraved as you can get. And we all know, the further you travel down the Depravity Line, the harder it is to get back. So even if there are punishments for wrongs in the gray area that could be argued over, wouldn't we all agree that punishments for wrongs in that third section should be extreme in character? Extreme prison time, extreme counseling, extreme monitoring, whatever?

What do you think?  Should the punishment for wrongs in the Black Area be gentle?

My Childhood Sexual Abuse Story, Part 30

There are prices you have to pay when you molest a child. Prison might be one of them, if you're lucky. But whether or not you go to prison, you have to deal with the emotions of the victim's family and friends for the rest of your life. You need to know that the felony you've committed is going to cause VERY STRONG reactions from people.

People are allowed to have emotional reactions to the person who's molested their relative/friend. One person in the family may want to punch you. One might want to yell at you. One might want to avoid you forever. One might want to forgive you. One might want to write about you on the internet. One might want to spend their lives making yours miserable. One might want to rehabilitate you. And you have to deal with all of those emotional reactions, because you performed the felony that caused them.

I can't tell anyone what they're supposed to feel or do regarding Floyd. Each person is free to make their own decision. I know what I am comfortable with doing and not doing, but there are people in my life whose comfort levels are different than mine. Some of them would do much less than I'd do and some would do much more.

And another point that I keep forgetting to make. My sister gave me and the rest of my family her "blessing" to do whatever we wanted to do regarding Floyd. Not that I needed it, but it's a point that needs to be made. She said I could go to the police, she said my brothers could punch him, etc, etc. So don't think that I'm doing all this completely independent of familial support (again, not that I needed it or was looking for it).

How far would you go in dealing with the man who molested you, or who molested your child/sibling/relative?