My Childhood Sexual Abuse Story, Part 5

This was one of my favorite posts. The only way I could describe the pervasiveness of my inner turmoil was with the story of my daughter's pictures. That story, for me, is the classic example of how childhood trauma affects the brain.

People connected to my abuser would contact me in these first few weeks of blogging, asking me what I wanted from him. Asking me to tell them the things he could do to get me to stop blogging. They, and my abuser, couldn't get it through their heads that it wasn't about what I WANTED. Someone who is truly sorry for what they've done will know the things they could do to start earning forgiveness from their victim, and they'll do them. Without being told to do so. 

I'll tell you what it is I DIDN'T want. For my abuser to sue me for defamation, saying this whole story was a lie. For my family, who knew via the horse's mouth the story was true, to support my abuser in suing me and my brother. 

That's not a sign of repentance. That's not a sign of caring about the person you hurt so badly. 

It's actually the exact opposite.

_________________________________________________________________________________

(originally posted January 27, 2012)


How do I respond to a question asking, "What is it you want from your ex-brother-in-law now?"

A series of events during a five year period led me to this day. One of the first of those events occurred  about four years ago. I was going through some pictures of my children as toddlers, pictures from a time before I had a digital camera. I came upon a few pictures of my beautiful daughter. She was probably 18 months old in the pictures. I was immediately overcome with the realization that  in these pictures my daughter looked exactly like one of my ex-brother-in-law's daughters, one of my nieces. One of my nieces that I've always thought looked more like her dad than my sister.

I had a knee jerk reaction so severe, so unlike me, that looking back on it I can barely believe it really happened. I covered my mouth with my hand and felt nauseous, because my brain looked at that photo and processed the information as, "YOUR DAUGHTER LOOKS LIKE THE MAN WHO MOLESTED YOU". Without a second thought I jumped up, ran the pictures over to the shredder in my bedroom and shoved them in the slot, my heart beating so fast I thought it was going to explode. As I watched the pictures being destroyed my brain was saying over and over again "GetRidOfThem GetRidOfThem GetRidOfThem GetRidOfThem!!!!!!!"

Those of you who know me are probably reading that in a little bit of shock. You know me as someone who doesn't act impulsively. Someone who analyzes every word and move for eons before acting on them. So you can understand why this incident left such a lasting impression on me.

Not five seconds after the last picture was torn into hundreds of strips, it hit me. "Idiot, it's genetically impossible for your daughter to look anything like your brother-in-law. If your daughter looks like your niece, it must mean your niece looks like your SISTER! So it follows that your daughter looks like your SISTER, dumbass!!"

I hated myself so much in that moment. The realization that my daughter looked like my sister would make me nothing but proud because I love my sister, but my messed up psyche made me believe something impossible for a few seconds. Seconds that I could never get back. And I started crying. I felt stupid and embarrassed. I realized I needed to start taking care of that messed up bit of my mind that could inspire such ridiculous behavior in me.

I started seething, hating my sister's ex-husband again. Hating him so much I wanted to act on it. Hating him for implanting screwed up information in my childhood brain. Hating him for doing something so damaging to me as a child it would cause me as an adult to destroy my beautiful daughter's pictures, pictures that I could never get back.

So how do I respond to that question? I can easily respond with what I WANT from my abuser, I've thought about that most every day of my life. Sometimes I've even dreamed about what I want. My dance partner turned lifelong friend Richard (Half of Team MandM) explained in heart wrenching detail about how as an abused child he used to daydream about bad things happening to the guy who abused him. My wants are all emotion based....Do I say:

I want my daughter's pictures back?

I want the memory of your f***ing ugly face with its stupid eyes rolled back in its head and its fat mouth hanging wide open while you jerk off out my head?

I want you to perform castration upon yourself?

I want you to spend 5 years in a prison cell spending each endless day dreading nightfall because you know your big bald tattooed cellmate named Tiny is going to roll you over in your bunk and make you scream like a little girl?

I can say all of those things and they'd be true WANTS. And I can say those things and still be a Christian. I don't expect all of those things to actually happen (although I've heard rumors about Tiny). And they're not necessarily what should happen. I can separate emotional wants from practical expectations.

The point is that it shouldn't matter what I WANT from the man who molested me. What matters is what he SHOULD do, regardless of my feelings. He should apologize to me as an adult for his crime. He should apologize to my entire family for his crime, now that they all are aware of the enormity of what he did and its effects. He should preemptively turn himself in to the police as soon as possible and confess to any other criminal acts he's committed. He should get himself into some sort of treatment/rehab program to deal with whatever  caused him to commit this crime in the first place. There's a lot of things he should and could do.

This isn't about making me feel better, it's about paying consequences for felonious actions. I'm assuming those consequences will make me feel just as good as some of my emotional wants would, we shall see.

(Also, I just want to make another quick point. My parents made the mistake of being too naive. While that was an egregious mistake, it was not a crime. Only one person in my story committed a crime. A felony, even. We all make mistakes as parents, even egregious ones. I have no doubt that in 30 years one of my children will be blogging about some horrifying thing I did that they had to get over. Hopefully when that happens I'll be as graceful as those in my family who've realized their mistakes and made amends for them.)

*People have been emailing me privately to ask if they can share this blog with people in their lives experiencing similar situations. By all means, pass my story along. I've gotten so many private responses, people sharing their personal stories with me, that I'm realizing sharing my story might do more than just help me through my process.*

My Childhood Sexual Abuse Story, Part 4

Forgiveness. Christians love to throw that word around. They certainly loved throwing it at me. Timing is usually not a Christian's strong suit. When someone is telling your their story of abuse; hurt, crying, in the midst of a major earth shattering realization, that's probably not the best time to raise your eyebrows and say, "Well you know, Jesus told us to forgive our enemies". 

Why can't Christians handle letting someone go through the steps in their own time? Why is it so imperative to them that emotional situations be tied up in a pretty little bow TODAY RIGHT THIS MINUTE AND NOT ONE SECOND LATER? "You need to say you're sorry, and you need to say you forgive him, and you don't need to talk about this ever again because I can't handle it and it makes me uncomfortable and Jesus doesn't like ambiguity and I don't like feeling this way and please don't make me feel this way ever again because this is all about me ,ok thanks, bye".

Those in my family who threw the word forgiveness in my face as it related to my abuser made me laugh inside because they had no idea THEY were the people I was working so hard to try and forgive. My abuser was so far down the priority list of those who needed my forgiveness.

(originally posted January 26, 2012)


I want to pause in my story to address the issue of forgiveness, as that's been a hot topic. But first I want to acknowledge Solomon Singer's first comment from yesterday (posting as "Sunshine"). He was right on the money with everything he said, but something in particular struck such a chord with me.

"It is because when someone treats another human being as a thing, as something less than, it paves the way for all other atrocities, and the only thing we can do to stop it, is to remove that person from positions where they can do harm."

I'd never really thought about it that way, that my sister's ex-husband treated me as a "thing", as something "less than". But that's exactly what happened. And it explains why for the next 15-20 years of my life, I thought of myself as less than. I required nothing from people in regards to how they treated me, even within my own family. I let people say horrible things to me, I said nothing when people shunned me, I let people physically assault me, and never fought back. I tried to end my life, I kept putting myself in damaging relationships, went through a period of promiscuity, I even ended up almost working at a strip club. Those are behaviors of someone who thinks of themselves as "less than". You'd never think that a girl with an IQ as high as mine would ever find herself in these situations, but it proves how being treated as a "thing" when you're a child can damage you to such a degree that even your own brainpower can't overcome it....

Anyway. I can't say I've forgiven my ex-brother-in-law. I think that some in my family have, and others haven't. I don't feel guilty that I haven't forgiven him, everyone has a different process and timeline. Maybe I'll never get there. Maybe I'll be there tomorrow.

Would it help my process if my abuser ever actually asked ME for forgiveness, and not just my father? If he were living his life in a way that showed he was truly repentant? Who knows. But it would be something I'd consider. His 30 second confession to a room full of my shocked family and my scared 14 year old self isn't an apology. It's easy to confess to people/children who don't even realize what it was you did. Much harder to apologize to someone who's realized how horrible your crime was. It's easy to confess to my father, who has a heart bigger than the Milky Way and doesn't want to believe men can commit violent acts. Much harder to apologize to the woman who is no longer the scared teenager and knows EXACTLY what you did to her and her psyche.

One of my nieces had a great comparison. When an addict goes to AA, Step 9 is making amends. The AA process realizes that not only is it important for the person hurt to hear an apology, it's important for the person who caused the hurt to say that to those they hurt, and mean it. If my ex-brother-in-law had ever come to me when I was an adult and begged for my forgiveness, acknowledging the hideous nature of his crime, showing me the steps he had taken to get help for his disorder...who knows how my process would have changed in light of that knowledge.

In my opinion, a truly repentant man would have taken it upon himself to tell his children about his crime of his own volition and not pawn off that horrible task to his wife. A truly repentant man would want to show his daughters that he believes this kind of crime is atrocious, and would turn himself in so they would see what should happen to someone who does this to a child. If my abuser turned himself in today, that might be an act I'd consider as repentant.

Will him getting arrested and serving time inspire me to forgive him? I don't know. But again, forgiveness and consequence are separate. Apples and oranges. You can be forgiven, but that doesn't negate the consequences of the crime you committed. When you drive drunk and kill someone, even if you never touch another drop of liquor again and live your life as a teetotaler, you still have to pay the consequences for killing someone when you DID drink and drive.

If I had ever received as an adult, or even received now, an apology from my ex-brother-in-law, who knows what that might inspire in me. I am a forgiving person more often than not. I've forgiven others in my family in the past and continue to do so today.

Should I be able to forgive him even if he isn't repentant? Ah, utopia. I'm not there yet. I only just realized how badly he hurt me a minute ago, comparatively speaking. You can't forgive what you don't even know. Now that I know the gravity of what he did to me, I have to start this process all over again.

But like I said yesterday, forgiveness and physical proximity are not an if-then statement. My parents could have forgiven Floyd but still moved me across the country so I'd never have to see him again. My brothers could have forgiven Floyd but then ended their personal relationship with him. My sister could have forgiven him but then divorced him. Hindsight is 20/20 of course, and some in my family are realizing this. Hopefully our hindsight will improve another family's present vision...

Again, I want to thank everyone here and on Facebook and Twitter for your comments and emails. The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Some have made me laugh out loud, some have made me cry silently. Some have made me cringe and some have made me cheer. I rolled my eyes at some and did a little dance at others. But every last one has been beautiful. After 25 years of never talking about it, the discussions that are breaking out all over the place make me almost unbearably happy. So please keep them coming! They are inspiring people and challenging people left and right.

(Also, keep in mind that I'm writing my story in manageable bits and pieces. There is so much more than what you're learned so far. God has been working and continues to work in my family. I love all of them and trust that God will heal us all in His time.)

My Childhood Sexual Abuse Story, Part 3

The idea of consequences being proportionate to the grievance committed has been so monumental to me when looking back at my situation. The consequences my abuser had to pay were so minute, compared to the grievance committed. He had to confess to the family what he'd done in whatever vague fashion HE CHOSE, make some vague reference to a sexual sin of some non-criminal sort to the church congregation, say 5 Hail Marys, click his heels 3 times and call it a day. It's no surprise my 14 year old self decided what happened to her must not have been that big of a deal. When the adults' reactions are basically "meh...", the non-confrontational obedient child is going to assume that must be the proper reaction.

Something else I didn't mention in the original post, as it relates to these family meetings; something that disgusts and infuriates me to this day...in these meetings, there were tears shed. So many tears. But not by the person you'd assume. The 14 year old girl who'd spent two years living in a nightmare shed NOT ONE TEAR in these meetings. I'll give you one guess who the blubbering fool was. Take your time. 

That's right. My abuser, my ex-brother-in-law. HE sat next to my sister and in front of my parents and one or both of my brothers and their wives and cried like a big baby. Crocodile tears. Meanwhile I RE.FUSED. to let him see one drop of saline leave my body. I was a statue. Stone-faced. Thinking the whole time, "Wait a damn minute. YOU'RE crying!??! You?!! YOU DON'T GET TO CRY!" and all the while wishing one of the men in the room would GIVE HIM SOMETHING TO CRY ABOUT.

So of course, who got all the attention? The squeaky wheel gets the oil, as the saying goes. Poor, poor child molester with his sad, sad tears. Wook at his wittle puppy dog eyes wif da big tears dwipping down. How could anybody punch a face like that??! As I look back, I wonder if I'd cried like a baby and kicked and screamed and threatened to kill myself, if somebody in that room might have really looked at me. Might have wondered why he was crying so hard and I wasn't registering even one emotion. But showing emotion wasn't  part of my personality. It never has been and it never will be. My family knew that about me, and I feel took advantage of that fact. They knew I'd never put up a fuss about it all. Quiet Suzanne will follow along and keep the peace. 

I was glad to do that for the family I loved so fiercely, for 25 years. Until I started realizing the sacrifice I'd made for them was killing me. 

- Interesting tidbit: the professor I mention in this story, who was a Music Theory teacher at West Chester University (for the life of me I can't recall his name) ended up being let go because of inappropriate relationships with students. My mother mentioned seeing the story in the paper a few years later. During the time frame he was harassing me, a girl came up to me and told me he'd done the same to her the semester before, and that there was a female professor in the music department who was keeping a list of names of girls he'd abused. I was mortified this girl was talking about the situation, and blew her off as quickly as possible and never went to see that female professor. Mainly because I felt this man's advances were my fault and I was ashamed. Not surprising I felt that way, looking back now..

My Childhood Sexual Abuse Story, Part 2

*italicized content was written after the lawsuit was settled. non-italicized content is the original blog post from 2012.

This was day 2. An extremely intense day. My nephew's then ex-girlfriend Lindsay decided to voice her opinions on my posting of this story. I'd only met Lindsay a couple of times, at family functions. I didn't really know her at all until she started commenting on my blog. 

People asked me for months why I published Lindsay's comments. My answer has always been I wanted people to see what victims of abuse are up against. When kids or adults tell their family and friends they've been abused, they usually get one of two responses. Either no one wants to talk about it, or everyone wants to find a way to blame the victim. Lindsay is a great example of the latter. Her hateful attitude is in no way unusual, and reading it in real-time was hopefully an eye-opener for everyone.



The comments became very heated that day so again, you may want to keep this post away from children. But feel free to add new comments of your own.

As I think back to the day I went to the police station, two things stick out in my mind. One, I remember so vividly the state trooper who took our statements. She was just a tiny thing, but to me she was as big and strong as Arnold Schwarzenegger. If I were to ever see her again, I'd have to thank her for making me realize I had power over my past. 

I also remember the Victims Support group ladies, who were there to provide comfort in case I was alone, and offered to come back with me while I gave my statement. If I ever saw them again, I'd have to apologize profusely for blowing them off in what was probably not the most gracious manner. I couldn't take the kindness in their eyes, nor their palpable empathy. I knew they knew how I was feeling, and if I'd acknowledged them I might have fallen apart. They were so lovely and accepted my brush-off with grace. I hope they knew my rejection was nothing personal.

My Childhood Sexual Abuse Story, Part 1

On January 23, 2012, I decided to write about my childhood sexual abuse on this blog. My goal was twofold: to release my demons the best way I knew how, through writing, and to share and commune with others out there who may have also been suffering from the lifelong effects of childhood trauma and of keeping such trauma secret.

In October of 2012, my brother Eric and I were jointly sued for defamation, by my ex-brother-in-law who molested me. I removed my posts from this blog in April of 2013, while a settlement was reached. My portion of that case was settled in the fall of 2013, and I am now free to re-post my story. My brother continues to fight for the rights of people to share their memories of abuse, even if those stories involve pillars of the community or good fathers. 

I am going to re-post my story in the way it was originally posted. One post per day, with all of the original comments. I may include updates or interesting new information at the beginning of each post. Please note that most of these posts are not suited for young children, and most likely include triggers for those of you who have been abused. Feel free to add your comments and stories to the ones people posted two years ago. (ps, some of the original comments have had to be edited; apologies to the commenters! The original comments will be typed at the bottom of each post, along with the dates and times when they were originally posted.)

This is a special day for me. Writing my story in a public forum was, to put it mildly, life changing. Having to remove the series of posts I am unbearably proud of, even for a period of time, was just shy of devastating. So today I am relieved to say the little piece of the world wide web I claimed as my group psychiatry couch is being restored. 

Before I get to it, I need to say some things about some people. I'm not saying "thanks", because that would be so ridiculously trite, but I'm naming them because they deserve all the things. All of them.

Eric Mosley, who accepted me so completely I finally felt safe enough to open the door I'd been forcing closed for 25 years. Who believed in my personal path to healing so fully he was ready to do whatever it took to protect my right to continue down that path. And who loved me so intuitively, knowing exactly when I needed him to grab me tightly so I could give up control for a minute, and when I needed him to back off so I could breathe alone in a corner and figure out exactly what it was I wanted. 

Melissa, who transcends the term "best friend" or even "sister"; who saved me from a monster 30 years ago, and walked beside me 25 years later while I saved myself from that same monster. No one knows like she does. No one.

My children, who know nothing of my story yet but who benefit the most from its telling.  

My nieces Bonnie, Brooke, and Bethany. The 2nd generation who lived this history with me but ingested less of the Kool-aid are the perfect people with which to talk it all through. It's an unexpected gift when your sibling's children grow up to be some of your best friends. 

My dance friends, who immediately if not sooner showed me that the old adage "blood is thicker than water" isn't always true. Those who shared their stories of abuse with me are never far from my mind. It's no surprise that so many of the most beautiful dancers are inspired by agony. Art in all of its forms allows us to express what is too painful to say....

My parents, who have weathered this storm with as much grace as anyone could. Admitting to parenting failures can't be much fun, as I'm SURE I will find out someday. 

Richard and Solomon. Dance partners turned best friends. Dancing me through two tumultuous years and numbing my pain with Aqua Net and rhinestones. 

And lastly, my brother Eric Lewis. You can't imagine what it's like when for so long no one in your family "gets it", and then all of a sudden someone gets it so completely they join you on the quest to understand why "it" happened and learn how to keep "it" from happening again. "It" has been another unexpected gift. 

And now we go back to the beginning. January of 2012.
With much love and even more relief,
Suzanne

(originally posted January 23, 2012)

It’s time to set the record straight. These are the facts of my childhood sexual abuse:

When I was 12, in 1986, my sister and her then husband lived in Halstead apartments in West Chester, PA. They had 2 young children at the time. One night I spent the night there. While watching television with ex-brother-in-law that evening, he started tickling me and wrestling with me. I didn’t think anything of it, I was 12 and he was my sister’s husband. That night, I slept on their brown and orange plaid couch in the family room. The apartment was two story, the rest of the family was upstairs in their bedrooms.

Late that night/early the next morning, I woke up and realized my ex-brother-in-law was sitting on the couch next to me. I was laying on my back with my knees up, leaned in towards the high back of the couch. I was wearing a pink and white checked flannel nightgown that had buttons from the neck to the waist. The buttons had all been undone and my ex-brother-in-law had his left hand inside my nightgown on my breast, rubbing it. I kept my eyes closed, pretending to still be asleep. At some point, my ex-brother-in-law removed his hand from inside my nightgown, put his hands on my knees and tried to pull my knees apart, in what I can only assume was an attempt to get to my vagina. I kept my knees pressed tightly together, and in the next moment the upstairs hallway light came on and my sister was at the top of the stairs calling down to her husband. He got up quickly and walked upstairs.

I got out of bed, remember looking at the clock on the VCR and seeing it was 2:15am. Went into the powder room hoping it didn’t really happen, but when I looked in the mirror all the buttons of my gown were undone. I can’t remember if it ever happened in this apartment again, they may have moved shortly after the incident.

The next times that my ex-brother-in-law molested me were in their Downingtown, PA townhouse. At this point I was old enough, 13 and 14 years old, to babysit for my sister. My parents would have me spend the night there when I babysat, so there were plenty of opportunities.

The times that he molested me there he progressed from just rubbing my breasts to pulling his penis out and masturbating while he touched me. While I didn’t know what ejaculating was at 12/13 years old, I remember getting the sense that there was an “end time” to him touching me, because his breathing would get heavier and he would squeeze my breasts harder, pinching my nipples, and then the molestation would stop. He would leave the room and I’d hear him go into the bathroom and turn the shower on.

It happened many times in this townhouse, but there are a few that I remember vividly:

Once he molested me while I was sleeping in the same room as his two young sons, who were around 8 and 5 years old. I remember that one vividly because I thought I was safe that night, having chosen to sleep in his sons’ bedroom.

Once I slept in his daughter’s room, because she had a door that locked. I locked the door, but he still got in. Afterwards I heard him go into the bathroom and run the shower/bath. The next morning as we all ate breakfast he made eye contact with me and said to me over the table, in front of his kids and my sister, “We don’t lock doors in this house”. I remember that time vividly because I had thought I’d be safe with the door locked, and because he had spoken of it in front of everyone.

He would also play “snatch the towel”, where he would come up behind me after I’d taken a shower and was wrapped in a towel, and snatch the towel off of me so that I was standing naked. He did that in front of my sister at least once that I can remember, because she said something to him casually about it, laughing.

To try to avoid the situation, I would try to come up with ways/places to sleep that would protect me. One night I took a bunch of blankets to the basement and wrapped myself up in each one like a burrito, with my arms plastered across my chest.

Another night I got a blanket and a pillow and slept under the dining room table, with all 8 of the chairs pulled in tightly around me.

One night at church, when I was 14, my best friend Melissa (who was 10 years old at the time) and I were hanging out with a bunch of the adults. My ex-brother-in-law and a guy named Mike started chasing Melissa and I around the church, trying to scare us. My ex-brother-in-law caught me and threw me to the ground and started ticking me. I started to get very embarrassed because Melissa and Mike were both standing there, and my ex-brother-in-law was stealthily touching me right in front of them. I was screaming at him to stop, and Mike must have gotten uncomfortable because he yelled at my ex-brother-in-law to stop.

The two men walked away and I started getting very upset and ended up telling Melissa about the abuse. I told her not to tell anyone. She kept my secret for 2 weeks, and then told her parents everything. They in turn told my parents. My father confronted my ex-brother-in-law, who ended up confessing.

This story has been for all intents and purposes a secret for 25 years. There were no consequences for him for these actions. I am no longer keeping the details of this story, nor the identity of the pedophile who molested me, a secret .  

Now what?



(Please feel free to leave comments, advice, your own memories from this time if you knew of this story back then...if you were part of FBC Newtown Square and you have memories from this time, please comment. All feedback is welcome.)

Drawing Inspiration From Real Life

One day this past school year, I caught Colson playing Minecraft when he should have been doing schoolwork. I threatened to delete the game from his computer.

Later that day he took an English test. He had to make up sentences for one part.

Zachary Phelps

Zachary has been wanting to pass his green band swim test at the pool this summer, which would enable him to swim in the deep end unchaperoned, go down the slides, etc. The test consists of swimming the entire length of the pool, and then treading water for 60 seconds. Zach attempted and failed earlier this summer, because unbeknownst to me the requirements had changed. You can no longer swim underwater the whole way, you have to do some semblance of a freestyle stroke.

So for the past few weeks I've been helping him practice his freestyle. I told him a few days ago I thought he was ready to try the test again. He was hesitant, but decided to trust me. I said a little prayer that he wouldn't fail again, twice in a row might have ended his swimming career for good.

I could tell that towards the end of his swim his little body was getting tired, but he made it.



His celebratory jump into the deep end after earning his green band says it all.