My Story of Sexual Abuse and Facts Behind a Troubling Crime

Sexual Abuse
Sexual abuse is any sexual contact with a child or the use of a child for the sexual pleasure of someone else. This can include exposing private parts to the child or asking the child to expose him or herself, fondling of the genitals or requests for the child to do so, oral sex or attempts to enter the vagina or anus with fingers, objects or a penis.

It is estimated that two out of every ten girls and one out of every ten boys are sexually abused by the end of their 13^th year of life.

Did you know that most children, who are sexually abused, are abused by a family member, member of the church or close friend?

Statistics of sexual abuse:
· 10% of those children are preschoolers.
· 85-90% involve perpetrator known to the child.
· 35% involve a family member.
· 50% of assaults take place in the home of the child or the offender.
· The average offender is involved with over 70 children during their life of offending.
(http://www.safechild.org/childabuse1.htm)

Behavioral indicators in child:
· Inappropriate displays of affection.
· Sexual acting out.
· Sudden reluctance to go someplace or be with someone.
· Uncomfortableness or rejection to typical family affection.
· Sudden use of sexual terms or new names for body parts.
· Sleep problems, including: insomnia, refusal to sleep alone, nightmares, or suddenly insisting on a night light.
· Extreme clinginess or other signs of fearfulness.
· Problems in school.
· A sudden change in personality.
· Regressive behaviors, including: thumb-sucking, bed-wetting, immature behaviors or other signs of dependency.
· Unwilling to participate in or change clothes for gym class at school.
· Bizarre or unusual sophistication pertaining to sexual behavior or knowledge.
· Runs away from home.
(http://www.safechild.org/childabuse1.htm)

Physical indications of sexual abuse:
· Torn clothing.
· Difficulty sitting or walking.
· Stained or bloody under garments.
· Pain or itching in genital area.
· Pregnancy.
· Venereal disease, especially with pre-teens.
(http://www.safechild.org/childabuse1.htm)

My story:
I was born in a small town in Missouri. We had a family of five, my father, mother, two sisters and I. My mother and father were married at a young age, my mother was 15 and my father was 19. They had the three of us kids by the time my mother was 19. They started their adult life at a very young age. At the age of 5 my parents got divorced. My mother met a new man in 1983 and we moved in with him. They were married in 1985. Her new husband molested my sisters and me. We were not his first victims and probably not his last.

This man started sexually abusing me at the age of seven, not long after we moved in with him. During the sexual abuse I would always try to get him to stop. It made me feel so ashamed and dirty. I would just keep telling him to stop and he never did. I don't know why I never told anyone when I was a child. I guess I figured know one would listen to me or believe me.

I didn't have very many friends because I felt different from my peers because of the sexual abuse. I also felt like the other kids looked down on me or they would if they ever found out about the abuse at home. Growing up with out any close friends really made life sad and lonely for me.

I always felt so alone and scared as a child. I had so much guilt and anger. I felt guilty as if I were responsible for the abuse and I had so much anger because I felt like the adults close to me should be protecting me from this man. No one ever protected me though.

I don't know if my little mind could not accept the fact that this man was probably doing the same things to my sisters or if I was just ignorant to the possibility. But at the time it never even crossed my mind. I just felt like I was the only one in the world that was being abused in such a manner. It really made me feel isolated from the world and at such an early age.

In the second grade I started stealing and getting in trouble in school. I guess that was my way of yelling "Help me please". But it didn't help me. Instead it made things worse. I felt even more isolated from my peers and teachers because I was stealing stickers and such. Later on I learned that stealing is a coping mechanism for people that have gone through trauma (sexual abuse). I guess that was one of the ways I could cope with the sexual abuse.

One of the main reasons I always felt like it was my fault was because at night when it stormed I would get scared and go to my mom's bedroom to get comfort from her. She would always make me go to her husband's side of the bed to sleep through the storm. Every time I went to his side of the bed to sleep he would molest me. I don't understand why I didn't just stay in my own room and be scared and alone.

In 1988 this man moved our family to a small city that was three hours away from our home town. We didn't know anyone in this new place. We had left all of our family behind. I think he moved us away so no one could find out what he was doing to us.

After we moved to the new place my mother was the only one that had a job. While she was at work my younger sister and I noticed that he was having sex with our older sister. For some reason we felt like she wanted to have sex with him. I'm sure that's the only way we could cope with the situation though. It really made us have hard feelings towards our older sister. I always felt like she was trying to steal my mom's husband from her, when really she was being raped. This made me have a lot of issues with trusting other people, especially other women. I guess I felt like if my sister would try to steal her own mother's husband away then all women would try to steal your significant other no matter what. That made it hard to have any kind of friendships.

I started smoking cigarettes and marijuana in the 7^th grade. My mom's husband is the one that started me on marijuana. He would smoke a joint with me, my sisters and a couple of our friends. The weekend before Halloween 1991, my mom's husband had a party at the house. We were all sitting in the living room when they passed me a joint. I took two hits off of this joint. Something was really wrong with this joint though. I started feeling really odd so I went to my bedroom. About ten minutes went by and I could not see anything. I could hear people in the other room but everything was black. My mom's husband came back there with me. Someone started French kissing me and it was really gross. I was messed up so when my mom came back there I thought it was her kissing me and I kept telling her to leave. She left me alone with her husband. After she left I don't remember what happened. I know the next day when I woke up I felt like I was dead. Everyone thought it was funny but I didn't. I think her husband raped me that night. To this day I still feel like a part of me is dead. He stole my spirit from me that night. For a week after the incident I had withdrawls and felt like I was going to die if my mom's husband wasn't around me at all times so I didn't even go to school. That was really odd because I couldn't stand being around him before.

By the time I was in the 9^th grade I had been expelled from school due to insubordination. Instead of dropping out of school I was sent to a secondary school. This school was basically for people in trouble or pregnant girls. It gave us a second chance at getting a high school diploma. I guess going to the new school did me a lot of good. I was around people that I felt more comfortable with and they had a licensed psychiatrist for the students. One day I was sitting in my class and Mr. B came to see me. He would get students out of class to talk with them as he saw fit. I guess he wanted to get to know me. I really felt comfortable with him and started talking to him. He was the very first person I ever told about the sexual abuse.

The summer of my 9^th grade my younger sister and I went to visit our family back home. We would go stay for a couple weeks every summer. One day my Aunt and I had gone to the store and she asked me if my mom's husband had ever hurt me. We were really close so I knew that she would believe me if she was asking me. I told her about the sexual abuse and she had asked me if he did it to my younger sister. I told her that I didn't think that he did. When we got back to the house we asked my sister if he had abused her. She said that he abused her as well. Fire ran through my veins that day. I wanted to kill him for hurting my sister the same way that he had hurt me. My sister and I were always close so I don't know why we never talked to each other about it until that day.

We had sort of a family meeting in my home town that day. My aunt told my uncle when we got home. He's my mother's brother. After he found out he called their sister to ask her what they should do. They decided that they should tell my mother and get us out of the house. My family members were like "We always thought something was weird but we didn't want to get involved." That really made me angry. I felt if they would have got involved then we wouldn't have gone through as much hell as we had gone through.

My aunt drove us home to my mother's house to tell her about the abuse. We also were going to tell her that we wanted to move out, that was the longest three hour drive I've ever been on. When we arrived to our home three hours away my aunt called my mom outside. We told her about the abuse. She did not believe us. She made me and my little sister confront her husband about the abuse. That was really scary for me. My mother made my sister and I go to their bedroom where he was at. She then made us confront him about his abuse. He just looked at us like he knew that she would believe him. He said "I was just showing you that I loved you." I told him that my dad didn't show us love that way. You can't even imagine how hard it was to sit there with him and have him say that he didn't molest us that he was just showing us love. He knew better and he knew that what ever he said my mother would believe. My older sister denied any kind of abuse. She was in a state of denial until she was pregnant with her first child.

My mother lived with this man until 1997. So he was in our lives for 14 years. I was so happy the day that she told him she wanted a divorce. I think one of the main reasons that made my mom divorce him was because my older sister was pregnant and she told my mom that she would never be able to keep her child over night with her husband in the house.

I had put all of the abuse behind me or out of my mind until 2000. My younger sister had a baby girl and it brought up a lot of bad memories for her. She was put in a stress center. After being released from the stress center she decided to seek counseling and asked me if I would attend with her. I told her that I would. We went to a group therapy session once a week for women of sexual abuse. I really feel like the group therapy helped me through a lot of my issues. My sister quit going after about a year because she didn't enjoy it anymore and it got too hard for her. But I kept going for another year, until I moved away. One on one counseling doesn't help me because I don't like to talk to a therapist. I would rather talk to people that have some idea of what I'm dealing with or that has been through similar circumstances.

The main things that I have suffered in my life from being a victim of sexual abuse are having unhealthy relationships, lots of guilt, feeling ashamed and worthless, depression, suicidal thoughts, sadness, feeling lonely, isolating myself from the world, feelings of guilt for other victims due to keeping quiet about the abuse and mourning the loss of my childhood.

Through out my life I have used many coping mechanisms to deal with my sexual abuse, most of them very unhealthy. I have finally come to a point in my life where I feel at peace with my sexual abuse. I decided that I am not going to let my perpetrator ruin the rest of my life. He ruined the first part and I had no choice but now I have a choice. I have made the choice to forgive him for the pain that he has caused me and my family. The way I cope with it now is through God. I pray that he will become a better person and not hurt anyone else like he hurt me and my family.

As parents I feel that we should really be aware of what is going on with our children. Adults are the only ones that can protect our children. We need to start teaching our children about sexual abuse and they can always come and talk to us about anything. I think a lot of people just assume that their children are safe and that's why we have so many innocent children being victimized. You can help stop the silence at this website http://www.stopcsa.org/.

If you are a victim of sexual abuse please know that you are not alone. I suggest that you speak with someone, rather it be a close friend, family member or a licensed therapist www.wiit.com/about_wiit.htm. Don't let your perpetrator ruin the rest of your life. If you feel comfortable with talking to me I would be happy to listen and guide you in any direction that I can. You can contact me through my email at sdboyer@earthlink.net.

What can parents do to prevent sexual abuse?

Stay alert and teach your children what sexual abuse is. Let them know that they can and should say "NO!" or "Stop!" to adults who advance on them sexually. Make sure that your children know that it's ok to tell you about any attempts of sexual abuse - no matter who the offender is.

· Check to see if your child's school has an abuse prevention program for teachers and children. If it doesn't have one, try and get one started.
· Teach your child about the privacy of their body parts.
· Listen when your child is trying to tell you something, especially if it seems hard for them to talk about it.
· Know who your child is spending time with. Plan to visit your child's caregiver without notice.
· Talk to you child about sexual abuse.
· Tell someone in authority if you suspect sexual abuse with any child.

Prevention measures to keep your children safe should begin early; several child abuse cases involve preschoolers. The following guidelines offer some age-appropriate topics to discuss with your children:

· 18 months - Teach your child proper names for their body parts.
· 3-5 years - Teach your child about private areas of the body and how to say "no" to sexual advances.
· 5-8 years - Discuss how to be safe away from home and the difference between "good touch" and "bad touch".
· 8-12 years - Make sure to stress personal safety. Start discussing rules of sexual conduct that are acceptable by the family.
· 13-18 years - Stress personal safety. Discuss rape, date rape, sexually transmitted diseases and pregnancy. Your child's teacher, school counselor, or pediatrician can help you to teach your child to avoid sexual abuse.