Amy
For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a “daddy’s girl.”
My father has always told me that he loves me more than anyone else. More than he ever loved my mother, more than he ever loved his second wife. Even as a small child, his intensity when he would tell me this would creep me out. I didn’t want to be rude or hurt his feelings but I knew that amount of “love” was “off” and now I know that it is inappropriate.
I was seven when I ran a very high fever and when that fever broke I started hearing voices. Those voices continued for two months before I couldn’t take it any longer and I told my mother. Mom scheduled me for an appointment with a counselor and the first thing that the counselor asked was if I had been sexually abused. Mom was in the room with us and there was no way that I was going to admit to sleeping in my father’s bed with us both naked. No way that I could tell anyone about the time that we had stayed at the local Holiday Inn so that I could swim and I had awaked to my father masturbating to porn at the end of the bed that I was sleeping in.
Nothing had really happened to me. He had never touched me that I could remember. But still, I didn’t tell.
Right after I had my first child, a girl, my father genuinely went off the deep end and started using drugs, beating up on his new family and stealing things so that he could pawn them for cash. My step-mother had all that she could take and filed for divorce. She called me one day and asked if I would be willing to testify in court concerning the fact that Dad taught me to drive at the age of 11 so that he could drink beer while I drove us the two hours to Little Rock where he lived. My step-mom wanted to show a history of dangerous behavior as it pertained to his kids so that Dad would have no chance of getting unsupervised custody.
This time also coincided with me finding a new counselor who confirmed what I had thought for quite a while: though he had never touched me that I can remember, what my father did and the shame that he caused me to feel was abusive. This realization, along with me having a daughter of my own, gave me the courage to tell my step-mother that I would do anything within my power to ensure that my father never did to his new daughter what he had done to me. My ½ sister, twenty years my junior, looked at our father much the way that I did when I was her age and that scared me.
My step-mother informed her lawyer of what I was willing to testify to and then I received a “private number” call on my cell phone. My father’s lawyer had been told what I would say if the custody battle went to court and she called me to talk me out of it. She called me to let me know just how scary a courtroom would be and to tell me that “everyone will hear [my] lies.” With that, all of those years of anger and shame and guilt and self-loathing came crashing down around my ears and I hung up on the woman.
I called my father and raged at him for giving my phone number to his lawyer. Raged at him for denying what he had done. Raged at him for failing as a father. Raged for years and years of feeling other and broken and less-than. Raged at him for taking pure trust and love and making it dirty.
That was just over two years ago and I still talk to my father. The conversations are short, awkward and always initiated by him. He refuses to admit anything and I refuse to forget. The balance of power has shifted and I’m finally the one who isn’t scared and that’s a nice place to be.
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Amy writes at Taste Like Crazy.
Judy Ann Katherine
I liked Tim* the first time I met him, at the tender age of 15, though we wouldn’t start dating for another six years. We spent endless nights talking, going for walks, biking, going to the beach and sharing our dreams. We had the same goals, and Tim loved me for who I was. We married at the age of 26. We had our first child, the first grandchild on his side of the family, and she was well loved. I had no clue what was going to happen next.
Tim is a realtor/investor and, as the saying goes, behind every successful man is a woman. Tim had a 4-year college degree. I had work experience. I worked my way up the corporate ladder until I was my own boss and people worked for me. I helped Tim get started. I did his resume, got him his first interview, and supported his goals. He worked endless hours. He loved our daughter and me.
Problems started within the first year of our marriage. His large family showed controlling, dysfunctional tendencies in just about every aspect of our lives. The abuse started with phone calls. I was raised in a tight-knit family and we laughed a lot. Never did we meddle in each other’s personal lives. Never did I expect this. I received too many calls to count from his mother, father, sisters, aunt, and grandma. They made demands on how I should raise my child. I was chased by his youngest sister, who said she wanted to beat me up. His oldest sister attempted to tackle me while I carried my baby. I flipped her into a snow bank. I visited his mother with our child and I showed respect. She hid my keys and said you are not taking this baby anywhere. She grabbed her out of my hands! His father called me a bitch. I was 26-years-old, but not naive by any means. I knew this was the beginning of something terrible. I was right.
My husband never cleaved to me. His mother, aunt, and grandma gave him guilt trips. Tim did not know how to handle this, so I thought. In reality, he put his biological family first. I was his arm candy and lived in his shadow.
The violence started. I got thrown on the basement floor during a talk, not argument, and did not see it coming. To this day my left ear is hard to hear out of. My left eye had a shiner from the fall. I would wave at someone and he would hit me in the ribs. He grabbed my head as I drove down the street, our daughter in her car seat screaming, “Please daddy stop!” Prayer and good counsel gave me the ability to divorce when I got strong. Until I did get strong, though, the abuse got worse.
He almost ran our daughter over with his car and did not care to stop. I was granted many orders of protection. He was not to go to the girls’ schools (we had two daughters by this time) and I was in counseling, suffering from Bulimia and Anorexia. Throwing up made me feel like I was getting relief. I did not see an 88-pound woman in the mirror. I went to the hospital and was told I had a week to live. I decided to ask one of my brothers and my dad to help me get help. My self-esteem was gone and I wanted ME back. I went to a hospital as an outpatient and attended classes where I helped others. Soon I was on the road to recovery, but not fast enough.
He went to our pastor and told him I was cheating, that I was hitting him, and over spending. I left church, left friends, and started making a plan. My friend in Florida called every night to pray with me. In prayer I found peace. My daughters are very resilient. There was one person in his family that admitted the truth and that was his grandfather, who to this day carries the incredible burden of not confronting his family. Once he cried out to me, tears rolling down his face, “Why would my grandson do this when he was blessed with such a beautiful family?”
I got diagnosed with a muscular disorder. I am allergic to many medications but, finally, the doctor found one that helped me sleep. That’s when the worst nightmare began. My husband raped me under the medication. I asked him to stop. This went on many, many times, and when I would wake up I felt violated. I confronted my husband and asked him, “If someone was doing this to one of your sisters, what would you do?” He replied, “Kill them!” I kept a journal and the police gave me a phone to carry that dispatched me to a station no matter where I was. My husband made fun of it and would say, “Is that your bat phone?” He laughed and laughed. I wrote and wrote in my journal.
I was stuck because my mom was disabled, I was not working and I needed a plan. Even though I had an order of protection, he went to our daughter’s school and took her. I think he started to get scared, so he went for the ones I loved the most… our kids. He started mentally abusing them. My eldest became suicidal. My youngest got really sad. She couldn’t explain herself, and for the next four years she stuffed her feelings. It was a struggle. I did not give up. He was rich in money but I was the richest woman alive because I had my precious children. Once my youngest started opening up her healing began and to this day she hurts but does not rebel. She puts her energy to good use. I got fortunate, my girls are beautiful inside. They were not destroyed because getting help before a divorce really made a difference. I was able to help them after I helped myself.
Tim was arrested many times. He almost lost his realtor’s license. I found out the police held him weekends at a time. Court was not going to be easy. I knew no one he knew everyone.
Tim was found guilty of rape—nine counts—and they were going to sentence him. Like a fool, I dropped the charges because I was thinking of my children having a father in jail. That was the worst mistake of my life. For the next seven years, he put our children and me through hell. I finally walked out.
I headed straight to a motel where I lived with my girls and their dog for about three months. We lived in a car part of the summer and it was a hot summer. We ate a cheeseburger a day, the good ol’ dollar menu at McDonald’s.
Although, I am remarried I have had to call the police numerous times. The police say some men never stop. I believe in my case this may be. My youngest hates to go with him and this is not because I brainwashed her and told her that her father is bad. He continued his ways and the youngest sees what the eldest once endured.
Why did I take him all the way to criminal court and drop charges? I want to live, laugh, and love. One thing he did not destroy was my ability to move forward, to love another man, and this still angers him. He once told me, “No one stands up to me!” I don’t hate him, I feel sorry for him because I have seen sadness in his eyes for he realizes what he lost. Seeing his kids grow up. He had the option to watch his eldest be top drummer and his youngest sing, dance and be a child. Something my eldest had taken from her due to his selfishness.
We both are remarried now. My children to this day ask me why I am nice to him. I don’t go for any of the bullshit and I do not say it is because he is the father of you both. I tell them this is who I am. Eventually, they got old enough to see his anger in full rage. He never changed but I did. I am a survivor.
My girls are happy, resilient, kind, and cautious. I never felt sorry for myself, I kept moving along, and I knew God had a plan for my children and me. Christianity is a way you chose to live your life. It is by God’s rule not my own. Surely if it were by my rules he would not be living. In saying that, it is God’s job to judge and my job to do what is right. We all have to answer to him someday. 1 John 5:4 says, “Victory against the world is by Faith alone.” Without my faith, I would not be alive today.
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Judy Ann Katherine does not have a blog. She has changed names to protect her family.
In Memoriam: Mary Jo Roberts
Mary Jo Roberts was a survivor, a proud contributor to this site, and an ardent supporter of her fellow Violence UnSilenced comrades. On Saturday, May 15, she passed away unexpectedly. Our hearts are aching for her husband, Matt, and their loved ones.
Thank you, MJ, for using your voice to help others. You were clearly treasured and will be deeply missed.
(December 26, 1980 — May 15, 2010)
(Condolences may be left on Mary Jo’s blog, or on the Facebook memorial page her husband, Matt, created. This post was created with his permission.)
Jurgen Nation
The Great Perhaps
Perhaps he hated me for being around, resented my presence, innocent though it was. I was her daughter. Bio-dad skipped out. I had nowhere else to go.
Perhaps he was angry with her and wanted to use me as a pawn for his rage. Maybe they fought. Maybe she was going to be late. Maybe. Maybe something. Maybe nothing.
Perhaps he hated himself for being a terrible father to his own kids, for being a failure, for not meeting his own expectations.
Perhaps dating a woman with a daughter and living in a trailer park was something he felt beneath him.
Perhaps he was perverted. A pedophile.
Perhaps I wasn’t the only one whose innocence and dignity he desecrated, before I had the opportunity to appreciate it.
Perhaps he just wanted to know what fucking a child felt like.
* * *
Perhaps he hated his dad, hated that his dad was in a relationship with a woman who had a young daughter, who lived in a trailer park.
Perhaps he was angry that his parents divorced, that his older brother was born severely retarded.
Perhaps it was simply that he turned to the devil, literally and figuratively, and that either through his belief in Satanism he had no feelings, no compassion or empathy for stealing my identity, my dignity, for turning me into a sexual being when I was too young to know what sex was supposed to be. That it shouldn’t be by force. It shouldn’t be terrifying. That screaming, “NO STOP HELP STOP” should never be part of intimacy. It shouldn’t be something a boy who was practically my step-brother and his friend were supposed to do to me without my permission.
Perhaps he and his friend were bored.
Perhaps they just wanted to know what it was like to fuck a child against her will.
* * *
Perhaps he was used to being the most popular kid in school, smart and athletic, and resented that nobody attending fancy colleges or in life in general gives a shit who you were in high school. Maybe he resented feeling small; maybe he felt as small as he made others in his high school he deemed beneath him. Perhaps he felt guilty.
Perhaps he wasn’t used to being told “no.” Maybe it being screamed in his face angered him.
Perhaps his disrespect for me was so great, he didn’t care if I said no, he didn’t care if I said yes. Perhaps he began the night knowing that he would fuck me or the other girl I was with, whether by consent or by force.
Perhaps he didn’t even realize it was force, that holding me down while I shouted and screamed and tried to get out from underneath him was wrong. That it was rape.
Perhaps he did, but he didn’t care.
Perhaps he didn’t see me as anyone worth treating well.
Perhaps he just wanted to know what it felt like to fuck a kid, barely a teenager.
* * *
Perhaps I shouldn’t wonder, shouldn’t think of these people who hurt me as human, as multi-dimensional people who are walking around, living, breathing the same air as me. But thinking of them as monsters never helped any, even though they were to me.
Perhaps viewing them in a different context will help me understand. Understand what, I don’t yet know. But blaming the world failed to make a difference, hating myself has proven ineffective.
Perhaps I should just push it to the back of my mind. Get over it. Stop wondering.
Perhaps I shouldn’t do anything, shouldn’t care, shouldn’t harbor anger and frustration about never having had the chance to be a kid, to have an innocent childhood.
Perhaps.
Perhaps.
Perhaps.
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Jurgen Nation writes here.
