eee.
THanks for all your kind notes in the previous entry.
... my roommate and I had a really good talk last night. She was, unfortunately, sexually abused as a child, but she hasn't told very many people about it. In fact, she has only told me and one of our other roommates. Anyway, here is a snippet of the conversation that I felt was particularly powerful. ... even though I wasn't abused as a child in this way, I really feel this strong urge to be the voice for all of those silenced by fear and selflessness. -- This bit of the conversation came after we were discussing why she would never tell her parents about her incidents of sexual abuse-- (she was molested by 3 different men seperetely when she was younger, her mothers youngest brother, a pre-school worker and a family friend.)
Me: Well, I dont know. Im just curious because its really interesting to me to see you talk about it and like I completely understand the whole feeling about how you have to be older than your parents like you have to parent your parents.
her: Like I have to protect my parents.
me: Right, and you shouldnt feel that you have to protect your parents. Your parents are there to protect you. Even if youre older now.. you shouldnt have to feel that way.
her: Okay, this is going to sound harsh but shouldnt, okay, like I shouldnt have to protect my parents. I shouldnt have to have been abused. I shouldnt have to not have money. I shouldnt have to you know see people crash planes into the world trade center. I shouldnt have to do a lot of things. But like, it still happens. I think, like things are so circumstantialsituational personal like you could take out certain variables. Like, if my parents werent drug addicts, would this have happened? If I had been if my mother hadnt had a miscarriage before she had me, would I have been born? If my grandparents didnt get divorced, would my uncle have been, you know, would my grandma have been dating someone else and my uncle not have been able to have been molested by a priest and have this in him should that have happened? Probably not. I mean its ideal to say I mean, this is philosophizing this is not attacking what you said but I shouldnt have to parent my parents, but, like I dont feel like they can understand and like they can its in my hands right now. I am holding my pain and I can deal with it? But I dont want to hand that pain to someone else, like I want, like its my way of protecting myself too, like I can borough over my pain, like, I can, you know, I can fold it in a little envelope and tuck it inside my pocket and metaphor, metaphor, metaphor, and keep it, but its like, if I were to do that it would open up the wounds for me. It would open up the wounds for me and it would also create new ones for other people and like I mean, I dont know if its right or like, healthy but I feel that its a lot more useful for me to just keep it and hold onto it and its like Im majoring in sociology and Im probably going to work with a lot of juvenal delinquents, probably a lot of juvenal delinquents have had bad situations and Im going to try to use it to benefit other people like I dont see how handing the pain to my mom would benefit anyone. It would hurt more people than it would help, I think. And like, I mean, I dont know.
...
something needs to be done about this. She's not the only one out there who is keeping silent... there are so many. Some are members of this site. Some are people you work with or live next door to. Some are your cousins and siblings. Is there anything we can do provide this voice for the hundreds... thousands of women and men who will never speak out about their abuse?
THanks for all your kind notes in the previous entry.
... my roommate and I had a really good talk last night. She was, unfortunately, sexually abused as a child, but she hasn't told very many people about it. In fact, she has only told me and one of our other roommates. Anyway, here is a snippet of the conversation that I felt was particularly powerful. ... even though I wasn't abused as a child in this way, I really feel this strong urge to be the voice for all of those silenced by fear and selflessness. -- This bit of the conversation came after we were discussing why she would never tell her parents about her incidents of sexual abuse-- (she was molested by 3 different men seperetely when she was younger, her mothers youngest brother, a pre-school worker and a family friend.)
Me: Well, I dont know. Im just curious because its really interesting to me to see you talk about it and like I completely understand the whole feeling about how you have to be older than your parents like you have to parent your parents.
her: Like I have to protect my parents.
me: Right, and you shouldnt feel that you have to protect your parents. Your parents are there to protect you. Even if youre older now.. you shouldnt have to feel that way.
her: Okay, this is going to sound harsh but shouldnt, okay, like I shouldnt have to protect my parents. I shouldnt have to have been abused. I shouldnt have to not have money. I shouldnt have to you know see people crash planes into the world trade center. I shouldnt have to do a lot of things. But like, it still happens. I think, like things are so circumstantialsituational personal like you could take out certain variables. Like, if my parents werent drug addicts, would this have happened? If I had been if my mother hadnt had a miscarriage before she had me, would I have been born? If my grandparents didnt get divorced, would my uncle have been, you know, would my grandma have been dating someone else and my uncle not have been able to have been molested by a priest and have this in him should that have happened? Probably not. I mean its ideal to say I mean, this is philosophizing this is not attacking what you said but I shouldnt have to parent my parents, but, like I dont feel like they can understand and like they can its in my hands right now. I am holding my pain and I can deal with it? But I dont want to hand that pain to someone else, like I want, like its my way of protecting myself too, like I can borough over my pain, like, I can, you know, I can fold it in a little envelope and tuck it inside my pocket and metaphor, metaphor, metaphor, and keep it, but its like, if I were to do that it would open up the wounds for me. It would open up the wounds for me and it would also create new ones for other people and like I mean, I dont know if its right or like, healthy but I feel that its a lot more useful for me to just keep it and hold onto it and its like Im majoring in sociology and Im probably going to work with a lot of juvenal delinquents, probably a lot of juvenal delinquents have had bad situations and Im going to try to use it to benefit other people like I dont see how handing the pain to my mom would benefit anyone. It would hurt more people than it would help, I think. And like, I mean, I dont know.
...
something needs to be done about this. She's not the only one out there who is keeping silent... there are so many. Some are members of this site. Some are people you work with or live next door to. Some are your cousins and siblings. Is there anything we can do provide this voice for the hundreds... thousands of women and men who will never speak out about their abuse?
VIEW 11 of 11 COMMENTS
People think it will go away if they ignore it, but it just gets worse.
I cant help but think that being molested is bad enough but how terrible that it is your own family memeber. The issues involved seem complex as said gby your frined but even so she has told someone , even if not her parents and you just listening to her story and not "judging" her probably makes a big difference.
I also get so mad as hell as a male about the amount of violence and lots of it of sexual nature against women and children males commit. I guess I could blame the abusers or I could even blame their parents for abusing them or allowing them to be abused.
However your friend's approach to reach out to troubled young people is probably the more effective approach, and I have to believe it is healing for her.
peace