My father molested me. He wasn’t the worst molester in the world, or even a particularly dedicated one (his other interests – choir, hiking, his compost heap – got in the way), but he did it and two years ago I told the police.
I learned a lot that year. For example, did you know that a sex offender isn’t necessarily charged according to the most current Sexual Offences Act? They’re charged according to the act that was around when they doing that particular molesting, “Otherwise,” the lady police officer explained to me, “It would be unfair on the molester.”
I learned that public sector staff tilt their heads to one side when you tell them about child sex abuse and I learned that police officers are easily charmed by paedophiles despite the stereotype of the paedophiles that easily charm police officers that haunts late night paedophilia specials.
Other Things I Learned
Your mother will try to turn the conversation from Dad’s A Paedophile to You’re A Bisexual. You will tell her that he used to sniff the insides of your underwear, she will say, “You’d know all about women’s underwear, wouldn’t you?” and there will be this deep pause before the insults start.
Communication with your mother will become extremely sparse, and will soon be relegated to birthdays and religious holidays. You will offer the briefest of written words and she will respond with oblique jokes about Kim Jong-un. She doesn’t have an email account of her own, so she will use your father’s email address to communicate with you. Every time his email address comes up in your inbox you almost shit your pants.
Communication with your mother will start taking place via your sister. Your mother will tell your sister that you are a sociopath, that this is all the fault of your lesbian godmothers who have implanted these memories into your fragile brain, and that you are doing this in order to get money out of your father. You have such a strong compulsion to ring her up and explain to her that you don’t go to the police about someone’s paedophilia and then ask for money; you threaten to go to the police unless you are given money, but you are gradually losing your ears to Meniere’s disease and you know that if you ring the house there is a chance that he will pick up the phone.
Your sister will confirm your mother’s suspicions that you live with a lady in a romantic way even though you specifically asked her not to do this. You will freak out for about three hours and then realize that it doesn’t matter if your mother thinks you’re a lesbian because she doesn’t know where you live anymore.
You will realize your mother doesn’t know where you live anymore.
You will have fantasies about the day when your right kidney, your worse functioning kidney, stops functioning altogether and you need a new one and your mother will offer you hers and you will decline and make a joke about how you don’t accept kidneys from child sex abuse apologists. You will say it in a tone of voice that implies that this is a common political belief – that lots of people boycott kidneys from child sex abuse apologists, that this is a noted ideological stance, like boycotting Nestle. It will make you laugh and then you will cry because you need a kidney.
You will remember that your mother almost certainly has a policy of not donating kidneys to people who have accused her husband of molesting them.
You will have fantasies about the day when your right kidney, your worse functioning kidney, stops functioning at all and you need a new one and your father offers you his and this leads to a dramatic DNA test ordered by the hospital which concludes once and for all that he is not your biological father. Your kidney will be so gratified by this news that it will start functioning again.
You will realize through watching a single episode of House that nobody does DNA tests on prospective kidney donors.
Your sister’s fiancé will ring you up and tell you that it is time that you rang your parents up to have it out with them. You will ask him what out means, and he will explain that he thinks you should talk all ‘this’ through before it is too late. You will ask what ‘this’ means and he will say that ‘this’ refers to the accusations you have been making about your father’s inappropriate sexual behaviour, as if he really thinks that you will ring up your father and say, “Hey Dad. Doesn’t time fly? It seems like only yesterday when you were sexually abusing me. Any plans for your birthday?”. You will ask what too late means, and he will explain that it means after your father sues you for libel or after your father dies.
You will have fantasies about your father suing you for libel. You will wear a suit like the female characters in all your favourite courtroom dramas and you will pace up and down the courtroom in such a dignified manner that your father will lose all sense of control and he will suddenly confess to his crimes and be imprisoned forever.
You will remember that paedophiles serve shorter prison sentences than burglars.
You will remember that you don’t believe in the prison industrial complex anyway.
You will have fantasies about your father dying. You will remember the day when your mother rang you up to tell you that your father had expired, and only explained somewhat into the conversation that he was in fact still living but was extremely ill in the hospital, having breakfasted on gone off chicken liver pate. You will remember how you told her, at the time, that it is unethical to tell your child that their father has died when their father has not died, and you will remember how she told you to stop being so dramatic.
You will remember that this is the same man that took you to the beach all the time when you were little. You really enjoyed the beach and he really enjoyed the beach and he never molested you on the beach even though he had every opportunity because you were half naked and there was nobody else around because it was a deserted, stony, and mostly shitty beach, but you loved that beach.
People will post motivational messages on their Facebook wall and on your Facebook wall. You will read such motivational messages as, ‘believe you can do it, believe you deserve it, believe you will get it’ and hope that prospective paedophiles are not reading them and becoming motivated to do the molesting they had always dreamed about but been too inhibited to pursue.
You will watch The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe and feel that the white witch probably froze Mr Tumnus for being a paedophile.
Your sister will tell you about several of her friends who think that you are misinterpreting your father’s jokey and affectionate nature. You will tell her that jokes are meant to be funny and then you will hang up the phone and then you will spend hours in the bathtub telling yourself that perhaps he is not really a paedophile and perhaps he is just a jokey, hands-on kind of dad, who came to Parent’s Evenings and took you to the hospital when you broke your arm.
You will remember that the nurse had to cut you out of your sweatshirt that time you broke your arm and your father refused to leave the triage cubicle and he waited there, a devoted dad, staring at your ten year old tits.
A public sector worker will ask if you ever left your used underwear on the bathroom floor, as if a child’s worn underwear could incite an ordinary father figure who was not already a paedophile to bury their face nose deep in your dirty gusset.
Public sector workers will ask you ridiculous questions, such as: “Why didn’t you ever tell him to stop?” (what an awkward conversation. “Hey, Daddy. I can see you’re having a great time molesting me and all, and I hate to kill your buzz, but do you think you could maybe think about stopping? Only it’s illegal, I’d way prefer to hang out with my friends, and this is your bag, not mine.”), “Why didn’t you ever tell your mother about it?” (“Hi Mama. Let’s play a guessing game, shall we? Who in this house is a sex offender? I’ll give you a clue – you married him! Yeah, that’s right, it’s Dad. Your go.”), and “Do you want milk in your herbal tea?”
People will talk to you about this who irritate you so much they constipate you. You Grip My Shit is a real thing. You will take psyllium husks and move on as best you can.
People will tell you that these are serious allegations, as if you did not realize that, as if you will say, “Oh gosh, I’m so glad you told me this because I really did not mean to accuse him of molesting me at all. No, the thing I really wanted to accuse him of is fly tipping. So sorry, thanks again.”
People who have no vested interest in your father’s job, other than as citizens of a country where he pays taxes, will suddenly be very interested in your father figure’s job. Your sister’s friend will say, “She’s going to ruin your dad’s career.” You’re not even sure she knows what he does. Other things people will say. “These are very serious accusations. This kind of thing can ruin a person’s career.” “You should be very careful what you say because stuff like this can end a person’s career.” “You know this could hurt his career?”
It will hurt you, because none of these people give a shit about your career.
His career will be absolutely fine. Your career will suffer, because he’s keeping your degree certificates and your birth certificate at his house under his creepy bed and you can’t afford to pay for new ones, even though you need them for certain job applications.
His career will be absolutely fine. You will miss work because you travel down to the city where he molested you to meet with his HR manager so she can tilt her head to one side whilst you cry at the other end of the table and drink unmilked herbal tea out of a cup that smells like egg.
His career will be absolutely fine. You will take a break from writing after you receive the grim news that his workplace has deemed him safe to work with children, although they will strengthen their child protection policy.
His career will be absolutely fine. You will wonder why they didn’t have the strongest child protection policy in the first place, why they could have made it better but didn’t, when you should be working.
His career will be absolutely fine. You will decide that everything you write is a piece of shit.
His career will be absolutely fine. You will wish you had taken him to court before that lady police officer went round to his house and got charmed by him because maybe you could sell your story to a newspaper and get money that way.
His career will be absolutely fine. You will remember that child sex abuse is so commonplace that newspapers are uninterested in buying child sex abuse stories from people who did not happen to have gotten abused by somebody famous.
His career will be absolutely fine. You will wish he was famous.
His career will be absolutely fine. You will wish you were famous, that way you could spend all day at a spa and wouldn’t have to drag yourself to your job where you get totally paranoid about the safety of the children who are under your care because you suspect every white man with a coat a bit like your father’s is a paedophile.
His career will be absolutely fine. You will feel unsafe telling your counselor that he molested you since he started threatening to sue you for libel, and you find your weekly sessions less cathartic than you would have hoped.
His career will be absolutely fine.
What you might say if somebody tells you they want to go public about the person who molested them as a child. “Please don’t be terribly upset, like I was, if this accusation doesn’t ruin their career.”
Tags: childhood, crime, l bear, politics, rape, sexual assault, writing
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Oh god.
I’m so sorry this happened.
Why do people care so much about the futures of rapists and child abusers? Why do they say theya re the worst of the worst in one breath, and then tell victims to ‘think very carefully, you could destroy his future’ in the next?
What about our futures?
Why SHOULDN’T rapists and child abusers have their futures ruined? THEY are the ones who RAPED and ABUSED. Why do they deserve to have unruffled careers? WHAT IS WRONG WITH PEOPLE’S PRIORITIES?
Spoil their lives. Leave them rotting on barren fields.
And salt the earth.
That made me so angry during the Stubenville debacle – “Oh these poor teenage boys lives are ruined! Boo hoo” Damn straight they are! Maybe they should have thought about their football careers before raping a girl?!?
That infuriates me too. As though speaking up has nooooo negative effect whatsoever on the victim’s life/reputation/career… But yes, let’s shed a tear for the poor abuser. Fuck that.
Edit: I changed “going public” to “speaking up” – I was thinking of/referencing the high-profile Steubenville case, but didn’t mean to imply that making an accusation is in any way tantamount to seeking publicity.
Seriously.
Y’know? I do believe that once someone has paid their debt to society, they should be allowed to live their lives, and not have to suffer for what they did, after society has determined that they’re finished paying for it. Otherwise why do we decide that some crimes should be punished less than other crimes, if you’re going to be punished for the rest of your life no matter what your crime.
But the thing about that is, first you have to, you know, pay for it. I think that’s the step they kept forgetting about during Stubenville. Somehow. Can’t imagine how it slipped their minds.
And if you did something really bad, then you should have to pay for a long time. And if you did something REALLY REALLY bad, then you should have to pay FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE.
That someone will never pay their debt to their victim.
You’re right, it’s not a debt that can ever be fully repaid. Survivors carry emotional scars for the rest of our lives because someone else decided to have their fun with us, totally inappropriately, for a few minutes of their life.
BUT a few years in jail and a criminal record that ensures they will never be left alone with children again (or at least, not in a job) ever again would be really nice.
Hell, even the world taking child molestation seriously enough to ACTUALLY TRY TO STOP IT would be a really nice start. People forget that the perp themselves inflicts one type of psychological damage… and every idiot who asks stupid, insensitive questions, or tilts their head and does nothing, or treats you as though you must be lying, or tells you that an abuser’s career is more important than trying to stop them, they all inflict another kind of psychological damage.
Honestly, as someone who survived the ‘worst class’ of abuse (raped as a seven year old), you never really know whether it’s the abuse itself that harms you the most, or the terrible shit other people do to you for being abused and refusing to stay silent about it. My mother is BFFs with the man who raped me, still, despite being told what he did by me, police, psychiatrists, etc. She turned my only sibling against me, because I wouldn’t have contact with her while she was still friends with him. I could go on and on, with stuff psychiatrists and social workers and almost everyone else who ever got involved did. (I was lucky that when it did finally get to the police, they were amazing, so at least I have nothing bad to say there.)
A murdered can never pay their debt either; no punishment will undo what they have done. When we stop punishing murderers because it won’t bring back the dead, we can keep not-punishing child molesters. Frankly, seeing the person who violated you properly punished would go a lot further towards giving their victims back their life and dignity than jailing murderers does.
Absolutely – this makes me so angry. As if people make this kind of accusation on a whim just for the hell of it.
FFS. RAGE on your behalf, I’m so sorry you had to go through all this shit on top of abuse.
If speaking up about someone’s behavior and actions is enough to ruin that person’s career, it is not the speaker who ruined it, but the doer.
We cannot “ruin someone’s career” by telling the truth about them; they have ruined it themselves by doing the thing that will come to light. We are only making it more difficult for them to get away with it next time, which is good for everyone but evil-doers and those who want to cosset them.
Miiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight have something to do with the fact that accused rapists are generally men and the people they rape are generally women and who gives a fuck about women anyway they’re a bunch of lying grasping hussies who probably wanted it anyway and are just jealous and greedy whores.
Maybe.
Just a guess.
“Why do they say theya re the worst of the worst in one breath, and then tell victims to ‘think very carefully, you could destroy his future’ in the next?”
Those two things seem like they’re contradictory, bu they’re not. The first is part of the reason for the second.
We make molesters into inhuman monsters, so then when someone who is obviously human, obviously not a monster, is accused of something like that, it’s impossible for some people to believe. “Why, he’s not a monster, he’s a lovely man who is kind to puppies and makes people laugh and doesn’t even have a five o’clock shadow like all the molesters we see on the evening news!”
And, in addition, the consequences of being recognized as a child molester ARE so stark that people are afraid of it. In early America, the penalty for rape was death – and so rapists were almost never found guilty, even when the jury believed they likely had done so, because they didn’t believe, deep down, that this member of their community should be hanged for his momentary lapse of self control (SARCASM). So the fear that it might possibly be a false accusation is enough to prevent people from ever believing a victim, because the cost of being falsely accused seems so high.
OMG yes, thank you, this sums it up perfectly. People are SO preoccupied with the futures of the rapists and the child abusers. WHY?????
I doubt any of the people who say that kind of thing think of themselves as caring about the careers of sex criminals; at the point when they start concern-trolling about “his career,” they’ve already determined based on their personal biases that “he” is innocent and you are making false accusations.
Oh honey. I mean that in the most unpatronizing way, though it may not sound that way in typing. Oh honey, what a pile of shit to deal with. And keep dealing with.
God, this makes me so mad and sad and desolate. I’m so sorry you went through/are going through this and I am sending all my positive and healing thoughts to you. Thanks for sharing–your writing is most decidedly NOT shit.
What on earth is the matter with your family?!
Um.
The same thing that is the matter with way too many families to think about: Some men are sexually aroused by little girls, and the act of fathering a little girl doesn’t erase this pattern of arousal–only makes it easier to act on. And harder to talk about, because as the writer explains so poignantly, child molesters aren’t actually monsters, they are charming men (most of the time) who think what they want is what their victims want.
This is an astonishingly common illness.
What I got out of this was NOT that child molesters “think what they want is what their victims want,” or that they’re not monsters.
I’m not sure we really know how common pedophilia is — I agree that it’s probably much more common than any of us want to admit — but sexually assaulting a child is the act of a monster, not an illness. Making non-consensual sexual contact of any kind with any person, let alone one who is completely vulnerable and dependent on you, is a despicable, depraved, in-my-opinion-unforgivable, choice. Whether a person make that choice because they’re sexually aroused (because of an illness or not), because they’re exercising power over the other person, because this is one of many forms of abuse they practice…for whatever reason, they’re making a choice. And that choice makes them a monster.
I may have misinterpreted your post — please tell me, if that’s the case! My impression was you’re saying the problem is a disordered sexual desire, and I think that’s only a tiny tiny facet of the problem.
(I just read all the way down to your next post and it sounds like I did misinterpret? I’ve heard more than a few people say about a friend who was molested, “It’s so hard, because pedophilia is an illness and there’s no way to resolve it, and he really thought she wanted it!” — and saying that as an excuse that he wasn’t so bad, shouldn’t have his life ruined, etc., and so those were my particular buttons that were being hit for me.)
No, I think that men who are willing to molest children are ill, and that they should be buried alive in fire ants after being coated with honey. Because there is no effective form of resetting that loose screw, and having their lives ruined if they act on that impulse isn’t punishment enough.
It’s complicated. And it’s common enough, though most men who molest in the home are not the bio fathers of the girls they assault. What happened to this writer, and also to my wife decades ago, is unusual only in that the majority of children reporting sexual abuse are reporting some other man. My mom works in the field and bitterly jokes that the most dangerous man in America is mom’s boyfriend. He oughta be on every post office wall.
Hopefully this isn’t too much of a derail, but there was a piece on “This American Life” a few weeks ago that I found fascinating. It was about a young man who realized as a teenager that he was a pedophile and who ultimately started a support group for pedophiles. Part of the requirements for membership in the support group was an absolute oath that one would never act on one’s pedophilic (?) impulses–that any sexual contact with any child was 100% wrong, regardless of the circumstances.
The piece was interesting to me because a) I never expected to feel sympathy for a pedophile but more importantly, b) it is fully possible to have this illness (or however you’d like to refer to such a mental anomaly) and NOT be a monster.
Which is all by way of saying that however you frame pedophilia, any person who molests or abuses a child is committing a wrong and should be held accountable for that wrong. Illness =/= an excuse. In other words, a person is not responsible for their illness, but they ARE responsible for their CHOICES and ACTIONS.
I heard that too, and had the same mixed feelings about it. It was a brave piece, I think.
As a society, we have yet to master a simple concept: Just because you *can* procreate does not mean that you *should*.
No offense to the author. I am not wishing her out of existence. In my ideal world, she would exist but her parents would not.
I feel you, I know what you were trying to say. Her own mother. Her sister. Betrayal after betrayal.
A member of my own family was abused by a neighbor many years ago, and his wife knew about the abuse and did nothing.
Years later, weirdly enough, I still find myself more angry at the wife than at the abuser. Not sure why her betrayal seems worse than his.
Re: ‘What on earth is the matter with your family?!’
I think it’s just misogyny really. Although it’s 100% possible to respond appropriately when your kid tells you that your husband/their father molested them, it’s made much more difficult if you’re economically dependant on them, like my mama is.
Re: paedophilia being an illness, I don’t buy it. I think most abuse comes down to a). a massive sense of entitlement coupled with privilege which comes with society’s protection or b). opportunism in the face of a breakdown of conventional social norms. I don’t see paedpohilia as separate to, for example, sexual abuse of adults. With my dad specifically, he’s a white, middle class man. He is used to having everything he wants. He also thinks he’s earned it even though he was born relatively wealthy. I’m not sure he sees groping a child of colour as particularly different to buying Brie or acquiring a house.
“…it’s 100% possible to respond appropriately when your kid tells you that your husband/their father molested them…”
Maybe, and it’s also possible to fall out of a plane w/no chute & survive. I’ve never heard of it happening, though.
A woman who either ignored or lacked that nagging little voice whispering in her ear, ‘This man thinks he has the right to mistreat women/the waiter, he’s an asshole now and we’ve just met’ and had kids with him anyhow…that woman has a steep hill to climb.
I don’t mean to suggest that mothers who cover up sexual abuse aren’t culpable, but instead that they are the most typical, common, expected thing. Because of course you’re exactly right–molesting your kids makes you a sicko, but not the kind who’s suffering from an illness, the kind who trades good grades for sex with his students. Just to cite one example.
Dammit, I am so sad this happened to you. Looking back from decades hence, I hope this intense provision of public support from strangers will strengthen the stubborn, furious core inside you that knows you’re a survivor, not a victim.
This is a pretty typical family reaction to accusations of abuse including child rape.
Investment, mostly. Scant few people are willing to critically assess relationships that they’ve expended effort into, and the taboo against family dissolution is far stronger than the taboo against harming a child, as we see in so many anecdotal instances and as codified in routine child custody law, as codified by what is and is not in a document like the ten commandments. The family, and parents specifically, are linchpins of one’s life, perhaps especially to a traditional wife and mother’s life.
Allaying against one’s harmed children is thus the path of least resistance in any number of ways. Even when you’ve accepted that crimes have been committed, the expectation is that you salvage what you’ve got. In that sense acceptance is irrelevant. Abuse becomes something that happened in the past, and you willfully forget the senselessness of the crime itself while restitution or justice in the present becomes the senseless thing. Let bygones be bygones, haven’t we suffered enough, etc. It becomes a calculus – do right by someone you love (and consider your own complicity, likely having had some inkling of the monstrosity in your home and made the conscious decision that facing it was not worth the cost) or “keep the family together”. The courage to recognize your life’s project as rotten through is rare.
I’d call it a very Anglo-Saxon thing but it isn’t. Families, friend groups, churches, cults, governments, intentional communities, all concentrate power (monetary, spiritual, psychological, sexual) in their centers, and people defend them from the consequences of their own crimes because the alternative is to leave a shelter you built and go out into the cold. I’ve seen groups specifically oriented around anti-violence let the violence of their own pass by them. Because they built something. Who knows if they’ll get another shot at doing that kind of work? It’s too much for most people.
Just to confirm, it really, really isn’t an Anglo-Saxon thing, or a Christian thing, or even “trust the male over the clearly hysterical female” thing. This happens in all communities, in every type of group you can imagine, and it’s a way of reducing cognitive dissonance. It’s so much simpler to claim that it’s all lies than to handle that kind of breakdown. Even when there is evidence.
We have the feelings first, and then make the justification for it.
Your writing is the furthest thing from shit.
This is phenomenally written. You are very gifted. Thank you for sharing this.
You will remember how you told her, at the time, that it is unethical to tell your child that their father has died when their father has not died, and you will remember how she told you to stop being so dramatic.
If this isn’t the perfect gem of horror, the whole metaphor for the parent trying to twist their own terrible misdeed into something done by the child…
You are, as allabee says, a phenomenally gifted writer, and thank you for sharing this with us – for trusting us to hear it, and trusting yourself to say it. I am so, so sorry.
Your kidney will be so gratified by this news that it will start functioning again.
And so, so gratified that you can bolster yourself with your amazing writing and your strong, rough, lovely humor. My god, you’re funny and touching and beautiful.
Your writing is beautiful. You are wonderful. People don’t want to believe horrible things happen, so they say stuff to deny it, because if they admitted that this was true, then they would have to do something about it. They don’t want to because it is awful and disturbing so they deny it. That doesn’t make it not true. It just makes them cowards
This. Silencing victims is just a way of demonstrating that you’d privilege your own comfort and the status quo over the sanctity of someone else’s body and spirit.
L Bear, I just wanted to reiterate that this was brilliantly written. I am also flabbergasted at the concern people place for the general well being of the abuser/molester. THEY were in the wrong! THEY ruined their own lives with the choices THEY made!
I hope you are able to find healing and peace.
You write with incisive skill and power, and so damn much strength. It’s beautiful writing. Beautiful, devastating, ire-inducing writing.
L Bear, your steps forward and away from him are admirable. Cutting ties sucks, but I’m hoping you’re finding a new community and sense of acceptance / home that doesn’t bully you or belittle you or act as if something as irrelevant as his career is what matters in looking at the repercussions of his abuse.
I just want to hug you and hug you and hug you and cry.
as wrenching as this was to read, it was also so incredibly well-written–& your personality shines through so beautifully–that I couldn’t help enjoy it (at least a little bit). fuck your dad (& your mom), but you clearly have a gift.
This was beautifully written but I am so so sorry you have had to go through this & that people are so damn awful. It makes me so very angry on your behalf.
You are amazing, and your writing is incredible. So calm, but so full of rage; my arms are numb from the anger of it all. Is there a way we can contribute a few dollars (or whatever currency you use) so you can buy new documents? My hope is that you can rid yourself of this man, and if I can help you do that, I want to.
That is so sweet! Thank you so much for the offer. Unfortunately he’s still trying to sue me for libel and I can’t think of any way of accepting your generous offer of cash without revealing my real name…
The Toast can be our Middle Woman, yes? We send money to The Toast earmarked for L Bear. Then The Toast sends it to you. Would that work? Nick? Nicole? Mallory?
I would like to pitch in too.
L Bear, you’re a hero.
Also me.
I like the idea of earmarked money through the Toast. If you’re game for it, I’m serious about helping out, and I think other people would be too!
Sign me up.
This is what I was looking for! I would also be game to contribute!! You should not be held hostage by this person!!
And your piece was very moving, you are an excellent writer, but I am also so sorry you had to experience this. I
Oh my gosh you guys are so adorable. I’m totally not in a position to turn down cashes, so if it’s possible, i would love you all forever (I already love you all forever, The Toast commenters are the best commenters).
Oh, oh, oh fuck. Don’t stop writing. Don’t stop speaking the truth. Protect what gives you joy and keep it safe from those who want to yank that away from you. You are talented and your writing is a gift. Don’t let anyone ever tell you different.
This was so incredibly well-written. It takes an amazing voice, and a huge talent, to write something that simultaneously makes the reader want to hit something/vomit and also snort with laughing solidarity at your kidney. I’m so sorry that you not only have to deal with your father’s abuse, but also with your family and others’ rejection of what actually happened. Furthermore, you are unerringly correct regarding the use of milk in herbal tea.
This is heartbreaking, and, for what it’s worth, beautifully written.
I hate how wretchedly common your story is. A few years ago, in another city, I inadvertently found out that a friend-of-a-friend was a convicted child molester. Convicted. And he admitted to touching the girl. But oh, the excuses that came out when I said I’d no longer be at events that included this person – he was drunk, his stepdaughter came into bed and he thought she was his wife! Who was a vengeful ex and only brought the accusations to screw him! And the little girl was a liar anyway! And she didn’t act like a victim!
Yeah, half the excuses contradict one another and the admission of guilt, but who cares? Anything to avoid realizing that “one of us” could be “one of them.”
I am not sure how to respond to such a piece of writing, but I wish you the best of luck of dealing with your burden, through your wonderful writing or in other ways.
My mom lived a similar childhood, molestation by her father and a mother who chose to believe that my mom was the one who was lying. I am continually amazed at my mother (and your) strength when I think of her story.
You are wonderful. The world is fucked and doesn’t deserve you. I hope you are surrounded by people who put your family to shame, or that you find them one day.
And when I say “the world,” I don’t mean cosmic fate or anything, I just mean “a world full of terrible abusive awful people and their apologists.” They have names and faces and need to be held accountable. Salt the earth.
If your career is writing, something tells me YOUR career will be absolutely fine.
Thank you for sharing this with us, and for writing it so beautifully.
This is one of those things that I KNOW I shouldn’t have read at work, because hey there triggers, and shitty memories, and thank fuck for sunglasses, but I just wanted to say, I believe you. I believe everything you’ve said. Down to the fucking doctors office, because I was there too, and I believe you.
Oh love, sorry for triggers, and I’m really sorry for what happened to you. I believe you too. Thank you. Hope you’re okay.
Gosh, just last night the Mrs and I were discussing why exactly it is that the adults who knew her father was a pervert are so afraid of her. I think it’s because they fear her asking why they didn’t intervene 40 years ago, fear this so profoundly that they’ve decided to never contact her again.
The abuse didn’t just cost her what you’d expect, coming from her beloved and otherwise perfect parent; it also cost her the lifelong contact with the nanny (who is close to her sister), her mother (same), her aunts…I could go on, but I’m afraid it’s not very comforting to tell you that, in fact, it may not get better, in the sense of everyone getting older and coming to their senses about what role the child had in being victimized by a man who is otherwise likable and charming.
All I can say that is true is: This was powerfully written. I’m sorry it’s happened to you. I wish this didn’t have to happen again today to some young woman somewhere.
You know, that is a very good line of reasoning. Sometimes people back away from things out of guilt.
Or shame. When you have failed someone (or believe you have) so thoroughly that you feel shame at the thought or sight of them, it is all too easy to just back away and let that person fall out out sight and out of memory rather than confronting the shame that lives inside you.
This was an incredibly well-written punch to the gut. I’m so sorry for what happened to you and I wish you the very best of everything.
There is this terrible lack of comprehension, people seem to think that if a victim comes forward, either to the police or to the molester or whomever, then there will be a Dramatic Confrontation, Vindication, and then a cheery sunset for everyone to escape off into. Unfortunately, reality is hardly that. Abusers stick around, continuing to get people on their side and trying to convince everyone they’re really the abused party, until everyone wonders why you don’t just move on? Why, you’re acting like they ruined your life! Because you know, they did.
It is perpetually infuriating to me that someone who breaks the poisonous silence surrounding domestic crimes like this is so often treated as The Ruiner. No, the person who speaks is not The Ruiner. The person who performed the terrible act is The Ruiner, and so is anyone who knowingly created a safe haven for their misdeeds.
The one who speaks up takes on the terrible burden of telling the truth so that silent atrocities might not continue to flourish. In my book, that person is a hero.
Thank you.
If you do need a kidney, you can have mine, if I’m a match. I’ll come to England and everything.
(Sorry, that seems like the only non-useless thing to say. This was powerful, and powerfully written.)
I’m totally going to take you up on this. Please start preparing your kidney immediately by drinking adequate quantities of water, no quantities of alcohol and giving up fizzy drinks.
Hey, I’ve already given up fizzy drinks! (I’ll, uh, get back to you about the booze.) If you’re serious, email me at lawrenceevalyn(at)gmail(dot)com and I’ll toodle off to the doctor for kidney-donor-match-testing next week. I’m hoping to move to the UK in September 2015, so I could get you my kidney by then at the latest. I do have experience with so-called “minor” surgery (there aren’t enough scare-quotes in the world), and it’s AWFUL, but I could do it again.
Christ, this is good. Thank you.
I never read the comments on my own work and maybe you don’t either, but I just wanted to say you did the right thing. The woman who, after a family member sexually abuses her just pretends everything is fine–it was years ago, he apologized (sort of) and he’s on medication now–might look like she’s better off and happier than you are, but she’s really not. I know because I used to be married to one of those women.
I read all the comments! They are all great.
I really don’t know if there is a more effective or less effective way of dealing with incest sex abuse. Like, I guess if there was a good way of dealing with it, we’d all be doing it that way. I figure each way is a bit shit in terms of outcomes, and how you end up at the end of it all is often down to what your support network is like, how much money you have, and whether you have Netflix.
Thank you for sharing. I’m so sorry this happened to you, all of it.
This made me desperate to go home and look through my beloved’s ipad internet browsing history. I have zero reason to suspect he is a paedophile, and I respect his privacy, but I’m feeling so anxious about letting someone who could possibly hurt my future children father them.
I guess I want to protect them. And you, dear writer. And all of us.
Thank you for your kind words. You are lovely. And please do check his browsing history. Approximately 100% of paedophiles don’t look like paedophiles to their beloveds.
Hey L Bear. You are also lovely.
I wanted you to know that I did check, albeit not in great depth. Nothing of concern.
That’s the best news. Thank you for updating me!
Your mother told you your father had died when he had not and then she told you to stop being so dramatic!!!!!!!!!!!
I’m so sorry you went through this.
I guess you had to be there? But this is one of my fondest, funniest memories of her. I was pretty disappointed he wasn’t deceased though.
Everything I start to write comes down to PEOPLE SUCKKKKKKKKKKK. I hate it, I wish I could write as elegantly and humorously as you. _You have been failed by society. By everyone who is too concerned about the comfort of a goddamn child molester. By everyone who wont put out the minimal effort it would take to shut their goddamn mouth when they are tempted to say something nice about someone who violated you. People and their fucking denial of fucking monsters. That is why we will always have these monsters among us. It doesn’t matter what the laws are sometimes. Those laws are to make people think they live in a good society while they do every goddamn thing to hurt children.
Stay with me, because I’m kind of processing this as I write.
I want to believe that I would trust my child if I was the mom in this story. I really do. I’ve tried to teach them the words that will enable them to describe accurately what was done to them and teach them that certain areas of their body aren’t for other people to touch. But they’re three years old, and they get confused, and have lied already about things that were done to them (saying someone hit them when they didn’t) because they were angry in that moment. I can understand that, combined with the unwillingness to confront such horror in someone you didn’t think capable of it, would make you initially skeptical. Like “Really? Are you sure?” skeptical, and then asking questions to get to truth.
But. If the story held up to basic questioning? There would be fiery vengeance against whoever did that to my child.
For your mother to hold onto this belief that you’re bullshitting into your adulthood when your story has never changed? When you have nothing to gain, and everything to lose? Unimaginable.
Would it help to talk to the child about it more than once? I’m thinking of your example above where one Bit lied, in a moment of righteous toddler anger, about someone hitting them. It seems to me that if you asked the child about what happened again, later, at a less emotionally-charged moment, and s/he was relatively consistent in his or her description, that would be persuasive. It might also help keep the lines of communication open by convincing the child they’d be heard and believed and not “in trouble”.
Yes, yes, I was thinking about it after I commented and I would really want to make sure that my questioning tone was, if not 100% believing, then at the VERY least, prepared-to-believe. And yes, going over details like, “and then what happened” to see if the events or particulars changed a lot or whatever. It’s hard with *very* young kids because they don’t have good concepts of time, enough vocab for accurate description, etc, and emotions would cloud it too.
Yeah, it would seem to be super complicated where young child cognitive development factors in, in articulating exactly what has occurred. Behavioral changes, however, might be quite reliable, if for example, the child no longer wants to be alone with a particular person, or doesn’t want to be held, or has an increase in nightmares, or returns to bed wetting, etc.
I dunno. So scary. So shitty that parents even have to consider these things. If you ever need a righteous Army of Bergie Bit Defenders, you know where to find us.
First of all, yay for trying to teach them words and bodily autonomy. The lying thing is really difficult. Almost everyone lies (I’m definitely prone to lying to get out of awkward situations, to save people’s feelings, and sometimes just for privacy), and quite a lot of people molest. It’s statistically likely that people who report sex abuse have lied at some time or another, or even lied extensively. I also think there is a humiliating preoccupation with the truth when it comes to kids and I don’t think it a) protects them from child sex abuse or b) ensures that nobody gets falsely accused. I find with kids, the best thing to do is believe them unquestioningly. So if you ask them if they’ve eaten the strawberries and they’ve got strawberries all over their mouth, there are no strawberries left in the punnet, and they look from the empty punnet to their strawberry stained fingers whilst they tell you, “No,” you go, “Okay.” Either they will feel so bad they will confess, or they will be overjoyed to have gotten away with it. Either way, I think they are more likely to come to you about child sex abuse if they think they will be unquestioningly believed.
Do you have kids yourself? I say that because this is really insightful, and I think I will do my best to follow your advice with the Bergy Bits, at least for the time being. They are generally astonishingly sympathetic for toddlers.
No kids yet from this barren womb but this is my policy when I work with kids. If there is an incident and I’m there when it happens, I can do discipline type things. If it happens when I’m not there, I believe both sides of the story unquestioningly, and apologise to all parties for not having been there. I think other approaches unknowingly support child abuse and also set up a situation where you accidentally reward kids who are good liars.
I think it’s super important how we react when the kid is outed as a liar as well – it’s not a good thing to do, but they’re not a bad person. So the strawberry situation I’m generally like “really, the strawberries just up and disappeared and now you’ve got strawberry all over your face?” and by that stage kiddo is snickering at me and fesses up and I say “please tell me the truth, it’s important” and that’s it. Maybe a discussion about why she shouldn’t have eaten an entire punnet of strawberries in a sitting as well (they were for cakes, your poop will turn pink, and so on).
Your writing is exquisite. I want everyone in the world to read this. So calm and cutting and tragic.
Beautifully written – you are so gifted…….
This is beautiful and absolutely terrible. To have both parents let you down like this. Your mother’s response especially breaks my heart.
I cannot properly articulate my feelings about this piece adequately, other than to say that my rage at this person’s abuser, family, and other assorted fuckwits that she has encountered burns brighter than the fire of 10,000 suns.
Thank you for this. Thank you so much. And please don’t let anyone convince you that you are the one in the wrong. You are a wonderful writer.
I believe you and none of this is okay. It seems like there should be so much more to say, but somehow, nothing seems appropriate or helpful. I hope you have a hold herd of people to love you and hold you and witness your pain.
Thank you for writing this, it was really powerful. I hope you are taking care and loving yourself. Kidneys are demanding, delicate, annoying organs. Hope yours stick by you for years to come.
Anytime I read a piece written by or about someone coming forward with thier abuse story my hands get clammy and I start to shake a little. I don’t think I have the inner strength to do it. At least not yet.
But you are a heroine. Thank you.
Oh gosh I’m so sorry for what you went through. I really hope you have support in dealing with this. You can contact me via my tumblr http://learninghowtobefunny.tumblr.com/ if you ever want to talk (that’s a 100% sincere offer).
Thank you guys for all your kind comments. You are all wonderful.
As are you.
I hope you have a chosen family who is kinder to you than the one you were born into. I hope you keep writing and keep talking and keep believing in yourself. I hope you keep being brave whenever you can and know we’re all here should you need us, like the creepy puppets in the Labyrinth movie.
This was beautiful and brave and your writing was so controlled in confronting this huge horrible thing and reading it tunnelled my afternoon down to this cold clarity. Sending you some sister/writer/Toast-er love.
This is so good. Wonderful work. I’m so sorry.
This writing is brave, powerful, and smart. You are truly talented. Thank you for sharing. I feel rage that you and so many others have to deal with the fact that society is so incredibly invested in silencing childhood victims of sexual and physical abuse.
An awful, terrible story, but written so beautifully.
There is nothing I can say to adequately express the hurt I feel for you. Kindest thoughts to you.
I am so sickened and irate I could throw up.
This is an astonishingly brave piece of writing, and what you’ve done is so fierce and so brave I actually don’t know how to think about it.
Sending you ALL THE HEALING VIBES take them all TAKE THEM ALL.
It feels like there’s been a small explosion in my heart and the wind is blowing through the hole. Thank you thank you thank you for writing this.
I love how you write, so poignant and touching.
I hate rape culture and I hate that abuse continues to have repercussions for survivors, right down to the practical issues of documents you need and all the shitty things that people say and do.
I would also like to contribute to get your documents replaced.
Don’t know what else to say except that it sucks that you went through this and that you’re still going through it; that you’re awesome and thank you for sharing.
I was on the verge of tears right up until “Oh gosh, I’m so glad you told me this because I really did not mean to accuse him of molesting me at all. No, the thing I really wanted to accuse him of is fly tipping. So sorry, thanks again.” Whereupon I let out the most undignified of sob-laugh-snorts.
Thank you for writing.
Thank you for writing this. I am so sorry you have experienced / endured this awfulness. I hope you know you are–you truly are–an incredibly talented writer.
What an incredibly powerful piece. Thank you for writing and sharing this.
We care about your career! And about you. So, so, so sorry about all this.
Thank you for this, it is brave and illuminating and helped me to better wrap my head around the family dynamics of someone with a similar background. Just knowing what happened I was ready to take a flamethrower to her family, but out of blind rage; now I understand *why* they need to be barbecued, which is at least a kind of empathy.
The statistics of how often this is reported, and then the estimates of how often it’s NOT reported mean that it happens with such frequency that it could be statistically “normal”, even “likely”. Like 2 out of every 4 children.
It’s astonishing and boggling that the taboo is so strong around it, that it remains able to perpetuate, and victims continue to feel as though they are alone or “different” than everyone else.
I am in awe of how brave you are, that you had the courage to stand up for yourself, you continue to stand up for yourself, and that you can share this writing with us to show us how we can be courageous too.
Thank you.
Nicole, Mallory, Nick- you’ll let us know if we can bolster her payment for this article through you, right?
“People will talk to you about this who irritate you so much they constipate you. You Grip My Shit is a real thing. You will take psyllium husks and move on as best you can.”
Ugh. The recognition. I am so sorry.
Thank you. I am assuming that something similar happened to you, and I’m really sorry.
Not the same, but similar enough. I’ve tried to explain the bodily effects of recovery as “I get so uptight I can’t fart for Christ’s sake!” – but nobody has ever really gotten it, or understood.
Urgh it’s such a horrible feeling, right? That kind of tension.
You will wonder if he did it to anyone else. And you will wonder if he is doing it now. And you will spend hours imagining how deep he would need to be buried to never be found. Then you will remember that the poliece didn’t believe you when you were telling the truth so why would they believe you now. And you feel ashamed that you couldn’t make him pay.
Too many people know this story intimately. I never want anyone to have to live it again and I know that every day a new child will have this story forced on them. And I feel the guilt.
Oh, the fantasies. Since reality keeps failing you.
My own personal fantasy is to hire a sniper to follow him around and simply shoot the ground or an object near him, perhaps 1-2 ft away, never ever actually shooting him. Just, ya know, making him wonder when it might happen next, wondering why it’s happening and then literally triggering him whenever and wherever. Just he did to me! A thank you card, basically.
Kay, yes oh god the guilt is terrible, and the constant wondering. And that completely helpless feeling, or I get that anyway, like I’m like an ant trying to stop an elephant in their tracks.
Sox, oh I have such epic fantasies about this. I actually am in the middle of writing a kind of comedy crime thriller in which white guys with the same first name as my father are murdered in a ‘kill all the first born boys just to be safe’ kind of a way. But in other moments I just dream about him having domestic related fatal accidents like burning himself on an iron or deep frying his face. They are completely unrealistic because he has never completed a domestic chore in his life, but I guess that’s what dreams are for.
I don’t know what to say, other than your writing is glowing and your courage is so powerful it makes me shiver. Please keep doing what you’re doing.
Thank you.
I missed this when it first went up & found it by way of this week’s Toast Points. Thank you so much for sharing this. Thank you.
No one can say anything that will make any of this any better, but I want you to know that you are a really good writer.
Aww that definitely makes it better – thank you!
I am a mother- whose 2 1/2 year old child was molested by her husband. I told the police and I got the crazy look from them. Many many people broke their relationship with me since I “accused my nice husband”. Nobody felt my child’s trauma nor mine. It was like that a) either it did not happen with her or b) it was revenge on my part…without realizing how a 2 1/2 year old would ask her father why he touched her private parts. It was that day I left him and my house. Made peace in my head that I did my best- he still gets child custody and visitation with her….. now I wait for time for her to grow up and realize truth from false…to be careful and strong under worst of circumstances.
Oh god that’s awful, I’m so sorry. WTF your “nice husband”??? People are SO invested in protecting paedophiles it’s unreal. I’m so happy that you left him. My best wishes for you and your child.
Oh god, the head tilt.
The warnings about getting in trouble for slander. The stupid, stupid, horrible, accusatory questions from the people who should be supporting you…
Thirty years later and that head tilt is still vivid.
Oh god I’m sorry. I’m amazed the head tilt is so universal – I think they think the head tilt makes their accusatory blaming questions nicer somehow. Like, “I think this is your fault, but look at my head – it’s rolling to the side, because I’m so sympathetic.”
Hey L Bear,
Thank you so much for writing this. Your writing is a much needed counterpoint to all the shit that makes a person feel alone and inconvenient. I’m sorry for everything you have to deal with. People get all outraged by the idea of molesters but as soon as it’s someone they know, my god, the enablers and default supporters… They’re like a kick in the face every time so you end up walking around wincing and flinching before you even start interacting with people. So thank you. I feel less alone because of you.
Hey Talking Eddy. I”m sorry for what you went through. I’m glad this made you feel less alone. Thank you for your comment. So true about people’s outrage over molesters disappearing as soon as they know the molester in question. Recently on Facebook, a friend of my mother’s that I forgot I was Facebook friends with posted something up about a more famous molester, saying how specifically awful it was how people protected him. She had obviously forgotten that she did a lot to protect my father (she said, “These are very serious accusations,” and, “Your dad wouldn’t do a thing like that.”). I so wanted to write a comment, something like, “So what was your response, when you were told that a friend of yours molests children?” but I knew it would get back to my father (who is threatening to sue me for libel still).
This is so wonderfully true and so right about SO MANY families including my own. Please write a book about this, please.
Book in the making! Please read it when it comes out!
Thank you so much for writing this. Your writing is so beautiful and powerful. I agree with downtherabbit about writing a book–about this or anything. And, thank you for sharing the story. My 3-year-old daughter was molested by my ex’s relative, and my experience dealing with her father, the police and public sector employees has been so similar. I eventually cussed out the police and the Department of Child and Families and told them that the only person protecting my daughter was me and that dealing with their apathy and incompetence was almost as traumatic as my daughter being molested.
Oh my god that’s awful, so sorry for your daughter and you. Department of Child and Families sounds like a bunch of incompetent molestor apologists. Urgh. So sorry.
how awful for you to have to deal with such a bunch of asshats.
I know how you feel. I wish neither of us did.
Oh god I wish neither of us did too. I’m sorry.
I’m sorry for you too. Thank you for writing this. You’ve captured the feeling, the frustration, the fear, the self-doubt, all that goes with being this brave, perfectly. You did the right thing in a wrong world. Don’t ever let anyone make you second-guess yourself regarding that or silence your voice. We’re behind you. When one of us with the talent and ability speaks out, they speak for us all.
This helps. It helps me understand a friend who just confessed their own abuse to me under the influence of quite a bit of wine. I always wondered why this wonderful person with three grown children of her own didn’t have a great relationship with those kids. It’s because her parents co-opted those children, treated them like princesses and never spoke a word of the abuse (of course they wouldn’t) and my friend refuses to tell her children what her parents did (same as yours). So she is estranged from everyone she is related to by blood. Everyone. It breaks my heart, but I’m honored to be part of the family she created of her own. We are a tight bunch.
Thank you for your bravery and your willingness to share so beautifully.
This piece is great and bloody good on you for writing it.
My own family has done a similar thing, and my time in incest survivor groups has shown me that actually it is grotesquely common. Like pretty much everybody’s family closes ranks against them when they try to confront incest. Dunno about you but I actually find this fact oddly comforting.
(Sorry, unsolicited advice is odious, but: see if you can get some cheap legal advice re: threats, and find a counsellor you trust? You don’t want to go without counselling.)
Oh that’s a good idea re: cheap legal advice. So far people have reassured me that you have to be pretty rich to sue someone for libel but I worry that he might get really angry and borrow money to do it or something. He also has this kind of rich (also totally creepy) friend who I suspect might pay for it… Thank you. And god, I’m sorry about your family. I’m glad your incest survivor group helped. Yeah, I do find it oddly comforting (and obviously so sinister and awful) that this is incredibly common. Amongst my friends, I can, like, count a few of them that aren’t survivors of some kind of sex abuse.
Not that I go around counting survivors on my fingers but sometimes I get this statistical curiosity.
As a 59- year old woman who was abused by her stepfather, I know exactly how this feels. One thing that helped me was going to a sexual-abuse survivors’ group that my therapist (bless her soul!) started. It was a place where NO ONE said those stupid, ignorant things that everyone else seems compelled to say.
This is beautifully written and I hold your hand in this ethereal cyber place and I tell you- that is real.
Thank you so much, and sorry for what you went through. Yes, talking with other survivors has really helped. That, and none of my friends say stupid things – it’s all my family and the authorities!
My wife had the same thing done to her from age 7 to 17 when she ran away from home. Her father is an elder in the LDS church and has a basement full of guns. Her whole family is in denial. Her younger sister has almost drank herself to death because he probably did it to her. The father lives a self-rightous life to this day with no remorse.
Oh god that’s hideous.
I’m LOOKING for somebody who needs a kidney. I don’t drink fizzy drinks or alcohol. I don’t smoke.
Mention this article in your profile, we will line up. Wish there was more to do to help you. You’ve earned it.
Oh my gosh are you seriously looking for somebody who needs a kidney? That is amazing if you are (or amazingly hilarious if that’s a joke). I am, so luckily, not at the need a kidney stage yet but I’m so glad you’re out there for anyone who needs one because good kidneys are hard to find. Thank you.
Sweetheart. I’m sorry. This is absurd and terrible, and you don’t deserve any of it. But you know that.
I don’t have a kidney to offer, unfortunately, but like inspirewithhope, I would be happy to help replace the documents your father’s holding hostage. Please feel free to drop me a line at inamorata dot jones at gmail dot com if you would like a hand with that.
Thank you! I’ve emailed you.
Hey there,
I know this might sound cowardly, but it’s my fears that something like this will happen that I’ve refrained from telling anyone about how my dad molested me. Thank you for having the courage to say something. Like yours, my dad wasn’t the “most horrible of molesters”, but the way he made me feel powerless and unsafe was unforgivable. Shame on those around you who made you feel like you should be the sorry one. I’m with you. Please message me if you would like to talk.
Oh my god no it’s not cowardly at all. It’s actually super realistic. I feel like there is this massive pressure to both keep quiet and to ‘tell the authorities’ and neither of these routes is satisfactory for the majority of survivors/victims. Feel free to message me too if you want to talk! I don’t actually know how to do that, is it possible to do it through The Toast?
thank you for writing this. it brought me immediately to tears. it is some of the best, most important writing i have ever read. you should be so, so proud of yourself, of your talent and your strength. i am sorry that you were failed by so many people who should have protected you and i hope that you find, and continue to find, all of the love that you deserve.
Thank you, that’s so kind of you. Also is your The Toast name a reference to All in My Head: An Epic Quest to Cure an Unrelenting, Totally Unreasonable, and Only Slightly Enlightening Headache?
I am now 40+ and this is my life too. My family has decided I’m the black sheep and all my reactions were just wilfulness not pain. I tried to protect my mother but she had very strong defences prior to a word from me. My life now, like yours has to be inspite of .
I’m sorry.
I'm sorry for you too. Thank you for writing this. You've captured the feeling, the frustration, the fear, the self-doubt, all that goes with being this brave, perfectly. You did the right thing in a wrong world. Don't ever let anyone make you second-guess yourself regarding that or silence your voice. We're behind you. When one of us with the talent and ability speaks out, they speak for us all.
Thank you for writing this.
Thank you for writing this.
Reading your story made me so depressed and angry. Rape and sexual abuse survivors are treated so awfully, but the fact that your mother and family didn’t believe you is disgusting. That slimy old man is at home at the centre of the family with his respectable career while you’re struggling to get by….It makes me furious…I hope he is found guilty one day, if not for what he did to you, what he probably has done to others. I don’t know how you can heal knowing he hasn’t been punished like he deserves, except to trust karma or fate that he will one day suffer for his crime.
And try to remember that the most important thing is not what happens to him now, the most important thing is that you are safe and you are happy. You deserve justice, but failing that they say the best form of revenge is being happy. One day he will be a shrivelled old man near death and you will be having the time of your life with people who love and respect you for who you really are. He has to live with the fact that no one would love him if they knew what he really was, and on top of that he has lost the greatest gift he was ever given and wasted the chance to see his daughter grow up into an incredible writer (funny too! I loved the sarcasm here: “Oh gosh, I’m so glad you told me this because I really did not mean to accuse him of molesting me at all. No, the thing I really wanted to accuse him of is fly tipping. So sorry, thanks again.”) and a brave inspirational woman.
This isn’t enough. I know. But it is something to hold onto.
I saw the comments from people offering to donate and I’ve donated $20 and asked the site to give it to you on top of what you would normally get for writing. I wanted to give you more, you deserve so much more, but I can’t afford it right now.
I think you’re handling this brilliantly, I wish I could be with you and hold your hand and do the fighting for you. I hope someone close to you will do this for you.
So much love and warmth, please keep posting about what happens and if you need anything don’t be afraid to ask us! <3
Oh my gosh you are so lovely, thank you thank you thank you <3
Hey, I've already given up fizzy drinks! (I'll, uh, get back to you about the booze.) If you're serious, email me at lawrenceevalyn(at)gmail(dot)com and I'll toodle off to the doctor for kidney-donor-match-testing next week. I'm hoping to move to the UK in September 2015, so I could get you my kidney by then at the latest. I do have experience with so-called "minor" surgery (there aren't enough scare-quotes in the world), and it's AWFUL, but I could do it again.
congratulations for confronting the evil, even if it didn't help. You were strong and worthy. When I came close my father launched me several feet into a closet, and explained he was showing me a karate move…