The Right To Speak
I have a little problem that has been going on for a long time. I have no feelings whatsoever for anyone or anything. I feel so numb it isn't funny. Or rather I should say this is the face I show the world.
I can't even say I love you to my mom though I love her dearly. I can't express my emotions to others at all. If I express my feelings, I'll be hurt. A lot happened in my life to cause me to choose not to be emotionally involved.
My dad and I were close when I was younger, but after my parents' divorce I never had a relationship with him. I was exposed to many physical encounters that were not appropriate for a child, but no one else knows about that and my family doesn't understand me.
This affects my relationship with men and people in general. I am wounded at 21. I only seem to attract people who use and hurt me. I'm tired of holding in the pain, but I don't know what to do anymore.
Christy
Christy, you know where you got lost. It was when you were molested. That needs to be dealt with now. None of us can live with a discrepancy between our interior world and the exterior world.
Numbness, emotional withholding, and the inability to say "I love you" are textbook signs of sexual abuse. Right now you think your problem is unique. If you knew others with your background, you would see how much you have in common.
The first step, and the most difficult, is finding a support group or individual working with people who have had your experience. When it occurred, you were too young and vulnerable to do anything about it. You tried to close the door on your pain. But closing the door on pain also closed the door on truth and happiness.
You have a right to breathe fully, to speak freely, and to live completely. You have a right to connect with others in an open and honest way. But harsh experience took those rights away from you. Finding your voice again will explain a lot to those close to you. Finding your voice will free you.
Someone once said, "If you weren't scared, then you weren't brave." It is time to be brave and reclaim your birthright as a human being.
Wayne & Tamara
(From the column for the week of February 26, 2001)
Justice Delayed
I have three grown children. My elderly father, six younger brothers, and a large extended family live in the old country.
The last time I took my children for a family visit was 15 years ago. The reason I have not gone back is because my youngest brother, who was 21 at the time, "fell in love" with my 13-year-old daughter.
It was hell time for me because I had to watch my child 24 hours a day so my brother would leave her alone. I had no support from my parents. My mother blamed my 13-year-old daughter, and my dad sat around maintaining his inner peace amidst the mayhem.
I was stuck there for two months because I had no money for rushing home during the high season or for staying in a hotel. My family's position is my brother and daughter didn't grow up together. They ignore the fact a 21-year-old has no business messing with a 13-year-old.
I exchange the occasional letter with my dad and brothers. I have no contact with the brother who, I found out years later, managed to molest my daughter several times despite all my efforts to keep her safe.
My daughter had counseling to help her deal with what happened. For a time she was convinced it was "love," but she finally realized she was just a little girl, not responsible for what happened. I still feel guilty for not protecting her.
In 15 years many of my elderly relatives have passed away. Now I am being told I am overdue for a visit. I told my aunt I cannot go back to socialize with my brother because it would negate the injury he caused her. My aunt told me to get over it.
My family in the old country is close-knit. It would not be possible to visit without having contact with this particular brother and his family. As it is, when I get photos, I discard half of them because I don't want my daughter dealing with memories of him.
Am I being fair to my dad and to the rest of the family by staying away? Am I being disloyal to my daughter with the contact I have with the family?
What do I say to the relatives? My oldest brother keeps sending photos of my youngest brother as if nothing happened. I cannot put these questions to my daughter, and frankly, this isn't her problem it's mine
Ulrica
Ulrica, if your daughter was molested by a stranger, charges would have been pressed and punishment meted out. Neither you nor your daughter would have had contact with the perpetrator or anyone related to him, and those elements would have allowed a measure of healing.
Now you feel torn. Keeping these family members in your life suggests in some fashion that what happened was all right, and it hurts your daughter to know you are in touch with people complicit in a crime. For your daughter, that dismisses the injustice which was perpetrated upon her.
Nobody has been punished here except you and your daughter.
Your family should have had your daughter's best interests at heart, but instead they broke the one bond they had with you, and that is the bond of blood. People in our families don't owe us less of a duty than they owe a stranger; they owe us more of a duty. When that duty is not met, the offense is not lessened, it is doubled.
The relationship with your brother is what allowed your daughter to be molested, and your family is still trying to negate their responsibility for what happened. You are perfectly justified in cutting off contact with those involved.
We won't tell you exactly what to say, but you are in a position to give your daughter the justice no court was ever able to.
Wayne & Tamara
(From the column for the week of September 22, 2003)
Victim’s Rights
I have been married over 20 years, and we have all grown close to each other. Three years ago our world of normalcy collapsed when our niece informed us my mother-in-law’s live-in boyfriend sexually assaulted her between the ages of 11 and 14. Our niece, my husband’s sister’s only daughter, was then 20 and four months into her marriage.
We pursued the matter legally but were not able to get a conviction. According to the state attorney, it was her word against his. My husband threw him out of his mother’s apartment the day our niece spoke up. My mother-in-law filed a restraining order against her boyfriend and went with us to court to support our niece in her allegations.
My mother-in-law said if she saw her boyfriend in the streets she would run him over. Unknown to us, she was secretly seeing him from the day it all came out. A few months later my mother-in-law was in a car accident. The police report listed him as a passenger, so we knew for certain she was lying all along.
According to her, she made the decision to live with him again because she was alone for a couple of days and no one came to visit her. A few months ago she called me to say her boyfriend left her, and she was going to put him in jail for what he did. She was not at all bothered this beast had molested her granddaughter. Rather she was ticked off he had the nerve to leave her!
A few weeks later she moved him back in. Three weeks ago they had a fight, and he moved out again. I do not think I will ever forgive her for what she has done to this family. Something in me died for this woman. I guess she sank too low and too fast for me.
Because she can’t visit her daughter or granddaughter, she comes to my house four days a week and on weekends. I feel dirty when she kisses me hello. I don’t want her to touch me or my children, but my husband does not agree with me.
Elizabeth
Elizabeth, the simplest principle of relationships is the one most often ignored. Either treat people in accordance with their behavior, or they will make a mess of your life. As Kipling said, “Nothing is ever settled until it is settled right.”
Your mother-in-law wanted a man. The price of having that man was allowing him to molest her granddaughter. She was willing to let her granddaughter pay that price. How do we know? Because when his actions were exposed, your mother-in-law went back to him again and again. There is every reason to believe her role was that of a procurer.
How does a woman who has ever been a mother do that to a child? Why is she not repulsed by him? Can she tell her granddaughter any more forcefully that she doesn’t care about her? Can she smack her any harder? Your niece is family, too. What about her?
The lasting effects of sexual abuse on girls are well known. They include profound consequences like self-mutilation, alcoholism, suicide attempts, and creating new personalities. Your mother-in-law is a person with defective thinking and defective motives, a person with severe mental health issues which will probably never be addressed.
She does not belong in your home or around your children. What if you had to leave in an emergency? Who might she bring into your home? She has made her choice. She has chosen a molester over her family. Let her live with that choice.
As Kipling said, “Nothing is ever settled until it is settled right.” The simplest principle of relationships is the one most often ignored. Either treat people in accordance with their behavior, or they will make a mess of your life.
Wayne & Tamara
(From the column for the week of September 3, 2007)
Hallmark Moments
This whole story is pretty complicated. I have known my wife a dozen years. We met at university, got good jobs, and three years ago bought our first house. It was a dream come true. The biggest disappointment was, despite visits to a fertility clinic, we have been unable to have children.
During the past few years, my wife had multiple depressions and a couple of burnouts. She was abused by her father at the age of seven. She consulted two psychologists and did therapy for survivors of sexual abuse. This helped. Two Christmases ago, at her family’s place, she had another depression with anxiety attacks and unstoppable crying.
After New Year’s she consulted a different psychotherapist. He is also a hypnotist who does past-life regression and reads tarot cards. She did a Reiki course with him. Afterwards, she cried in my arms begging me never to leave her, and said I was the most important person in the world to her. In the fall she went to his home for more treatments.
I don’t know everything he told her, but I learned from a friend he predicted she would be divorced this year. After her latest treatment, she told me she didn’t love me as a wife loves a husband. She said she was going to her parents to think things over. I was stunned but agreed.
When I saw her again, she said she didn’t sleep at her parents’ house, but in her car. Later she confessed she slept with her psychotherapist, and she announced our marriage was over. She is going to open a school with him, and he has promised her a trip to France and all kinds of money. Like all cheated on people, I never saw this coming.
Since this winter I have seen a different woman, so has everyone else. I know our marriage is over. Thanks for listening.
Jacques
Jacques, when you try to separate people with intuitive gifts from pretenders and users, remember this. People with genuine insight never use it in a selfish way, and they are matter-of-fact about their abilities. In addition, having sex with patients is always unethical.
Each of us wants a “Hallmark moment” on the holidays, but your wife visiting her father on Christmas makes as much sense as a woman going to prison to spend the holiday with her assailant.
Andrew Vachss, a child welfare advocate and attorney, said something we believed in long before we heard it. He said, “Family should be an operational term, not a biological one.” If a man doesn’t act like a father, he is not a father. People tolerate behavior from a family member they would never tolerate from a stranger.
It is fortunate you didn’t bring a child into this confused situation. You are still young and have every chance of finding the happiness you deserve.
Wayne & Tamara
(From the column for the week of July 24, 2000)
