Life Gets Complicated and We Push On. Pt 2

As a child, I had experienced my unfair share of sexual assaults. At age , my dads friend groomed me and tried to kiss me. When I told, I wasn't believed and my dad continued, and still continues to befriend this person. As a twelve year old, a boy in gym class grabbed my breast. I reported it to the office and was told to go back to class. Of course he was in my next class and when he walked by me, he groped my ass. I went back to the principal and reported him again. As a twelve year old child, alone in an office with a superior, I was asked if I wanted to press charges. I had no idea what that meant and when I shook my confused head no, she told me to stop coming in and to stay in class. At the fourteen, my dad had some friends over and I sat down in a chair. The chair made a loud squeak sound and thats when one of his friends exclaimed- with my father in the room- "oh you must me so tight for me", and gave me a wink. They all laughed. I didn't know what this meant, but being winked at and then laughed at made me feel uncomfortable, so I left the room and said nothing. On my sixteenth birthday, my mother and I went looking for deals at a garage sale. There was an older man sitting beside the garage and my mother seemed excited to remember the man who used to frequent her and my fathers work- a gas station. This man greeted us with open arms and gave my mother a hug and announced how suprised he was that I had gotten so big. I found it odd since I didn't remember ever meeting this man. Then he wanted to see how tall I was getting and he put my mother and I back to back. In the shielded view of everyone else, and my back turned to my mother, he groped my breast. I thought surely I was wrong, this man was old. Maybe he mistook my tiny breasts for my shoulder, honest mistake. I said nothing. Then my mother told him it was my birthday and he exclaimed he had a gift for me and that he would come and get me when the garage sale was over. When my mother and I got in the car, I told her I didn't want to go with the mand and she guaranteed me that it would be fine and that he had given a teenager a car recently for her birthday. To my teenage brain, the hope of a car outweighed the fear I felt about going with this stranger. Once I got home, I talked to my younger brother who was twelve, and made him promise to go with me. He did. The man arrived and seemed quite upset about my brother riding along, but like a good brother he kept his promise and nothing the man said, would sway his promise to me. We got in the truck and headed off, to just outside of town. There stood a house, I didn't see any cars, and we went inside. The man made quick work to make my brother take out the dogs in this house and he made sure to be stern and say "You don't bring them back in until they go potty". As my brother led them out, I mouthed "hurry". This was before cell phones, so its not like I could call my mom. This was when he turned to me and told me "I gave you your birthday hug, now heres your birthday massage" and he put his hands on shoulders, and slid down my front. My hands and arms immediately went into guarded position over my breasts and my brain KNEW that he meant to grope me outside his garage. This man was a foot taller than me and easily outweighed me by two hundred or more pounds. He tried his hardest to wiggle his hands between my arms and my chest, just to get a fucking touch of my body and I kept telling him no, but he wasn't listening. Then he told me "and heres your birthday kiss" and he leaned in to try to kiss me and I turned my face. I wanted to run, but I couldn't leave my brother there. I wanted to scream, but didn't want to make this large man upset and hurt me or my brother, so I just kept saying no and turning away and thats when I figured I could get to the kitchen phone- which is where most people had their house phones- by using the excuse of the gift. "so where is my present" I asked. That seemed to snap him back and he cocked his head "oh" he said, "follow me". I was hoping to walk through the kitchen and grab the phone, praying it was cordless, then excuse myself to the bathroom and call my mom. I wasn't expecting to stop in the kitchen and be presented with a rabbit. Thats when my brother came in and we loaded up the rabbit and took it back to my house. My parents said I couldn't keep it and sent it back with him. I told my mom what happened. Shes told me that my father then called this man and left a message on his home machine. He supposably yelled and told him that if he ever saw his face again, he would hurt him or something like that. The mans wife heard it and she divorced him. This is all heresay, I don't know actually what happened but it wasn't spoken of again until I was seventeen. I offered to babysit my sisters coworkers kids. She picked me up, and drove me to THAT house. I spent the entire time babysitting, having anxiety, reliving that day, and trying to come up with a way to tell this girl that I cannot babysit for her again and why. Once she drove me home, I asked her if she knew the guy. It is her father in law, she said. I was gentle but told her what happened, she had young children, including daughters, she needed to know. She looked me dead in the face and said "yeah, hes done it to me too". Nonchalantly stating that this guy is a serial predator and its no big deal. I didn't say anything else, what was there to say? 

Then at the age of nineteen- technically an adult, mentally not. I was raped by my boss and I said nothing. In my young mind, surely a 19 year old is capable of leaving the situation, yet I stayed while he raped me. I felt weak and dumb and I didn't want to look weak and dumb to officers or courts. I ended up leaving that situation and it wasn't until years later that I realized he had groomed me since I was 17 and what he did had me convinced it was out of love but in reality it was illegal and out of his own sick pleasure. By the time this started making sense to me, the statute of limitations had passed and I had to accept that my story wouldn't get justice. I did a lot of soul searching, a lot of talking, crying to my (now) husband about my lost youth and how utterly stupid I felt. I healed and moved on... and that was when our daughter opened up to me at the dinner table and told me about her own lost youth. 

Nothing can prepare you for this moment. The moment your child starts describing heinious crimes on her body. Your first reaction is to want to dig, to figure out who, what, where, when "where is the motherfucker" and even "I want him dead, even if i'm in prison for the rest of my life"....

but those first reactions are what is going to stick with that child for the rest of their lives and I knew that. I was determined to be the protective parent that I missed during my delicate moments. I would not have this child feeling dumb, or used, or like her parents weren't going to keep her safe. So even though I had thoughts screaming in my head, I let her talk. I asked clairfying questions if I had one, being very careful not to put ideas in her head or to distract her from the path that she was on. Once her story was finished, I told her that I will do everything possible to keep her safe. We hugged and I went back to cooking while she sat at the table and continued to draw. While cooking I texted my husband and told him, not exactly what she said, but the jist of it. He advised me to keep her busy for the day until he got home and he would talk to her and see if her story stayed the same. So that is what we did. When he got home from work, we spoke with her privately and she relayed the exact stories she told me. Meaning this sexual abuse started when she was around 3 years old. Her memories are based off of which houses she and her mother were living in. She couldn't remember how old she was, but she could remember the houses and that confirmed age for us. We again, told her that she is brave and she is strong and she did nothing wrong (this last phrase was repeated to her multiple times a day). From experience, I know a victim often feels blame and this doesn't matter if you are 7 or 27, the blame is a huge reason that people tend not to tell. The thoughts swirl and its always self blame. Assuring her that she was not to blame was crucial.  Our next step was making a report with the police. They said they would be by shortly to take our statements. Then we called the mother. She told us to tell her mother (M's grandma) and even though we didn't need to, we did. She told us that M likes to make up stories and that we shouldn't go to the police. Of course, we already did. The police came, we gave our statements and they gave us paperwork for the childrens advocacy center. We were to take M and have her physically evaluated, and her story taken down by a detective. I cannot explain how traumatic the exam was, not only for her, but for me as well. Holding her hand, she cried and cried and I promised her that it would be ok, and she is safe. She was taken back to have her story copied down, and the detectives told us that she didn't declare any actual penetration. Which is different than what she told me and her dad. However, they don't take into account that this 12 year old just had to re-live her trauma and expose herself in front of strangers. They don't take into account that she is 12 and scared and away from her parents during this statement. 

From here we had countless therapy sessions, where she would hide next to the sofa and write down what he did to her. She was too scared to say it. Eventually she would move to sit on the couch and lay her head on my lap while recounting all the times he not only sexually abused her, but groomed her, physically abused her in front of her mother, how her mother protected this guy and how scared she is because her young half brother was still living with them. As she laid there and recounted these horror stories, my face hidden behind her- I would cry. I would cry for her, for her lost innocence, for the fact she was forced, by courts, to continue living in that situation when we tried our hardest to help her. Id cry for all the children out there who can't get out of the situation they are in and all of the adults who haven't gotten justice. I would cry even for myself and my lost innocence, realizing that the wounds I thought were healed, were just ripped open again. I never let her see me cry, I wanted her to know I was strong and that she would never see that man again. However as we were going through all of these therapies, and psychologists to diagnose her with disorders.... her mother was still playing house with the man who did this to her daughter. She let him live with her for over a year after the disclosure and she didn't try helping us get justice, not once. She could have reported his abuse. She could have reported his substantial drug use and she didn't. Covid was now in the United States and our children were forced to homeschool. My husbands job was in threat of being over due to budget cuts and we were just praying that we would be ok. My usual happy, bubbly self turned inward. I became very angry at the world. My health took a nosedive. My hair was falling out, I couldn't remember basic things like how to get to the grocery store, while I was driving through the parking lot of it, my migraines were back with a vengeance and my heart kept doing a weird rhythm. One day, my husband and I were in the middle of a conversation and I felt my entire vocbulary start to leave my head. I describe it like someone opened the file cabinets of words and they all blew away. I could feel my vision growing dark and the only words I could say were "i cant remember words. I cant remember words". I grabbed my head to try to keep the words in and myself grounded, I failed. There was nothing. I couldn't see, or think. All of my senses seemed to go at the same time. I could hear my husband asking if I was ok, but it was like he was far away. I sat down (on what I thought was the floor of my bedroom) and the floor was unusally cold for carpet. I continued to squeeze my head and search its every nook and cranny for any word other than "I cant remember words" and nothing was to be found. After what seemed like 30 minutes, but was actually only 5 or so, the words started to come back, as did my vision. Thats when I realized I somehow got to the bathroom and sat in front of the counter. My husband was sitting on the edge of the bathtub, staring intently at my face. My shirt was soaked from tears and again he asked if I was ok. I dried my face and said "no. I don't ever want to go through that again". I decided it was time to see a doctor again. As I sat in the room waiting for her, I was numb. She walked in and kindly asked me how I was doing and I LOST IT. I started crying like a crazy person. I unloaded all of my trauma on this poor sweet doctor and then told her how I feel like i'm going crazy, about my losing of words. She gave me a hug and told me that my stress level is way too high and I need to seek therapy for myself and get on some anti-depressants. I wasn't about to do either of those. L was on copious amounts of meds and they cost a lot, he also sees a psychologist. M is in weekly therapy and sees a psychologist as well. There was no money for me to see a therapist. That was a luxury we couldn't afford, so I went without. However I did go to a neurologist to get my migraines under control. This neurologist was an absolute moron and a waste of time and money. My migraines weren't solved, and he could't even see the 2cm bone tumor in my sinus that I had been monitoring for the last 5 years. He scoffed at me when I asked about it and asked "are you sure you don't mean 2 mm"?... I had to get up and show him on the scan, because he couldn't see the bone tumor, the size of my thumb. I left him shortly there after and found a new neurologist who did fix my migraines, temporarily and diagnosed me with nerve problems in my legs and one arm. However the issue of always being tired, always being angry, overwhelmed, sad... that all stayed. I was sent to a heart specialist for the heart rhythm issues and while sitting in the room I got a phone call. It was the detective overseeing our daughters case. She had called to inform me that there was no evidence against the abuser, therefore the case will be closed.

My anger got the best of me and I started to cry. This crying was pure rage in liquid form. I asked her what i'm supposed to tell my pre-teen who is waiting to hear that the bad guy got what he deserved and is behind bars? I was supposed to tell her that she is safe! People who do bad things are punished, so why is this different? He gets to hurt her, and sodomize her and ruin her childhood. He gets to alter her brain chemistry and make her deficient in multiple areas of life... and then he gets to continue on living as if nothing has happened ? How is this fair? I had to calm my voice and my shaking as the nurse came in to take my blood pressure. The poor woman was probably so confused. She looked at me concerned and I tried my best to tell her i'm ok, while I sternly asking the detective what to do next. She advised me to just keep reporting anything that my daughter can remember, as she remembers it. I left the doctors office and pulled out my phone to make a video. I didn't know who would ever see it, or if I would share it with anyone, ever. I wanted to bottle up the rage, confusion, heartbreak, and sadness that I was feeling in that moment and use it to make SOMEONE see what reality is when you are living through what I was living through. To this day, I still havn't shared the video, nor has my husband seen it. I havn't even watched it back. I was maybe hoping to send it to congress, the governor, judges... whomever needed to watch a mothers world shatter in order to make a change. Perhaps the time to share that video will one day present itself. 

M was having night terrors, every night. She would have nightmares of her abuser coming into her room through her window. We would assure her that our 150lb dog wouldn't allow that and she would recount the time he told her that he has killed dogs, followed by him throwing her cat against a wall, so hard that it couldnt walk right after. We later learned through asking different questions to the mom, that he had broken this cats pelvis. We assured her that we are across the country and we have cameras and weapons and we would protect her with every means necessesary. Showing her every day that she mattered, that she was safe, that she was important and she had choices became a new normal. Right after her disclosure we filed for emergency cstody and it was granted. We then filed for full custody and that was granted as well, because we told her mother that we could provide the therapists she needed and the mother agreed that we could get her better help here, than she could in her small town. We transformed our formal dining room into a bedroom for our younger daughter A, and gave M her old bedroom. The boys shared a room with bunk beds and they seemed to enjoy it. L's "hulk outs" were far between, but we were playing catch up with social aspects for him. He had spent his life, up to this point, being angry, defiant, and defensive. There was no time left for him between those emotions in order to learn how to socialize, act, react, sympathize or empathize. Socially he was VERY behind and that concerned me as he was headed to middle school in a couple short years. He had never had a friend, never been to a birthday, or a sleep over. 

"A" made good friends with one of the neighbor girls and they would run back and forth between our houses. When covid came and we had to isolate, she sat in the front yard, so did her friend and they talked on walkee-talkies and just enjoyed being across the street from one another. C was in his first year of school and also it was online due to the covid. Everything made so much harder during this time. 

M was calling her mom nearly every day. After she would get off the phone, she would cry and tell me that she knew "HE" was there because she heard her brother talking to him. She just couldn't understand why her mom would allow him there after what she disclosed. I was there, I held her, dried her tears and did my best to explain without defending her mother, nor putting her mother down.  It was a fine line to walk on the daily. Eventually M decided she wanted to say something to her mother. She wanted to ask why she was still defending him, we supported this decision and on christmas eve she called her mother and with her dad and I beside her, she confronted her mom. 

She asked her mother why she let him come back in the house after he had hit her. She asked why she lied to the school when the school asked about the bruises. She asked why he was still living there now, even after she was brave and she told the truth.... her mothers reply was to manipulate her daughter. To lie. To make up excuses to defend her actions. She told her that sometimes adults go through things that kids don't understand. I was so proud when M didn't back down and she kept going toward her verbally. "then why is he STILL there, even after you know what he did"... Her mother didn't say anthing and when she did speak, she went back to the same phrase "youre a child and you wouldn't understand"... I had enough. In 11 years of being in this childs life, I took a back seat. I knew my place as a stepmother. I wasn't her birth mom and I didn't have rights. The courts made that crystal clear through the years. But now, looking at her defeated face, hoping for answers and instead facing an immovable excuse, I had to speak up. I told her mother that she is worried about her brother and his safety. I explained how the child feels and her fears. I asked her about police involvement through the years and she said there was none. She was wordless when I told her that we knew about all of the calls to police, and that it was public record. She was speechless and from that moment on, neither she- or M have talked about the assaults to eachother. The mother never reached out to support her child, it was me. Me- the woman who has been called by my first name to this child, the woman who "has no rights to this child" became her only maternal source of support. 

Soon negative behaviors started with M. She would back the younger kids into the corner with her fist in their faces. Bear in mind this 12 year old was 5'6" and 270lbs. From experience, she knew what scared kids and she used that against her much younger and much smaller siblings. Then she tried it with my husband. She was misbehaving and he scolded her. She stuck out her chin, went chest to chest with him and put her fist in his face. She immediately backed down when he jutted out his chin and dared her to do it. Then he told her if she ever did it again, there would be severe consequences. She has never tried it with him again. 

Being abused and neglected from a young age, wreaks havoc on the brain. This 12 year old could barely read, couldn't read a clock or count money. She used the same wording a 4 year old would "drawling" instead of drawing, or "merote" instead of "remote"... her brain was stuck at the age where whe was abused. That would take time to fix and we understood that and we were supportive. What we couldn't wait to fix was her lack of hygiene. She would fake shower, meaning she would get her hair wet and put some shampoo in it to provide smell, and say she showered. She was much too grown to oversee her bathing and I didn't want to overstep boundaries yet she severly needed help in learning how to care for herself properly. I spent 3 hours getting the matted hair un-stuck when she first arrived, and she didn't care to brush her hair (her mother would do it hard and then tell her to shut up when she complained), so I spent more hours untangling, cutting and even giving her some fun color in her hair. Then it was time to show her how to properly wash her hair. sitting in the bathtub in a swimsuit, I showed her how much soap to use, how to wash it properly, how to brush it so it doesn't break your hair etc. Then we had to go over bathroom ettiquite. She had her menses since she was 10. She informed me that she had never worn a pad. She said her mother handed her a thick pad once and told her to put it on and she had no idea what to do. So we went over that together (it still took another 2 years and many pairs of underwear to get her to actually use them). We went over proper wiping techniques, she didn't know that you shouldn't wipe back to front. We went over everything that she should already know, but didn't. 

Then I overheard her on the phone with her mom, complaining about the haircut that I gave her, that she asked for. It stung but I let it go. What I didn't know was this was around the time she talked our younger daughter into going into a closet with her. As she was trying to inappropriately touch her, I called for the girls. This made my younger daughter think that I knew and was taking care of it. I didn't know and didn't find out until this year (5 years later). M was tested for disabilities. The results came back that she was reading at the level of a 1st grader, math was 1st grade comprehension as well. She was diagnosed as ODD (opositional defiance disorder), and severly mentally behind. We had her repeat 6th grade, as she had failed every year of school before hand and they just kept pushing her through. We were hoping this would be a chance for her to catch up, work wise, as well as mentally with her peers. The problem was that she desired what the other kids were doing, like dating, when she was so mentally behind that she wasn't capable of that step yet. Im sure it seemed unfair.