One Week Later Day 7

I am extremely frustrated this morning. I have searched the web for resources for child sex abuse victims and I am some what shocked at my findings. While there are countless web sites with information, I have found nothing that would actually aide a child. I have found many helpful sites, and I am not saying that there is no help out there, but specifically what I am finding is help for adults. Nothing for parents or children who are in the situation right now.

I have spent hours and hours thinking of what I can do to make a difference here. Incest is such a dirty word. Most people cringe when they hear it. And rightfully so. There is so much silence where this topic is concerned. I am trying to figure out why our society is compelled to keep this secret on going. Every where I look, there is justification for this act. Our laws, our way of life. Yes we say on the outside that this is wrong and against the law, but it is not followed up with anything that tells offenders that this type of behavior will not be tolerated.

What I mean to say is, the effects of this crime are on going. They do not cease. The pain and suffering could last a life time. And the penalties do not reflect that. There is "treatment". There "hope". Bull shit. There is no hope for a society that condones this type of behavior. Why do we not take this more seriously? The cycle of abuse goes on and on untreated and unresolved. What brings me to this conclusion?

4 generations of women in my family have been sexually abused now. I thought I was the last. But now it has happened to my daughter, right in my own home. Something completely unthinkable to me. But here we are. How did this happen? Simple. My grandmother was abused, and her mother did what she though was best which was to tell the abuser that he can never touch her daughter again. This was almost 70 years ago. There was no intervention then. There was no criminal action. People just took it or not and nothing else was said or done. My grandmother grew up with a warped sense of what sex was. Men used her and continued to abuse her.

Then there was my mother. Something happened. To this day, I still do not know exactly what it was or who. I can guess, but she has never been forth coming with it. She swept it under the rug and kept it there because of fear of what telling the truth might mean. This brings me to what happened to me. I was abused by an immediate family member for 5 years. I was then abused at age 10 by an older sibling of a friend of mine. I told because I has to tell my mom why I was coming home at 2 in the morning, which lead to the disclosure of the other abuse. Nothing much was said to me except that I would not have to see or stay with person who was hurting me again. As for the other, a phone call was made and it was his word against mine and no one believed me. Police were never involved, there was no action taken against my abusers in either case. I lived my childhood feeling like I was to blame, that there was something wrong with me.

I finally sought out help at age 18. My world was falling apart all around me and I could not cope any longer. When I entered therapy, it was the first time in my life that I felt like I was going to be OK. It took 2 years for me to finally feel like I was OK. Turns out I wasn't. I married a man at age 20 who would end up trying to kill me. And the cycle of abuse continued. No one would talk. Not my grandmother, not my mother. I tried, but had no idea what was really under lying.

It is only now, that this has happened to my baby that I can see the cycle clearly. It begins and continues with silence. I refuse to be a part of it any longer.