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National Association of Adult Survivors of Child Abuse
National Association of Adult Survivors of Child Abuse
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NAASCA wants to hear from you
EDITOR'S NOTE: This is a grassroots non profit effort, dedicated to bringing an end to the scourge of child abuse in America. Our primary mission is to help people get into recovery from their childhood experience.
We encourage you to write us with your thoughts. We especially want to hear of your experience strength and hope |
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The Letter
art by Mia Meadow |
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My Daughter Was Sexually Molested
A Mother's Plight
by Kathleen Tell
Your child tells you she has been sexually molested by her father, brother,
grandfather, whoever, but it is someone you love and trust.
Your mind reels. This can’t be right. Surely, this must be a mistake.
And with
that desperate hope the child molester has you right where he wants you.
What you don't know is he desperately needs you to help him.
This is his plea.
Recognize it for what it is. Don't do what I did ..
I am Mia’s mom. She is a fabulous kid - sweet, gentle and kind. I love her very much, but I didn't know what to do when she told me that my husband had tried to have sex with her.
I knew she was telling the truth so I confronted my husband. I asked him straight out if he had touched my child in a sexual way.
He knew I knew. He knew me well enough to know I would not believe him if he said no, so he said yes.
That was his one brief moment of honesty before he fell back into the web of lies that made up his life. |
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“I don’t know why I did it. I can’t believe it myself. I have been beating myself up
over this incident. I’d been drinking, I know that isn’t an excuse and I wasn’t
going to use it as such. But I’d been drinking, I hadn’t meant to inadvertently
touch her breasts, it just happened. She had such small breasts that I really
didn’t realize it at the time, until she jumped up off the couch and left. It
happened so fast, and I was so disoriented from drinking. I really can’t even
believe it happened at all. But it wasn’t like I was trying to have sex with her or
anything. It was just an accident. I was just putting some lotion on her back and
sides and she turned around. It was an accident. I tried to tell her that at the
time. She seemed okay. I thought she understood. I thought she was over it. I
didn’t know she was still getting upset over it. It was just a stupid accident.
That’s all. I am so sorry about it. You will never know how sorry I am about it.
And you know if you tell anyone, I will go to jail over this. It was just a horrible
mistake. Haven't you ever made a mistake? I have spent my entire life being a
good man, and now I have made one horrible mistake and my entire life, from
this point on, will be defined by that mistake. God knows how sorry I am, I only
wish I could convey to you how sorry I am. Now my life is ruined. If you tell, I
will go to jail. My life is over; I need to just kill myself. It would be better for
everyone if I were dead. That is the only solution,” he said. And then he laid his
head down and sobbed.
Realize this was the man I was madly in love with, someone I adored. Someone
who was a good man. A religious man who taught Sunday school and coached
the kid's hockey team. This man had been asked to run for the Board of
Education by some of the local businessmen. He was a man people respected.
He was the head of our household. He was the man I loved.
Now, this man was begging to be forgiven for making a horrible mistake, a mistake that was inadvertent to begin with; a slip of the hand, nothing more. He
had not been trying to have sex with her. He had not been mauling her.
"Did I really believe he was capable of that?" "Did I really think he meant to have
sex with my daughter?" "Did I not know him at all?" This was all some horrible,
ugly mistake. Then he laid his head down, begged for forgiveness and cried.
If I had only known how many times he had used that line to others, I would have
called for help. Instead, in my innocence, I was lost. He was lying and I couldn't
see it. My head was spinning. I wasn't thinking straight. I thought about my
daughter and how upset she was.
I glared at him.
He got down on his knees and begged me to forgive him. His tears continued to
flow.
I told him I needed time. I needed him to leave the house.
He cried harder.
I steeled myself. He had to leave the house.
“Where will I go?” he cried.
“Anywhere”, I said. “Go stay with your brother. He will put you up. I need time.
I don’t know what to do. I need you out of here. My daughter needs you out of
here. You have to go away.”
He cried and cried. "Okay, I'll go but you need to know how sorry I am. You
need to know that I will kill myself if you can't forgive me.” He got up off his
knees, packed his bags and left.
I was relieved.
A week later I let him come home.
What I didn’t know until years later was that he never really left. Oh, he packed
his bags, he drove away. But when I went to work, he was parked down the
street waiting for me to leave. He would watch me drive away and then walk
right into the house.
You see I didn’t change the locks. It never occurred to me that he wouldn’t honor
my wishes and stay away.
My daughter would find him walking through the house under the guise of
“getting something he had forgotten.” And, of course, he wanted to talk to her
“alone.” He never knocked or rang the doorbell. He let himself in, scaring her to
death.
He was letting her know he could still get her. She would never be safe again.
She had nowhere to run. Her mother could not, would not keep her safe. He
would convince me it was all a big mistake and he would be back for her. I was
in his control. I would not stand against him. Just watch. It would be as he
said. She had nowhere to go. She was his.
Unfortunately, he was right.
I let him come back. I forgave him his "one time indiscretion." I rationalized not
calling the authorities by thinking we could all go to counseling. We could put the
family back together and move on. We didn’t have to rip the family apart. I
wanted so desperately to believe this that I did.
I was wrong. My daughter suffered the consequences. Our family collapsed, but
only after more time had gone by and more offenses were committed. We all
told mountains of lies to cover the truth, which caused more damage. All
because I thought that he would be arrested, prosecuted and go to jail. I didn't
want this "mistake" broadcast around town. I am embarrassed I wanted to
believe him, to believe it didn’t happen. It was so ugly. I just wanted it all to go
away.
What I didn't know was that by going to the authorities, my husband could get the
help he needed. That there are organizations out there to help families just like
ours. Going to the authorities had been our best chance of becoming a family
again.
Instead, my desire to keep it secret enabled him to molest my daughter. He
continued to pursue my daughter, mentally and physically. He never had to take
responsibility for his actions or get help. In the end, our family was destroyed.
A couple of months after I filed for divorce, I received a phone call from one of my
son’s old girlfriends. She had found out we were getting divorced and asked
why. I listed off a couple of reasons, and then, I summoned up my courage and
said, "He made sexual advances to my daughter". There was a long silence,
then a deep intake of air, and she said, “I believe her because he did it to me
too.”
I am ashamed to say I was shocked. She proceeded to tell me what happened.
After we hung up, I sat there thinking of all the lies and excuses. How could I
have fallen for them all? The lies seemed to parade through my mind. I had
closed my eyes and refused to see the truth. Not only had he molested my
daughter, but he also molested others in my home, right under my nose.
Worse, I had let him by not doing the one thing that could have helped him. The
one thing that could have saved our family and kept other children from being
molested by him. I made the wrong decision and destroyed my relationship with
my daughter. My family lay in ruins, shattered. I won't even go into what
happened to our family's finances.
Many years have passed. There is some good news. My daughter and I have
found our way back to each other. She has forgiven me for the mistakes I
made. Together, we have survived the emotional and financial blows caused by
the destruction of our family and we are moving forward with our lives.
I have no idea what has happened to my now ex-husband. He has moved on to
another town, another woman, and another child. It is still hard knowing he could
have been helped but wasn't. I think about the marriage vows we made to each
other. The vow to love him "in sickness and health." I feel great remorse. I
would have known to get him help, if it would have been alcohol or drugs, but
child molesting .. I didn't.
It could have been different. Now there will be other victims and other families
destroyed.
So my plea to you is to do the right thing by your family. Get help. Let your
family know they are valuable, more valuable than your own embarrassment and
pride. Stand by your child. Help your husband or whoever it is that is abusing
your child. Don’t keep quiet, thinking you are sparing your family from more hurt
and anguish. Don’t assume that their silence means your child is over the
trauma.
It will give you back your child. It may give you back your family.
Once you get help, you can start to fix your family.
In the end, what else matters? |
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