As we continue on with the subject of "family secrets", let's speak on another secret, and that is the family secret of "sexual" abuse.  This subject has been and probably is still "Taboo", in some of our families, but taboo or not, it is continuously going on, even in 2008.

Sexual abuse can be committed by a male or female. A family member", which includes father, mother, stepfather/mother, uncle/aunt, brother/sister, cousin, or friend of the family. This is a very very serious subject and one that needs desperately to be discussed openly so those that have experienced this tragedy can be freed from the bonds that holds them captive!

There use to be a time when acts of such as sexual molestation was quite rare with our people. I'm not saying that it never happened, but it was very rare and definitely rarely spoken about. That time is no more. It has become so wide spread that it appears normal and acceptable!

Those that have experienced this must know that they are not at fault! And you can live a healthy and wonderful life after such a degrading and devastating act. I will include different posts regarding Molestation/Sexual Abuse during this week and pray that it will help any of us who are bound by this.

Speaking on this form of abuse as well as physical abuse is part of our journey of returning back unto YAHWAH. We must take off all of the ugly/doirty clothing that we acquired during our time away from Him. None of us need be ashamed, He is giving us this time Akhayote to be free, remember Yahoshua said those that the Son free, are free indeed!! Let us take him up on his word.

The following article, may be hard for some of you to read, but this is reality in a lot of sisters lives or past lives.  My prayers are that we all read very carefully and begin to deal with it whether we are actual victims or know of someone who is.

It's time to begin the healing sisters...

Family Secrets

Some families are defined by their secrets. Dark family secrets are the stuff of gothic southern fiction, but they are not confined to the south, or to any other group. One of the darker secrets is the rape of a child by a family member.

After being a hidden topic that no one talked about, child molestation has moved out into the light. The coach, teacher, or priest who molested children has moved into the news. Along with the valid prosecutions, there has been histeria iconified by the McMartin Preschool accusations.

While it is one thing to prosecute someone outside the family for molesting a child, it is another issue when it is a family member. When a family member sexually molests a child, in many cases it is swept under the rug. The family does not want to know or deal with the issue. The crime becomes a dark family secret that is rarely talked about. When the secret is finally brought into the open it is denied. When the issue is forced, especially when the victim is a girl, the rape of the child is explained in the same terms defense attornys used in 1950s rape trials: "she wanted it" or, "she's a slut".

My wife, Linda, was sexually abused by her adopted father from the time she was a small child until she was a young adult. Her memories of abuse are not "recovered memories", they are still vivid and will be with her for the rest of her life. Through two years of counseling with a therapist, who had herself also been abused, Linda was able to start recovering from the pain, and gain perspective on the patterns the abuse set in her life.

Linda broke off all contact with the adopted father who abused her. Eventually, their denial of the sexual abuse and violence shattered her relationship with her three half-siblings. (Her 'full' sibling was also abused, and Linda remains closely connected with her.)

I have no idea how common abuse by a family member is. When something is hidden and denied, there are no solid statistics. Many people who have been abused still remain in contact with the abuser. The idea that family ties should be severed in our Leave it to Beaver - Father Knows Best society is anathema. Families keep their dark secrets and pretend that nothing ever happened.

Linda's siblings still don't "get it". I recently got a note from one of Linda's half-sisters. She found bearcave.com and wrote me about Linda. She wrote "our mother is probably very sad in heaven because her daughters can't get along" because of "different opinions". Nowhere in her note was there any acknowledgement of what happened to Linda, or of the fact that the rift between the siblings was a result of their attempt to silence Linda's voice. An edited version of my response is included below. Names have been replaced with letters, protecting the guilty in the case of Linda adopted father.

Linda's name has not been changed or obscured. She has, she says, done nothing to be ashamed of. She does not hide her history in embarassment. Linda did nothing wrong. I am so very proud of her. She stands and speaks her truth. Obviously, because I wrote it, Linda's story is filtered through me.

Those who recover from sexual abuse by a family member tend to be estranged from their families. The reason the survivors of abuse are estranged is that the family members tend deny that the abuse ever happened. Its one thing to admit that Coach Smith abused the girls on the soccer team. Throw him in jail and throw away the key. But it's another thing to admit that dear old Dad, or brother Jim, or Uncle Bob is a pedophile who abused your sister.

Another common pattern is that people who have survived violent crimes need to bear witness. The victim of a crime cannot change the fact that the crime happened. But they can bear witness. They can exercise that core part of being human and speak out. By doing so they can transcend the crime. This is as true for those who survived the Holocaust as it is for a victim of rape.

When it comes to victims of sexual crimes, there is a huge amount of shame. Only in the last two decades has there been any movement against using the "she wanted it" or "she dressed like that so she deserves it" or "she likes sex" defense against rape.

This same issue exists for people who are victims of sexual abuse by a family member. In many cases their family tells them that they are at fault, not the abuser. The victim wanted it. Why did they not fight back? Why did they not speak up and tell someone? It's the classic rape defense. Yet the victim is a child. They cannot fight back, any more than a women can against a man who out weighs her by 100 lbs. The situation is even worse for child abuse since the family does not want to hear about it.

Although the rape of a child or an adult is classified as a sex crime, it is really a crime of violence. The crime of a powerful person asserting their power over someone weaker.

Go read that last paragraph again: the crime of someone more powerful over someone weaker. Now think of your father E. I believe even you have stories about E. forcing you to clean the house in the middle of the night when he was in the grips of a drunken binge. Berating you, tearing you down for not doing it right. And did he not also approach you, and try to kiss you? Yet you once accused Linda of not being strong enough to say no to his advances, when she was much younger than you when her abuse started.

I don't know what kind of person E is now, but from all accounts I've heard he is an alcoholic with a violent past. He's probably getting too old to be much harm now. E is a man who was himself abused when he was a child. He asserts his power over those who are weaker than he is.

One way that people like E assert their power over children is to rape them. Linda was raped since she was a little child until her first husband told E that he would kill him if he ever did anything like this again. Why did Linda not fight back? Why did she not tell? Because E beat her when she was a child. He told her that he would kill her. And she believed him. As would you or I.

Have you ever shared any of this with your daughter? I imagine you have not. I don't think that you have even wrapped your own mind around it. Remember what I wrote above. Families deny. You have denied Linda's experience. You have denied the victim of a crime their right to bear witness.

Neither you or I can imagine what it is like to recover from what E did to Linda. It is a triumph of her spirit that she has done so. That she can enjoy sex and be a healthy person is something more than anything I have ever done in my life.

If anyone had done to me what E has done to Linda, my first reaction would be to never rest until I had revenge. Linda, however, is wiser than I. She does not want revenge. Linda simply wants no contact with the monster who raped her and beat her over years when she was a child.

Linda grieves deeply that she is estranged from her brother and sisters. She has never asked you to not see E. She has never said that she would discuss E's abuse with your daughter A, who may be too young.

But when she mentioned, in passing, something of her history to your younger brother J who, at the time, was a sexually active eighteen-year old adult, you and your other siblings went ballistic. How dare she mention such a thing! Just sweep it all under the rug. Yeah, J knows what an physically and emotionally abusive person E can be. But just don't mention the sexual abuse. Its all too much of an embarrassment. Linda was at fault for mentioning it, not E for raping her from the time she was a small child to a young adult.

Which brings us the the crux of why you and other families of abusers deny. If you admitted to yourself what a monster E was or perhaps still is, you would have to examine your own actions and why you continue to have contact with a person like this. So it's just easier to deny it all. It never happened. Linda made it up. Or she wanted it. This moves the shame of the crime from the abuser to the victim. By doing this you make the victim suffer twice from the action of the criminal. Part of recovering from abuse is to stop being a victim. Linda will not be silent, yet you want to silence her.

One of the high-level Nazis that escaped Germany as the war ended was Martin Borman. He escaped to South America. His son never tried to deny his father's crimes but stated that, regardless, he still loved his father.

Linda has never asked you to not love E, all she has done is to ask you not to deny what happened to her. To acknowledge it. Yeah it's a painful business. But it's nothing compared to what happened to her. And in the end it might help you see yourself and your father better.

I only speak for myself here, as I wrote at the beginning. I don't see how Linda can have a relationship with you, your siblings or your children in the face of the denial of what E did to her. Families where abuse has taken place tend to be fractured families. Even in your e-mail to me you denied the issue. You state that you and Linda have "differing views" on E. That's a bit of understatement, don't you think?

I know that I'm much more angry about what E did to Linda than she is. My anger and bitterness should not reflect on her. Linda's view is that holding on to any anger and bitterness mean that E won. He would be able to rape her, and keep raping her, years after it happened. In this Linda is wiser than I am.

So I don't know what Linda wants to do. You addressed the e-mail to me, so I feel justified in responding. I've always wanted to say this to you, since you have doggedly missed the central issue. The barrier between you and Linda is not "accepting each other's differences". It is the sexual abuse that took place and whether the victim of this crime should remain silent to avoid

embarrassing family members.

Perhaps reading about your family from a stranger will have an impact. I really hope that you will read and think about what I've written. I have attached a recent article from Salon (www.salon.com) by a survivor of abuse. This woman's father does not sound violent, as E was. But some of the issues she had to work through in recovering remind me of what Linda had to work through. I hope you will read this and think about it as well. Where things go in the future I can't say. Nor is it up to me. I speak for myself alone.

Afterward

As I wrote above, sexual abuse shatters families. But things change. People get older and they do long for their families. So it was with great hopes that Linda did attempt to re-connect with this half-sister but, the denial continued. After one final letter where the sibling filled a page chatting about "Dad" (as if Linda had only spoken to him yesterday), Linda sadly released any need to stay in touch. I don't think she'll open herself up to any future contact.

I had wanted to say the things in this essay for many years. I never felt that it was my place to say them, so it was bottled up. When I got e-mail from Linda's sister it came flowing out. I liked the writing, so I posted it here. But it represents only a marker in time. It does not necessarily represent the present, or the future.

I do think that the patterns that I've talked about are common in families where there is sexual abuse. Just as the abusers themselves seem to work from what sometimes seems like a secret common shared script.

I've told you sisters, in the sisterhood egroup, "Virtuous Israelite Woman", we are touching every facet of our lives, because there is "NO" area that YAH cannot see or "NO" pain that He cannot heal. We are here and ready to listen if you're strong enough, courageous enough, and trusting enough to share your story with us on this "journey of return."

Your Sister in Messiah,

AnaYah

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