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Keeping Secrets
Honestly, I don't know what the answer is. My circumstance even left me a way out, but I didn't take it. Nearly every woman I know has a molestation story; I believe the statistic is one in four women. Probably a lot of the men have one, too, but they are less likely to talk about it. I don't think of myself as out of the ordinary or particularly affected by my experience. At least, not any more. For me, it wasn't the molestation that destroyed a part of me, it was the fact that I kept it a secret from that very warm and loving family. My story takes place in the Seventies, before, I think, there were the constant warnings to make sure your child knew how to say "no" and how to tell you if anyone touched you in a "bad place." Even then, however, my mother tried to get only female baby-sitters for us. But one day my parents had to rush out at the last minute. All my older siblings were gone and the only one available to take care of me was the neighbor boy. I'll call him Roger because that's his name and I see no reason why he should be protected. He was about 15, I was about seven. I think my mom thought it would be okay because I had two friends over, Sarah, a girl of six, and Peter, a boy of five. This is what happened. Really, it's not much. Roger made us sit in a circle and kiss each other and him. Sort of like spin the bottle, but Roger said who and when. I think we giggled a little, I think we were uncomfortable. I think we knew maybe this wasn't right. But then Sarah said it was time to go home. She was no fool. Peter left, too. They each lived very nearby. There I was, alone with Roger, and I remember being scared. I remember he pulled down his pants and maybe even asked if I wanted to see something. I stood in the doorway of my sister's room with my hands over my eyes. Apparently I knew that what was happening was not right. I remember seeing his underwear and his starting to pull them down, but in all honesty, I've told myself so many different things over the years I don't have any idea if I peeked or not. I probably didn't even see his damned penis. And then my parents came home. And that was that. Sarah immediately went home and told her parents. Talk about an open family, these neighbors were total hippies. Sarah called her parents by their first names; they flaunted their atheism in this conservative neighborhood; Sarah had a little boy doll with a penis who actually urinated when you gave him water and squeezed his belly (I've since learned you don't need to do that to actual boys). I'm sure Sarah rushed into that house shouting, "Carol! Roger made us kiss him!"
Somehow I was dirty and bad for what Roger had done. Thank God for Sarah because if she hadn't told, I may have been alone with Roger again. His family lived across the street. We'd been friends for years. My mother immediately cut off all contact with them. She never told them why. Maybe she should have. But his mother knew. I know she knew. I kept the secret of the exposed penis for about five years. Five years during which I kept a constant vigil over myself, living in fear that I might suddenly blurt it out. If we played kissing games on the playground I thought I was doomed. If I got an obscene phone call I thought it was my fault. My stomach hurt constantly. Staying home sick from school was the worst because I was alone in bed with my thoughts with a doting mother taking care of me. It would have been so easy to confess my horrible secret. It was the secret that was destroying me.
And that was it, for the most part. No horrible repercussions, just healing. But all I ever had to do was tell. I knew my parents loved me, but somehow I thought I'd done something unforgivable. I honestly thought I would be haunted by it for the rest of my life. I had turned into an adolescent Raskolnikov. I don't know what my sister can say to my nephew. Maybe she should simply tell him this story. I think now parents know to teach their kids what inappropriate behavior from others is, and hopefully that will work as a prevention. But how do you get your kids to tell you what's going on in their world? I don't know. Maybe you just ask them. --Amy MacDonald |
With
the birth of my sister's first child came many concerns. For one,
she approached me. She asked me why, when we had such a warm, loving
family, and I had been such an open and easygoing kid, did I keep
the secret of a childhood molestation from my family for so many years?
Was there anything she could do to teach her son that he could honestly
tell her everything? I don't know, I told her. The man who molested
me told me not to tell. He made it clear that it was a threat. So
I didn't tell. 
Carol
called my mom. The next day, in the car on the way to school my mom
very gently told me what Carol had said and asked why I hadn't told
her. She assured me I could tell her anything. She asked if I was
okay. She asked if anything else happened besides the kissing. I shook
my little head. I still remember her caring eyes looking at me in
the rearview mirror. I just shook my little head. 
It wasn't
until sixth grade that I had what I guess must have been a kid's version
of a nervous breakdown. I curled up into a ball and wouldn't go to
school and pretty much stopped functioning. After months with a shrink
(to whom I told nothing), I one day simply broke down and somehow,
through my tears, communicated to my mother that more happened with
Roger than I'd said.