I always shut my eyes

The sexual abuse and exploitation of children is one of the most vicious crimes conceivable, a violation of mankind’s most basic duty to protect the innocent. ~ James T. Walsh

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Author’s Note: I’m thrilled and honored to learn that this post was selected the GBBMC weekly writing winner for April 14-20. Thank you, Carly and Kevin. I hope anyone moved by this story will consider making a donation to RAINN, so that help will be at hand for future young victims. No child should have to live in fear and shame.

I was about four years old when I first became aware that something wasn’t quite right in my family. I opened the bathroom door to discover my 14-year-old brother raping my six-year-old sister. Of course, I didn’t know what was going on at the time, but I knew it wasn’t right for her skirt to be up and his pants down. She wasn’t screaming. She wasn’t making any sound at all. But somehow I knew he was hurting her, and I screamed for my mother. Mom came running, and yelled at my brother to get off my sister. She ordered him to his room, and shut the bathroom door in my face.

Probably because it was the first such incident for me, that scene in the bathroom is burned into my memory. Just that, nothing of what followed immediately afterward. A short time later, I began to have nighttime visitations by The Dark Man. I would wake up after everyone else was asleep, and a dark figure would be standing in the hallway, beckoning to me. Terror would freeze me to my bed, unable to make a sound. I had been afraid of the dark since birth, and this menacing being compounded those fears beyond measure. All I could do was squeeze my eyes tightly shut, and wait for him to be gone.

At some point, The Dark Man quit stopping at the doorway. I have a clear memory of waking to see him standing just inside our bedroom door. He lifted his hand to put one finger in front of his mouth, and whispered, “Shhhhh …” I watched in horror as he moved slowly around my bed to where my sister was sleeping. He bent over her bed, pulling the covers back. She made no sound as he climbed on top of her. Again, I shut my eyes, sick with the waves of evil that seemed to be pulsing through the room. And again, that’s where the memory stops.

By the time I was seven, I couldn’t go to bed at night without having a severe anxiety attack. I’d lie in bed, stiff as a corpse, as anxiety raged through my small body. When it became unbearable, I’d run to the bathroom and vomit to the point of exhaustion. Then I’d return to bed and fall right to sleep. On the nights my parents were out, the anxiety and vomiting would continue until I heard their car pull into the driveway. Not until then could I relax enough to go to sleep.

I grew up believing that The Dark Man was a figment of my overactive imagination, and yet I was unable to escape from the chronic anxiety his visits had instilled in me. I was taken to numerous therapists, but I never told any of them about The Dark Man. I had a deep-seated terror of going insane and being committed to a mental institution, so I was always careful what I told the psychiatrists. The usual diagnosis was “abnormal attachment to mother.”

I knew my brother continued to molest my sister until she was 15. We were close, she and I, and she didn’t hide her hatred of him from me. I hated him too, not only because of his abuse of my sister, but because he was a very, very bad person in so many ways. Yet it wasn’t until I was in therapy following my daughter’s sexual abuse in her daycare home that my eyes were finally opened and I realized The Dark Man was my brother. And that I was not delusional. That was a major turning point for me. And then the unanswerable questions began.

Why wasn’t my brother stopped? My sister swears she told my mother repeatedly what was happening. Why did my mother continue to leave us in his care? My oldest sister has now revealed she also was repeatedly raped by our brother, and she too claims my mother knew. I cannot reconcile this with the doting, protective mother I knew. One of my sisters actually believes that our mother struck a bargain with our brother, essentially agreeing to look the other way as long as he never touched me. I find this ludicrous, and insulting to the memory of my mother. A mother who would do such a thing would be, in my opinion, a monster. My mother was not. And yet, why wasn’t I ever molested? I have always believed it was due to the protectiveness of my other siblings. It is the only explanation I can accept.

I have not spoken to my oldest brother in 20 years. He served 10 years in prison for sexually abusing his own daughters, and I’ve had nothing to do with him since. He may not have abused me sexually, but his actions left me damaged and scarred nonetheless. There is no place for him in my life.

If you are being sexually abused, or suspect someone you know is, SPEAK UP. Tell someone. Get help, in every way you can. Call the RAINN hotline. If such a hotline had existed 40 years ago, my sisters and I would be very different women now. Everyone, please consider donating to help RAINN keep the hotline open 24/7. It could save someone you know.

RAINN Donation Page: https://donate.rainn.org