Wondering What My Mom Knew About The Abusers

I always wondered just how much my mom knew about what my dad was doing to us.  How he was abusing and raping and molesting us.  I know, its the family secrets I'm not supposed to talk about in life.  You know what though?  I think its time I say to "hell" with keeping my mouth shut.

There was so much going on and so much I faced growing up.  You can read more about that in my book, Hope And Possibility Through Trauma.  While it doesn't share all the details, you will get a better understanding of what transpired.

The nagging question always stuck in the back of my mind was how much did my Mom know.  She is dead from being the passenger of a car accident where my dad was driving.  So, there's no way to ask her now and get a real life answer.

Reading through some old letters as I prepare to write my next book, I could see some little indications that either she was so oblivious to what her husband was doing to his children or she just didn't want to know.  I still can't remember the time she didn't put two and two together when she walked in on a molesting session of my older brother.  Yet, another time I was forced to masturbate him.

It's sickening to say the least.  I've done a lot of extensive healing and work on it, but there are still many miles to go.  My family thinks I'm the one that went nuts.  My older brother is some "holier-than-thou" religious person that seems to hate everyone that disagrees with him.  I believe my Dad is in his last days of sickness in this world.  My younger brother is there, but has too much anger built up for me to connect with him.

The rest of the family just keeps their distance. I no longer have contact with friends of the family and the ones that are even remotely connected, seem to keep their distance from me and the subject.

When you're a victim of child abuse, you not only suffer as you are going through it, but you suffer as you're trying to heal from it and put your life back together.  You live with it every day of your life and although you work to heal and put it behind you, its there nagging and gnawing at the very essence of your life.

I'll never get the answer of what my mom knew and if she did, why she didn't flee the mother-F'r!  Yes, I know the monster beat the living crap out of her and she was afraid of him.  She didn't believe in herself enough to protect her own children.

What my mom knew will remain a mystery.  I guess if I realized she did know, then my curiosity would evolve to asking questions like, why didn't she save us?

The one thing I've learned in the healing journey of child abuse is there are never answers that make sense and add up.  There are never logical explanations to what happened.  There are never the answers that you can obtain and if you do, there is no easy way to deal with them.

The letters I received treated me as if I was the one with the problem.  I was the one brainwashed and coached on how to blame my parents.  As my mom said in the one of the letters, "psychiatrists always look for someone for their patients to blame to make them feel better".  RIGHT!  In my case, that never happened.  It doesn't stop the family from blaming you though.

I'm rambling now it seems.  I'm just dealing with this deeper level of pain and hurt wrapped in a thick warm layer of anger.  To this day, I can't make sense out of it and I know that this is how it works.  I just have a hard time convincing myself that there is only so much I can do.

I'm writing to share the pain in hopes it helps someone else feel not so alone.  I'm writing to help soothe my pain and let my words form into a soothing balm.  I'm writing so my brain can attempt to make sense of that which is almost impossible to make sense out of in this mess.

There are always questions but never enough answers.  Its the family secrets that prevent those answers from seeing the light of day.

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Oprah 200 Male Survivors 5 years later

Its hard to believe it has been that long.  Five years since we were chosen to be part of one of Oprah's last episodes.  It was the two part episode on male survivors.  I still remember it like it was yesterday.  I still remember it as if I was overtaken by a flood of emotions.

Sitting in that room with 200 other male survivors was an experience unlike any other I have had in life.  I so remember the early days of my recovery when I didn't think anyone else existed and I was all alone.  I remember meeting the first male survivor back in the late 1990's and it helped change my life and helped me recover.

No longer do I worry about the effects of what happened to me.  I know them all too well.  What I am focused on these days are how I continue to move forward and drop ever last single bit of what happened to me.  It isn't easy.  Yes, I can put on a happy face and act like the remnants are no longer there, but then I wouldn't be very honest.

On My Soapbox For Child Abuse

I could not believe what I read this morning in The Body Keeps Score by Bessel Van der Kolk.  I'm loving this book so much.  He was sharing just how much early psychology textbooks missed the mark on the issue of child abuse and molestation.  So, I'm on my soapbox because I know some of these attitudes still exist out there.  Thank you Dr. Van der Kolk for exposing these things and talking about this subject.

Here's what he said about what was once taught on child molestation

Furthermore, the textbook said, “There is little agreement about the role of father-daughter incest as a source of serious subsequent psychopathology.” My patients with incest histories were hardly free of “subsequent psychopathology”— they were profoundly depressed, confused, and often engaged in bizarrely self-harmful behaviors, such as cutting themselves with razor blades. The textbook went on to practically endorse incest, explaining that “such incestuous activity diminishes the subject’s chance of psychosis and allows for a better adjustment to the external world.” 9 In fact, as it turned out, incest had devastating effects on women’s well-being. van der Kolk MD, Bessel (2014-09-25). The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma (Kindle Locations 479-484). Penguin Group US. Kindle Edition.