Silent No More - coping with sexual abuse

Survivors of sexual abuse can begin to heal the pain of the past by speaking out

My journey from victim to survivor began when I was about 9 years old. My younger sister and I were sleeping over at an uncle's house in the country. I adored my uncle, and I curled up on his lap to watch the late-night movie. Everyone else was asleep when, sometime later, he led me by the hand to a dark corner of his house. There he fondled my growing breasts and rubbed my crotch. When he was finished, he sent me to bed, warning me never to tell anyone what he had done. "The incident," as I now refer to it, was five minutes of confusion, horror and profound embarrassment. Its impact has lasted a lifetime.

Like many children who've been violated and warned to keep quiet, I did as I was told. Through years of family gatherings and church functions, I kept my distance from my uncle as I built a wall of silence around myself. Inside it, my secret began to take root in my life, and as a tree's roots slowly conform to their surroundings, so was I shaped by my inability to give voice to what had happened to me. Deep down, I believed that I had done something to deserve what happened, and even as I wrestled with that, there were periods when I managed to convince myself that it was really no big deal. Still, I decided that I shouldn't get too close to men, or anybody else for that matter. Even God was not exempt. I remember thinking that if God really existed, he wouldn't have let my uncle touch me.

Though some may find it difficult to understand how five minutes can forever affect the course of a life, those who have been sexually violated know all too well the residue of humiliation and helplessness that the experience leaves behind. Not telling about the abuse only compounds its effects. Indeed, some find that secrecy can become a way of life. Kristen (name has been changed), whose older cousin repeatedly forced her to have intercourse with him from ages 9 to 12, says, "There was a real connection between my not telling about the abuse and withholding other things about my life as well. You become good at hiding because you fear that if you don't, others will be able to see the shameful truth of what happened to you."

Sooner or later, though, the secret must be reckoned with, because the silence that helps us cope in the beginning can lead to anxiety, depression, addiction, memory loss, cancer, promiscuity and sexual and reproductive problems. "There's a mind-body-soul connection," explains Maelinda N. Turner, a Vancouver, British Columbia, social worker with a degree in divinity who has worked mostly with Black and Latino clients. "It may sound New-Agey, but if emotions aren't released, they hide in the body as disease."

A Quiet Epidemic

Because sexual violence--being forced or coerced to perform sexual acts--is fueled by the abuser's need for power and control, those who have less power, such as children, are often more vulnerable. Indeed, children under 12 make up about half of all victims of sexual assault. And not surprisingly, the rates of rape and other forms of sexual assault are higher in poor and urban areas, where so many feel powerless. As a result, experts say, Black women have a disproportionately higher risk of assault.

In recent years, even as overall crime rates have fallen, the incidence of rape and sexual abuse has risen. At least one in four women, and one in six men, will experience some form of sexual abuse in their lifetime. And according to some estimates, as many as one in four young women on college campuses will become a victim of rape or attempted rape, although half of those violated won't think of it as such. That's partly because almost 70 percent of rape and sexual-assault victims know their offender as an acquaintance, friend, relative or intimate partner, and we're loath to see people close to us as rapists. Think about it: If a mugger beats a woman as he steals her purse, she'd report that to the police. But if an associate rapes a woman after she has invited him up for a drink, she thinks about the line of questioning ("You did invite him up, didn't you?") and decides to keep it to herself. The bottom line: Fear often keeps us quiet and can even keep us from admitting to ourselves that we have been criminally violated. There's the fear of what people will think and what they'll say. There's the fear of retaliation. The fear that you won't be believed. Fear that you'll jeopardize existing relationships. Fear that somebody will go to jail. Fear that you'll be alone. And fear that you actually invited it. The fear can be so overwhelming that many victims of abuse actually repress the memory as a way of coping.

So why are we so reluctant to talk about sexual violence? Well, first we'd have to be willing to talk about sex, which many of us find uncomfortable. "We're certainly not the only group that's silent regarding abuse," says Gail E. Wyatt, Ph.D., author of Stolen Women: Reclaiming Our Sexuality, Taking Back Our Lives (John Wiley & Sons). "But we're the only group whose experience is compounded by our history of slavery and stereotypes about Black sexuality, and that makes discussion more difficult."

Because so few of us tell, nobody knows how big the problem of sexual violence really is. All statistics are based only on reported assaults, and, according to the 1999 National Crime Victimization Survey from the U.S. Department of Justice, sexual assault is reported only about 28 percent of the time, making it the least reported violent crime in the United States. Untold numbers continue to suffer in silence, sleepwalking through their days, alive but not truly living, compressing their feelings so they won't feel pain.

For survivors of sexual abuse, there is no one formula for recovery, but every path to healing ultimately requires that we speak out about the ways in which we have been violated. On the following pages, three women (names and identifying details have been changed) give voice to their stories of abuse and silence--and they discover, in the telling, a way to finally move beyond the secrets that have haunted them for so long.

Dangerous Games

Stephanie, a 31-year-old artist, rarely makes her way from her East Coast home to the rural midwestern town where she grew up. Home reminds her of the "games" she and her two sisters used to play with their father. "When Mama was away, Daddy would put us on his lap and feel us up," says Stephanie, the middle sister. "He'd call us into his room one at a time. He'd start with a hug or a tickle, and then he'd touch my breast. We knew what was happening. My sisters and I had a code. We'd say, `Okay, in five minutes, you've got to come and get me.'"

Throughout the girls' childhood, their father would call the eldest sister the most often. Today that sister escapes the pain of those memories through the use of illegal drugs and alcohol. Stephanie's youngest sister struggles with overeating. On the surface, Stephanie, who is single, seems highly functional compared with her sisters. She is full of energy and has a host of friends and a calendar packed with theater dates, parties and book-club meetings.

When I ask Stephanie how she feels about what her father did to her and her sisters, she seems surprised. She has never thought much about it, she says, adding, "What's done is done." But she quickly contradicts herself. "Things have built up over the last few years," she admits. "I'm at the point where I hate when my father even answers the phone. Yet when I do go borne, I don't want him to know that I feel uncomfortable. He's this old man and he does love me. It's all bizarre."

Stephanie believes her abuse is to blame for her struggle to become truly intimate with men. "For a long time, I didn't like to be touched," she says. "It made me feel kind of helpless." Her sisters, too, have had trouble sustaining relationships. Neither has ever married, but each has a child.

"The great wound of sexual abuse," explains social worker Maelinda Turner, "is that it leads you to believe you're not worthy to celebrate the gifts of the power of your sexuality without fear, question or judgment." I ask Stephanie if she and her sisters have ever considered talking with a professional. She shrugs: "I feel like you're supposed to just go on with your life."

Turner sees patterns typical of sexual-abuse victims in Stephanie and her sisters. "You can find ways to escape from the pain," she explains. "Work, drugs, food. You can be successful, smart and busy, but eventually it sneaks up on you. At some point you need to slow down and deal with what happened and how it has affected your life."

She stresses that unless their father gets counseling, the sisters have to contend with the fact that when their children are around him, they, too, will be in danger. That concern became quite real a few years ago, when one sister suspected their father had begun to abuse her 6-year-old son. Her fear for her son led her to finally confront her father about the abuse she and her sisters had suffered. As the secret tumbled out, her mother reacted with disbelief. "You all must have done something," she said lamely, apparently not knowing how else to respond. Stephanie's father insisted nothing had happened with his daughters or his grandson, and her mother let the issue drop. Stephanie's sister, dismayed by her parents' denial and needing to protect her son, now avoids her parents' home.

That episode was the first and last time the sisters ever openly discussed the abuse with their parents. Turner believes that the entire family will need to go into therapy if real healing is to occur, but she acknowledges that it is unlikely that Stephanie's parents will ever move past their denial. Mothers who can't acknowledge their daughters' abuse have often been abused themselves, she reflects. Until they can deal with their own demons, they can't help their daughters. "It's like a cancer," Turner says. "If your grandmother had it and your mother had it, you're susceptible."

As for her father, Stephanie is resigned. "People are who they are," she says. "Rather than have him live out his last days being miserable, I've made a conscious decision to make him feel comfortable." A soft sigh escapes her as she adds: "That just leaves me waiting until he dies."

Sex, Money, Drugs

Evelyn's eyes say she's 50. In fact, she is only 35. She grew up in a comfortable home in New York City with her parents, sister and two brothers. When she was 10, her brother's teenage friend began to creep up to her bedroom to fondle her. He'd give her candy to keep silent. Evelyn finally threatened to tell when he pressured her to "let him put his thing in me." Then he left her alone. In junior high, she fell into a clique of girls who regularly visited the principal's office. "We let him feel us up, and he gave us money and good grades," she says. The principal was fired when one of the girls became pregnant and told. No one else in the clique breathed a word.

At 16 Evelyn befriended a man who owned a neighborhood store. He invited her into the basement for drugs and sex. Not long after, she got pregnant and dropped out of school to have his child. She was in the ninth grade and could barely read. "I was always used to a man taking care of me," she says. At 18 she met Benny, who fed her crack habit and then beat her. Desperate to escape him, Evelyn left her baby with her mother and took off on her own. Soon she was prostituting to buy crack. "It didn't matter what they did to me," she says of the countless tricks she turned. "I just wanted my money."

Author Gail Wyatt, a professor of psychiatry at UCLA, observes that by the time Evelyn was a teenager, she had been conditioned to see herself as a sexual object and sex as a means to an end. Evelyn's case is extreme, Wyatt notes, but in all sexual relationships it's important to ask, "Is my body just being used to get me something?"

Evelyn quickly sank into a miserable routine of sex, violence and drugs that consumed two decades of her life and drained her self-worth. In crack houses she would often emerge from her haze naked and bruised, knowing she had been raped. "I was too afraid to go to the cops," she says. "Why would they believe me? I wanted to die. I asked God why I wasn't dying." She was too ashamed to tell her family she needed help: "I didn't want them to see me; I didn't want to disgrace them."

Indeed, her unwillingness to reveal to her family her earliest incidents of abuse--first by her brother's friend, then by the principal and later the store owner--may have led to Evelyn's pattern of abusive sexual encounters. As Wyatt observes, family dynamics are frequently at the root of our silence around issues of sex and sexuality. "An abuse victim's decision not to tell says a lot about whom they trust, their loneliness and isolation," she explains. "Sometimes there's an emotional distance in the family. It's difficult to talk about sex if you're not talking in general. And abusers will tell you they can sense vulnerable, needy kids."

Evelyn, still vulnerable and needy as an adult, eventually entered an upstate treatment program, where her pattern of abusive sexual encounters continued: She had sex for money with men on staff. She got caught and kicked out and headed back to the streets. Eventually she landed in Project Greenhope, a Manhattan rehabilitation and drug-treatment residence for women who've had trouble with the law. More than a year later, she's clean and fortunately AIDS-free, and through counseling she's coming to understand the roles sexual abuse and silence have played in her life. Soon she will be on her own, and with only $117 a month in welfare, she will need to find a job and a home. "I'm learning to love myself, but I'm scared to death," she admits. "I've never paid a bill in my life."

While Wyatt applauds Evelyn's efforts so far in turning her life around, she cautions that Evelyn will need long-term psychotherapy to help her reclaim her own power over her body: "This young woman was conditioned to give her power away," Wyatt says, adding that Evelyn needs to develop positive relationships with women, perhaps other graduates of her treatment center, and steer clear of the temptations of old friends and habits. She encourages Evelyn to avoid sexual relationships altogether until she gets in touch with her own sexuality. "This is not just about sex," Wyatt says. "This is her whole life."

Longing for Nurturing

Behind Kim's fiery spirit and quick wit is a wounded, still grieving young woman. She's overweight, but she has "too many other things to work on" besides dropping pounds. She's single and often lonely, though she has a boyfriend of seven years. Before him, by her own account, she had a string of mostly empty sexual relationships, 40 in all. "I used to confuse sex with love," she says. Now 34, she still finds it hard to believe that a man could want more than sex from her, saying, "I'm afraid people will leave if they see the real me."

Kim can identify exactly when these feelings of worthlessness began. Her stepfather started fondling her during bath time when she was about 7, and by the time she was 11 he had graduated to intercourse. "I went from crying to just giving in to fighting to get him away from me," she says. She felt she had no choice but to remain silent: Her stepfather had warned that if she told her mother, a prominent southern political activist, he'd kill them both. To prove his point, he'd sharpen his knives and clean his gun in front of Kim.

And so she endured routine rapes by the man who was supposed to be taking care of her while Mommy was out saving the world, beatings when she threatened to tell, and a pregnancy and horrifying miscarriage that she suffered through alone at age 16. "I knew my stepfather was the father," she wrote in a journal, "and just like everything else he had done to me, I could not tell anyone about it."

When Kim was 19, her stepfather pressed one time too many for sex. She resisted and he slapped her, and in her anger she found the courage to tell her mother. Kim was stunned when her mother responded by accusing her of seducing her stepfather and ordered her out of the house. Forced to live with friends and family for a while, Kim eventually moved out on her own. Many years later, she would learn that her mother herself had been sexually abused by a relative. Through therapy she would come to understand that her mother had no inkling of how to protect or support her daughter. At the time, though, Kim was devastated.

"Sometimes I think I shouldn't have said anything," Kim says through tears. "I paid a price: I had to change my life. I had no degree, no job, no skills, nobody but me. What I've lived through is incomprehensible. I lost a good part of my life." She tries to describe the physical and psychological impact of her past: "I constantly have indigestion. When I'm afraid, I want to throw up. I'm always waiting for the other shoe to drop, for something to rock my semblance of being normal."

Dorothy Cunningham, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist with a private practice in New York, explains that Kim's situation was made worse by her mother's denial: "When a parent refuses to accept what's going on, they're often thinking about what it could do to their career and to their family," Cunningham says. "It took a lot of courage for Kim to say this happened, and the mother left her child to heal herself."

Kim has been trying to do just that. Now working toward her college degree, she has been in therapy for years, though she admits she doesn't go as often as she should. "Sometimes it's too hard," she says. Yet therapy is crucial to Kim's healing process, Cunningham says. "There's a loss of innocence, a loss of childhood and family," she explains, and Kim needs to mourn that loss. Therapy can be a safe place to grieve.

Cunningham also sees in Kim a woman who needs to get angry. "People who stay in victim mode blame themselves," she says. "They see themselves as bad and dirty. In some ways that's safer than unleashing the anger that's inside. You need to give yourself permission to be angry. Say `I deserved to be listened to; I deserved protection.' When you're a victim, you don't feel like you deserve anything. When you're angry, you're moved to action; you're empowered."

One of the most difficult memories for an abuse victim to deal with is the sensation of physical pleasure that she may have experienced. Even now, Kim struggles to understand how she could have felt pleasure while being raped. "It was like looking forward to a lover," she says, her voice almost a whisper. "And as much as I looked forward to it, it repulsed me too."

As disturbing as Kim finds this aspect of her abuse, her experience is not uncommon. "It's very difficult for many to accept," Cunningham confirms. "You can be terrified and confused but still have an orgasm. Kim should know that her body did what bodies are supposed to do--it responded to touch. That's how bodies are made. She needs to know she's not a perverted soul."

Seven years ago, after Kim's stepfather died, she began to reach out to her mother. But their conversations often spiral into accusations and tears. Though she still longs for the nurturing that she feels she missed while growing up, Kim recognizes that she is more likely to get it from supportive friends and family members than from her mother. "She is what she is," Kim sums up, "but I still love her. And I know I'm going to be okay."

Common Ground

While every experience of sexual abuse is different, some common therapeutic themes emerge: We need to understand the role of power in our relationships, and hold our abusers accountable for their actions. And we must learn to treat ourselves kindly as we work to come to terms with what happened. "You can't mark progress or breakthroughs," Maelinda Turner says of the healing process, "but you can look back six months or a year and know that you're in a different place."

My own healing took years. I was 21 when my mother and stepfather finally sensed my discomfort around my uncle and gently encouraged me to tell them about it. My parents were surprisingly calm, and I felt enormous relief that I could finally let go of my secret. But when my mother called my uncle to confront him, he denied everything, which left my parents to decide whom they should believe. Fortunately for me, they believed their daughter. Some heated family discussions followed, and it was eventually agreed that a few relatives should be informed so they'd know not to leave their kids vulnerable. My uncle steered clear of me, and life went on.

But even after I shared my experience with my parents, I didn't really deal with the effects of it for another 12 years. During that time, the 9-year-old girl in me was still feeling a 9-year-old's feelings. And so, about four years ago, with the help of a psychotherapist, I began the hard work of untangling the secret from my life, pulling up its deeply rooted feelings of shame and fear and self-doubt.

When I look back on my experience, I see that the most difficult aspect of my abuse was not the telling, of what happened to me--it was carrying the burden of silence for all those years. In my own journey toward healing, I'm learning to counter the 9-year-old's thoughts that even now sometimes play in my mind. I'm learning not to be afraid of inviting attention by speaking up or standing out or even by writing. I'm learning that I didn't deserve what happened to me, and that I have a right to be angry at my uncle. I'm also learning that I can have warm, close relationships.

I married a man whose love was strong enough to breach the wall I'd built around myself, and who understood why I needed to take this healing journey. We have a young son who is my heart and joy, and I'm doing work that fulfills me. I used to wonder where I might be if not for what happened in that dark corner so many years ago. But I now see that in spite of what happened, I'm embracing life, moving out of the long shadow of silence and doing what I can to help myself, and others, heal. And like so many survivors, I carry on.

GETTING HELP

If your child tells you she has been abused, assure her that she did the right thing in telling and that she's not to blame for what happened. Offer her protection, and promise that you will promptly take steps to see that the abuse stops. Report any suspicion of child abuse to your local child-protection agency or to the police or district attorney's office. Consult with your child's physician, who may refer you to a specialist with expertise in trauma. A caring response is the first step toward getting help for your young one.

If you know a sister who has been sexually assaulted, encourage her to seek out a group or individual therapist who is trained to counsel her. These resources can help:

BOOKS

* Surviving the Silence: Black Women's Stories of Rape by Charlotte Pierce-Baker (W.W. Norton & Co., $23.95).

* I Never Called It Rape: The Ms. Report on Recognizing, Fighting and Surviving Date and Acquaintance Rape by Robin Warshaw (HarperPerennial, $13).

* I Never Told Anyone: Writings by Women Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse edited by Ellen Bass and Louise Thornton (HarperCollins, $13).

* I Can't Get Over It: A Handbook for Trauma Survivors by Aphrodite Matsakis, Ph.D. (New Harbinger, $16.95).

ORGANIZATIONS

* Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network (RAINN), 635-B Pennsylvania Ave., S.E., Washington DC 20003; (202) 544-1034; (800) 656-HOPE (hot line directs you to a crisis counselor). Or contact the group on-line at rainn.org or rainnmail@aol.com.

* Association of Black Psychologists, P.O. Box 55999, Washington DC 20040; (202) 722-0808.

* National Association of Black Social Workers, 8436 W. McNichols St., Detroit MI 48221; (313) 862-6700.

* National Black Women's Health Project, 600 Pennsylvania Ave., S.E., Suite 310, Washington DC 20003; (202) 543-9311.

* Survivors of Incest Anonymous, P.O. Box 190, Benson MD 21018; (410) 893-3322.

* Men Can Stop Rape, P.O. Box 57144, Washington DC 20037; (202) 265-6530 or mencanstoprape.org.

More on essence.com

Was it sexual abuse? Questions to ask yourself. Also: raising boys to respect women and more Web resources.

Healing the Hurt

By Iyanla Vanzant

1. Talk to someone. Find someone you trust and let them know what happened. Tell them exactly how you feel. Do not participate in the conspiracy by remaining silent.

2. Keep a journal of thoughts and prayers. Even after talking, the thoughts continue to circle in your mind. Write down what you think and feel, then write a prayer to have those thoughts and feelings healed.

3. Avoid asking yourself why. Asking why deepens the wound and feeds the feelings of shame and guilt. An unanswered why shifts the responsibility onto your shoulders.

4. Keep your body moving. The trauma of sexual abuse gets locked in the muscles and tissues of the body. You must exercise to free yourself of the effects of the emotional and mental trauma. Dancing, swimming or yoga can help you rebuild and regain a healthy relationship with your body.

5. Talk to yourself. Learn to love yourself by creating powerful, loving affirmations that support and encourage you. Affirmations let you know that you are still okay.

6. Rehearse the confrontation. Write out what you would say to your abuser, and write the response you believe the abuser would have. Keep writing both sides of the story until you experience peace. Repeat this exercise as many times as necessary.

7. Realize it was not your fault. Whether you were abused as a child or an adult, avoid blaming your appearance, behavior, inability to escape, lack of retaliation or fear for the violation.

8. Don't run from the memories. You only delay your healing when you avoid, deny or resist the memory of the experience. Instead, draw a picture that represents what you feel. When you are done, burn it!

9. Create a safe place. Choose a place in your home that you can decorate with comforting objects, or go to a park or some other easily accessible location. Claim it as a safe haven. When you go to your safe place, sit quietly, pray, meditate or just hold loving thoughts about yourself.

10. Get professional help or support. Do not deny yourself healing support and encouragement. Find a counselor, therapist or support group with whom you can continue to explore and share your thoughts and feelings.

Safeguarding Our Children

Few of us actually teach our children how to protect themselves from sexual abuse, despite the fact that 67 percent of all reported victims of sexual assault are under 18, according to a recent Department of Justice survey. How do we empower our kids to defend themselves, and to create an environment in which they'll feel free to tell us anything? Here are ways to start:

Give children the appropriate vocabulary so that words like vagina, breast and penis aren't foreign to them. Naming intimate body parts helps your child claim them in a healthy way.

Respect their boundaries. If Aunt Sally wants a kiss and your little one resists, don't force the issue. Children pushed to submit to affection may begin to feel that grown-ups' demands are more important than their own physical limits.

Teach them about inappropriate touching. "Say to your child, `Nobody should touch you there,' or `Nobody kisses you on the mouth,'" says New York clinical psychologist Dorothy Cunningham, Ph.D. Introduce concepts gradually, starting around age 3 and depending on your child's ability to understand. But don't put off talking about inappropriate touching, Cunningham warns. Toddlers can be the most vulnerable.

Encourage children to express their feelings. "You can't have closed communication and then expect it to be open if there's sexual misconduct," Cunningham points out. "Invite your children to talk to you. Don't just ask `How's school?' Ask `How's your teacher?' and `What did you do today?' Get a sense of their relationships and friendships." Give feedback so your child knows you're listening and responsive. And don't be afraid to ask direct questions. For example, you might periodically ask your child "Has anyone ever tried to touch you in a way you did not like, or asked you to touch them in a way that made you uncomfortable?" One woman, abused by an older relative for years during her childhood, says that if her mother had asked her a direct question, her painful secret would have come out.

Teach children that it's okay to question authority--especially those in authority who make them feel uncomfortable. This can be a challenge for those of us raised to "do as you're told" by grown-ups. But children should never feel that they have no choice.

Know your child. "If you're tuned in, you know when she's upset," Cunningham says. If a once-carefree child becomes moody, withdrawn and unresponsive, don't dismiss it as a phase. If your child suddenly doesn't want to go to Uncle Fred's house, pay attention. If your youngster becomes preoccupied with mature sexual concepts, don't assume it's just something picked up at school. Question your child gently, and above all, let her know you love her unconditionally. --R.S.

Robin D. Stone, editor-in-chief of essence.com, is writing a book about Black women survivors of sexual abuse. She is reachable by E-mail at womenwise@aol.com.

essence.com editor-in-chief Robin D. Stone opens up about surviving childhood sexual abuse in "Silent No More" (page 122). "It's much easier to write about somebody else," she says.

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