I hated being alive

As an older child of 8 to 10, I hated mornings. Waking up, smelling the stale sunshine unfortunate enough to squeeze through the rattling single paned glass of the curtainless window, I was angry that I did not die peacefully in my sleep, as per my nightly prayer request.

I sat up and put my feet on the cold, grey speckled linoleum floor with its peeling edged and small rips sticking up here and there forcing you to watch your step lest the floor catch and cut your feet.

I looked at the sheetless striped bed with the crater in the middle. The naked spring that I has fought to avoid stood there, laughing at me, knowing it would catch and stab me eventually and more than once.

The floor was cold almost wet. The thermostat would only be turned on once all the occupants were awake and mulling about the main floor of kitchen, bathroom and living room. As soon as the furnace belched loudly and began to force the warm heated air reluctantly through the ducts, it was a mad dash as the half dozen children scurried and fought for a seat next to the wall grates.

My preferred task at first light was to slyly make my way to the basement, to the area around the washer and dryer. There it was the unpleasant but necessary chore of picking through the pikes of semiwet clothes upon the floor in a search for underwear and socks that were the driest and cleanest looking. It smelled foul down there as the washer would pump out water to the cement sink to be disposed of down the drain yet the drain was often clogged with, I don't know really, clothes, rags, garbage? All I know for sure it that the drain would get stopped up and dirty wash water would flood that area of the basement floor.

The washer usually was working. The dryer not so much. Clean clothes rarely made it upstairs or to the bedrooms as wet clothing was considered unsanitary and thus it stayed in the basement, in piles.

I'd hastily eat breakfast, if breakfast was available in the form of cereal or oatmeal.

Then off to walk the few blocks to school with my brothers.

When I sat on the edge of the bed, I knew that at some point my father would get me alone, maybe in the basement, a bedroom with the door still on its hinges, in the garage or in the car. He'd get me alone and molest me. I hated that. I hated knowing my future for that day and most days, that I'd have intimate, sexual contact with my own father. There was no choice, no fighting back, no hiding from it; sexual abuse would happen to me.

I had to pretend I was not a walking wounded rape victim. Every day, I had to pretend and hide my true feelings. In the family home, I had to hide the incest from most of my siblings, as well as from my mom, even though it was common knowledge what dad was doing, mom and family members all pretended it didn't exist. I had to play along.

Once outside the house, I had to keep hidden the incest, physical abuses, starvation, and the extreme filth and poverty that fostered within. I could not show any pain or discomfort. I was to appear cheery, normal and unabused to neighbors, school students and personnal, and of course, to the priests and fellow church goers.

There was a lot I had to work to hide and pretend about.

Being alive hurt with a pain you cannot imagine.

I hated being alive.

I carried shame, humiliation and the fear of embarrassment that someone would discover what a whore I was and what a sex slave looked like upclose and in person.

I was the scum of the earth. Or, well, it felt that way anyway. I never saw an end point. My sexual abuse had been a part of my daily life since I was in diapers. Why would I even suspect that it was abhorrent, criminal, not something every child went through, and an aberration?

It was routine, my normal.

I was alone, completely alone within a large family of people appearing or claiming to love and care for me. 

I didn't have the words to say what was taking place in secret and out in the open.

Three decades later, with three different therapist's and weekly and twice weekly therapy sessions, I can now say I no longer hate my life.

I'm in an uneasy peace with all the transgressions that took place. It's like opening a sewer and sorting through the sh*t, piece by piece. It's difficult work but it needs to be done.

Never ever give up, no matter how awful or painful it currently is. 

You chose to live with the secrets and shame or you can decide to heal and seek counseling.

I truly do not know how an individual can overcome sexual assault without a trained therapist.

Be strong. Seek help. People want to help you.

Thanksgiving, Family Get-Togethers during the Holidays in Incest Families

 Today is Thanksgiving. I'm reminded of how much I have always detested this holiday alongside Christmas and the Fourth of July. Those were when the largest family gatherings took place.

Holidays make me wonder how many other children are being lured away from loving relatives into back bedrooms, large closets, basements and empty garages to be sexually abused by relatives and family friends.

In my dad's family, where the incest was most prolific and extensive, Christmas was the event most likely to involve child molestation. Presents are grand unless they distract adults from watching their children and children are enticed to private rooms for "special secret presents". Thanksgiving followed as the second holiday a child was most likely to be raped within the family. The infamous outdoor Fourth of July picnics provided ample opportunities as well. Those were the three events I tried the hardest to escape from having to attend.

My dad, well, he used those gatherings to assault children other than his own. The presence of a dozen children meant dad would have a fairly easy time getting a kid alone for ten, twenty minutes or more.

I remember that one time, it was actually a different religious celebration, first communion, I think, for one of my younger male cousins. The image burned in my mind is of seeing this little boy immediately after he exited a room in the back of the house, a place were he had been with my dad. I saw the look on his face, and I knew. I knew my father had sexually molested him. His face, his face was blank, in disbelief and his eyes had that familiar vacant, dissociative quality I knew so well. He had been wounded, violated, and scarred for life. Then a few minutes later, here comes dad from down that same hallway. Dad was happy. He had that look of trying to contain his happiness at being sexually gratified in one way or another, and he had to work to wipe the post-assault satisfaction glow from his sick and twisted face. Another secret I had to keep to myself. I watched the cousin go to his mom and hold her, speechless. She treated him as if his whole world was unaltered for she had no idea.

Criminals want you to be complicit as it helps to force you to keep the secret if you believe you will end up paying for their crime, too. As if a child under 8, 10, 12 or even 14 has the ability to escape the family cult of predators.

My dad made me complicit on the holidays. My job was to deceive, to bring him victims, my child relatives, and leave them alone, often standing guard to make sure they weren't disturbed. I do feel guilty, among other things. Up front, I didn't know any better as I had been used for sex by dad and family members since my earliest memories. And it was not rare, more like weekly or monthly that relatives sexually molested me. I was severely damaged, no doubt.

I felt guilty lying to these children. I was taught to be a good and inconspicuous lure. It appeared natural that I would want to hold the new baby relative or take the toddler "off to play". I was eldest daughter so, it was kindof my job to take care of the youngsters. In many ways, it was just the way the family worked and I had zero idea that it was abnormal or criminal.

Then, part of my was glad. Glad to witness someone else being defiled in the way I was being defiled each and every week. Satisfaction. Retribution. Leveling the playing field. Not being alone in my angst. Maybe dad would hurt me less that night, or that week. In ways, it made me glad, uplifted. I was a child assisting adult sexual predators. There was no choice in the matter.

Part of me was full of regret and remorse, sickened by the sight of a child being harmed. I couldn't stop it. There was no stopping my dad, my parent, the main person responsible for my food and lodging. To witness, again, made me part of the crime. Dad often would insist that I help him either being holding the child down or simply watching him commit the crime, as it produced a sick thrill in him.

Guilty, guilty, guilty. So many feelings. So many acts a part of, witnessed, aware of. It is amazing that I can live with myself and all this knowledge all these years.

I know hurt and pain exists. I know what adults do to children in their own family. I feel the effects of being victimized and witnessing incest each day. This is my life, my sick intergenerationally incestuous family gave me. I write about it. I gain nothing by simply telling the truth, a truth that happens in one out of every 5 families. A truth that hurts and begs to be buried. A truth I scream out loud on these pages and to anyone who dares listen.

Incest happens.

Families often pass on incest from generation to generation.

No one really wants to acknowledge the scope, the breadth and depth of the Incest epidemic that runs fast and silent throughout the United States and every other country.

Children continue to be raped because we choose to remain silent.

I am an adult. I was victimized by three generations of my dad's family. I talk about it and write about it with regularity.

I am not ashamed. I did nothing wrong. I was a child. I had no one, not a single adult throughout my childhood who ever loved me, cared for me, noticed I was in pain and offered to listen or to help.

I am alone, again. I was isolated as a child. I live a solitary existence as an adult.

Incest is damaging. Let's talk about it and make the hurt less.

All I do is tell my story, the things that happened to me or that I witnessed.

It's stomach turning and disgusting but it is what happened.

Talking about Incest is the only way I know to heal.

Holidays. I remember family holidays. Incest.

Plagued By the Past, Remembering Incest at 4 years of age

 I am plagued by the past as I suddenly remember being four years old and at a doctor appointment that my mother had brought me to. I see the doctor as clearly as I see the couch pillow next to me. He is a typical doctor in that he has the white coat and shirt with the black tie. His hair is white on the sides but he doesn't have the wrinkled face of an old man. He wears the wire-rimmed spectacles and speaks in that matter-of-fact voice of authority that doctors often use. He is talking to my mother. This, the words he is saying out loud to her, bothers me, makes me feel queasy on the inside as I sit upon the exam table, listening, watching, in pain. 

(I'm not sure if I can write this...)

I remember most clearly the doctor's words to mother. He says them while washing his hands, then shoves his hands in those white coat pockets and addresses mother clearly, standing not more than a couple of feet to my left. 

Some of his words: It isn't uncommon for children to engage in touching themselves, sometimes to obsession and redness as we see here. You'd think it was only boys that did this but girls do too. That's the number one cause of irritation, redness, and this localized rash with open sore areas. It's painful, too, no doubt but it won't go away until she stops doing it. Children find out something feels good; something they have easy access to, and they will enjoy themselves even to the point of pain. At some point, she will stop doing this. There are things we can do to make it more difficult for her to touch herself; tighter clothing, an extra set of underwear or two. I've even known some parents to restrain the child's hands when she is left alone like at naps or at bedtime. It is just a phase. She will eventually stop and move on to something else to do when she gets bored. Until then, here is an ointment to be applied twice a day, once in the morning and once at night for 7 to 10 days or until the redness goes away. She appears to be a very healthy, very normal little girl.

The doctor visually I see so clear. My mother stood behind me so I don't recall seeing her at all.

As I write, I remember the doctor with the thick, black wires in his ears listening to my chest with his little shiny cone. He wore a gold ring, too, on his left hand. It was big and shiny. I couldn't really tell if he had hair on top of his head or not as I couldn't see that far up.

When he was telling my mother these things, his assessment...It wasn't right. It wasn't what had been happening. I didn't do that to myself. I felt confused. Doctors, well, doctors are second closest to God, right after priests. But I hadn't been spending hours touching myself there. Dad did. The doctor was wrong. My mom did right by getting concerned and taking me to see him to find out what was wrong down there. My mom believed the doctor. I wish she hadn't believed him.

My dad. My dad had always loved touching me there. He did it all the time ever since I could remember. It was normal for him but sometimes, like recently, he had one of those times where...he spent much more time rubbing against me there. Somehow, maybe mom and my brothers were away for extra hours or days, something transpired that allowed dad to sexually assault my for an extended period of time, more than his normal.

I remember only wearing a shirt and laying naked on top on pantsless dad reclined on the couch. He would spend time on me down there and then he would rest and wake up and rub against me more or move me to rub on top of him or put his mouth places. It was a non-stop marathon of having my dad assaulting my genitals in one way or another, to the point that I was in considerable pain and my privates turned bright red with sores. It was hours. How many, I do not know.

Yeah, I remember that happening. I remember how...excruciating the pain was. It was like burning, intense burning that wouldn't go away. My body was on fire down there. Cool baths, I recall the only time I got any relief was at bath time as the water felt cool against the raging heat.

Constant. The pain was unrelenting and constant whether I was sitting up, lying down, on my belly. There was no position that alleviated my pain. I did cry and often. Helpless and frustrated with no way to get relief, I cried. I cried whenever mom looked at it; showed dad and asked him if it looked like it was getting worse and if I should be taken to the doctor; when the doctor examined me or when mom put the ointment on. Dad did, too, put the ointment on but then, that just allowed him to do other things, more than just put the ointment on. It gave him an excuse to abuse and then apply the ointment to cover up his crime. It took him considerably longer to apply the medicine as he would first aggravate it and then sooth the burning with the prescription.

I was trapped with dad and the assaults and the hurts. He would look at me, and I would know that he was going to take me to another room, get me alone and touch me there again. It usually was not a surprise as dad got that evil, vile look in his eye when he was either thinking about harming me or actually doing it. It's like his eyes kindof glowed a monsterish glow filled with anticipation and utter deranged passion. Once he was finished with me, its like his eyes returned back to normal dad eyes.

I wish the doctor had asked me questions or investigated my "rash" more thoroughly. He was wrong but I knew I was not to speak up as doctors are never wrong.

I felt sad listening to the doctor talk. I, 4 year old me, wished dad had been there to tell the doctor what really happened because then the doctor could tell dad to stop doing that because it was really hurting me bad.

Nothing changed. Dad continued to sexually violate me every day. The rash did finally get better. The between leg pain was truly awful stuff to endure for all the days it took to heal.

My dad. Incest. Doctors. The rash and external genital damage from my dad excessively sexually abusing me.

I was 4. I remember this.

Incest Priest part 2

As I retold the events of the Incest Priest, more visuals and audibles surfaced. The clearest audiovisual continues to be of the priest asking "and she won't be able to remember anything at all?"

The new stuff:

The drug on the spoon rendered me completely unable to move a single muscle in my body. This brought sadness and tears.

My eyelids were half-closed allowing me to watch him undress and do things until I did blackout. I did hear him finish, the sound up above my nine-year old head.

Then it got strange as I found myself in my grandmother's arms being propped up. Apparently, the drugs may have been too much as I was not responding and I could not swallow. The grandmother held the cup with dark liquid in front of my face, pouring some in through my lips but I could not swallow.

I was aware of uncle priest getting dressed, showing a bit of concern as grandmother told him to hurry up and leave. She called out for my dad who assisted with cold washcloths to my face, one on each side. I remember the scratchy feel of them on my skin as I started become conscious. 

Things still swirled in my head but I could see my bare feet hanging over the bed. Then I could feel them.

My grandmother, I could feel her fear at all the places my back was pressed against her body. Fear feels erratically prickly and I could this emanating from her. I had never known her to feel an ounce of fear (or remorse, for that matter) until this event.

Then the sound of coughing, sputtering was me as my throat started working again. Felt a little like recovering from drowning, too much liquid.

Then I could feel my hands. I regained control of my head and neck. I felt wasted. Physically. Whatever drug that was, it left me exhausted and sore and just feeling wrong all over.

I didn't "feel" the rape due to the drug I was fed but I saw...I saw what my uncle incest priest did of his own freewill and volition.

My dad drove me there, to my great-grandmother's house where my grandmother drugged me so her brother could rape me.

I was 9 years old.

That is, was my family.

My Perpetrator Family Member Priest, Incest

When I hear about clergy abuse and the proliferation of child sexual abuse, I actually do not lump my close family member as one of them.

I believe my "uncle" raped me as an anomaly as I was drugged and his first sexual encounter. Yeah, 9 year old me remembers and talks about it.

The most infamous and clear words my uncle said was "...and she won't remember any of this?" said to my evil grandmother who stood in the doorway as uncle looked at her questioning. This I saw clearly. 

He wasn't a prolific pedophile. He just

 inherited the family "incest gene" or the generational ideology and philosophy that sexually molesting their own children was completely acceptable. He just happened to have been a priest.

Being drugged, this being one of multiple times, had its advantages. There were definitely times that I eagerly took whatever "medicine" they offered to have a better chance of forgetting the rapes, and being more able to drift away into faraway safe places. This time, I remember seeing the reddish purple syrup that didn't taste too bad.

My grandmother holding the spoon, pouring the bottle, and presenting it to me to swallow.

Yeah, they thought I wouldn't remember a single thing but I saw and heard bits of things. Medicating, drugging a child into an ignorant stupor is a dangerous, tricky, and uncertain thing.

I saw: my self lying in the single bed, the room, the curtained window, the spoon filled with the syrupy liquid, my Uncle sitting on the edge of the bed, his arm across me propping himself up to my right; the look in his eyes was strange, not what I'd been used to seeing in men on top of me. He was anticipating, excited, yet there was a wary caution, too. There were many things on his mind. My personal well being definitely wasn't one of them.

After that, I half-eyed watch him undress. The bedroom door had been closed. I was aware yet unable to move my body in anyway. Nothing else to do but watch him as he examined me and basically experimented with all manners of touching this new thing female. Then, I was away until I heard him complete his ...examination to his satisfaction.

The grandmother was the next thing I remember. She was sitting me up trying to get me to drink...coffee, maybe? Something strong. She was making sure I could swallow as well as counteracting the drugging.

Weird to suddenly remember these new bits. My body heavy in her arms. My weight resting on her. The cup in front of my face. It wasn't hot, lukewarm probably strong coffee.

Then her helping me up. To sit on the side of the bed. My head still swimming. A cool washcloth to my face. Yeah, maybe the drug hit too hard as there was some concern that I wasn't getting fully conscious quick enough.

Again, my arm around grandmother's neck to get me standing.

So much to contemplate here.

Anyway. The whole family was in on it. Maybe not the whole family but my dad had brought me there. My grandmother had drugged me. And my uncle molested me in my great-grandmothers house.

Yeah, a family affair.

I never had a chance at normalcy or at having a loving family.

Intergenerational Incest

Just another chapter in my life

Great Grandmother - Great Granddaughter Incest and bathing

I can't recall a single word my great grandmother spoke that I understood. 

She was an immigrant from Prussia who spoke Polish, or poor English with a thick accent.

Five year old me was actually intruiged and curious as to this new great grandmother thing. Until that age, we had lived away from extended family so these new old humans called relatives they were introducing us to caused great curiosity.

Great-grandmother had such white hair, on her head, and such long whiskers on her face. She did talk quite a bit as I saw her lips move and her voice raise a lot.

I'd be left alone with her.

We would carry the metal tub, big oval-shaped bucket up the narrow stairs to the second floor. Or, should I say, she would carry the metal grey while I carried the towels beige.

Then another trip down for the pitcher of water. Two pitchers, both times they were steaming like soup, and I walked behind her as she carefully carried each one with two hands.

There was a big, round bowl that she'd pour some water into on the little table. She helped me get naked and stand in the tub. I didn't like that for a couple reasons. One, I didn't like not having no clothes on standing in front of her like that. Second, I had never even seen a metal tub before and standing in it, the bottoms of my feet were cold and stark. The tub bottom wasn't flat neither, it had rings that stood up, raised, so my feet were never flat or comfortable but off balance on little cold hills. No matter how I tried to place my feet, they could never get flat or comfortable. 

The third thing was that the tub was placed not too far from the little window with see-through curtains, a narrow half curtain on top, above a clear space, then a bigger see-through curtain divided in two on the bottom. I could see the kids playing ball outside. I didn't know if they could see me or not, naked and all.

The great-grandmother moved my arms out, straight out probably because I didn't do it myself cause I didn't understand her mumble words. I didn't like arms out one single bit but if I ever put arms down, so swiftly pushed them back up with whispered harsh mumbles. 

I distinctly, clearly remember the odd sound of water falling off of me into the metal tub. It was making strange raindrops that I could watch fall off. The metal tub made the rain-like drops sound funny, different, almost like pretty music. The sound would change with each water fall cause the tub would have more and more water. Off to the right side, near my chin and neck is where this memory is located cause that's where I was looking down watching the water drops.

I was kinda smiling at the attention of this new old grandmother. My face feels like it was constantly smiling through all this anyway. I didn't like the wet washcloth or the foamed soap or the way she was scrubbing me up and down so, but I kept smiling slightly cause this was new and I was curious about it all.

The rinsing part I liked as she slowly poured the warm water pitcher over this part of me then that. It was like a small warm river flowing over me wiping away the soap bubbles.

I had to stay there while she went down for another pitcher. I didn't like that, that getting cold all wet and waiting part. She soon came back up the stairs, poured out a little water into the bowl, and started wiping me down with the washcloth wet. Scratchy.

Then it was towel time with the big tan towel drying me from top to bottom. Once she dried down to where the water was in the tub, she put a different towel down onto the floor for me to step out onto. Then she dried my lower legs and feet. See, again, this makes me smile because no one had never taken such care of me before. She seemed to like paying attention to me and getting me all washed up gentle and pretty. A big person paying nice attention to me wasn't something that happened much to five year old me.

Then, well, it got nice but kinda weird and uncomfortable, too.

Wrapped in a big towel or bathrobe or blanket, I don't know which, she'd set me on her lap in her rocking chair.

Stop.

Trigger Warning

Now, it gets confusing, emotionally. While I enjoyed the pleasantries of being hugged and rocked, GG did things unpleasant and of a graphic disturbing sexual abuse nature. I did not know whether this was normal white hair relative behavior or not as this type of privacy violation had not occurred before, in this way, under the auspices of a grandmotherly way.

At other times, GG would take one or two of the dolls she had, and show and demonstrate other sexual situations. It's like she was preparing and teaching me all about sexual behavior. 

I was 5.

Before the GG died when I was 10, I developed a strong aversion to going to her house and being alone in a room with her. Part of me felt dirty and uncomfortable with her shameful sexual abuse. I had grown and matured enough to realize what she was doing was wrong. I couldn't stop it but I did try and avoid it.

This was my great-grandmother who the rest of the family loved dearly.

I disagree.

I was a victim of incest and my great-grandmother was my perpetrator. 

Intergenerational Incest in my Family

I decided to make an impromptu chart to show the incest in my family that I personally witnessed and was victim to.

As far as I can tell, my great-grandmother, who emigrated from Prussia near the turn of the century, brought the cruelty of incest from her home country to Grand Rapids, Michigan.

I can only imagine who sexually assaulted great-grandmother. I wonder how far back, how many generations passed on incest and sexual molestation to their own children and grandchildren.

Before I started remembering my grandmother sexually abusing me, I had never heard of grandmother to granddaughter incest. I even naively tried looking it up online but all I found were pornography sites. Really?

In looking up incest statistics, I know that stepfather-stepdaughter incest is most common followed by biological father-daughter incest.

However, the underreported brother-sister incest may be the most common. I'll do some more research on these statistics that are obscure and best guesses.

The chart shows me and the relatives who violated me. That's a good place to start this blog.