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.
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