Victims of Incest Blog

I am not a typical incest survivor. My incest did not begin in my childhood, though more than one person suggested that it might have. My father's incestuous fascination with me began in my early 20's.

All of a sudden, my father's looks of disgust turned into looks of lust. But it wasn't until he placed his hand on my breast that I felt the world around me crumble until my surroundings morphed into everything unfamiliar. I lived somewhere else now, somewhere I imagined to be hell. Everything I previously referred to as my past disappeared in a blur.

It wouldn't have mattered if it had happened only once. It happened. The fact that it happened more often doesn't matter. If it had happened only that one time, I would still consider myself to be a victim of incest.

The man I called my father had become a frightening entity. My skin tightened when he walked into a room. I felt cold and shaky. I was a single mother living at home with my parents, making less money than I could survive on living on my own. I was afraid for myself. I was afraid for my daughter. I was afraid to tell my mother and my sisters. I was afraid of everything.

But more than fear was the shame I felt, because I couldn't stand up to my father. His behavior was so foreign to me, that when he touched me, it wasn't like having the rug pulled out from under me – it was more like having the entire Earth pulled away from me, leaving me suspended somewhere between the life I thought I had and no life at all.

I was an adult when the incest occurred. I often wonder about small children who have to endure the pain and suffering inflicted upon them by parents, grandparents, siblings, and cousins.

This blog is for them and for anybody whose family members betrayed their trust or abused their trust.

I encourage you to share your stories, and I ask you to share your pain, so that we can all climb out of the well of desperation we fall into when pushed by people who are supposed to love us.

Reach me at writer721@gmail.com

Blog Entry January 6, 2010

Struck with cancer

2009 was a year that changed my life. I discovered in September that I had an agressive form of breast cancer. I will be receiving chemo, radation, and more chemo from now until the end of October 2010. It has set me back somewhat, but I still push forward believing that all things will work out for me.

It's funny how one major change in your life puts everything else into perspective. It takes the focus off of every other problem and plants it firmly onto the new one. My life now revolves around chemo treatments and knowing when I'll feel good enough to be with people. My focus is now on my recovery, not only from incest, but also from cancer.

And so I write and I work through the problems. I had to quit the daycare, because I could not handle kids with the chemo treatments. It may have been a blessing in disguise because now I have time to write more articles and blogs. I try to keep a positive attitude and I try to focus NOT on the abuser, but on MYSELF. I AM RECOVERING. My recovery has nothing to do with my abuser. It has everything to do with ME.

Aside from my recovery, I'd like to take a moment to apologize for not blogging lately about incest, but I also want to bring up an important factor in my own recovery. Thinking about incest, constantly thinking about incest, does NOT help one recover from thoughts that plague us. Our lives are filled with way more than just the incest and I for one refuse to allow it to control my life.

I would also like to thank the people who have emailed me. I hope I've been able to offer some help. I appreciate your comments and I understand your pain.

May we all heal from our afflictions.

 

Blog Entry June 15, 2009

Feeling sorry for myself

I sometimes try to find something to blame for feeling down. I guess the blame falls on my shoulders. I made choices that landed me here after all. I wish I were Dr. Phil so I could come up with the solutions to all of my problems.

For instance, should I be watching two children who are emotionally damaged? Should I have told the mother NO after her fiance told me that her son experienced violent temper tantrums? How was I to know that a three-year old would act even worse than the two of them led me to believe he could act? I see his hands and his feet start to tremble. The movements quickly exacerbate into full-blown arm and leg thrashing, immediately followed by excessive and convulsive head banging. No warning. No understanding of why the tantrum even began. I pull him out of the baby swing he asked to sit in when he started banging on the tray. He can't ask to sit in the swing, because his vocabulary consists of only a few garbled words. I try to tell him he's too old to sit in the swing. He keeps slapping the tray, so I put him in the baby swing. That's when the hands and feet twitch into a tremble.

I quickly remove him, drag all of the children into the house and place his thrashing body onto the couch for a time-out. I am exhausted from trying to hold onto him without dropping him. This is my first day with him. We go through this process again.

That night I decide, because I am desperate to make money, to give it a week. The following day, and two days following, he throws no tantrums, but on the fourth day his four-year-old sister exhibits strange behavior when she buries her head in her hands at the breakfast table and sobs convulsively. I ask her what is wrong. She refuses to tell me. Or maybe she can't because she's sobbing so hard.

She wanted more fruit salad and she assumed I knew she wanted more fruit salad. I think. I don't know, but the reason she was crying, she told me later, was because she wanted more fruit salad.

She hurts her finger on the rug. And then she hurts her hand. I have nothing in my daycare that would cause anybody harm. She just wants to be held. And held. And held. And comforted. And held. And held. These kids require so much affection, the other kids are getting jealous. They climb all over me, because now they feel neglected. I have more food to prepare, lots of diapers to change – the three year old and two other babies still wear diapers. So I leave them to prepare a snack.

She sobs convulsively again, this time, so much that she is vomiting. I don't know if I can take it anymore, and it's been only a week. They return tomorrow and I'm dreading it already.

So today I'm feeling sorry for myself. I never thought my life would be this way at this stage. I thought I could relax a little and enjoy life. Once again, I feel as if I were some kind of ax murderer in a previous life, or maybe several previous lives and I'm paying for all the pain I caused by experiencing ongoing pain in this life. I lose myself in my other blogs, none of which I can write today, because I'm not in the mood to put on a happy face.

In this blog, I can be honest about my feelings, because I don't think anybody reads it other than myself.  I know that at least I will understand. I know that "all things must pass," but today will too, and tomorrow they will be here again. I'm not educationally equipped to deal with children who are as emotionally damaged as these kids are. If like attracts like, what does that say about me? Where is Dr. Phil when I need him?

Blog Entry June 3, 2009

Jay Leno retires and I'm still trying to make it

Jay Leno and Dr. Phil are approximately one year older than I am. Oprah and Ellen are younger. I can group myself with them in that we are all about the same age, we have all worked tirelessly to get to where we are today, we have all had setbacks, and we have all triumphed over those setbacks.

The one thing that separates me from them, though, is finances. This month, for example, my income will be $650. Yes, for the whole month. I provide daycare and I write while the children take a "quiet time." I also write before they arrive and after they leave. In other words I work approximately 14-15 hours each weekday and numerous hours every available weekend. At the end of the month, I have nothing to show for all the work except the work itself and what amounts to be only $.50 an hour.

Career-wise, I'm not even close to where I was meant to be. Oh, I know, everything has a reason and a season and, according to conventional knowledge, I am EXACTLY where I am supposed to be. But I get tired of living below the poverty level. And I get tired of working so hard to make it in the writing industry.

I sometimes wonder if I committed unforgivable atrocities in a former life and I am paying for the crimes I can't remember committing by being forced into a state of perpetual poverty. And yet, I have a computer and a phone, a television and a home. And the love of so many people. I wouldn't trade a livable income for the love of all of my friends and family members. Still, I wonder why I can't have both.

I must be sabotaging myself somehow. I just wish I knew how so I could change it.

Blog Entry May 13, 2009

Storm rages outside and inside

My life sinks sometimes to depths I cannot fathom. I don't know why I continue to feel these ups and down. For me, it's usually about income and holding onto money. If something spectacular doesn't happen for me financially in the next two weeks, I will have to sell my home and almost everything in my home, move across the country, and live with my son.

The thought of packing again is annoying. The thought of selling the home I thought I would live in for the rest of my life, the home that houses all my babies when they come for a visit, unsettles me to my core. But it's just things really. I don't genuinely care for anything in my home except for my pictures, my computer, and my grandmother's table. I could do without the things.

It's what they represent – my home anyway. My home is a place that welcomes my children and my grandchildren from across the country. I love knowing that everybody is sleeping under the same roof.

But I think of the hundreds of people across the country who have lost their homes, who live in tents and under bridges, and I am grateful I have children who will take me in.

So I continue to write and I continue to be hopeful. But today I will allow myself to feel sad, because even after all these years, I still don't know how to hold onto anything, though I make believe I do – I tend to hoard everything.

I may have just had an epiphany.

Blog Entry May 10, 2009

Mother's Day

I can't help but think about my mother today, about how sad she is sometimes. I wonder if she ever thinks she might have had a completely different life if only she had followed her dreams. And yet, I wonder...did she have any dreams, or did they get washed away with the births of each of her babies.

I think, too, of the choices I made, the men I married, the children that came forth from those marriages. I don't regret a single decision I made. I made them under the best of circumstances at the time. I can forgive myself for making uninformed decisions. I honestly didn't know what raising a child meant. And for that reason, I can forgive my mother for mistakes she made.

My children's births were no mistake. They were meant to be, and I love them with all my heart.

Funny thing about having children – once they're born, you wonder how the world ever revolved without them in it.

Happy Mother's Day to moms everywhere.

Blog Entry May 8, 2009

Finding Joy and Peace

When sadness consumes me and I can find no outward reason for the depression, I've learned over the years not to focus on it. Instead, as ridiculous as this sounds, I force my face to smile. I force myself to laugh. I jump onto youtube and plug the words, "laughing baby" into the search.

Other times, I wallow in my grief and sadness, allowing myself to feel the pain I can't articulate. I cannot cry. I have not been able to cry for decades. My father made fun of me for crying, so I learned how to effectively prevent the tears from flowing.

And I pray. I pray for the ability to overcome the sadness.

And every time I pray, within the hour, somebody calls, or something happens, and the veil of sadness lifts. I find again the joy that I deserve.

Blog Entry April 25, 2009

Article About Adult-Onset Incest Victims

This two-part article discusses an adult's thoughts and feelings about being a victim of incest as an adult. Links are provided in the UPDATES folder.

Blog Entry April 24, 2009

Seeking Adult-Onset Incest Victims

A very rare phenomenon, known as adult-onset incest, occurs so infrequently, I would like to invite people who were victimized as adults to send me their stories. As always you can remain completely anonymous. While your story may be shared in future blogs, I will never reveal your identity.

Blog Entry April 15, 2009

Responsibility

We are generally responsible people, but we sometimes behave irresponsibly as we attempt to adjust to what we perceive to be "normal" – something we believe everybody else is. Maybe we indulge in drugs or alcohol, maybe we are sexually permissive. Whatever we do, however we behave, we act in ways that will allow us to cope with our trauma. Like PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder), we are recovering from the insanity of incest.

We should NOT feel responsible for what happened to us. When I was told by my mother and sisters that the reason my father molested me was because I dressed too provocatively, I felt instantly hurt and unbelievably betrayed. What if my sister's son walked out of the bathroom naked? Would that give her the right to fondle him – because he "asked for it"?

Back then, I thought the "cycle of abuse" might cause me to harm my son, if I ever had one. I became terrified of getting pregnant again. What if I were to have a boy? And what about my grandmother? Did my father's sexual abuse toward me mean that she sexually abused him?

The day my son was born I looked into his eyes and told him I would never do anything to hurt him. But I was afraid that once he got older, I might not be able to help myself.

And then I thought about the stupidity of the term, "cycle of abuse." True or not, the one thing I can guarantee is that I CHOOSE my actions just as I CHOOSE my reactions. I can let my father's treatment of me rule my life and prevent me from living it, or I can choose to live responsibly in spite of, and maybe even because of, HIS CHOICE to abuse me.

Blog Entry April 08, 2009

The Term Victim

I have never been fond of the word VICTIM, because it denotes lack of power. Admittedly, though, at one time we were powerless. We trusted people who abused our trust. And now, everything we do is tinged with the color of incest. It never leaves us. It affects our social lives, our love lives, our jobs, and our relationships. But we don't have to allow it to run our lives.

It seems that some people enjoy playing the role of victim. Yes, we are victims in that somebody abused us, but we have a voice and it is time for us to use that voice. Do you care enough about other incest survivors to let them know you care?

V ictims

O f

I incest

C are

E nough

(to...fill in the rest)

V.O.I.C.E. to speak out against violence.

V.O.I.C.E. to speak out against incest.