(This is a guest article I wrote for Daniel Maurer‘s amazing site, Transformation Is Real. I hope you’ll visit and peruse his many pearls of wisdom and books. I’ll be sharing a few article snippets I’ve written for Daniel. Some will be tough to read, some not as much. These are my stories told from my perspective. My truth. I hope they resonate with you.)
Why I’ll Never Stop Being Resilient And Fighting for Truth
** TRIGGER ALERT **
I’m sorry you have to read what’s next. It was hard to write and I hope you will stay with me for the rest.
Do you know what it’s like to be ordered to lick a man’s penis ‘like an ice cream cone’ when you’re eleven years old? I can’t imagine most of the population can comprehend that.
I can.
Because a man forced me to. More than once.
When the police eventually questioned me, after more than a year of various forms of abuse, I didn’t tell. Terrified this giant of a man, an army sergeant with a gun who lived next door, would kill my baby sister, I kept quiet. But my eyes dripped tears of tales untold, an admission of guilt owned by the intentions of men.
Eventually, I did tell. Two trials (civil and military) — taunting, haunting, harrowing, narrowing my world between him and me once again. “How will I ever escape the confines of this man’s world?” I wanted to scream, in words I didn’t know how to utter as I testified twice before God and man and him, specifying in impolite, forensic detail the ways he abolished my soul.
Telling isn’t justice, and justice isn’t handed down when victim blaming is first on everyone’s mind. Why are survivors forced to own our abusers’ intentions? He got eighteen months, then moved back home — right next door and mere feet away from my window — for another eight years. Long, slow days full of his kids’ accusatory stares and his wife’s accusatory lips.
How will I ever escape the confines of this man’s world?
How Do Survivors Become Responsible For Crimes We Didn’t Commit?
People tell survivors we are somehow complicit if we don’t tell. They tell us they will hurt someone else if we keep quiet and it’s somehow our fault they are criminals who will continue to commit crimes. We are to blame for the behavior of men. (In my case, and in many, many cases, the predators are men. I respect and acknowledge that not all men commit all sexual crimes. I am sharing my story and my truth here.)
It’s all very easy for non-survivors to make these statements. Do this, do that, and done. One, two, three. They cannot comprehend why we wouldn’t want to tell.
Um, have you been online lately?
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