Long before Oprah informed the public, long before Law and Order showed us the grisly details; long before society or I had the words to talk about it, I was sexually abused. I was eight years old.
For as long as I can remember, my life has been marked by fear. As a child I was afraid to ask questions in class; afraid to play four square because I was unsure of the rules; afraid to ask a trio of girls if I could play with them. Instead, I chose to keep my own close company behind the parked school buses, playing in a solitary world with only the companionship of my well-worn yellow rabbit.
This childhood trait of fearfulness stayed with me through young adulthood. I was afraid to try out for sports in high school. After graduation I was afraid to attend a large university. In college, when the rest of my peers were gleefully tripping through Europe with nothing but a backpack and a Eurail pass, I was to afraid even to go to London on a school supervised learning quarter.
What was the source of all this fear? He had a name. He was family
I was eight years old when he first walked in on me in the bathroom. After that, he cornered me whenever he could; even molesting me in the backyard during a family barbeque while the rest of the adults were in the kitchen. I could hear my parents talking with my aunts and uncles though the open window as he held me down on the back patio. I was confused and in a fog of shock. These were the pre-Oprah years, where children weren't taught to say "no" to adults, or to seek help when an adult handled you in a way that felt wrong. This was the era of "stranger danger," when we thought children were safe in their own homes. Our language for abuse was not developed. I didn't know to ask for help. I didn't know to raise my voice. I wasn't even sure how to define what was happening.
I had to see this man often - usually weekly - and as a child I struggled to find ways to protect myself. I wrapped myself in shirts that buttoned to the neck and pants that had a tight waist band and an even tighter belt. I was swaddled in anxiety. I clothed myself in fear.
Eventually, when this man tried to abuse me in my own home, I found my voice, shouting "NO!" Miraculously, he backed down. He never touched me again. Still, this betrayal by a close family member embodied itself in my physical appearance and embedded a sense of fear and anxiety deep into my psyche. As my body matured and he moved onto younger prey, I held the fear within me as scar tissue encases a wound.
With the successes of college, career, and marriage, this fear ebbed. I was still cautious, but it was not as pronounced as it had been in my youth. In my late twenties and early thirties, I had children--two beautiful girls, and my fear returned. Faced with the wonderful and daunting task of raising daughters in a highly sexualized culture, the fear of abuse took over my imagination. I was convinced that my children would be molested someday by someone. The evening news and the personal experiences of the women around me made it seem inevitable. My fear began to expand the wall it had built around me, and added an addition which began to enclose my daughters as well.
As my children approached the age that I was when I was first molested, it became increasingly clear to me that by passing my fear on to them, my abuser would touch another generation of my family. Not physically, but with a mental and emotional legacy. If I raised my daughters in an atmosphere of fear, he would win.
I decided that I would not be mastered by fear. To overcome this deep-seated trauma, I recalled the power of my voice. That one clear and simple "NO!" stopped the pattern of abuse. I would use my voice again to break the cycle of fear within myself and within my family. As a woman, I did what I could not do as a child on the back patio at that family barbeque. I named what had happened. I started telling my story, simply and matter-of-factly whenever it needed to be told.
It began when a friend commented on how 'over-protective' I was because I didn't allow my children to play alone in our front yard. I kindly and simply said to her, "Well, there are six released sex offenders in a two mile radius from my house. I was abused by a relative as a child so I'm quite vigilant." As a pastor, when female church members came to me with unhealed trauma due to past sexual abuse, I was able to create common ground with them by sharing my story. When my girlfriends discussed body image issues and tried to parse out what went wrong in the development of our self-images, I mentioned being molested as a pre-pubescent and talked about what that communicated to me about my body and my self-worth.
Sometimes, my friends mention their surprise at how freely and openly I share about my childhood sexual abuse. I explain that as long as I kept it a secret, my abuser held the power - he reigned over me with fear. But when I choose to take back my story, when I make it my own to tell or to hold, then I become powerful; then I can stop being afraid and begin to be fearless.
And what about my children--two daughters six and eight -- what do I tell them to keep them both safe and fearless? How do I warn them about the dangers lurking in the hands of sick men without making them afraid of mankind?
I tell them true things - that someone I loved hurt me, that I kept it all a secret, and that it could have been better if I had used my voice to tell someone. I tell them that nothing is more important to me then they are, and that I will always believe and help them.
This summer, I watched my children run hand-in-hand through the ocean surf. They are beautiful girls with bodies as lithe as colts and as slick as seals. They prance and laugh. They know their bodies, the names of their parts, their strengths and their weakness. And they know their emotions - what feels out of place and uncomfortably odd, what feels secure and warm. Moreover they know their voice and can talk about these things with me, in their own childlike language. My children--physical, beautiful, confident beings--are learning to be fearless.