I am so angry at the media right now.
It’s actually a little hard to articulate my rage, or for that matter, my fear for the future, but I’m going to try.
Actually, let me rephrase.
I’m angry at EVERYONE right now.
Here’s why: Because the unwillingness of Americans to believe Dylan Farrow speaks to a lack of belief whenever any young girl or young woman discloses her abuse. It hurts children who are being sexually destroyed by people with power over them. It speaks very loudly to me, that it is unsafe to disclose abuse at ANY age. And I know that this story is hurting thousands of people. I know it is raising issues for people I’ve never met, and it is raising issues for people I care about deeply.
I know that it is making me angry, and making me want to shake people until they listen. If you read Dylan Farrow’s letter (and I did) you would understand the visceral story she is telling. This isn’t something she invented. I know this because I have spoken to many people, and I know that those of us with PTSD and the memories of abuse have things we cannot stomach. For Dylan Farrow, it is the image of the toy train set which makes me shudder. Focusing on the minutiae takes away the pain for some.
The message that the media, twitter, facebook, and the blogosphere is giving to survivors of abuse is that we will not be believed. The message is clear: Keep your story to yourself and never tell anyone what happened to you. We won’t listen. We won’t care.
Even when the court stripped your abuser of any visitation rights to ANY of his children. Even when your story has other people backing it up. Even when you have suffered psychologically.
People don’t want to believe. They don’t want to hear it. They don’t think it’s true.
This disbelief? It can kill people. The silence, the outright accusation of lies, these kill. When survivors are so demoralized that they will not be protected, they turn inside themselves. The disbelief will hurt just as much as the abuse. If not more.
I know what it feels like to have someone tell me it didn’t happen, that it wasn’t true. I know what that feels like, and I know what the self doubt does to you. I cannot imagine how it would feel if the whole world told me I was lying. If you’re not sure you can say “Hell, I’m not sure if he’s guilty” but you have to end that phrase with “but abuse is wrong.” Whether or not you believe that a specific incident of abuse is fully what happened, you must condemn abuse. Because by forgetting to condemn abuse, you’re condoning it. You’re saying it is ok to abuse people. You’re telling the abusers that they can get away with it – again, and again, and again. And I will call you out on your complicity. I will tell you that you’ve hurt people. I will not be silent to make you feel comfortable. Condemn the abuse. Just do it. It takes 3 words.
Abuse. Is. Wrong.
So stop it. Stop making people feel like they’ll never be able to tell the truth. Stop making survivors who have already come out as such feel like they need to protect themselves, and stop making us fear for the future survivors. Just stop.
Just because someone is male, doesn’t mean that he hasn’t been abused.
Just because the parent says he didn’t do it, doesn’t mean that’s true. Just because they’re a family friend doesn’t make them innocent.
Believe survivors, because our lives depend on it, and the lives of those who are currently being abused depend on it too.
Beautifully put, Elsa. I share your rage. Implicitly.
I agree, as a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, there is a stigma that comes with disclosing it. I was lucky in that my parents believed me, when I told them as an adult what happened. I didn’t (and still don’t) want to press charges because I didn’t want to stir up a huge family drama, so I’ve kept quiet about it. Not to mention I have no evidence outside of memories, it wouldn’t get far in court. I’ll never see him again, and that’s just going to have to be good enough for me.
We need to get rid of that stigma though, because even kids that are taught to tell, know they can’t tell. I don’t think I was ever threatened by the abuser, but I was afraid to tell an adult anyways. My biggest struggle now that I have a family is being able to trust anyone with my child without freaking out every time they want to go to a sleep over, play a sport, go on a field trip over night, etc. because I know if something does happen they may not tell me about it and it could happen to them again.
You’re right. The stigma has to stop. We have had to suppress the unimaginable for far too long. We have to stop it and anymore I have to believe that we’re going to stop it, no matter what it takes. Enough is just enough. There is only just so much any one small person can take, ultimately collectively but more important, to each of us individually. Please. Don’t ever stop speaking out online, to your friends to the “outside world”. Keep telling the world the truth. In whatever way you can, be it quiet protest, creative endeavor, humor, rage cut loose if you feel safe doing so. Please don’t give up the fight, whatever it takes. I believe that each of us has in it in our power, though these powers may be hidden and suppressed beyond endurance, or it feels to be so, to show to the entire universe that Good can and must prevail over evil when all is said and done. We too shall overcome. The ones who have hurt us, will be made to answer for what they’ve done and that day can not come too soon for me. I am too old and ill in body now to take my protest loudly to the streets and my physical health too compromised, and it probably wouldn’t be that difficult for “them” to have me shut up permanently this time, but until that time, if it should come, I’m going to continue to make some internet noise. None will be held unaccountable, especially the individuals who “got away with it”. Child. Your abuser did threaten you. That is why you are still suffering to this day. You’ve been wounded and you’ve been conditioned to hide away your pain to protect yourself. Of course you are terrified for your child, what could be more natural than that? I chose to remain childless in this life so the only thing I can remotely relate to in this very intimate way is that I remembered that with that freak Michael Jackson drugged himself to death I felt utter relief as my beloved nephew was a beautiful young boy child at the time and though of course it wasextremelyunlikely MJ The Unnatural would ever really encounter our precious child, at least that was one less Evil in the world and good riddance too. So even if your abuser may have seemed to be nonthreatening to you while he was abusing you, he nevertheless had you in his thrall. That is exactly how they “get away with it”. That is how many child predators work their evil. By confusing their intended prey and playing on their trust and even managing to convince the outside world and even themselves that they are actually just little children too in grown-up bodies. My friend, it is so not your fault. I too was abused as a child. As was a an old friend of mine that I saw today, probably for the last time in each of our lives. Just know I honestly do care. And I honestly understand isolation and pain too. It’s okay to really cry now, if you haven’t been able to yet. I really do understand. Please know there is at least one person in the world that understands and cares even though we’ll probably never meet. MY wish for you is that you discover sister spirits coming trickling bit by precious bit into your life, and brother spirits too IF and only if you individually feel safe with that ( as there are many boys and grownup men in the world taught to stifle their anguish too) and that you can at long last start to truly heal, because you you have it in you to do that, whether you feel that to be possible or not. And lastly, I wish you this. That you can find some way somehow to gently communicate to your child that should she or he ever ever feel in the least bit uncomfortable about anyone at all, including other children who can be horrible abusers and bullies as well, they they can come to you about anything, anything at all, that you are their safe haven and that in their mother, they have a confidante and true trusted friend in their loving mother. My mother, now gone, was never able to be that for me, now I can see that she wasn’t able to. She too had been abused and was effectively silenced. But one day, in her old age, she suddenly got this strange far away look in her eyes and let it slip, that her grandfather fondled her. She never spoke of it again. When she died she had reverted to babyhood.
You, my anonymous friend, have the power in you to break the cycle of violence (the end result of being violated, whether emotionally, sexually, mentally, financially, socially) with your child. I hope that doesn’t come off as overly preachy and don’t feel bad or guilty if you just can’t bring yourself to do it, but I do ask you to think about it, consider it as a possibility. You could very well end up saving two lives. So long. I’m here. Not plannin’ on goin’ anywheres. Okay. I’ll stop writing now. I promise.