Touched to Tears for Years

TOUCHED TO TEARS FOR YEARS

One Woman's True Story of Manipulation and Molestation as a Child

"The hole in my soul is as big as it was when I was ten," I told my counselor, Joyce Turnboom, when I was fifty-five years old."  I asked her, "Why does it still plague me?  Why can't I get over it?"

         "I was ten years old, frail, shy and lived as an invisible child in my family, even when I visited my loving Me-Maw and Pa.  I wasn't pretty like my sister was; I was just a normal blue-eyed little girl who was very bright in school and an especially good reader.  Throughout my childhood, I hid from the world I knew by going off by myself with a book, magazine or newspaper; and in my daydreams that I was the person having wonderful life experiences like I read about in favorite books.

                I don't remember that people paid much attention to me, but I do remember that I always felt alone in my world.  That is, until old Uncle Thomas called me his "favorite."  I remember hearing Mommy and Me-Maw say, "It's good that Sue is Thomas's favorite.  He keeps her busy."  My sister was Me-Maw's favorite and my brother was Mommy's favorite.  They always said that I was a good girl; I thought I was too until I was ten.

         Things were different back in 1947.  It was still a time when any child molester, who was found in a family, was banished and disappeared from the family into the whole of society.  Laws did not apply.  The plague of child molestation had it roots in that type of setting before laws were made to criminalize it in later decades.  The damaging, demeaning criminal act has always existed in societies and has increased with each generation as the world's population has increased.  I was one victim; only one of thousands of children who was molested and raped that year.  I was only ten years old.

         Uncle Thomas seemed very old to me and the seven other grandchildren in the family, even though he was just in his early forties.  He was a little man who never wore his false teeth, which he had acquired when he was twenty-nine years old.  He had never married and the family fables told that he never had a girlfriend.  From his adolescent years, he never lived alone.  Instead, he lived with and worked for his older brother, my grandfather, as a farm-worker until he died at the age of eighty-three. 

                I have often wondered how many other victims he had in my mother's generation, my generation and the next; and how many others who were outside the family.  Me-Maw once spoke to me about her worries that his behavior with a girl from her church when Uncle Thomas was in his seventies.  I did not tell anyone what he did to me until after Me-Maw died.

         Uncle Thomas often took my siblings, my cousins and me down to the lake in the pasture to swim.  I didn't know how to swim but he said he would teach me.  That was when the touching started, but I didn't realize what it was about then.  To teach me to swim, he would hold me on the water and carry me along as I kicked my feet and paddled with my arms.  When he did that, his hands would move all over my swimsuit, touching.  I never learned to swim.

         Whenever Uncle Thomas went to town, he would ask some of my siblings, my cousins and me to go with him.  To entice us, he always bought candy and soda pop.  All of us thought that was great; however, he eventually asked only me to go with him.  When he went around the farm to work, except when plowing the fields with the tractor, he asked me to go help him.  As a shy, almost invisible little girl, I would go. 

         One day when we were driving home from town, after I had finished eating my Baby Ruth candy bar and grape soda pop, he asked me if I would like to drive; that meant I could guide the pickup by holding the steering wheel as he drove slowly down the dirt road to Pa's farm.  I said yes.  I know now that he was manipulating me to create a situation for his pleasure.  That was the first time that he touched my skin in private places.  While I held both hands on the steering wheel, he bragged about my driving as he slowly put his arm around me, then under my shirt, caressing every part of my skin and flat, unformed breasts.  As the shy, quiet little girl, I said nothing.  I just kept holding the steering wheel.

         As I think back, I can understand his pattern of manipulating me repeatedly, just because he could.  I remember that he continued to entice and lead me to go to town or to go help him with a project somewhere on the farm.  I would just stand like a statue while he continued to touch more of my body, and later when he picked me up and placed me onto a bale of hay.  Sometimes he laid on me while he kissed me with his toothless mouth.  I can remember one time that he tried to rape me with his penis but nothing happened as he had probably hoped.  Since becoming an adult, I have realized that he was apparently impotent; and I thank God for that or I might have been one of those girls who became pregnant by a man like Uncle Thomas when rape continued into menstrual years.  I could never tell Mom, Me-Maw, or my aunts what he was doing to me.  A shy, fragile child feels powerless; I know I did. 
         
         That year of my life, my father was gone to live and work in another state.  Thankfully, he came back the week before my eleventh birthday.  Shortly thereafter, our family packed everything in a trailer and moved thousands of miles away.  Daddy never knew that he had rescued me from the molestation by Uncle Thomas; he was my knight who saved me from the demonic dragon. After my knight rescued me, I remember that during my years until adulthood, I had bad dreams in which I was sexually abused and raped and was a prostitute, even to motorcycle gangs.  I never dated until late in college. Depression has been my uninvited daily companion.

         My self-esteem was at "rock bottom" all of those years.  As an adult, I remained distant in all my relationships and I became addicted to religion, continually hoping that God would free me from all of the bad memories, the shame and the guilt that I always carried inside me." 

         That was my story as I told my counselor to get help to find my path to healing my wounded self.  I had wished for death a thousand times during the years that I carried that devastating burden. Nothing could seem to fill the hole in the depth of my being that was left by the childhood molestation and damage done by the deceiver and never convicted criminal, old Uncle Thomas.


SIDEBAR:
There is no research that shows child rape leads to homosexuality.  Each year in America and around the world millions of children are molested, raped and killed by the worst of humanity.  If they survive, all are damaged physically, emotionally and spiritually.  For the victims who were silent, as a family member stole their innocence, not just once but over a long period, even years, a lifetime of guilt is the gift that they were given by the perpetrator. THIS WAS THE FIRST TIME I COULD ACTUALLY TELL THE DETAILS IN NEARLY 70 YEARS.

Guilt and shame increase when they hear people around them demean such victims for not telling someone.  The burden that they carry within their body and their spirit expand and their heart's pain can be tortuous.  Because other children are tortured and killed by the perpetrators, these victims feel a mixed baggage of both gratitude and guilt because they survived. State and federal laws still call the crime: molestation or incest when a child is the victim. Wrong!  The crime is: assault and rape!

(this writing will help guide me as I take on the challenge of writing an autobiographical book that may one day help someone else on their life's path.  Ann)