SKYS STORY

Many times I am asked my age and I always say 29 and holding. I am not 29 years old, in my opinion, while being 29 I took control of my life back. I was 29 years old when I experienced "My Awakening" of my past. Part of me was conscious and knew it was there. However, I kept it locked away behind a door in my mind. Never really facing it or believing that it happened to me. Basically, for twelve years I blocked my memories and my life had become a lie.

Before I begin with my journey of sharing my story. I want you to know that there might be some triggering events in this story that may cause pain or hurt. I also want you to know and remember a survivor does what they have to do to survive. Abuse is abuse no matter if it happened several times or only once. It is never the victims fault, but always the abusers. For those who read this and wish to pass judgments on my life, please do so but remember you never know until you are in someone else's shoes. My husband knew about my abuse, but didn't know the extent of it or that the awakening would be this difficult on our life together. I blocked my memories to try to have a normal life. Later I realized that blocking isn't the right thing to do but healing from it is. The hardest lesson for me to learn in my healing is: "We cannot control how another will feel, react or respond, but we can control our own feelings, reactions and responses."

Sit down, relax and I thank you for reading my awakening.

Sometimes it takes a tragedy to force a person to recognize their own life. The tragedy that awakened me was my 18 year old nephew. He and I had an extremely tight bond between us. For we shared something in common. We both had been sexually abused as children. We never spoke of our experiences. I only knew that he had been to several therapists and none were able to help him. My nephew rebelled against authority figures and the reason none of the therapists didn't work is because he never talked about it. Perhaps that is why we had our bond, I never pressured him to talk about it. I grew up with the understanding you don't rock the boat. Old patterns die hard. I knew in my previous conversations with him that he could be suicidal but I never mentioned my suspicions to his mom. Several months after my nephew went to college, I received a phone call from him. He was about to kill himself and was calling out for help. In the background on the phone, I could hear the campus police banging on his door. His girlfriend had called them out of fear of what he might do. Campus police took him to a holding cell to make sure he didn't harm himself. I called my sister-in-law in the middle of the night to tell her what had happened. My sister-in-law was thankful for the call but furious with me for not telling her sooner. My nephew, felt I betrayed him in calling his mom and we were never close again. My nephew did live through his suicidal attempt.

After that night, I started to experience flashbacks of my own suicidal attempts when I was his age and before then. The memories increased so much that the reason for my suicide attempts surfaced too. I couldn't shut the door to my mind any longer or block out my past. Every day was a living nightmare remembering and flashing back. Old patterns of my surviving techniques surfaced as well. I was reflecting my anger onto my husband, which he didn't deserve. Finally, I had a voice of reason come from somewhere inside of myself that said seek help. Seek help is exactly what I did. I dug out our list of doctors for our insurance company and looked for a woman therapist. It had to be a woman for me to feel comfortable to talk about all this. I did find one that was close to home.

My first visit with her was basically an interview as to whether or not she wanted to take my case. I had no idea I had a case. Growing up with parents from the "Old School" I was taught that therapists were there to get rich off of you and for totally insane people. In all honesty, I expected maybe 6 months of treatment and I would be healed. I was shocked to find out it was a never ending process. In looking back now, my first therapists wasn't the right one for me. She listened and we talked, however, she was more directed at remembering and reliving the experience. Some situations require that I needed to remember. I was more interested in healing and moving on with my life. I give her credit, I did remember, more than I wanted to. She felt very strong about hypnotizing me and I was very against that. We disagreed several times on my treatment and I began to not trust her. Coming home from her sessions, the last thing I wanted to do was talk about how it went. I completely shut my husband out from helping me heal. I turned to the computer and used it as a method of escaping my reality of remembering. It was too painful to keep remembering the bad things in my life. I was repeating old patterns of blocking and pushing people away from me. It got to a point where I made the appointments but I always had an excuse to cancel the appointments so I didn't have to face the pain. My mother had no idea I was seeing a therapists. I knew she would never understand the reason why. My husband had no idea I was missing appointments on purpose and would come home early to play online. It became a nasty cycle of lies that I was allowing to happen. I was keeping secrets again. I was still protecting my abuser after all these years. I found some inner strength and started keeping the appointments again. The day of confrontation was here.

My boss was aware of my therapists and the reason I was seeing her. I was very lucky that my company completely bent over backwards to help me get through my situation. I was at work doing my job, when I had a terrible flashback and was very distracted. Being an accountant for a company dealing with millions of dollars it wasn't good to be unfocused and not able to concentrate on the job. I took the afternoon off, intending to drive down the highway and scream at the top of my lungs. Before I knew it, I was at my abuser's home. I walked into the house and my step father was sitting on the couch watching some old television show. I headed to the kitchen and grabbed the biggest knife I could find. With the knife behind my back, I then went back into the living room and turned the television off. My first words to my step father were "We Need To Talk." I stood there looking at him with total hate in my eyes and looking around the house that I grew up in. More flashbacks came rushing through me. Remembering hiding places and running for the backdoor to get out of the house when I heard him home. I was no where near ready for "The Confrontation." I stood the whole time, never wanting to sit down. Suddenly I felt very powerful and would not show any weakness to him. I told him I had one important question that I had to have an answer for and his response determined if one of us was going to jail. The question I asked was "When I was growing up in this house, did you have sex with me?" He was silent for a while and then he looked up at me with tears in his eyes and replied "Yes." The relief I felt at that moment was unreal. I knew it wasn't a lie and that I wasn't crazy. My next question to him was "Why?" He had no answer for that. He told me he wasn't sure I remembered because I never acted like I did or that it bothered me. When you block something like that, how could you act like it bothered you? I asked "Why Me?" "Why didn't you touch your own daughter?" "Why did you take what didn't belong to you?" He had no answers for me, but sat there in the chair and bawled like a baby. Seeing his tears for the very first time, had no effect on me. I felt strong and I was taking my life back.

I was very angry and yelling at him. I told him that if he had said "no" I would have killed him on the spot and I showed him the knife that I had been holding so tight it was cutting into my palm and drawing blood. I never felt the pain from the cut. I told him I would never keep his secrets again. That I would have nothing to do with him ever again. That he is no longer a part of my life or my kids lives. I told him that I had spoken to a lawyer and I still had the right to send him to jail. I told him that he was the adult and I was a child and that it was no longer my fault, the blame was on him. I also told him that he would be the one to tell my mom what happened. I gave him one day to tell her, and if he didn't I would. I knew my mother wouldn't believe me but would believe him. I acted out of anger more than rational and I know I didn't handle the confrontation the best way. I felt strong and that was what was important to me. For the first time in my life, being around this person, I wasn't afraid anymore.

My step father, could barely talk when my mother got home from work. He was still bawling by the time she got home. He did manage to tell her that he abused me, but he left out so much information. My mother immediately called my house and my husband answered the phone. I couldn't speak to her. I was correct in thinking she would handle it the exact way she did. I was accused by her as being the other woman, that I was lying, that the therapist put the ideas in my head, that I was a whore, you name it and my mother called me those names to my husband. Basically, my mother was in a major denial. She didn't want to hear my side. She heard what she heard and jumped to conclusions. So God only knows what my step father did tell her. I wouldn't speak to my mother for months after how she reacted to the news. In my eyes, she didn't protect me then and she wasn't standing by me now. My mother didn't kick my abuser to the curb but continued with her life as if it never happened. I was seeing her true colors in action. When I did start speaking to my mother it was through online. She would instant message me with 100's of questions. I would get upset and sign off. The next day, we would go through the same thing. Finally, I told her, that I would answer 3 questions a night that she asked me, even though she should have been asking my step father. She had no choice but to except my terms. Her questions and her responses took a lot of energy from me. I felt worse than I did before I spoke to her.

By now, word was slowly getting out that I was sexually abused as a child to people at work. I can't tell you how many women, would come into my office and shut the door and tell me I was not alone. I was so amazed at all the stories. One woman told me I was lucky because when she confronted her abuser, he denied it ever happened. This woman has been disowned by her family. This same woman was also one of the biggest helps to me during my healing. She gave me the name of her therapist who strongly believed in healing and moving on with life. I immediately made an appointment with this new therapist and felt really comfortable with her. This therapists specialized in sexual abuse therapy. I filled the new therapist in on everything that had happened, including the current situation with my mother. The first thing she had me do was write a hate letter to my mother and my step father. I never realized how angry I was with both of them until those letters. Therapy was going good and I seemed to be making progress, however, my home life was literately being turned upside down. I started to feel pressure from my mother everyday about answering more and more questions. Even my husband was expressing his desire for me to share with him what was going on. He had a right to know, but I wasn't strong enough to relive my therapy sessions. We would have horrible fights and throw the word divorce around like it was something people do everyday. The overwhelming feelings set in. I got depressed so much so, that I was put on an anti-depressant to help me cope with everything I was experiencing. The doctors called it a chemical imbalance. Getting the dosage correct on this new anti-depressant that the doctors didn't know much about took awhile to get.

One day, I had come home from therapy and my husband was asking me questions only to me it felt demanding and pushing me. My mother was calling me on the phone wanting to know if I was going to sign online and I had a very stressful day at work. Something inside of me snapped. Everything went blurry and I began to stare into space. I wasn't coherent at all. Death seemed like the only escape for me at that moment. After hours of being in this state of mind, I asked my husband to take me to the hospital.

Once at the hospital, for the first time in my life, my blood pressure had sky rocketed up very high. I filled out a questionnaire for the nurse. Shortly after the questionnaire, I was approached by a doctor who told me I was going to 72 hour lock up for my own safety and that they needed my approval to be signed in. I looked at my husband with tears in my eyes and I signed the form. I was taken away from the hospital in a bus with bars and a police officer. I was escorted up to the ward of psych patients. There I was stripped of all my belongings. I was handed some bedding and put in a room with one bed and a mattress. The door was locked behind me and it was close to 2 am in the morning. I remember putting the sheets on the bed and trying to fall asleep. There was nothing in this room but a bathroom and toilet paper. The windows had bars on them and I could only see the street lights when I looked out. The room was so quiet and dark. I laid in bed and perhaps drifted off to sleep hours later. By morning, my door was opened wide and a nurse was in the room waking me up, laying down the law of being on that floor. I was only allowed to smoke when I was told. I would attend every meal at the table with the others. I wasn't allowed to have a pencil or paper. I would attend every therapy session every hour with a half hour break in between. Visitors were only allowed between 6pm and 8pm. I would see the on call doctor when he came for me. I sat there after she left asking myself, what the heck did I do? I got dressed and attended the breakfast, therapy sessions, smoke breaks when we had them, and followed all the rules. My husband and kids visited me that evening. The look on my husbands face told me how sad he was. Seeing my kids walk away after visiting hours were over and hearing the door lock behind them about broke my heart. I kept telling myself, "I am not like these people and I don't belong here."

The next day I did the same drill with breakfast and therapy sessions every hour. I had a lot of time to think and reflect. I met with the doctor and he adjusted my anti-depressant dosage again. My therapist who I was seeing on a weekly basis was very clear on how disappointed she was in me about becoming suicidal. Basically she gave me the tough love treatment and told me that if I wanted to die, she wouldn't continue my sessions with me. She wouldn't help a quitter. It was at that moment I realized that I wasn't giving 100% to my treatment of healing. I wanted to heal but I was still blocking and keeping things from my family who desperately wanted to help me. I was released from the 72 hour lock up early and had only spent two nights in the ward.

I had a schedule now of meeting with my therapist two times a week, and one group session every week. I returned to work only to give my notice and let them know I was unable to come back to work that I needed to stay focused on the healing. I devoted the majority of my time in doing everything I needed to do. Being honest with myself was one of the hardest to overcome. To look within myself and move forward healing the pain. My mother backed off of me for several months with her questions, and my husband became more supportive. I shared everything with him and the sessions I was now in. It was easier for me to open up and talk about it for I was doing nothing but talking and reading and nurturing myself. I took advantage of that time not working in staying focused on me. This was something I had never done before, everyone else in my life used to come first. But now I focused on me first to be any good to anyone else I had to.

Quick summary of my abuse without giving too many details to trigger. My sexual abuse started at the age of 9 from what I can remember. It started out as my step father showing me picture books with sexual content of cartoons. At this age, he was preparing me. Even at 9 years of age, I was being touched in places that I shouldn't have been touched and I was told to never tell or "Daddy would go to jail and it would be my fault." Can you see the brain washing beginning? At age 11, I was an early bloomer and the sexual intercourse was starting to happen with him using a condom. I can remember giving oral sex at this age as well, for I was being taught this is the way people love each other. I was still being brain washed. At 13, I was shown what a grown up kiss was and I hated it. I was starting to realize this didn't feel right and it felt wrong. At 14, I became pregnant with my step father's child. I had no idea what was happening to my body. I went to my best friend who lived across the street. She helped me take a pregnancy test that she stole from a store to find out if I was. Sure enough I was pregnant and I was 4 months along. Of course, I couldn't bring myself to tell her the truth, so I made up a story that it belonged to some boy we both knew. We went to her older brother and he basically helped us come up with enough money for an abortion. He drove me down there and claimed he was my boyfriend. I had forged the signature of my parents and I received an abortion. Since I was an early bloomer I looked much older than I was, which in reality was a scared 14 year old.

The summer of my abortion I went away to visit a variety of relatives that lived in another state. I was eager to go and to get away from my step father. Each week I stayed with a different relative. By the 3rd week, I was visiting my aunt (mother's sister). I had a cousin who lived there that was 2 1/2 years older than I was. My cousin was a boy and very much into girls at that time. He was constantly telling me that I looked like Kristy McNichols who was a teen star at the time. One night he entered my bed room and woke me up and asked me if I would have sex with him. I was so scared that I couldn't go back to sleep after he left. Hours after laying in my room afraid to go to sleep I got up. I realized that he wasn't in the house and I suddenly felt safe. I ended up stacking my suitcases against the bedroom door so if the door opened there would be a loud crash. The bedroom door had no lock on it. Around 3am, I was awakened by the loud crash of my suitcases, it was my aunt. She came to ask me if I knew where my cousin was. I began to cry and told her what my cousin had wanted me to do. At that point in time, I was at my closest of telling about my abuse with my step father. Only my aunts response to my cousins behavior was that it was my fault. I was told that if I didn't flaunt around in short shorts and tube top shirts he wouldn't be wanting it with me. I was really starting to believe that I must have "Abuse Me" written on my forehead. Had my aunt shown me more compassion with my story, it might have stopped a lot of the later abuse. I knew I was leaving that weekend for the next relative and I begged my aunt to take me earlier. She did and I moved on to my step father's mom's house. My step father's mother had remarried and was now on husband #3. I felt very safe in that house until the 4th morning there. I was in the kitchen making my bowl of cereal for breakfast when my step grandfather walked right up to me and pulled my tube top down. He stood there looking at my breast that were developing into a big chest. I screamed, I cried, and I covered myself as fast as I could. He stood there laughing at me. When I told my step grandmother what happened, she laughed at me too. Would my summer of hell ever end? I ended up calling my aunt to come get me out of that house. My aunt did and I never told her what happened that made me want to leave. I then went to my grandmother's house (mother's mom). I stayed with my grandmother for about 3 weeks. She ended up calling my mother to come get me since I refused to go to any other relative's houses to visit. I wanted to stay with my grandmother for the rest of the summer but was unable to. My mom and my step father arrived to pick me up and I was in trouble with them for not being on my best behavior. I was told that I was a problem child and when I got home I would be grounded. My mom never asked me why I acted that way. All my mom did was point out what was wrong with me and that I needed to change. By now my perception of adults was that I would never trust one ever again. I started to rebel and I hated what was happening to me. My first week of being grounded, I ended up running away. Three days later, I was brought back home with stricter rules to live by. The sexual abuse picked up where it left off a week after that. By age 15, I was skipping school and partying a lot. One day for lunch I was skipping my next class and ended up being rapped by two of my classmates from school. I didn't know what to do and I told my step father what happened. I couldn't believe that he wasn't mad at them for the rape happening. He was angry that they touched something he felt was his. At 16 I started to realize, I wasn't going to make it in this house unless I learned the game. I became manipulative to my abuser and turned the tables into my favor. If he was going to get sex from me, then I was going to get out of trouble with him covering for me. I was able to skip classes and he would call into the school and tell them that I wouldn't be coming in. He gave me gas money for my car and got me out of my tickets that I received for speeding or being in possession of alcohol. See my step father worked for the city that we lived in. He was well known and well liked. Everyone that met him thought he was the nicest man around. Little did they know what he was doing in his private life. I continued to rebel and get in trouble with the police and my step father would continue to get me out of trouble without it being on my record. I was doing anything I could to draw attention to my life to show someone there was a problem, meanwhile, my step father was sweeping it under the rug. Who says that money cannot buy silence?

I can remember hearing my step father's car coming home and running out the back door and getting out of the house. I can remember hiding on the top shelf of our closet, just to get away from my step father and the abuse. My mother worked and when she came home from work, she was very preoccupied by it that I was forgotten. I can't ever remember having a meal at dinner time with her where she asked me how my day was. Since my mother was so wrapped up in her own work and life, she was too busy to see mine or the changes that were taking place in me. Basically, my mother neglected me and if she did know about the abuse, she showed no signs of ever knowing about it. I was the forgotten child and I was forced to grow up quickly to survive or die.

For my graduation present I wanted out of the house. Without my mother's consent, my step father co-signed for an apartment for me. Little did I know, he had a key to the apartment as well. Of course, my step father used his key one night and thought he had liberties to me. I realized at that moment I would never be released from this man, without doing something very drastic. I sat down at the kitchen table after he left and proceeded to write my goodbye letters. The next night I invited all of my friends over to my apartment and had a huge goodbye party. Only my friends had no idea that it was a goodbye party. As my best friend was helping me clean up after everyone had left, I broke down and confided in her. I told her what was going on with my life and that I had planned on killing myself that very night. My friend was in complete shock, she had no idea. I showed her the sleeping pills that I had planned on consuming before I went to bed that night. My friend was afraid to leave and I then realized that she would stop me. I agreed to let her take the pills home with her in order for her to leave. While she was in the bathroom, I got back into her purse and took the pills back. I felt completely out of control without having the sleeping pills in my hands. My friend left my apartment and headed home. I went and got all of my letters and laid them under my pillow. I swallowed half of the bottle before I heard the phone ringing. I then took the rest of the pills and laid down on the couch with my arms crossed over my body as if I were dead. I drifted off to sleep. Upon waking up, I found myself in the hospital with a tube down my throat and having my stomach pumped. My friend had got home and discovered I still had the pills. It was her that had phoned. When there was no answer, she called 911. I found out later that had she acted 15 seconds too slow I would have been a vegetable. My best friend saved my life. My parents were called and I was immediately moved home, back to the house of terror. I was placed in several mandatory therapy sessions that my mother didn't approve of. I never did open up as to what was the real reason I tried to kill myself. I started to block after that had happened. I showed no emotion of ever being abused or having any memory of it. Although, in the back of my mind it was always there. Yet I trusted no one and was beginning to question was it all a dream that never really happened.

Blocking my abuse is what gave me somewhat of a normal life. I met my husband, moved in with him and fell madly in love. It was him, who truly showed me what making love and being loved was about. I had never experienced it before him. We married and had a normal life. We both worked good jobs and had two beautiful children. My life was normal it appeared. Until my nephew tried to kill himself. Can you see the full circle?

My childhood was tragic and very sad. I refuse to dwell on it and use it as an excuse. I faced it head on and survived it. Today, I tell my story because I feel its necessary to share it with others. I am not proud of what I became. I am proud of who I am today and how far I have come. Healing is forever, being able to talk and write about my abuse is a major step. I do not claim to be an expert in the child sexual abuse, however, I do strongly believe in becoming educated in the warning signs. When I was growing up it was the secret that no one ever talked about. My advice is never ever be silent. Tell everyone and anyone who will listen to you. Protect yourself not your abuser.

To update you on my family now. My abuser still lives outside of jail. I never did press charges against him. I felt that when his time comes to be judged, he will be. I still to this day will never forgive him, but that is my choice. I have no contact with him whatsoever. He does not exist in my life. However, to this day, he still thinks that he did nothing wrong. My mother still lives with my abuser and I will never understand her actions in doing that but as I stated at the beginning. "I cannot control how others will act or respond, I can only control myself." My mother's and my relationship is a work in progress. Since everything has come out, she herself has seen a therapist to try to understand what I went through. We are making a slow progress and with anything there are good and bad days. My kids, are allowed to see my mother only. I did not deny her the right to see her grandchildren. At the age of 31, my nephew has been in jail serving a term for allegedly raping a girl who was 16. He was released from jail in 2004. As for me, I am once again living my normal life, this time without blocking and secrets.

The above story is true. I lived it. I hope that while reading this page, it helped in some way to understand or even help one person gain the strength to stop the abuse and to break the silence.

Sky