A Week of Memories Day Four: Coming Out about Sexual Abuse

I’ve come to the realization that I cannot write about a new memory/issue every day. It’s just too triggering and traumatic for me. I now have three or four different memories that I’ve started writing about but just couldn’t finish. Most of the time, by the time I got as far as I did, I was experiencing a very bad headache and was in a very bad mood (both signs of a lot of triggering going on for me). 

My mother realized that from an early age I was easily controlled by fear. This was a huge break for my mother who is extremely manipulative and she will probably use that technique over me for the rest of my life. I've grown a tougher skin to my mother's manipulation and have realized how really outlandish her ideas are. I strongly disagree with the means my mother used to manipulate me with fear. One fear she played on me was my fear of sexual assault. Lately I have been trying to come to terms with the question on whether or not I've been sexually abused. My sexual abuse is not something clear-cut and easy to define. My brain has done a wonderful job of blocking many painful memories. And on top of all that, we were repeatedly taught we were raised in a sexual safe haven.

However, I have come to believe that I was sexually abused as a daughter in a fundamentalist homeschooling movement.

One of my first memories of my life (and of my sexual abuse) is on a sweltering hot day. That day one of my brothers needed to go to the doctor because he was sick. That was back when my parents still took us to the doctor when we got sick. Mom left us in the car with all the other siblings because she didn't want to make a scene in the doctors office because we were always too noisy. I remember being covered in sweat and wanting to step out of the car just for a few minutes of fresh air. I also remember I was wearing my favorite grass-green skirt. I was playing with one of my brother's match-box cars in my lap when my mother came back. When my mother came back, she accused me of "playing with myself" (playing with my private parts). I don't know if I was innocently masturbating or really just playing with the car in my lap. I remember being confused because whatever I was doing I didn't think anything was wrong with it. She told me that if she caught me again doing that, she would take me right into the doctor's office and have me checked out for what was wrong with me.

From that interaction, I learned that someone seeing my privates was an extreme humiliation and also could be used as a means of punishment. I learned that I didn't have control over my own body. I learned that if I was doing something that my mother did not like, she could have another person take advantage of my body and violate me. I learned the doctors could be used as a form of punishment. I also learned to be terrified of touching myself, even in ways that I thought were totally appropriate.

Around that time, my brother and I started doing our own exploration. This brother is barely older than me and we went through many stages of our mental development together. We hit a phase of curiosity at the same time, so we turned to each other for answers. We had a game where we would play "penis and bottom." This went on for probably awhile. We would play it whenever we could find some time where no one would interrupt us. I don't remember all that went into the game, but I remember we would draw bottoms and penises and vagina's. I'm pretty sure that's where I learned the name "penis." We would also take turns urinating into the baby's diapers we had stolen from the baby's dresser. Pretty much, we were doing what typical children do when exploring sexuality and sexual differences. But then we got caught. We had gone into my bedroom and locked the door. We thought the family was busy with other things but our dad decided to come get us for some chores. He found the door locked and when we let him in he pretty quickly figured out what was going on. I got a huge spanking from that, got all sweets taken away for a month, and we could never play behind closed doors again. My natural curiosity was met with so much anger and shaming that once again completely confused me.

I think a practice that is common among many fundamentalist families is what my family called bare-bottom spankings. Depending on how bad the infraction was, we had levels of nakedness for our spankings. We would either be spanked just bending over the bed, or we had to pull our dresses up and be spanked with just our underwear on, or we had to pull down our underwear as well to be spanked without any protection while bending over a bed. I don't know if there were any of the popular child raising experts promoting this practice. At some point I'm sure I'll look it up but at this point I know that looking it up will probably trigger me to the point where I won't finish this post, so I'll put looking it up off for now. This whole practice screams inappropriateness to me now. I strongly believe the only time that a child should be seen naked is when he wants to be and is being helped by his parent. For example, help with bathing. By they time the child minds his parents seeing him naked, he is usually bathing by himself. I strongly believe that even if spanking is used, the child should never have to remove clothes to have the spanking performed.

Making a child remove clothes to receive corporal punishment is sexual abuse.

To add to wrongfulness of making children undress to receive punishment, there is the double standard, there is the extreme secretiveness of the children's bodies. We could never talk about our bodies. I remember getting spanked (bare-bottomed) for talking about with my friends what color my underwear was. It was extremely shaming for me to be taught that even talking about the color of my underwear was so extremely inappropriate and yet my dad could deem at what time it was appropriate for him, a man, to see my underwear. Girls are taught such extreme modesty in that culture, and yet at 12 or 14 years old their dads can decide they need to take off their underwear and bend over a bed in front of them?!

I believe that my dad never had an sexual meaning to this practice, but added on top of the extreme modesty culture and my mother's sexual threats, these actions were sexually abusive to me. I believe my mother, however, had full knowledge of the sexuality in these actions and loved to add to the shame by announcing to my friends mother's, in front of my friends, all of my wrong-doings and exactly how they were punished. Once again, she was sexually shaming me and showing me that she had no respect for my body and that my sexuality could be used as a punishment against me.

In the midst of my mother's sexual shaming, I was immersed in a culture of sexual suppression. I was taught that if I did not go to my marriage bed a virgin, it would be the ultimate shame and I could never have a happy marriage. I was taught that no man would ever want me if I was in any way "impure." I was taught that the most important thing I could do before I was married was to remain pure. I was also taught very little on what exactly was remaining pure, since even knowing about sex was not appropriate. I had to keep my body covered at all costs.

When I hit my early teens, I had an issue with bed wetting. I'm not sure if the bed wetting was a result of the sexual abuse or of something else. However, my mother decided that I needed to go to the doctor about it. At this point, we basically never went to the doctor. In fact, I think that was the only time I went to the doctor in about a ten year stretch. Remember back to when my mother used exposing me to the doctor as a punishment? I cried and dreaded the appointment for weeks but nothing I could do could convince my mother to not take me. I went and was forced to have a pelvic exam. I thought I was forever violated. I thought I now had no hope of ever getting a husband. I had been violated, I had lost my purity, all against my will. I had disappointed my mother and she had chosen to have me exposed to the world. I was shamed and permanently scarred.

All throughout these same years, my mother would force me to change my clothes in front of her. I was a good little fundamentalist daughter who was very protective of anyone ever seeing my body. I had learned my lesson and never talked about the color of my underwear. And yet, here my mom was often coming into our room when I was changing. Making my try on different bras in front of her and in front of my older sisters. She once again taught me that I had no control over my body. That my body was something she could use for her every whim.

I think this is probably one of the most disjointed posts I've written, but I think it's because all of these memories are so painful for me. I am proud that I have gotten through this blog post but I don't think I'll be able to read over it for grammar checking so you'll have to excuse the sub-standard writing. I am fully convinced now that between my mother and the cultural body-shaming I experienced, I was sexually abused as in my home. To this day, I experience the symptoms of sexual abuse. To this day any mention of sexual abuse is extremely triggering to me. Maybe one day I'll even have the nerve to ask one of my older sisters if they think they were sexually abused in our home as well. One day I'll even write about how my childhood sexual abuse led to sexual abuse in my adult life. But for now, I've talked about it as much as I can take without having another breakdown.

A Week of Memories Day Two: Domestic Abuse

Last night I watched the Billboard Music Awards. Even though I am still pretty clueless about a lot of popular culture, I do enjoy music a lot. I love being exposed to new music. Sometimes it is still awkward to me to have someone bring up music that would have been popular in my middle school or high school years and have to admit to them that I have no idea what they are talking about. Now I seem normal enough that people are often floored that I have no idea who Ricky Martin is or can't recognize Jenifer Lopez  in a music video. For me, it is very awkward but sometimes there is no one fast way to catch up on years of lack of exposure to the culture. I feel like I've been transported from a rural tribe in Aftrica that has never had internet access.

I remember back in 2008 I created my first MySpace account. Anyone who was really into MySpace while it was still popular should remember the profile playlist that played whenever someone went to your page. After a couple months of not have any songs on my profile playlist, my friends started commenting on my lack of music on my profile. I remember one day I decided it was time to fix the problem. I sat down at the computer and tried and tried to think of a song. I finally posted the only song that came to my mind: Carrie Underwood's All American Girl. I remember thinking even at that time that I lacked all personality. Not only was a culturally and socially stunted, I also had not developed a personality. I had no idea who I was or what I liked. Back to my rural African tribe analogy, I think that person would at least know who they were. What made them laugh.What they enjoyed. My brother listened to country music so the only music I even had an idea about was country music. But I still knew that there was music that was truly me.

I think fundamentalist homeschoolers (especially girls) are brainwashed into not have any personality. They don't have the option of ever voicing their opinion. In fact, usually voicing your opinion, even on such things as food you don't like, is seen as "rebellion" and can come with severe consequences. Poor Hana Williams was left outside in the cold until she finally died of hypothermia because she was "rebellious." Many quiverfull daughters have so little voice that they will not even choose the man they marry (if they follow their father's will). Many of these girls may even go to their wedding night without ever having been alone with the man that they are now married to. Without having any say in anything in their lives, quiverfull girls do not develop any kind of personality. Developing a personality would only mean more pain when any dreams or hopes they have are smashed into a million pieces as their fathers make all the choices with their lives, treating them like they aren't even a human with feelings.  

Over the next couple months after posting my first MySpace song, I did learn more about the music of the time and posted songs that were more personal to me. Over the next six years, I have learned a lot about myself and about the modern culture. There are many parts of this transition that have been very painful for me, but recently I have found a great joy in realizing the person that I really am. I like the fact that I know what type of food I like. I have a color I like. I even now have a better idea of what type of job I enjoy working in. I like knowing who I am. I am very happy to finally have started to find myself. I don't know if everyone is 23 years old before they find who they are and what they like. I have a feeling they are usually more young, but I often see myself as being born six years ago when I was finally allowed some exposure to the outside world.

Now back to the Billboard Music Awards Last night. While watching the awards last night, I saw some clips of Rhianna. Seeing Rhianna brought back some memories for me. This memory was in 2010. I was in a dark place in 2010. I had had two unsuccessful relationships but I was still very emotionally hung up on both of the men. I felt completely trapped in the house by my parents. My depression was very bad. I was still recovering from the incident with my parents (I'll write another time about the incident). My parents didn't trust me at all. They watched my every move. They went through my cell phone routinely. They had the passwords to all my email accounts (that they knew of). They completely controlled every aspect of my life, even though I was legally an adult at that time. I couldn't even leave the house without someone accompanying me.  I was in a really dark place at that time and I felt so used by both my parents and my most recent boyfriend. I started hearing Eminem's Love the Way You Lie, and I identified so much with the song. My parents were just standing there watching me die inside and go through so much pain. My recent boyfriend was turning his back completely on me, once again not caring about what I was going through with everything. I loved that song. It was a way to let out my emotions. It actually made me feel better and stronger when I listened to it. One especially bad night, I decided to post some of the lyrics on Facebook. I woke up the next morning to a scathing Facebook message from my mother -- who was a stay-at-home-mom in the same house as me so she could have just waited until I woke up to confront me about it, but that goes with my parent's passive-aggressiveness. The message read: "That song glorifies domestic violence. Why would you post/like it?"

I was seething after that message from my mom. I deleted the post because I wanted to make a point about how much her criticism annoyed me and to also keep from any further discussion about it. I also sent back, a short, cold message: "I'm sorry. Didn't realize it." Of course I knew what the song was about, but I was so angry that my mother had no idea why I would want someone to listen to me about domestic violence. Did she not see the pain I was going through under her own roof. Of course she had no idea how my boyfriend was treating me because she didn't know about my boyfriend. But even now, I think if my daughter were to post something like that my first instinct would be to try to help her. Try to find out if someone is mistreating her. Not immediately jump to how she shouldn't be posting about domestic violence. My parents hotly deny any kind of abuse in their home. They will always say that homeschooling is the best way and that we had the best home. They will never admit that they stood there and watched and even poured gasoline on the fire while we burned. Seeing Rhianna brings up so much pain because it always reminds me of that song and my own personal cry for help. That post was a cry for help from me. I wanted someone to pay attention. I wanted someone to help. I wanted someone to care about the pain that I was in. I wanted to be rescued from the nightmare of domestic violence that was going on that no one knew about.