A Womans Silence turned into a Scream

                                                                                          A Woman's Silence                                              

       I have stared at this blank page, wondering how to begin, and if I began to write and open up that door, would the words ever have an end. A strong women in my life told me once, that if “every woman; who was abused, would allow just one tear to fall.  The whole world would flood. Maybe then justice would be done”. 

 I claimed the silence as my bitter friend. Silence kept me safe .It allowed me to continue being a part of the family. Silence allowed my mother to live in peace, not torn apart because her children were at war. My silence allowed her not to make the choice of what child she loved more. Who would she believe if she were to hear  about the years of sexual terrorism I would have to tell to stop the silence. Would she believe the  daughter,  who was diagnosed with a mental illness, or a son  who she had spent her life protected because he was not like the other boys.  do I even have a right to destroy the family "good name" 

 

 Eventually the silence turned to a scream, it happened on the  day my daughter,  was turning four. I looked at her, and the clarity and reality of the abuse hit me like a runaway freight train. It opened up the scars and i began to bleed like the day they stole my virginity. I was at an age I did not know my ABC’s and had not been taught life’s stark realities.

  Mom had bought me a new green dress, and pretty white tights, My brother Jug had left for college, and Red had became the oldest one in a world where there was just one girl. A world full of older boys  that controlled the outside world where mama could not see.   Jug was not there to hold my hand, and help me pick the flowers, keeping me safe from the all the boys who tormented me.   But you see my daughter turned four, and she looked like me I could no longer control my screams. Her laughter was so innocent, her hugs and kisses did not reflect what I had been brought up to believe. That my behavior provoked the boys and men , that I was responsible for the raw naked sexualization of me when I  was four. . I knew then that I had not been the reason the older boys  took away my innocent smile.  My shame had been replaced that day, with sheer and utter rage some  21 years after the day my green dress was wrecked, I spoke. I opened my mouth, and the tears, and rage, and awful pain, spilled like a broken water main. And Brother Jug heard the words, and tears run down his face. Then he said I am sorry for ever going away. For leaving you in a world I had to escape. His wife went to the store, and she brought home a cake, and on it she wrote, Happy Birthday. And we celebrated my 5^th birthday, only he put a number 1 on my cake. I still cherish the picture taken that day, as I see my brother’s eyes and all his pain. And he began to tell the truth, of how my brother Red always took the blame for the childish things the had done. That dad would beat him with the belt on any given day.  He told the stories I had not heard, the memories and the shame. He told of how I never walked until I was two, because he carried me.

 I told my mom, I told my dad, I told my brothers every one of them. Dobber he just walked away, I see him now again, and Oley, he began to tell and admitted it was true. Butch, he just held me, and said it would be okay, G--g he told his wife of feeling so ashamed. My Mom she cried, and walked into her room, and father he sat there unsure of what to do. Red he lied  and said he never touched me and that it was me and the other boys that started the sexual games. He never told of the playboys and husslers he gave the boys to read. He never told how we ran naked as he watched the boys tormenting me. . He was the oldest then, he never told what they and he did to me.  A few months back he almost died, from years of the hell he lived in. I called him on the phone that day, and for hours we talked of all the pain, and the apology was slow in coming, and I apologized too. I told him I was sorry too, and Brother Red, I forgive you. 

 The story of my silence finally stopped taking away my breath.  Sadly it would take many years from that day in 1985, before I sobered up. 14 attempts at suicide, 3 destructive marriages, I have lost count of the diagnoses, Doctors and Psychiatrists piled on me, or how many times they locked the psyche ward door, before I had enough.  It wasn’t until I chose to live, that life began again.