Life as I Knew It: A Memoir with a Critical Introduction

By Kristen N. Hernandez, NU Student

Abstract

The canon of literature written by and for the survivors of child sexual abuse is (understandably) densely populated by studies on the victims themselves. There exists, however, a gap in the literature regarding siblings of the survivors. These siblings are termed Secondary Survivors and are in need of much more attention from writers of poetry, fiction, memoir, and nonfiction. This paper serves to expose the current gap in the literature and to make a case for the importance of the production of new works to fill this gap. Following this critical introduction, the author provides the first chapter of a memoir from the perspective of a Secondary Survivor of child sexual abuse (CSA).

Life as I Knew It: Critical Introduction

Child sexual abuse (hereafter CSA) is an alarmingly rampant problem that has affected the lives of countless families. There are many consequences for both the survivors and the families after the abuse occurs. Survivors often struggle with depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, feelings of guilt and shame, future intimacy issues, low self-esteem and self-worth, and difficulties in trusting others. Without counseling and treatment, these issues frequently lead to survivors’ acting out in self-destructive ways. The families of survivors also face a number of difficulties following the disclosure of abuse. Non-offending parents are sometimes required to struggle their way through the court system in order to maintain custody of their children. The entire family can often feel as if they are under constant scrutiny from the courts, social workers, concerned family members, and well-meaning friends. Non-abused siblings of survivors face their own struggles, as well. These siblings deal with many of the same emotional and mental struggles that the survivors do. Depression, distrust of others, anxiety, feelings of survivor’s guilt, feelings of shame that they were unable to help, and a loss of family identity can hit the siblings of survivors after they learn that abuse has occurred (RAINN: Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network).

Abuse survivors have many support systems to help them, including memoirs to let them know that they are not alone, but their siblings have largely been forgotten. Many of these siblings are desperate to know that the trauma they experience and the healing journeys that they have to embark on are real and shared. The creative piece I have written, entitled Life as I Knew It: A Memoir, aims to reach those who still don’t know that they are not alone. My hope is that this memoir will begin to acknowledge and empower the lives of the previously overlooked brothers and sisters of the survivors of CSA, while telling my own personal experiences with this topic.

Life as I Knew It: A Memoir tells of the healing journey I have been on for the last seven years. In the summer before my freshman year of high school, my family exploded when long-kept secrets of sexual abuse came out. This revelation ripped us apart and launched me down a long and extremely difficult road to recovery. I, as a non-victim, was affected by this tragedy in a number of different ways over the next few years. At different points, I found myself fighting a sometimes losing battle against depression, attempting to re-establish my identity in self-destructive ways, and battling thoughts that told me I could have helped if I had only been able to see, and struggling through many other mental and emotional challenges. This memoir details my struggle to find a new normal, reach a place of genuine healing, and, eventually, discover what Jesus meant when he said, “‘Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven’” (Luke 6:37, ESV). Life as I Knew It: A Memoir is a testament to the very real trauma experienced by the siblings of children who have been sexually abused. My memoir fills a gap in the current literature on the subject of CSA.

According to research conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, approximately one in six boys and one in four girls are sexually abused before their 18th birthday (“Facts and Statistics: Raising Awareness About Sexual Abuse”). Other research conducted by Darkness to Light, a CSA awareness and prevention organization, suggests that one in 10 children will be sexually abused before they reach adulthood (Townsend and Rheingold 5). With the CDC’s reporting 3,941,553 births in 1998, this data suggests that up to 394,156 of those now 18-year-olds were sexually abused during their childhood (Ventura, Martin, Curtin, Matthews and Park 3). Approximately 34.2% of people who abuse children are family members, so, according to these statistics, approximately 134,801 families of children born in 1998 have been affected by CSA (Snyder 10).

The current canon of CSA literature is populated by numerous memoirs from survivors of CSA and countless self-help books for the primary abuse survivors. As the push to raise awareness for this pervasive problem has increased, so have the works written by and for the survivors. An effort to break the culture of silence surrounding the dark topic has led to the publishing of many memoirs and healing stories such as Hush: Moving from Silence to Healing After Childhood Sexual Abuse by Nicole Braddock Bromley; Out of the Darkroom, Into the Light: A Story of Faith and Forgiveness After Child Abuse by Tracey Casciano; and Little Girl Mended by Niki Krauss, to name just a few. Many self-help-style books for survivors have also been published. Titles like The Wounded Heart: Hope for Adult Victims of Childhood Sexual Abuse by Dan B. Allender and Breathe: Finding Freedom to Thrive in Relationships After Childhood Sexual Abuse by Nicole Braddock Bromley provide advice and guidance for the adult survivors of CSA. As survivors, family members and organizations strive to raise awareness about the prevalence and effects of child sexual abuse, the amount of literature on the subject continues to increase.

Nonetheless, there is a surprising lack of books published for the other family members involved in situations of CSA perpetrated by family members. A small number of books marketed toward Secondary Survivors do exist, the unabused and non-offending family members and eventual significant others of CSA survivors. Informational literature like Allies in Healing: When the Person You Love Was Sexually Abused as a Child by Laura Davis and other titles geared toward parents and future spouses provide information. The main focus of this literature, however, is still on helping the primary survivors on their recovery journey. No titles out there are really written for the purpose of assisting the Secondary Survivors in their own recovery.

            The question becomes, why is it important that there be literature written by and for secondary survivors? How can reading and writing about the mental and emotional struggles that result from the revelation that a sibling has been abused help Secondary Survivors? The answer to these questions is based on research that has found the process of disclosing painful information “is a key feature in resolution of a stressful or traumatic event” (Lutgendorf and Antoni 423). By discussing and engaging with the emotions of a traumatic experience, the survivors are able to integrate the event into “existing mental schemes” which allows them to reach a greater level of resolution (Lutgendorf and Antoni 423). It is important for writings about the experiences of secondary survivors to exist because focused writing that explores the deepest emotions related to a traumatic experience “is related to improvements in health and well-being” (Smyth and Helm 227). By writing about their experiences, secondary survivors can process through the unique trauma they have experienced and receive benefits comparable to those gained through therapy in which many may never participate (Smyth and Helm 227).

            My own experience in writing this memoir is in line with much of the research discussed above. Through interacting with the trauma that I experienced in a creative way, I managed to find a new level of resolution. Writing about my journey has allowed me to take ownership of our family story as mine to tell as much as it is my brother’s. Revisiting the difficult to discuss memories and allowing myself to release the emotions attached to them has been a cathartic and therapeutic experience for me. In writing my story down for others to read, I have finally begun to feel as if my experiences can help someone else deal with theirs. This kind of writing is important because literature focused on the unique experiences of secondary survivors will begin to open a new branch of conversation. This venue could allow for more secondary survivors to share stories that they previously felt were not theirs to share.

            Life as I Knew It: A Memoir will begin to fill the hole in the canon. This memoir will begin the discussion and create a new branch of CSA literature that is focused on the unique experiences of secondary CSA survivors. In addition to this memoir, I have plans to gather the literary works of other secondary CSA survivors into a collection entitled The Rest of Us: Stories from the Siblings of Child Sexual Abuse Survivors. My hope is that these works will encourage others to speak up and speak out about the unrecognized secondary survivors.

Life As I Knew It: A Memoir

Chapter 1

            Hot tears stung my eyes. Another wave of nausea hit my already uneasy stomach. I wretched, again, but my depleted body had nothing left to give. I had not thrown up since before leaving the house, but my stomach still refused to settle.

            As I sank back into the second-row seat of our tired, old Toyota Sienna, the tears that I had been holding back finally spilled over. The dam broke. Deep and uncontrollable sobs wracked my frame.

            The concrete walls of the parking garage kept me comfortably cool though outside in the sun it was a warm California day. Our van was surrounded by numerous cars and people came and went frequently, but the tinted windows gave me some level of privacy. This, at least, was a small relief. I couldn’t have handled knowing that anyone passing by could see me falling apart. I was normally so good at keeping myself together.

            Inside, my mom, my older brother and my younger brother were probably just entering the courtroom for our second custody hearing. My aunt was most likely approaching the cafeteria counter to pay for the water bottle and crackers that she went in to retrieve for me. And there I was, sitting in the van, feeling utterly miserable and pathetic and helpless for reasons that went far beyond whatever bug was attacking my body. I kept imagining my bed at home, my old home, in my room, my old room. I just wanted to curl up in a ball on that bed and sleep until I could wake up from this nightmare.  

            How did I get here? When did it come to this? How did I wind up being this girl, sick and crying in the courthouse parking garage?

            As I sat there, my mind couldn’t help but go back to the day, a little over two months ago, when I started to become this girl. The day that everything about life, at least as I had known it for the last fourteen years, changed forever.

++++++++++++

            It happened halfway through the summer before my freshman year of high school. It was a hot, humid summer in Texas. The water of our housing development’s community pool usually warmed up to bathwater-like temperatures by early afternoon, providing no respite from the heat. All around the up-and-coming neighborhood, June bugs and crickets could be found congregating along the sides of houses and in any dark corner they could find. This was our third summer in Texas and each seemed to be more oppressive than the last. Moving there from Washington for my mom’s job with a magazine start-up, we had no idea the weather would be so harsh.

            On that morning, the morning of the day that changed my life, the day was just beginning to grow warm. Temperatures would soon rise and we would be surrounded by the sticky heat that had characterized every preceding day. Our home, that dream home that had been built specifically for us, that home where we all finally had our own rooms and bathrooms and more space than we knew what to do with, had central air, but we hadn’t been using it much lately. The energy bills could get too high so fast. So, the AC served only to take the worst edge off the sweltering heat. 

            That day, a Wednesday, my dad had the day off. The whole family was actually getting to spend a rare day all together. No one was hiding up in their room, being anti-social. All five of us were downstairs, watching an old episode of NCIS. I was sitting on the couch, dressed in a loose-fitting pair of basketball shorts and a tank-top with a Sudoku book in hand, multitasking. My dad sat next to me; my mom and younger brother shared the loveseat; and my older brother was in the kitchen forging for snacks.

            It really was a rare, pleasant moment of family time. Usually Joseph, the oldest of we three siblings, would be in the office off the entryway playing some game on the computer. Cameron, the youngest, was almost always outside, finding adventures in the greenbelt behind our home. Mom would most often be bustling about the house, doing laundry or dishes or cleaning. Dad was usually working, either on his laptop in the office for his work-from-home position or at Dominos where he delivered pizza to make ends meet. But that day, the last day of its kind, we were all spending the morning together.

A knock at the door marked the end of my generally normal, overall happy childhood.

We all looked toward the front door, a straight shot from the living room where we were sitting. A mildly confused look passed over Dad’s face.

“I wonder who that could be,” he said, getting up to answer it.
            He walked over and opened the front door. His body blocked my view, so I couldn’t see who had interrupted our lazy morning, but I heard a female voice.

Brushing the visitor off as a solicitor or Jehovah’s Witness, I turned my attention back to the TV screen. I was writing a nine in the top-right box of a Sudoku puzzle when Dad called Mom to the door. The same perplexed look that Dad had when he heard the knock furrowed her brow as she went over to stand beside him in the small entryway.

I looked after her and listened to the faint sound of their lowered voices for a moment. But then Gibbs was scolding his agents on the TV screen, and I turned back just in time to see him slap Tony on the back of his head. My brothers and I chuckled a little at the classic NCIS moment.

Then something happened in the entryway that commanded all of my attention. Mom and Dad let the woman at the door in. She was a Hispanic woman, probably around thirty years old. Her dark hair was pulled back in a professional, dignified-looking bun. She wore a dark gray pantsuit with a fuchsia blouse under the blazer.

It was odd: the way she entered our house and led the way into the living room with such easy confidence. The woman walked over to where my brothers and I were now staring at her, and introduced herself.

“Hi, guys. My name is Melanie. I’m a caseworker with Family and Protective Services, and I’m here to take you and your parents down to our offices to talk about some things,” she said.

 If she had spoken to us in a foreign language, I don’t think my brothers or I could have been any more baffled. We sat there for a moment, staring at her blankly before I found the presence of mind to ask the most obvious question.

“Um, why?” I asked. I could feel my face twisting up in some ugly mix of confusion and defensiveness. I’ve never had much of a poker face.

Oddly, my question seemed to catch Melanie flat-footed. She hesitated to answer. Instead, she looked over at my parents, who were now standing beside her.

My dad cleared his throat. When he spoke, the calm, upbeat tone of his voice sounded forced. “Well, guys, I’ve been in counseling for a few months now. A couple weeks ago, I told something to my counselor that he told me he was required to report to Family and Protective Services. They got in touch with me and let me know that a caseworker was going to come by to do a home check and ask us all some questions, but we didn’t know when someone was going to show up,” he told us.

Again, I imagine my face was a study in bewilderment as I stared at my dad now. What could Family and Protective Services possibly want with us? When did Dad start going to counseling? Why? And what in the world did he say to have someone show up at our door unannounced?

The moment must have dragged on too long for Mom’s comfort because, after a few seconds of silence, she interjected, “Come on, kids. Just go get ready, please.”

Slowly, I got up and headed towards the stairs, my brothers following behind me.

“And be quick about it, please,” Mom called after us as we headed up to our rooms.

I could not imagine what this all could possibly be about. Unless… unless this was because our house was nearing foreclosure. Could this be about money? It was no secret that our financial situation as of late had been less than great. Mom had just been talking to us last week about how we might all have to go to California to stay with family for a while. Maybe Family and Protective Services just wanted to make sure that Mom and Dad could still provide for us.

As Cameron was about to head into his room to get dressed, I turned to him and said, quietly, “Don’t wear your shorts with all the holes in them.”

Maybe that will help, I thought, and I headed to my own room to get ready.

When we came back downstairs, Melanie informed us that we wouldn’t be allowed to ride over to the offices with our parents. Instead, we piled into the back seat of her black SUV and spent the twenty-minute trip mostly in silence. She tried to strike up conversation a few times, but I shut her down each time. I had no interest in building any kind of rapport with this woman. My brothers seemed to agree, as they didn’t even bother responding to her lame questions.

“Are you guys having a good summer vacation?” she asked.

“Yeah,” I responded.

“What kinds of things have you been doing?” she inquired.

“Different stuff,” I replied.

And so it went, until we arrived at the bland-looking, concrete exterior Family and Protective Services building.

My parents had been following behind us in the van, and we all met up in the parking lot before entering the front doors. The cool air inside the building was a welcome respite to the sweltering heat outside, but that was about the only thing that brought any relief. My growing unease became more and more apparent as Melanie introduced us to another caseworker. This one was a man around the same age as Melanie. He was also dressed professionally, with his blond hair cut short and neatly combed. I was too stuck in my head to catch his name.

“Hi, kids. I am going to take you to our kids’ room. We’ve got a TV and some videogames. Also books, art supplies, and other fun stuff,” he told us.

He began to lead my brothers and I down a hallway while Melanie quietly led my parents off to another part of the facility. I guess we weren’t supposed to notice that they were separating us again.

“You guys will hang out in here until your parents are done talking with Melanie,” the caseworker guy said. “We’ll want to ask each of you some questions, so I will be coming in to get one of you at a time in a little while. Until then, you’re free to do whatever you like in this room.”

With that, he opened the door to what looked like a rec-room. There were couches in front of a TV with a PlayStation hooked up to it on one side of the room. On the other, there was a table with kid-sized chairs around it. There were shelves and drawers with whatever you could need for arts and crafts. One large shelving unit held books for all age levels and, beside it, another bookshelf held every board game imaginable.

“Just go ahead and relax, and I’ll be back in a little bit,” the caseworker said, ushering us in.

There were snacks laid out on the table: pretzels, chips, goldfish crackers, and other individually-portioned bags. Mini water bottles were bunched together beside those items. Everything a bunch of kids could need for an indeterminate amount of time.

I don’t remember what we talked about, but I do remember that none of us kids wanted to discuss the fact that we had been taken from our home in the middle of the morning and brought to a strange government building where we were separated from our parents. Joseph and Cameron set up in front of the TV. Cameron was easily distracted by the PlayStation, as twelve-year-old boys tend to be. Joseph didn’t give any of his thoughts away, but then, he never did. He just sat quietly, playing Super Smash Bros with Cameron.

I wandered around the room for a little bit, perusing the books and checking out the art supplies. After a while, I picked a book off the shelf and attempted to read it. But I couldn’t focus. I found myself rereading the same lines over and over again, but not drawing any meaning from the words on the page. My mind was restless and couldn’t settle on any one thought for more than a moment. I was consumed with anxiety about our family and my parents.

            Why are we here? was the only question that kept finding its way back into my head.

            Eventually, after the caseworker guy had called Joseph and Cameron out of the room, separately to ask them questions, my turn came. I followed him into a small, closet-like interview room where yet another female caseworker was waiting. By this time, nothing about her registered. I only knew, from the moment she started asking questions, that she was an enemy to the stability of my family. She was trying to find reasons to tear us apart.

            “Do your parents fight much?” she asked.

            “No,” I answered.

            “How about yelling?” she asked. “Do your parents ever yell at you?”

            “Sometimes. Only when I ignore them and they need to get my attention. Or when I’ve done something dangerous.”

            “Have your parents ever hit you?”

            “No! Never. Only spankings, sometimes, when we were younger.”

            “Do you know what verbal abuse is?”

            “Yes,” I answered, beginning to feel even more defensive than I had before.

            “Can you tell me what it is?”

            “When someone is really cruel and mean to you and uses their words to make you feel bad, or unsafe, or like you aren’t worth anything.”

            “Have you ever been verbally abused?”

            “No.”

            “Do you know what qualifies as physical abuse?”

            “Hitting, being violent.”

            “That’s right. Have you ever been physically abused?”

            “No. I’ve never been abused,” I said, my frustration coming through in my voice.

            “How about sexual abuse? Do you know what that means?”

            “Yes, I know what that means. We’ve talked about all of this in school. It’s inappropriate touching,” I replied. This woman must have thought I was stupid. What fourteen-year-old wouldn’t know what these things mean?

            “Right. So, have you ever been sexually abused? This is a safe place. You can tell the whole truth here.”

            “No. I said I’ve never been abused.”

            It was the most uncomfortable and, seemingly, unfounded line of questioning I had ever had to respond to. By the time I answered all of their questions and the caseworker guy walked me back to the rec-room, I was ready to leave and never come back ever again. I hated this place and everyone in it.

            Where are Mom and Dad? When are we going home?

            “We’re going to miss youth group if they don’t hurry up,” I said, partially to my brothers, partially to myself.

            “Yeah, I guess,” Joseph responded, only half paying attention.

            It felt like that day dragged on forever. There wasn’t a clock in the room, so I kept asking Joseph to check his phone for the time. He didn’t seem to care as much as I did and told me to stop asking. Cameron seemed blissfully oblivious to the gravity of the situation. He just kept busy, working his way through the PlayStation games one after the other.

            We didn’t talk about the questions we were asked when they called us out of the room. It was almost as if, by refusing to address the elephant in the room, we thought we could keep it from becoming real.

            Finally, after it had gotten dark outside. The caseworker guy came back for us.

            “Melanie and your parents are ready for you guys in the conference room,” he told us. “I’m gonna walk you over. Follow me.”

            We got up and followed him further down the hallway, past two more closed doors before he opened a door on the same wall that the rec room door had been on. Inside the room there was a big U-shaped conference table. Melanie sat in the middle of the U with a bunch of papers and folders spread out before her. Dad sat on the far side of the tables, and Mom sat across from him, on the other side of the U, with her back to us. She turned to look at us when we walked in. Her eyes looked red and a little puffy, like she had been crying.

            “Go ahead and have a seat,” Melanie instructed us.

            I chose the seat right next to Mom, hugged her arm and rested my head on her shoulder. I hated seeing her upset. I needed the closeness or I might have exploded from frustration, confusion, and all other kinds of inner turmoil. She wrapped her arm around me, hugging me.

            “Ok, kids, your dad has some things he needs to tell you,” Melanie said, turning to look at Dad, giving him the floor.

            Dad cleared his throat and seemed to have a hard time finding his voice. Joseph sat on the otherwise empty side of the U-table, and Cameron was sitting near Dad. We all stared at him intently, waiting for him to speak. To explain why we were here in the first place.

            “So, I told you guys, at the house, that I have been in counseling for a little while,” Dad began. “I’ve been going because I have an addiction. I’ve been trying to get help for it. We ended up here because I told my counselor about something that happened a long time ago and he had to call Family and Protective Services to report it. Your mom and I have been talking with Melanie to try and figure out what needs to happen now. We have decided that I need to go away for a while. I need to be away from you guys and not see you for a while, while I get help for my addiction. I have to do some things to get right before I’m going to be able to see you guys again.”

            He had to choke out the last few sentences past the tears that were now falling from his eyes.

            For me, time stopped, or at least slowed down. Everyone was crying. I was crying, though I felt somehow disconnected from what was going on.

What addiction does Dad have? Why does Family and Protective Services care? What did he do that was so bad he can’t be around us anymore? I didn’t understand. How could I understand? My dad was just a normal dad. There was nothing wrong with our family. Was there?

            “You kids should go ahead and say goodbye to your dad,” Melanie said. “He won’t be going home with you tonight. This will be the last time you see him for a while.”

            I was sobbing now. I felt the tears flowing hot down my cheeks and heard myself sucking in air like I had been punched. But I couldn’t connect to the emotions. I was feeling the sadness, the grief, but from a distance. I felt myself getting up, hugging my dad, and leaving the room with just my mom and my brothers, but it seemed as if my body was functioning on autopilot.

            This can’t be real. This can’t actually be happening.

            We drove home without speaking. The radio was on to the Christian station. The only sounds from us came in the form of sniffles.

            This can’t be real. This whole day, it has to be a dream.

            Mom must have called our friends, Tom and Trisha, from the Family and Protective Services office, because we headed to their house, not straight home.

            “We have to give your dad time to go in and get some things,” Mom explained, her voice seeming strained.

            This isn’t real.

            When we entered their house, our pastor, Pastor Chance, was there too, waiting for us. He prayed with us, and told us his family and he would be there for us, whatever we needed.

            This is not real.

             After a having a brief conversation with Mom, Pastor Chance left. Tom and Trisha sat with us in their living room until Mom got the text that said we were clear to go home.

            This is not happening.

            We only lived three houses down from Tom and Trisha, so while Mom drove the van home, I opted to walk the short distance. The day had cooled by that time, but the night was still warm. The great, big, Texas sky was filled with stars. The crickets were chirping from somewhere just out of sight. I could still smell that damp humidity hanging in the air. I noted all of these things through what felt like a long-view lens. It was all so far away.

            I walked home slowly, with nothing but a million jumbled half-thoughts filling my mind.

            This has to be a dream. This can’t be real.

            I had stopped crying somewhere along the way. Maybe it was in the car when we drove away from that wretched government building. Maybe it was while Pastor Chance was praying for us. Maybe it was while we were sitting there, listening to the hushed tones of Trisha’s voice as she spoke with Mom. All I knew was that the tears were no longer falling when I got home.

            Mom had us all sit down in the living room when we got inside.

            “I need to talk to you guys about something,” she began.

            I could tell that she was just as shaken by this day as I was, if not more so. She looked exhausted and sad. Her face showed her struggle to find words.

            “I told you a few weeks ago about how our house is entering foreclosure and that we’re going to need to move soon,” she continued. “Well, I think it would be best for all of us if we move back to California. I called Papa and Nana, and they have invited us to come live with them for a while, while we figure things out….”

            She trailed off as she looked at us, her children, tired and emotional as we were. She was looking for our reactions.

I had none. I just stared at her blankly.

Coming over to sit beside me on the couch, Mom explained more. “Right now, in all of this, we need to be with family. And, with how quickly all of this has happened, I think we need to leave soon.”

Joseph, Cameron, and I all nodded our heads in numb agreement, or maybe it was just understanding. No one argued. No one questioned it. We all just accepted it as yet another thing we hadn’t been expecting but didn’t have much of a choice in.

“When?” Joseph asked.

“We will probably be leaving within the next two weeks,” Mom replied. “As soon as I can get a plan together.”

Again, I could manage no more than a stiff nod in response.

Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.

Some part of my brain registered the need for a bathroom break, so I slowly rose and walked over to the restroom, off the kitchen. I was so locked into autopilot that I really thought of nothing at all until I caught my reflection in the mirror. My hair was a disaster. My ponytail had slipped throughout the day and left loose strands of hair free to do as they pleased. My face was pale, drained of almost all its color. And my eyes, those big, brown eyes that I was so often complimented on, were red and puffy. But there was something else about my eyes. The look in them was hollow. Empty. My expression was not one of sadness or apparent grief or even anger. It was one of profound disconnection.

            Something about seeing that reflection fractured the wall, the barrier that my mind had created to protect me. Suddenly, I was overwhelmed with all the raw emotion that I had managed to keep out, until now. My chest constricted; it was hard to breathe properly. Deep, gut-wrenching sobs overtook me. I leaned against the wall and sank to the ground, weeping violently but silently. Even in my pain, I didn’t want to cause anyone else to worry about me.

            This can’t be real. God, please don’t let this be real. I’m begging You, let this be a nightmare. Please….

The tidal waves of emotion rolled over me as I sat there, hugging my knees to my chest. I couldn’t catch my breath. I could do nothing but let the crying run its course, nothing but hold myself together as best I could until the waves died down. And they did, eventually.

Eventually the weight lifted from my chest. Eventually, I could breathe again. Eventually, the tears stopped. Eventually, I lifted my head from my knees and looked around me.

The emotions were distant again—far enough away that they were just a dull ache in my belly. Far enough away that I could smile wryly at the thought of what I must have looked like, curled up like that on the bathroom floor.

Maybe this is real. Even my wild imagination couldn’t make up this much pathetic-ness.

Mom knocked on the bathroom door just as I was wiping my eyes and standing to my feet.

“You okay in there, Kristina?” she called.

I opened the door and there she stood, her fist poised to knock again and her eyes filled with exhausted concern.

“I’m okay, Mama,” I replied, forcing a half-smile. “I’ll be okay.”

She wrapped her arms around me in a warm hug, saying quietly in my ear, “Yes, you will. We all will.”

++++++++++++++++

By the end of the week, we were packed into our navy blue Toyota Sienna, driving through New Mexico. The tiny U-Haul trailer hitched to the back was filled with only the possessions we absolutely needed or couldn’t part with. The trailer was filled with family scrap-books, suitcases of clothes, some mementos, some practical items, and other miscellaneous things we might need.

My box was full of books and pictures, a couple of stuffed animals, some rocks from a family trip we took to a beach near Seattle one summer, and other miscellaneous sentimental artifacts from my childhood. It also held my school supplies, most of my clothes, and some shoes. Supposedly, my dad would be sending us the rest of our things in the next few months. I didn’t know if I really believed that. With the way everything was changing so quickly, I didn’t know which promises would really hold. I had grabbed the things that were important to me, only the items that I couldn’t leave behind.

Before we had left, I asked my mom about the mysterious “addiction” that Dad was dealing with.

“What is it?” I had asked.

She took her time responding. It must have been hard for her to say.

“Your dad has a pornography addiction,” she finally told me. “He has for a long time.”

I was stunned by this response. Though any response would probably have surprised me, this one caught me entirely off-guard.

Pornography? After all of his warnings for us to be careful what we watch? After he put filters on all of our computers to prevent us from accidentally stumbling onto a page that we shouldn’t? After we invested in a ClearPlay DVD player so that we wouldn’t have to watch anything inappropriate in the movies we enjoyed? Pornography, of all things?

It didn’t make sense to me. But, then, did any of this? No. It was all entirely unreal to me. All of it.

We drove on, each lost in our thoughts. It was still hot here, halfway through New Mexico, hotter than Texas had been. This was a dry heat, though, which made it somewhat more bearable. Still, even with all the windows rolled down or, when we tired of the warm wind blowing in our faces, the AC cranked to maximum, we were sweating in our seats. As I stared out the window, wondering if I would ever set eyes on Texas again, the seemingly endless, scorched, desert landscape raced by.

Hooked to the back of the front seat headrests were two portable DVD player screens. These were leftovers from the frequent road trips our family used to make from Washington to California when we had lived Seattle. My brothers and I bickered intermittently on this long trip, longer than any of those bygone road trips, about what movie to watch next.

Trisha, whose house we had gone to after that day at the Family and Protective Services office, had kindly offered to help us with the trip. Trisha and Mom took turns driving. She would help Mom drive there, and then take a plane home from LAX. It was a good plan, and Trisha was a good friend.

It took us days to get to California, to my grandparent’s house. I passed most of the trip silently. Though I had always been a talkative person, it seemed my words had all abandoned me. After that day at Family and Protective Services, I had nothing much to say about anything for a good while.

Instead, I did a lot of thinking. I thought about my childhood and our family. I thought about God and how he was supposed to be good and just. I thought about what I would do without my faith. I thought about that one a lot. And then I prayed. I prayed hard and fervently that God would be with me, that He would help me not to lose my faith. Surviving without my faith was something that I knew I could not do.

Another way I passed the time was by writing. I wrote a lot on that trip, filling half a composition book with journal entries and poems and short stories and whatever else came into my head to write down. The love of writing had always been a part of my life and now it was an escape. It was a chance to be someone else for a while, to be a character instead.

When we finally arrived at my grandparents’ house, the house I had always looked forward to arriving at when I was younger, I didn’t quite know what to expect. We pulled up in the middle of the day. The sun was still high in the sky and shining down on that little, stucco-sided, tan-painted, one story house. The lawn was neatly manicured, as always, and my grandma’s rose bushes still held a few slightly wilted blooms.

It was strange, really, to be taking in these sights now. Where I would have previously been filled with excitement and joy upon our arrival at Nonno and Nonna’s house, I now felt only a mild trepidation. How were they going to react to us? How was I supposed to act? Aside from that, I couldn’t feel much of anything.

The small front porch beckoned us to come inside, but we sat in the car for a few moments, waiting. Waiting for what? I don’t know. Maybe we were waiting for courage to pile out of that van and accept that our lives were changed forever. Maybe we were waiting to feel ready for other people to become a part of our family’s brokenness. Maybe we were just waiting for my mom to text my grandpa and warn him that we had arrived. Whatever it was, we only waited a few brief moments before we piled out and went to knock on the door.

“Jamie!” My grandma exclaimed with joy upon seeing Mom when she answered the door. She gave Mom a big hug as she welcomed us in, and then hugged each of us kids just as warmly. My grandpa was standing just behind her and he, too, hugged each of us in turn. Next in line was my Aunt Madison who also lived with my grandparents, and we hugged her, too.

“How are you?” my grandma asked Mom as we all stood in the living room, just inside the door. Her eyes told us that she was asking about more than just the long drive.

“We’re…okay,” Mom replied, her face earnest as she nodded her head slowly.

I had felt relieved to arrive when we first walked in the door, but I slowly began to feel claustrophobic in the little house. My grandparents, Nonno and Nonna, and Aunt Madison were asking us questions about the drive and questions about how we were and wanting to know as much as we would tell them. I could feel them watching us. It felt like they were waiting for one of us to crack, for someone to fall apart or break. I felt them looking at us like we were damaged or broken. I had to fight back feelings of hostility.

This is not their fault. They just don’t know how to handle us. I don’t even know how to handle us, how should they? I talked myself back from the edge.

++++++++++++++++++++++++

Over the next few weeks, we all learned how to live together. The feelings of being trapped and constantly observed eased. They had to. We were all sharing the same space all the time. My grandparents only own a three-bedroom house, so Mom and I bunked with Aunt Madison. We got a bunkbed with a roll-out trundle and called it “the dorm room.” My brothers shared the other room on that side of the house. They had a bunkbed, too. None of it was ideal, but we made it work.

From having our own rooms to two and three people per room… This is the life.

In those first days in California, I began to notice a split forming in my mind. Maybe it was a kind of self-defense, but my mind created two distinct lives for me. One life was real life. That was the life in which my perfect, beautiful, baby cousin was born. Easton’s birth was one of the first things after that day in Texas that really filled me with joy.

We were watching his big brother and sisters on the night he was born. We got the call from my uncle, Jack, sometime before midnight that he had arrived.

“Joselin, Kacey, Jackson, wake up! Your baby brother is here! We’ve got to go to the hospital to meet him,” I said, rousing each little body from sleep. “Let’s get shoes on. We’re gonna go.”

I was just as excited as they were, if I were honest. All of us, the whole clan, piled into our van and my Aunt’s Ford Escape and headed to the hospital. We must have looked like a crazy mob as we hurried eagerly to the birthing wing. When we arrived at Aunt Victoria’s room, we let Nonno, Nonna and the kids go in first. Then, they called my brother, my mom, and me in.

I was surprised by how red and puffy he looked. Still, though, when Nonna put him in my arms, I swear he was the cutest newborn baby I have ever seen. He already had that nose, that signature family nose, we all have.

“Sorry, little guy,” I whispered to him as I looked down at his tiny, new, little face. “You’ll grow into the nose, I promise.”

Real life also included starting high school. That was a shock to my system. Not only was I starting a whole new level of schooling, but in a whole new place, and that whole new place was an L.A.-area high school. Needless to say, it was a rough start, but I managed to find my way and a few friends.

The one good part about being in a school that didn’t always feel entirely safe was getting my first cellphone. We weren’t supposed to get cellphones until we turned sixteen but, with everything, my mom thought Cameron and I needed our own phones, just in case of emergency. She just wanted us to be safe.

We also started attending the church my grandpa pastors. I had visited many times on our frequent visits to see my grandparents. Actually, the summer just before the one that changed my life, I had spent a month with my grandparents and went to youth camp with the church. So, fortunately, I already had some friends there. I was never one to make friends very easily, and I count myself as blessed for already having had some in the church.

I managed to handle real life pretty well. I was coping with the changes. It was the other part of life, though, the part that had to do with the reason for all the changes, that was hard to handle. That was the part of life that still didn’t feel real.

Before we got to California, Texas Family and Protective Services notified California Child Protective Services that we were coming. The police came knocking at Nonno and Nonna’s door just a few days after we arrived, wanting to see Joseph and do a quick home check.

Why are they just asking about Joseph? Why do they need to see where we live? It’s not like Dad came with us. Don’t they know he’s back in Texas?

That was far from the end of it, though. We had to go to the CPS offices in California now, and give statements to them. I only vaguely remember those offices. I remember sky blue walls and an open, centrally located waiting area with a little kids’ zone off to the side. I remember a bunch of families who looked far worse off than us sitting around in that waiting room.

I particularly remember that the new caseworker to whom we were assigned seemed to be twisting my words and my mom’s words and my brothers’ words to fit what she wanted to hear. I don’t think she liked my mom. I don’t think she liked any parents. Her face had this look like she had seen too many things to give anyone the benefit of the doubt. What kinds of horrible situations must have walked through her door for her to look like that? For her to be so against any parent who sat in front of her desk?

“In any case with allegations of sexual abuse…” I heard her say.

What?

The caseworker was talking with my mom while Cameron and I sat in two chairs against the wall, not really listening until I heard those words.

“What?” I asked, suddenly paying sharp attention to what was going on around me. “Sexual abuse? That has nothing to do with us or any of this.”

I was certain. That’s absurd.

But, then, my mom looked at me and did the last thing in the world I expected. She shook her head at me, motioned for me to be quiet, and said, “We’ll talk about it later.”

Talk about what later? Is that what all this is about? Did someone accuse Dad of sexual abuse? Did Dad abuse someone? How do I still not know what’s going on?

We finished up at CPS for the day shortly after that. Joseph wasn’t with us that day because he had something important going on at school, so it was just Mom, Cameron and me in the car on the way home.

“What was that about in there?” I asked. My tone accused my mom of keeping secrets from me. Me, the person who needed to know everything. Me, the kid who used to sit on the stairs and eavesdrop when my parents sent us downstairs to play because I wanted to know everything there was to know.

“I wanted to ask Joseph before I told you guys this, but it looks like I just need to tell you now,” Mom said, keeping her eyes on the road. She glanced in the rearview mirror to make sure Cameron, in the back seat, was paying attention. “CPS didn’t get involved just because your dad has a pornography addiction. He does, but that’s not the whole story….”

She took a deep breath and gathered her thoughts. This was visibly difficult for her.

“What your dad told his therapist,” she continued, “was that, when Joseph was little, he abused him. He touched him inappropriately. Joseph never said anything, and your dad never said anything.”

Her words hung in the air like a thick fog, filling the cabin of the Sienna, settling in my chest.

No, no, no, no, no! my mind screamed. That can’t be true. It can’t be. I know Dad. Dad is a good man. Dad is my dad…. That can’t be true!

“That is why we are here. That is why the government is involved. And that is why we have to go to court in a few weeks for a custody hearing,” Mom finished, seeming to have said all there was to say, all she had to say.

Just like that, the truth, the whole truth was out in the open.

I sank back into my seat and fixed my eyes on the window. I looked without seeing, out at the road rushing by. I knew now. I knew what I had wanted to know. I knew it and I knew it all. That was the truth, laid bare for me. It was what I had wanted, but it wasn’t. Now that I knew the true, horrid, ugly truth, I wanted none of it. I suddenly wished I had never asked.

No, no, no….

I wanted her to take it back. To take the words back. To take it all back. But she couldn’t. She couldn’t and she shouldn’t. I needed to know.

But I didn’t want to know.

But I needed to.

But it was better before.

Ignorance is not bliss.

Yes it is; yes it I;, yes it is!

How could the man I knew, the man who raised me, the daddy I had loved and clung to do something so evil, so terrible? Could I really have been so wrong about him? Could my entire childhood really have been such a massive lie?

I started to get sick after that. The week before our first court date, I couldn’t keep anything down in the mornings before school, but I pushed through it and when to class anyway. Our hearing came around, and it didn’t go well.

The hearing was supposed to be about taking custody away from Dad, but then suddenly they were talking about whether or not Mom was fit to retain custody. Her ability to protect us was in question. Someone accused her of covering up for Dad and accused Nonno and Nonna of not understanding the gravity of the situation. Suddenly, everything was at risk. Everything.

My stomach trouble got worse after that. I started dry heaving and refusing breakfast every morning before I left for school.

“Eat something, Tina,” Mom urged, one morning. “Maybe it will help settle your stomach.”

“It won’t,” I assured her, as I sat curled up in a ball on the couch, willing the nausea away.

What is wrong with me?

None of us could figure it out.

“Time to go!” Mom announced on the morning of our next hearing, two weeks later.

“I- I need a minute!” I shouted as I ran, frantically, to the sink and lost my breakfast. The tears that always followed getting sick snaked down my cheeks as mom rushed over to hold my hair.

“Oh, Tina,” she said, softly. “I’m sorry, honey, but we have to go. We all have to be there.”

Wiping my eyes and wrapping my arms around my stomach to fight the nausea, I nodded and followed Mom, my brothers, and Aunt Madison out the door.

Today, we might not be coming home, I thought as I shut the door behind me.

++++++++++++++++

            So there I sat, sick with worry and grief and genuine nausea, in the back of our old, navy blue Toyota Sienna. Aunt Madison was very worried about me. Mom and Joseph and Cameron were sitting in a courtroom, waiting to hear the judge’s decision.

            What is the judge going to decide? God, if you’re there, please intervene.

            I couldn’t stand not knowing what was going to happen. I couldn’t believe I was out here when the only place I wanted to be was in there, finding out what the judge would say.

            I sniffed and snorted and tried to control my breathing until I managed to stop the worst of the sobbing.

            I may not go home today.

            Tears, silent, and far more gentle than those that had come before, raced down my face.

            God. God, if You’re up there, if You’re really listening, if You care at all, don’t let them take us. Please, God, don’t let them take us… Please.

            At that moment I caught sight of Mom, my brothers, and Aunt Madison making their way toward the car. Mom and Aunt Madison were talking. I couldn’t tell if they were happy or upset from this distance, but my brothers were with them. That had to be a good sign.

            And then it happened, Aunt Madison and Mom stopped walking. Auntie turned to Mom, smiled wide, and threw her arms around Mom in a great big hug.

            I knew, even without knowing for sure.

            Maybe, just maybe, everything is going to be okay….

Works Cited

Allender, Dan. The Wounded Heart: Hope for Adult Victims of Childhood Sexual Abuse. Colorado Springs: NavPress, 2008. Print. 

Bromley, Nicole Braddock. Breathe: Finding Freedom to Thrive in Relationships after Childhood Sexual Abuse. Chicago: Moody, 2009. Print. 

Bromley, Nicole Braddock. Hush: Moving from Silence to Healing After Childhood Sexual Abuse. Chicago: Moody, 2007. Print. 

Casciano, Tracey. Out of the Darkroom, Into the Light: A Story of Faith and Forgiveness After Child Abuse. Bloomington, IN: WestBow, 2015. Print. 

Davis, Laura. Allies in Healing: When the Person You Love Was Sexually Abused as a Child. 1st ed. New York: William Morrow, 1991. Print. 

"Facts and Statistics: Raising Awareness About Sexual Abuse." National Sex Offender Public Website. United States Department of Justice, n.d. Web. 3 Apr. 2016.

Kloss, Jacqueline, and Stephen Lisman. "An Exposure-Based Examination of the Effects of Written Emotional Disclosure." British Journal of Health Psychology 7.1 (2002): 31-46. PsycINFO. Web. 24 Apr. 2016.

Krauss, Niki. Little Girl Mended. N.p.: Vox Dei, 2015. Print.

Lancaster, Steven, Keith Klein, and Allison Heifner. “The Validity of Self-Reported Growth After Expressive Writing.” Traumatology 21.4 (2015): 293-98. PsycINFO. Web. 24 Apr. 2016.

Lutgendorf, Susan, and Michael Antoni. “Emotional and Cognitive Processing in a Trauma Disclosure Paradigm.” Cognitive Therapy and Research 23.4 (1999): 423-440. PsycINFO. Web. 24 Apr. 2016.

RAINN: Rape, Abuse and Incest National Network. RAINN, 2009. Web. 28 Apr. 2016.

Smyth, Joshua, and Rebecca Helm. ‘Focused Expressive Writing as Self-Help for Stress and Trauma." Journal of Clinical Psychology 59.2 (2003): 227-235. PsycINFO. Web. 24 Apr. 2016.

Snyder, Howard. “Sexual Assault of Young Children as Reported to Law Enforcement: Victim, Incident, and Offender Characteristics." (2000): n. pag. Bureau of Justice Statistics. Office of Justice Programs. Web. 24 Apr. 2016.

Townsend, Catherine, and Alyssa Rheingold. “Estimating a Child Sexual Abuse Prevalence Rate for Practitioners: A Review of Child Sexual Abuse Prevalence Studies. Darkness to Light. N.p., Aug. 2013. Web. 3 Apr. 2016.

Ventura, Stephanie, Joyce Martin, Sally Curtin, T. J. Matthews, and Melissa M. Park. “Births: Final Data for 1998.” National Vital Statistics Reports 48 (2000): n. pag. National Center for Health Statistics. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 24 Mar. 2003. Web. 3 Apr. 2016.