“Even in its darkest passages, the heart is unconquerable. It is important that the body survives, but it is more meaningful that the human spirit prevails.” ― Dave Pelzer, A Child Called "It"
Too many of us walk with a mark on our foreheads, placed there by our birth parents. We are the only species that hurts its own in demonic ways limited only by the imagination. How are these survivors, including myself, supposed to achieve the apex of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, self – actualization, when we are too occupied, entrenched at the lowest levels, physiological and safety? We strive for the lofty heights of love/belonging and esteem, but it is difficult with the script that was first written onto our psyche.
I want to go back, back to before it all began.
Before my mother walked away, before my father’s hands touched me, before bruises, before scars, before running away to escape madness, before mini-vacations came in pills, before children, before crying, before my child dying. Before I was fractured, splintered, broken, before the possibilities were dwarfed by clawing my way out.
I want to go back, back to before it all began.
Before my thoughts became brain-washed, before my mouth spewed bile, before my hands drew with dark crayons, before my voice screeched notes of self-loathing. I want to go back, back to before it all began.
Back to when my parents were in the throes of lust and I
became the by-product.
I want to splash their heated bodies with cold water, to halt the action. I want to go back.
The “voicelessness,” (Chacko) experienced by a child suffering through their personal hell might be the cause for some of us to become writers and poets. Pelzer has written several books concerning his childhood, his most well-known is A Child Called It. I turn to the short pen, poetry, to voice what I was not able to speak about when I was a captive. According to the study “Child physical and sexual abuse in a community sample of young adults: Results from the Ontario Child Health Study” the gender makeup of abused children equals females (28.2% and 18.3%, respectively). Females reported significantly more child sexual abuse (22.1%) than males (8.3%). (MacMillan)
I know you have been searching for the words
the sounds, that bridge of conveyance as you
suffer in your silent cell
mourn the death of your childhood
awake from a dreadful dream. I will be your voice.
I will let you rest in the cave of my mouth.
I will build your bridge to the world.
If the child comes out somewhat stable, attempts to build a family of their own, their torture is held against them, as when I was filing for custody of my eldest child, Michael. The court sent a social worker to investigate me and the home I was providing. The worker asked me questions pointedly directed at the abuse I had lived through. I felt victimized again. Perhaps, I was finally given custody because of reports such as “Behind the Cycle of Violence, Beyond Abuse History: A Brief Report on the Association of Parental Attachment to Physical Child Abuse Potential” which begins: Although the concept of a cycle of violence presumes that the transmission of violence is expressed directly across generations, the role of the overall quality of the parent-child relationship may ultimately be more influential in later parenting behavior. (Rodriguez) Society still has difficulty in accepting the child, in this case female, is a total victim of the abuse as noted in this study: “Examining the Roles of Victim–Perpetrator Relationship and Emotional Closeness in Judgments Toward a Depicted Child Sexual Abuse Case,” where the following was found: A total of 160 university students read a hypothetical scenario depicting a female child sexually abused by an adult male. The perpetrator was either the victim’s biological father or her stepfather, with this relationship described as being either emotionally close or emotionally distant. In general, females assigned more provictim/ antiperpetrator/antimother attributions than males. Results were also suggested that both victim–perpetrator relationship and emotional closeness influence attributions made toward the victim, perpetrator, and non-offending mother. (Michelle Davies) According to the Humanistic theory everyone has something to contribute to society, but the only thing these abusive parents must contribute is misery to their offspring and generations to come. I personally have lost six sisters and a brother. They either committed what I call tactical or strategic suicides. Claire and Jackie killed themselves six months apart. My other siblings, Mary, Hazel, Nancy and Lenny, took the longer route, using drugs and alcohol to complete the destruction my father started. Like Pelzer’s father, my mother had abandoned us, allowing the monster free range on us.
“What distresses me at times is that I meet a lot of people in their 40's, 50's, 60's, who still say they're a victim of child abuse.” ~ Dave Pelzer Dad can’t you smell it, the flow of it?
Don’t you hear it, the sucking into the soil of it?
I have had to say good-bye to too many.
Don’t you see it, the multi-generationalness of it; your actions?
Their Turn
(for Mary, Claire, Hazel, Jackie, Nancy & Lenny)
So, it only took me 45 years to write you a poem.
Me, your 10th child, one more you didn’t love more or less. One more you had slide out into cold air, white light.
Me, the one you named after a song, ran out of ideas, huh?
Ran out of and on everything and everybody, didn’t you?
Hell, I was 28 when I got to meet you,
spent 2 weeks “getting to know you.”
Ah, c’mon mama,
now that you’re on the other side
with my younger brother and 5 of my sisters;
tell me, where can you run to? Do they yelp and nip at you like starving pups or do they turn their backs on you now
and walk away?
“If someone puts their hands on you make sure they never put their hands on anybody else again.” ― Malcolm X
The legal system has evolved from when I was a witness against my father in 1975. I endured the ordeal in order to spare my younger brothers and sister the same nightmare I lived through. I was ostracized by my family for speaking out, threatened, and treated as a juvenile delinquent by the legal system. There were no women on the jury, no legal guardian was appointed for me, the sentence given my father five four 5-year terms to run consecutively for his crimes, later reduced to run concurrently. He was out in seven years. In a recent article involving sentencing in Texas, Louisiana, and Georgia the following can be found: Compared with other convicted offenders, child sexual abusers receive proportionately harsher sentences, and the severity of these sentences systematically increases between 2000-2002. The average incarceration length for child sexual abusers is 22 months compared with shorter periods of 18 months for other types of offenders who have committed crimes of violence such as rape, robbery, and murder,” (Champion); Court-Appointed Child Advocates are now commonplace. An interesting article to read for further information is The Court-Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) Program: Bringing Information to Child Abuse & Neglect Cases. (Weisz) I, like many others, must battle each day to make it my own, be free of the past, and finally be my own master. I quote Chris Taylor at the end of the movie Platoon (played by Charlie Sheen) He says so eloquently what I wish for all the survivors of what I call The Silent War. The war is over for me now, but it will always be there, the rest of my days…But be that as it may, those who did make it have an obligation to build again. To teach others what we know, and to try with whats left of our lives to find a goodness and a meaning to this life. ~ Chris Taylor
Works Cited
Chacko, M. (2013). Champion, D. (2006).
Child Sexual Abuse Cases: Extralegal Factors in Sentencing Hearings in Three Southern States. American Society of Criminology, (pp. p1-1, 1p). MacMillan, H. L. (2013).
Child physical and sexual abuse in a community sample of young adults: Results from the Ontario Child Health Study. Child Abuse & Neglect, 14 - 21. Michelle Davies, F. P. (2013).
Examining the Roles of Victim–Perpetrator Relationship and Emotional Closeness in Judgments Toward a Depicted Child Sexual Abuse Case. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 887-909. Rodriguez, C. M. (2011). Behind the Cycle of Violence, Beyond Abuse History. Violence & Victims, 246 - 256. Weisz, V. a. (2003).
The Court-Appointed Special Advocate (CASA) Program: Bringing Information to Child Abuse & Neglect Cases. Child Maltreatment, p204, 7p, 2 Charts.