Child Abuse Stories

By Angie

Over the years I have inadvertantly met quite a few survivors of child abuse. Every story different and unique. I myself was molested by my father over a period of years, yet I have known others that were molested only once, and I don't mean only as though it's diminished because it happened the one time, I just mean that it was an isolated incident. Regardless of how many times it happened the damage was ultimately the same.

Don't misunderstand, constant abuse over a period of time can create other effects that an isolated incident maybe won't. What I meant earlier is that the line was crossed and certain things will be affected in the same way. When it comes to long term abuse, however, I believe another major factor is entered into the equation: Fear.

Fear is a powerful tool in a molester's hands. It can and will keep a child quiet more often than not. By creating fear in the child the molester can ensure the silence of the child being molested, and carry on molesting without worrying about being caught. Without keeping the child afraid how can the person molesting them keep a tight rein on what the child will say when away from them.

A couple of stories may illustrate my point.

My father used to take me away from the rest of the family, ie, a small garage beside the house, a spare bedroom when he thought everyone else was sleeping, a separate room from where everyone else was, and once during a party at an Aunt and Uncle's house he used the guise of making sure I was tucked in for the night while they partied.

I would be in bed, sleeping, when I woke up to having my father touching me, telling me to wake up and be very quiet. The first time this happened, or I remember it happening, he picked me up out of bed and carried me into an extra bedroom on the second level of their house. He closed the door, stood me up on the bed, and told me that he had things he had to show me, things he wanted to teach me. I knew instinctively that this was very wrong. I started crying, panicky, telling him that No, I didn't want to know, to let me go back to bed. He said that I was growing up and would need to know how to please a man, what to do to keep a man around. He said that over the next while he was going to show me what I needed to know to make a man happy, and that it was my job to learn to do these things, to let him show me. That if I was going to make him happy and not make my mother sad, I would do these things and not tell my mother or anyone else about them, that I would be looked at as being bad and sent away. That it would kill my mother to know what I was going to let him do. The abuse went on for years, I was terrified that someone would find out.

A friend of mine told me a story of when he was younger. He didn't realize how deeply this incident had affected his life until he remembered all of the events of that day and how it made him feel. To this day very few know about what he went through.

He and a couple of his friends were out playing around in a field, one of the boys caught site of a cabin a little ways off, decided to go explore. My friend didn't want to go, hung back, when he was approached by a much older man asking him questions. Then the man asked him if he could just take him over to a quiet area for a bit, had something to tell him, show him. My friend felt uncomfortable, said no, he didn't want to leave his friends. This man said it was ok, he wouldn't be long, they would be back soon. My friend got upset, took off toward his friends and they all left, going home.

My friend told me that he knew something wasn't right. Everything felt off. Of course it felt off, my friend knew that deep down the man's intentions were not at all pure. He didn't tell anyone what had happened and had kept it in for years, thinking it was no big deal. Yet when it came into his memory full force he realized that it did affect him, even though nothing beyong the approach had happened.

Even being approached had affected this person. When a child is approached by an adult for something that is not right, not on the up and up, a child can tell. Children have great instincts, it's too bad we don't listen to the children more often.