What kept you from telling?

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What kept you from telling?
I first read this post 2 days ago (along with all of the responses) and it's been eating a hole in me ever since... - So I feel that it is time that I add my reason to the long list - I hope this is not trigger for anyone - but cannot find other way to explain my reasons for silence for so long...

I was about 4 when my uncle (8 years older) first started to play 'doctor' with me up in his room - I trully did not know that what we where doing was wrong - but as time went on and the acts performed changed I did start to think of it as being somehow wrong - and yet i could not tell - he was the nicest person to me in the whole world while I was growing up - things were not nice at home (mental/physical abuse there) so I could not tell them out of fear of being accused of being the one who brought it uppon himself - I held the shame and self-guilt inside for over 25 years... - Now it is my time - to give the shame and guilt back to him!
 
I never told because all my life I was being abused. My uncle bean abusing me sometime around my being 2. It continued with him until I was 14 or so. I have many blackholes in my memory of my childhood. I did not remember that abuse until I was 40. I do remember him telling me my family would leave me if I told. I belieived him.

I had a second until who talked about sexual things he wanted to do to me and I did tell a cousin who told her step father. I was scared to death by her telling someone else. I didn't know why I reacted so strongly at the time, now I know it was because of the first uncle's years of lies.

I never told anyone els till I was 40 and the memories of my first abuse returned.

Ken F
 
Well, for me, my abuse started @ 5 years old. I was used by uncles, aunts, cousins, etc. But I do remember my mother masturbating to the "situation" more than a few times. My father never knew, but that knowledge never seems to help. I wish I had answers, suggestions, or anything. I have nothing right now, nothing but beer, pills, and pain. I wish I could help, but I have nothing here.
 
This is really hard for me, but important.

I didn't tell because it was supposed to be a joke.

My big brother had a mean sense of humor, and I learned very early that if I cried or told our parents that he would just laugh at me more. Call me names.

It was humiliating and I don't remember my parents backing me up when I told on him for other things. They told us, perhaps rightly so in THOSE cases, that we should work things out together.

So I learned not to tell. Not to cry.

I learned it was funny when people were mean to me, and that if I laughed with them things were somehow easier.

Keeping the secret, laughing at my abuse, was a better way to preserve my dignity than telling.

To tell would be to admit I couldn't take it, to cry, "Mercy!," or "Uncle," or whatever the codeword is for, "You're stronger than I am and I am helpless against you. Please stop. Your hurting me."

Those words would have definitely made things worse.

So I put up with it and even laughed.

I've had two good therapists, and I never admitted to them that I laughed.

I mean, how could my big brother know what he was doing to me hurt if I was laughing as he did it?

Except that he had to physically force himself onto me. And that, at age 15 or 16, he should have had more than a clue anyway.
 
ken,

look forward to your book, current survivors who haven't could use the help, support, and understanding.

why i didn't tell and hid it for 31 years:

at the time it was happening - age 10 to 11

he was a "trusted" coach and noone would believe me. he told me that and most of what follows here.

he was a navy corpsman and he knew how to do it all and cover it up so noone would know or believe it. it did hurt some but also felt good, he cleaned me up so good, you might not physically believe i was sodomized or made to give repeated b/j's.

he said he loved me more than his g/f and it was our secret and she did not serve him as good as i did. he compared me to her and i was always "superior".

he told me if i told, i could end up going to a kids boarding school for troubled and "gay" boys.

he would quit taking me to special places and buying me things. he would buy me whatever i wanted.

i thought my dad would blame me, beat me, or punish me as it would tarnish his glowing military career. he made sure we never got in to trouble on a base, cause he would not loose rank or end up in the brig or for us to be in the brig.
we lived next door to the provost marshall and he referred to that on occasion.

i thought my dad might literally kill him as he was trained to kill as a marine. or he would have someone else do it.

because he told me we loved each other and made me enjoy it and i did some. he did not rape me but was loving and a sexual sicky on the sex, cum, his and my little erections. he taught me what to do and how to do guys or girls.

my mom has and had m.s. was weak, timid to my dad, liked our coach, even assisted the team. it would hurt her too much and my dad might blame her for this interfering with his career too.
i was her baby, would not hurt her either.

because i was taught as a marine's son- you can "hack it", be a man, be tough, don't show love or emotion, be a man since as far as i can remember. don't be a "queer". don't look at other guys stuff or do things with other boys or men.

i thought my dad might ship me off to military school as he had threatened if "we" got in to any trouble.

ron (my abuser) told me that my guy and girl friends would call me a faggot and cock sucker and i would not be able to get any real pus_y. ever..

because my dad flew at night, he had to trust my mom and i (and brother and sister) to do the "right" things when he flew, stay out of trouble. i would not let him down.

from then to age 41:

I was tough, could hack it, blocked it, it did not mess me up.

i would turn to alcohol and mild drugs to avoid it, escape.

i would sexually persue women to prove i was o.k. and not gay or not affected by my past practices and sluttiness.

I worked as a workaholic, avoided it, repressed it. Focused on career at the expense of myself and others. Wanted to make my dad proud and compare to his war "hero-ness".

i went thorugh 2 marriages and several relationships and never told them. thought they might think i was whacky or messed up, blame me, think i was bi or wierd.

when i finally told someone and now:

for therapy for depresion, finally trusted my t and told her.

finally told my ex-g/f after she shared how i withdrew, withheld affection, only loved to a certain point.

only told my other f friend from church two years after she told me of hers after my break up. i trusted her and she me.

from now on:

will tell my sister and brother one day.

my mom and dad are too old and fragile. i still think my dad might go after him or have someone else do it and he is a skinnier more frail older man now.

i will persue ron in time. not physically but legally and publicly.

i will tell my first ex wife, she deserves to know. she was a great and is a great person. did not deserve what i put her and her kids through emotionally and financially at the end.

may tell one best friend one day, he knows something is up with me but i never have shared.

sorry so long winded, but had to get it out.

guy
 
Gentlemen:
I am truly humbled reading your responses. I would like to incorporate some of them in the book with complete anonymity for those who wrote the responses. I would use no identification but "One survivor wrote:" or "A survivor stated,".

It has been difficult for many of you to write what you did. I appreciate your honesty and willingness to share painful memories. I hope your words and the content of this book will benefit many others who have not yet taken the steps you have that brought you to this site.

If anyone would not wish to be quoted anonymously (with the protection mentioned above), please pm me and I will not use your words.

Again thank you.

The book is still in the early stages of writing and I will continue to check this thread for additional comments that may be useful for this effort.

Sincerely,
Ken
 
Ken

I don't think anyone will object to you using what you want in your book, if it can relate to any form of abuse someone has been through, that alone is enough for them to start feeling they were not alone.

The main theme seems to be power, power of somebody older, who you respect, who is responsible for your upbringing or within your social gathering, teaching, coaching or the violent opportunist.

I am sure there are many other categories, but.

They break everything in the childs' life, and turn it into a totally confusing World where right seems to be wrong, and wrong seems to be OK.???

The numerous emotions the kid goes through either just after the event, or further down the line is immeasurable, he feels dirty, abused, humiliated, "am I gay"? is that why he picked me out? did I smile at him the wrong way? did I ask you for it?
he told me this is what daddies do? he told me the police will not believe you? I know where you live and will kill you/your family? It is not wrong for boys' to do this to a man? Nobody will believe you?

There are many more examples, but when you're just a kid you believe this crap, because they are bigger, they know more than you do, you trust them either because they are your guardians, who you learn your lifes' script from UUUGGGHHHH!

As a kid you are so vulnerable, you believe it when they say, they will believe me, you're only a kid, and guess what they will always be right because you are so low in the social circle of life, and the younger you are the better, for them, because you have not got the social skills to go against them, and if the kid is pre-pubic it makes him more confused, as he doesn't know what the perp is doing, until after the event.

He doesn't realise what the perp is doing, seeing things and doing things, wishing it was over, and when it is over, it is never over, but his childhood is, he can never function as the kid he was meant to be so he lives a life pretending, and faking what it's like to be a normal kid.

He never knows what it's like to be "normal", just like the other kids, laughing joking, no cares, I care, I have to make sure he is not outside school, is he coming in the night? Will the man coming down the road be him? When is he going to turn up? Panic attacks at constant reminders when in school, thoughts of absolute terror returning in the day and through the night.

And when that's still there you seem to be a magnet for the others who follow, how do they know you were abused? Is it that they see the lonely look on your face and seem to turn up everywhere you go, wonder why I dissociated with life.

Sorry about rambling, but is it any wonder, we don't tell when we are never heard even when we yell.

ste
 
I didn't tell because I had no memory of the abuse until 35 years later. The abuse happened at some age between 6 and 11 and was pure unadulterated terror, shame and humilition. Yet I knew nothing of it. When the event came back into conscious memory (not during therapy)it wiped me out for over a year. Years on, I have still kept it to myself. Why? Because I am afraid of the damage I would do to the person I told my story to, should they even so much as attempt to minimize it or its effects.

Hope that helps, and good luck with your book.
 
Ken,

The first time it happened I was young 5 or 6. My swim teacher was the one to do it. I'm not sure if I knew that it was wrong but I did know I was scared. My mom was waiting in the car for me. When I got to the car she was really pissed becasue I was late and she yelled at me because I put my pants on over my wet bathing suit. What would she have done if I told her what happened.

The second perp was the teenage neighbor a year or two later. I didn't recognize it as sexual abuse. I liked being with him because he gave me the attention I so much wanted. Also, even though I was like 7 or 8 I got and erection so he told me I was happy and when I was older I would it would really feel good because I would come.


I knew the swim teacher abused me but it wasn't until very recently that I recognized the other instances as abuse.

Dave
 
I don't remember exactly why I didn't tell but I think there are several things that may have had an effect

#1 I didn't know that what was happening to me was wrong. In addition to my brother implying that this is what brothers do. I also was kind of misinformed by the media, I remember listening to a New York based sex call in show called Love Phones on my walkman. It was reported that most men had atleast one homosexual expierence in there life and that this was normal. While I don't know if that is truly a fact, trust me I have no clue as to what is normal sexually, I think it reinforced that what was happening was ok.

#2. I could have been threatened, whether it was implied or blatent. I don't remember this but I do remember when I was considering disclosing to my mother, I had this fear what would he do to me when he found out..would he hurt me/kill me.

#3. I guess it could have also been because he was my brother and he wouldn't do anything to hurt me
 
when abused at age 9 i didn't say anything simply because i didn't have the understanding and the words necessary to explain to my parents what happened although i knew something was very wrong by the way i felt inside. also i felt intense shame and i guess that was a great factor to stay silent
when abused at 13 the perp was caught and the police informed my parents but they felt it was better to protect him which they did by droping the charges against him and arranging for me to meet up with him again, so every time i got abused after that i didn't say anything (f*** this is bloody painful to write down but that's how it is) otherwise they would send me straight back to those bastards (am i allow to use this word?)
i was covertly emotionally and sexually incested by my mother but did not understand what it was until i read a book about this topic a few years ago
 
dear Ken:

in my case i was emotionally incested by my mother for 30 years. i told noone because i did not know that anything wrong/harmful was taking place. i was so enmeshed/lost within her i had no idea that i was being severely wounded by her and the sick relationship that existed between us. i am 41 now and so far have no memories of any physical incest by her. this is my story. i hope it helps. sincerely,


bec
 
I didn't tell because I didn't realize there was anything to tell.

I first started having sex with my brothers when I was about 3 so that by the time my father first molested me at the age of 5 it was nothing out of the ordinary, it was just what happened in that house. The sex with my brothers was constant where as the molestation by my father was sporadic but all lasted until I was about 17. It was just a way of life and so ingrained into my psyche that it was "normal".

I now realize that my father had molested my brothers which taught them what sex was (our "acts" went way beyond just childish experimentations), so I don't feel victimized by them since they were just as much victims as I was, we were all just "acting out" from what we had been taught. But the prevailing air of sex in that house (father molesting daughters and sons; brothers having sex with brothers; sisters having sex with brothers; brothers having sex with male friends) certainly had made for an extremely askew vision of the world.

So when I was younger 3-12 I didn't tell because I didn't realize that it was abnormal (it wasn't discussed among us, there was an understanding of secrecy). And when I was older 14-17 I didn't tell because I was a burgeoning homosexual and to be honest with myself even though I then realized that it was abnormal it also felt good and by that time I was so far removed emotionally from the family that it no longer felt like having sex with my brothers or my father but just having sex, which is exactly what a teenage boy whats to do all the time.

I finally started dealing with the effects of the abuse when I was about 25 or 26 (I'm now 39) by going into therapy but by that time my father had already passed (when I was 21). In my early 30's some of us started talking about what had happened in that house (I'm the youngest of 8 children and it now looks like my father got to at least 6 of us as well as some of the grandchildren) and that disclosure has helped but I still choose to be emotionally separated from them, it's just easier for me even though I realize that it's just avoidance of the memories.

As for our mother, there was also an unspoken understanding that we would never tell her because I'm sure we thought "why cause her any more pain". She had her hands full with 8 children and an alcoholic husband.

It was all about a cultivation of secrecy and silence that began at such an early age that when viewed from within that bubble didn't seem like anything worth telling - it was just the way things were.
 
you know it never even crossed my mind to tell. Mat made it seem like a game, and like everyone did it. i thought it was fun, and it felt good, so it never even crossed my mind to tell.

after going back there using memory regression, i have gained a little insight into my mind as a child. i didnt think in terms like i do now. it seems logical we should have known something was wrong with what was happening, and i beat myself up for it for many years. going back to when i was five, my mind just didnt work that way. it never occured to me when he said we had to keep it a secrete that it was wrong. he explained that it was a game older kids played, and that if adults found out that he had showed me, he would get in trouble. that was good enough for me. it felt like he was being honest, and like i made the choice to do it, instead of like being forced into it. that dumped all the blame in my lap for years. it wasnt until therapy that i began seeing i didnt have the knowledge to make that choice, and what he did was steering me into it. i carried a lot of guilt over that, but was finally able to let go.
 
What kept me from telling was fear, shame, not knowing what was going on, etc. But most important, WHO to tell? One of my perps was my own father, the one that is supposed to protect me!
 
Hi Ken,
What a great question. My therapist did not even go there, yet.
When I was four my father almost killed my brother in rage for being 45 minutes late in bringing home his clothes from nearby Laundomat. He actually went to the kitchen, brought the big knife, put white clothes around his head. It took place in a foreign country. All these were legal & moral.
I was seven, when I was molested by a temporary school teacher. Good thing is that it only happened twice. He left the school. I did not have to face him every day any more.
I am not sure I kept quiet for just one reason.
Fear of death by my father so that he does not have to look at the sorry face everyday, fear of hurting family image (which is enormously important over there), and possibly fear of loosing my own face. I knew I never took the time to analyze what to do next. I instantly, knew keeping quiet was the right thing to do. I still believe that, just because of one big reason, that is, that's what I ended up doing. Now what would have happened if I was molested a lot more, and or tormented by his sight for a long time I don't know, and I don't want to know.
During my divorce process, I had to go to a shrink. I was around Forty that time. I finally told him what happened. It was very tough. He told me it was not my fault. And that was it. I thought the Saga was over. Of course I know different now. I became a alcoholic. On the process of recovery I had to go through all traumatic experiences in my my. I had a very tough time expressing that part of life in detail. That's when I knew I have to somehow totally open up, if I wanted to live. I am doing this just for one reason. My Own Recovery. That's why I am here. I have no intention to add more to my recovery process by trying to get even with anyone. I need all the energy I can gather for my recovery.
-honest_lion
 
I didn't tell anyone because I could not reconcile the revulsion I felt, for what had happened, with the underlying knowledge that I was gay - something which, in my very limited worldview at the time, seemed to be everything except loving, heterosexual sex.

Now, with the benefit - and occasional curse - of hindsight, I see the abuse as THE formational event in my development. From it, and the lies which spun from it, came an inability to be honest with myself and a lack of interest and inability in forming a true relationship with anyone - leaving me with the unfulfilling years of sex for sex's sake.

Just coming to that realisation is empowering in itself!
 
Ken,

1) The worst thing you could call someone in '58 was 'queer' or 'fag'. I got an erection, I liked getting oral sex, it was implied that because of those things I was complicit. I believed it for way too many years.
2) He was my older sister's boyfriend, a trusted friend of the family, I didn't think anyone would believe me.
3) My dad was gone a lot, my mom was an alcoholic, especially when dad was away. I liked the attention of an older guy, any attention I guess, I thought it was all my fault.
4) I always thought that I was a disappointment to my father, that I was never good enough. I can't remember a time that I didn't feel that way. Telling him about it would just reinforce his disappointment in my 11-13 YO mind.
5) I realize now (at almost 57) that I was curious about boys and girls but mostly boys even when I was younger (6-9 YO) than when the abuse happened (11-13).
6) One of my best friends at the time was engaging in anal sex with another boy the same age as us. It reinforced my view that this happened to everyone and no one ever, ever talked about it.

So I didn't say anything to anyone for 38 years. Only after my wife died a year and a half ago and after some horrendous health issues of my own have I decided that life is too short to live two lives any more. I am more gay than straight, I don't believe it is either one or the other but subtle shades of grey. I like myself more now than I ever have before in my life.

I hope this helps some other survivor deal with some of those 'why' questions.

Steve
 
Ken,

I think you have posts from all here that cover what everyone went thru and thought. Mine was many different issues - ashamed, not wanting anyone to know and he clearly stated that if I said anything who would believe me I'm a kid. He was the Great Teacher that everyone loved and respected. I also knew that my parents would never listen to me. When I finally did tell my mom, she listened but didn't do anything and then later told me that she thought I was making it up. As I think MIKENY wrote - he was the adult, I was raised to do and respect my elders without saying a word. It is a stupid thing but that was how I was raised listen to your teachers and elders. He also told me that I would be made fun of when the other kids knew what happened to me. I was stupid to listen to him on that since I knew that he was abusing 16 other kids from my school at the same time. None of us felt comfortable at all to talk to each other about it or our parents.
 
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