I
am an incest survivor and an adult child of an alcoholic. My dad and my
grandfather were mean drunks who influenced me to not drink because I
was afraid of becoming like them. I am also a survivor of domestic
violence from my
dad's rages when he was at home. Even when he wasn't raging, he was
verbally abusive with name-calling and intimidation. He was a dictator
with his controlling of the entire family. My mother rarely made an
decisions and I wasn't taught how either. My family was dysfunctional
in the extreme.
I
have memories of incest happening from age 11-17. The first memories
were of being raped by an uncle on a fishing trip and a long weekend
alone with him at my grandmother's. He lied to me and my mother when he
said my grandmother was home. She came home on Monday afternoon.
A
few weeks later, my dad decided I was old enough to take my mother's
place working twice a day on weekends helping my dad out at the dairy
milking cows. On my first night of helping at the dairy, we went to the
hay loft to throw down hay bails. While there, my dad took his shirt off
and spread it out on a bail of hay and told me to pull down my pants
and to lay down across the hay bail. No explanation was given for his
actions. I remember feeling disgusted and thinking to myself, "Not daddy
too." That is how the incest started and went on for 6 years. Every
time my dad left the house, I was sent with him and I would be raped
before we came back home. Sometimes later on he
would also wake me up early mornings before the rest of the family woke
up and he would abuse me in another room of our house. Most of the
abuse took place in the front seat of his truck. My mother sent me on
many of those trips. She missed many signs that I was being abused
because she didn't want to see them.
At
17, I knew I was strong enough to say no to the sex and not let my dad
manipulate me into changing my mind. The sex stopped but the emotional
and verbal abuse continued until I ran away when I was 19 on the day
after I took my last test of my second year at a junior college. I
packed a small shopping bag that I
normally carried books in with a few changes of clothes. I gave my
sister a note to give to my mother when I didn't come home that night
and had my mother drop me off at the college on her way to work that
morning. An angel of a friend who was older than my own parents picked
me up and took me home and gave me a place to live and helped me get my
very first job for the Summer. After 3 days of my mother lying, she
told my dad where I was. He came after me. I went home for the weekend
and then went back to my friend's house on Sunday evening.
I had broken away from my dad's control. That took more courage than I
knew I had. If I had stayed, I would have had a nervous breakdown and
would have lost myself completely. I knew that so I was strong enough to
not give in to pleas and threats that my dad used to get me to stay.
I
went away to college at the end of that Summer and as a Junior at 20
years old, I met and 8 months later married my husband. Before we were
married, he knew he was not my first sexual experience but I could not
tell him that most of my experience came from my dad. I was too afraid
he would leave me. We were married for 8 years (1980) when I told him
and my sister both about the incest. Even after telling them both the
truth, I continued to pretend that the incest was not affecting my life.
In my marriage, I became a controller thinking that would make me feel
safe. It didn't. People tried telling me what I was doing but I wasn't
ready to hear it until one day my husband came in from work. I got angry
about something, I don't even remember what it was
about. I do remember hearing myself screaming at my husband that I
hated him and I hated everything about my life. A part of me was
watching and listening and was in shock that I blamed my husband for the
hatred and the anger when it wasn't his fault. I knew in my gut that it
was me that I hated, not him. I hated myself for the incest. I thought I
was bad because of it. Almost immediately, I apologized to him and
started working on changing me. Our county library only had 3 books
about incest and none of them offered much help. I started reading books
on self-improvement and started working on letting go of some of my
controlling behaviors. Small changes happened but still no work on the
incest issues. I didn't even know I still had incest issues. I wanted to
pretend that I didn't. Today I know that is called denial and it is
very unhealthy. Denial keeps you in the hurt.
My
real healing started in January 1989 with my first 12-Step meeting.
Since my dad and grandfather were both alcoholics, I was considered an
adult child. I choose to not drink because of the fear that I would lose
control and be a mean drunk too. Thanks to a book called Adult Children
of Alcoholics written by Janet G. Woititz, I looked in my newspaper and
found an adult child recovery group. In my mind the alcoholism and
incest were intertwined. I couldn't separate the issues even though my
dad didn't drink all of the time that he abused me.
I
used those 12-Step meetings to talk about the incest. Those caring
people believed me and didn't judge me or tell me that I was bad. They
told me to get a sponsor and to work the Steps. My sponsor should have
been a woman but I didn't trust women. The women in my childhood were
all judgmental. One of them even told me when I was 5 years old that I
was going to Hell for wearing shorts. I picked a man as my sponsor who I
felt safe with. Shortly afterwards, he had me start working the 12
Steps and, after finishing with the first three Steps, writing out a
very long 4th Step which had over 100 questions for me to answer about
my childhood. I don't remember how long it took me to write out all of
those answers but I was healing thru writing for the first time. Writing
has always
been an important tool to my healing. In writing, I don't censor my
thoughts. I just write the words and feelings come out with the
memories. I still do this today even. Those 12-Step meetings and the
work I did with my sponsor saved my life and my marriage. I learned
about codependency and dysfunctional families and so much about myself. I
also went to 12-Step meetings for families and friends of alcoholics
and found out where so many of my characteristics came from. I have
written about those 12-Step meetings and the healing that I did in my
blog Spiritual Journey Of A Lightworker.
( http://patriciasingleton.blogspot.com )
I
do not remember who directed me to read The Courage to Heal written by
Ellen Bass and Laura Davis but I am so grateful that they did. Not long
after I finished reading The Courage to Heal, the workbook which was
written by Laura Davis came out and I wrote my way thru all of the
exercises in the Workbook. Those two books helped me to dig deep into
the pain to start to do some major healing. I used those and other books
and my 12-Step groups to talk, write and to heal my way thru the worst
of my incest issues over the next 10 years. I was also in two different
incest survivor counseling groups for a total of about 5 years. Because
of the 12-Step concept of a Higher Power, I was also able to heal my
relationship with God and myself. This was also the
beginning of my spiritual journey.
In
2007, I got my first computer and thru meeting a new friend online who
offered me much encouragement to write and share my story and also
instructed me on how to set up a blog, my blog Spiritual Journey Of A
Lightworker came into being June 1, 2007. Its growth has been slow and
steady as other survivors have found and supported my articles.
Regretfully over the past two years, I haven't written as many articles
because of health problems and more time away from the computer. I do
appreciate all of the support of my readers. It is thru my blog over the
past six years that I have come to know
a community of survivors and have in the past three years thru my blog,
the use of Facebook and Twitter, I have become an advocate for myself
and for other survivors of incest, rape, bullying, sibling abuse and
domestic violence. I have spoken on a number of radio programs over the
past three years to reach out to other survivors and to tell my story so
that others know they can also tell their stories and they will be
believed. I am an advocate for children, women and men. I am so grateful
that men survivors are now breaking their own silence of abuse. Now the
picture will come closer to being accurate. Too many of us have
suffered in silence. I want survivors to know that they are not alone. I
and others are here to hear you and support you back to health and
healing.
