Invisible Girls

by Patti Feuereisen

  I sank deep into a depression and felt I was the worst mother in the world. I felt doubly guilty because we had adopted Jannie. We were so blessed to have her, and then I did not protect her.

  A few years after Jannie’s breakdown, my husband died—of a second heart attack. He was just fifty-two years old. I believe he simply couldn’t live without seeing justice done. I sometimes wish that I could just kill this horrible man myself. I have had thoughts of cutting off his penis and shoving it down his throat. I am still filled with rage and confusion all these years after my daughter was raped.

  The good news is that Jannie is a happy person. She is twenty-seven now and working. She has graduated from college, has friends and a social life, and she is not nearly as scarred from this abuse as I am. Thank God.

  MY THOUGHTS

  Jannie was off at college when her mom, Samantha, became my client. She has worked very hard in her therapy to try to forgive herself. As she said, her feelings of rage turned inward, into depression, while her husband’s turned outward. Tragically, his rage ended up killing him, or at least hastening his death. He simply could not live with the knowledge that this monster who had brutalized his daughter was free.

  When the police questioned Samantha and her husband, they also went to the home of the abuser. They questioned his teen daughter and asked whether she had ever been abused; she said no. Because Jannie would not testify, the police dropped the entire case. Samantha was always tormented, believing the monster was also molesting his own daughter. Recently, the man and his wife moved away from New York, and the one comfort Samantha has is that neither she nor her daughter will ever have to see him again. This family stood by their daughter, even when it meant not getting the justice they thought she (and they) deserved. The support and love from her parents was a huge part of Jannie’s recovery.

  Another mother of a fifteen-year-old client and incest survivor had me mesmerized with her extraordinary story. This mother acted like a lioness protecting her young.

  For much of Emily’s childhood, her parents were both heavy drinkers. Emily had a pretty rough time, but she did feel love from her parents. Her mother entered AA when Emily was ten years old and then divorced her father three years later, when he wouldn’t stop drinking. Emily had visits with her father every other weekend. When Emily was fourteen, her parents had a custody hearing because her father wanted more time with his daughter, and Emily told the court officer that on her visits to her father he had been forcing sex on her. Here is what happened, in her mother’s words:

  EMILY’S MOTHER’S STORY

  I’ll Kill Him

  I was in a drunken fog for many years. Only since I’ve been sober, for the past four years, have I finally begun to see clearly. I knew my ex-husband was still a drunk, but I never, ever suspected him of molesting our daughter. When Emily told the court officer that she didn’t want to visit her father anymore because he was molesting her, you know what I did? I went up to her and slapped her hard across the face. Hmm… that was crazy. I was definitely feeling crazy at that moment.

  Instead of recoiling or slapping me back, Emily grabbed me and hugged me. She said, “Mom, it’s true.” Well, I just lost it. I jumped over the courtroom railing and ran to my ex and began to pummel him. The court officers had to pull me off him. Then they wrote up an order of protection for him against me, until the sex-abuse allegations were substantiated. As if that weren’t outrageous enough, then the court told us that my daughter would have to continue to have visits with her father, but that they would be supervised. I was fit to be tied.

  Later that day, my daughter actually went back to school. She was so relieved to have the truth out, she told me she could deal with anything. I went home in a fog. Almost robotically, as if under a hypnotic spell, I went upstairs to my room, took out my (licensed) gun, loaded it (with three bullets, just in case I missed), put on a trench coat and tucked the gun under my coat, and started heading back to my car. I was planning to go to my ex’s home and kill him in cold blood. There was no doubt in my mind. He had to die.

  Just as I was getting into my car, my sister pulled up in front of my house. Turns out Emily had phoned her, worried about my state. I told my sister that I was on my way to kill my ex because he had molested Emily. Actually, I can’t really remember exactly what I said. I was blind with rage, but my sister tells me I spoke in a dead monotone. When I told her I was going to kill him, she slapped me, and hard. She explained that I was in shock and needed the slap to snap out of it. We sat down and she made me give her the gun. Then we both sobbed into each other’s arms.

  MY THOUGHTS

  I treated Emily and her mother for a while. It’s been five years since the incident at the court, and Emily’s mother never did follow through on her threat. But she still lives in a kind of jail—not a typical jail cell, but the jail of guilt for having been so blind. She was an alcoholic and not the mother she should have been. She won’t let herself off the hook.

  Emily is far better off emotionally than her mother. She is in college and has had therapy. She has close friends and a love for poetry that has helped her to deal with her parents and her upbringing. Emily’s father was never put on trial. Emily was just too frightened to go through with it. But they did get her father to sign a legal document stating that he agreed to leave the state, register as a sex offender, be on probation for the next twelve years, and never contact Emily again.

  Over the five years, Emily has not spoken to her father once. She has done a lot of work to heal herself from the abuse, but she says that the most important path to her deep healing was her mother’s love and support.

  LISTEN UP, PARENTS

  When my mother believed me, I knew I would be all right.

  —a sixteen-year-old survivor of mentor abuse

  It is often the case that, when sex-abuse survivors see their families begin to deal with feelings of betrayal, their own healing begins. Just the acknowledgment and the support can make a girl begin to feel it’s not all her fault. That’s why it’s so important for parents to show support and to believe in their daughters. But they also have to keep a grip on themselves. Even though they may feel enraged at the violation of their child, even though they may want blood or justice, they have to understand that it was the daughter who was abused and that her wishes need to be respected. That may mean not talking about the abuse to the extended family. It may mean not going to trial if doing so feels like another violation.

  In the previous two stories, one mother went into a serious depression, the other became homicidal, and one father actually died of a broken heart, but in both stories the parents understood that their daughters did not feel strong enough to go through the criminal justice system and did not force them to go to trial. That was one of the best ways they could show their support.

  In my many years of work, I have witnessed many parents and daughters experience very deep pain. But there are many other ways in which families show support—not just through going to therapy or discussing everything with great emotion. Sometimes a family quietly supports a daughter through its actions. The first action is simply believing her.

  Pearl’s was one such family. I met Pearl when she was sixteen years old. She was a new member of our sex-abuse support group and did not speak for the first few weeks. Pearl is a petite Filipino girl from a strict and religious family. She is quiet and shy and driven academically. When she finally did share in our group, she said she knew she wanted to protect her sister from their pedophile uncle. Pearl tells a story of a very supportive family who believed her and stood by her, even when it meant going against both their culture—which prizes privacy above all—and their large, extended family.

  PEARL’S STORY

  Church Songs

  I am sixteen years old and Filipino. I was born in the United States, but a lot of my relatives immigrated to the States within the past twenty years. We are a tightly knit family. We celebrate holidays together, we babysit for cousi
ns, we hang out together. I guess you could say our parents depend on each other to keep all our lives running smoothly.

  My uncle started molesting me when I was seven years old and continued to do so until I was thirteen. I tried very hard to block out the abuse. I got involved as a peer counselor at school, I was on the honor roll and involved in my church, and I began dating a little. I thought I was fine.

  Uncle Jim had always been my favorite uncle, and his daughter, who was five years older than me, had always been like a sister to me. But one day things changed. We were over at his house, and he asked me to come to his room. When I walked in, he was wearing only underpants. That was already weird for me, considering my parents’ modesty, and I was pretty scared. Then he asked me to come closer to him. Reluctantly, I approached him. He took out his penis and put it in my hand. It felt disgusting. I wanted to die. But I stood there paralyzed. Then he put it in my mouth. He said it wasn’t going to hurt. He told me to not be afraid and said that he loved me. Then he said, “This is our little secret.”

  After that I tried to avoid him, but several times he came to my school to pick me up, telling my teacher that my parents had sent him. I didn’t want to make a scene, so I just got in the back seat of his car. But then he’d take out his penis and begin masturbating. He’d keep telling me how special I was and that he loved me and that I should touch him. I’d just sit there frozen, looking out the window and trying to blank out until he dropped me off at home.

  He used to bring me gifts and money in front of my parents, and of course I accepted them. I wish I had never accepted anything from him. This is one reason I feel so guilty. To this day it really bothers me that I accepted his gifts. He never threatened my life, but I was afraid of him. His words were very powerful. I knew that what was going on was extremely wrong, but I wasn’t sure how to stop it. Mostly I wanted to get away from him, but the little part of me that felt special wanted to stay, and I kept thinking maybe he would stop. I guess that is why I felt so responsible for and guilty about what happened.

  By the time I turned thirteen, I could no longer be in a room with him without feeling sick. My body had started to develop, and I’d started getting my period. Maybe unconsciously I began to feel the beginnings of womanhood. Whatever it was, I started taking action. I told Uncle Jim he could not be alone with me. He became really nasty and threatened to “get me” when I wasn’t looking. But I stayed away from him. I hated and feared him.

  I began to have dreams about my uncle. I would wake up in a cold sweat of fear. Then the smell of cigarettes started triggering all these awful feelings and memories. I remembered how it used to feel when he’d touch me or whisper in my ear. I’d think about how he used to make these disgusting gestures. And it all came back to me. A week after hearing Dr. Patti speak at my school about sexual abuse, we had a family celebration. As always, my uncle tried to hug me too tightly, and after I wrenched out of his embrace I saw him hugging my twelve-year-old sister the same way. Then, right before my eyes, I saw him touch her breast. I knew then and there that I had to stop him. When my uncle started molesting my little sister, I had a choice: to save her or to keep my extended family together. I chose to save my sister.

  I tried to think of ways to stop him from getting to my sister. I wanted to tell my parents, but I didn’t know how. My parents and I were always pretty close. My parents are traditional in lots of ways and very conservative about sexuality. As much as I love them, I am very aware of pleasing them and being a “good girl.” So there are lots of things I don’t tell my mom, and the sexual abuse was one of them. But it always felt like this huge, ugly secret.

  When Dr. Patti came to my school and started talking about sexual abuse, she explained that it is never the child’s fault. For the first time I began to realize that maybe my uncle had been manipulating me all that time and that he was entirely to blame. I was ready to tell my secret. It was hard for me to talk in the sexual-abuse support groups, but after hearing all these horrible stories from these other girls, too, I felt I could share my experience. Hearing so many other girls who I never would have dreamed were abused made me feel less alone. You could just tell from their stories that their abuse wasn’t their fault. Maybe mine wasn’t my fault, either.

  On my sixteenth birthday, I went to see the counselor at my school with the support of Dr. Patti and the other girls behind me. I knew I could do it. I knew from Dr. Patti that when I told my counselor he would call the police—because the abuse happened less than six years ago and involved two minors, the school had to report it—but I knew I had to do something. When I told him, of course, he said he’d have to get the principal. I was so scared and upset. I didn’t know what was going to happen. I asked my friends to stay with me.

  The next thing I knew, the police showed up at my school. They talked with me and asked me lots of questions, and then they called my parents. My father came to the school. His just being there, so awkward, so out of his element, was startling enough for me. But then, with the help of my counselor and principal, I told my father about my uncle, and my father began to cry. I had never seen him cry before. He asked me why I hadn’t told them. I told him I was scared, and by then I was sobbing, too. I felt so ashamed that I couldn’t look at him. I was sure he thought of me as less of a person.

  At home, my mother made me feel much worse. She didn’t say anything, she just looked at me in horror, and then she slapped my face. Thankfully, she called a close family friend for support, and, when her friend came over, she told my mother that she had been sexually abused by her brother-in-law when she was a teenager and had attempted suicide. Then my mother looked me in the eye with a new understanding, and I knew that she believed me. At that moment, I felt my mother’s love. But I also knew that she could not deal with what was happening.

  The next few hours were very intense. My mother called Uncle Jim’s wife, her sister, and told her what had happened. My aunt said she did not believe me. While they were on the phone, the police arrived at my uncle’s place of work, and he was taken to the police station for questioning. While all this was going on, I could hardly look at my parents. My father was crying, and my mother was shaking all over. My poor little sister came home to all this pandemonium. When she found out what was going on, she said that Uncle Jim had given her the creeps for a long time.

  Needless to say, family relations were severely strained. My aunt and cousin sided with my uncle. My mother stopped calling her sister, and my cousin wouldn’t speak to me. I felt like I had lost my older sister. My dad seemed really embarrassed around me, and my mother tried very hard not to hold anything against me, but there were times when she would just look at me and shake her head and say, “How did this happen? How did you not tell me?”

  My sister came to me and said, “Thank you, Pearl. You know, I’ve always been kind of disgusted by Uncle Jim, but I thought it was my imagination that he was touching my breast when he hugged me. I didn’t know he had touched you, but I was really scared.” Hearing my sister’s words made it all worth it to me. I could give up my relationship with my cousin, I could even live with my mother’s ambivalence, if I managed to save my sister from Uncle Jim’s abuse.

  It’s been a year since I disclosed the abuse to my family. I am seventeen now and a lot has changed for me. I don’t think about my uncle as much, and when I do I know how to deal with the feelings that come up through journal writing, going to group, and doing these relaxation exercises Dr. Patti taught me. I still have a lot of feelings about what happened with my uncle, but the strongest emotion is not fear. I still don’t speak to my cousin, but I am not as sad about it as I was a year ago. I sleep better. I feel happier. I feel so relieved that I don’t have to worry anymore about anyone finding out. All the important people in my life know. I am not hiding anything anymore. It really feels like a weight I have been carrying around is off my shoulders.

  My dad never talks about the abuse. My mom sometimes mumbles that she wishes she could
see her sister, and sometimes she even slips and blames me for letting things with my uncle go on for so long. But last week in church I felt my mother reach for my hand while singing her favorite hymn, and it felt so real to me. We don’t have this huge secret between us anymore.

  MY THOUGHTS

  Pearl is a success story in many ways, but her family’s support was certainly key to her healing. Although they had to go through some difficult feelings to get there, they stood by Pearl even when it meant losing connections with important family members. Although Pearl had haunting memories of her abuse, those memories led her to get help. It’s even somewhat surprising that her mother and father were so fully supportive and willing to confront the uncle. Most Asian cultures strenuously protect the family image and guard family secrets. Also, in the cultural hierarchy, boys are more respected than girls, and we might have expected her parents to try to hide Pearl’s abuse to protect the honor of her respected uncle. He was one of the first family members to immigrate to the United States and was held in very high esteem. That’s why it’s all the more remarkable that Pearl’s parents were willing to become estranged from him and the extended family. Filipino women tend to go to great pains to make sure that the men “look good” to the world and in the community, and Filipino as well as many Spanish families will go to great lengths to avoid chismosa, or gossip about the family.