Yet another child a victim of Sexual Abuse in my family
What is it going to take before my Jehovah’s Witness mother realizes there is something seriously wrong with her? What is it going to take for anyone in the family to realize children are not safe in her car? Oh my mother isn’t the abuser. She is the enabler.
My mother has been married twice and in one common-law (c-l) marriage (she lived with and had a child with a man she was not married to). All three men had histories of sexually abusing children. My father sexually abused me. She abandoned me and left me in his care for 3 years. She knew he was perverted when it came to sex so why she didn’t think he might abuse me is beyond my ability to understand. When I reported my father to the police I was sent to live with my mother who was living with my sister’s father.
My mother knew her c-l husband had a history of sexually abusing his 3 daughters in his first marriage. She had just gotten custody of her younger sister who was 13 and now she had me (11 yrs old) and she had a daughter with him. Why she never thought he would abuse us is also beyond me to understand. And yes he abused all of us. By this time they were studying with the Witnesses – just studying. The elder was called in both times when she found out about that he was abusing my aunt and I. They recommended that she send us away to live somewhere else and kept him in the home and in the congregation. My sister was 2 at the time. Before she was 3 he started abusing her. This time he disappeared, so nothing was done about reporting him to the police.
How peculiar that when the Witnesses were not involved the police were called (in my case regarding my father). But when my mother was involved with the Witnesses she was told not to go to the police. The cover-ups began.
A few years later my mother married again. Shortly after the marriage she met one of her new husband’s daughters. They were not invited to the wedding, nor did they have any contact with him. She met them in a restaurant and she told my mother that her new husband had sexually abused her as a child. That is why none of his daughters. I think he had two and a son) had nothing to do with him. So here she was living with another sexual predator. And my sister was living in the home. It didn’t take long before my sister told my mother that he made advances toward her. She was able to fend him off and told my mother. Her response – kick the kid out of the house for making trouble simply because she didn’t like her new step-father.
Hello! What made her shut her eyes to the possibility he would try it again? He had a history of sexually abusing children! Sexual abusers do not change. Given the opportunity they will do it again.
I just found out that many years ago he sexually abused one of my cousins. She was 4 yrs old at the time. She never talked about it until she was an adult. She never told her parents or anyone else. She says it really messed her up for a long time before she got help. Both my mother and her parents are still Witnesses.
In my family there is such a massive blanket of silence about sexual abuse. They do acknowledge it happens. But their desire to do anything about it is nil. Pretend it didn’t happen. Forget about it. It won’t happen again. But it does happen again . . . and again . . . and again. In my large extended family there are over 100 victims of sexual abuse just on my mother’s side alone. No child is safe in my mother’s home.
I feel sick that it happened again. There were other children in her home over the years. How many others were abused there while visiting or while in her care? I felt sick when I found this out. Now I am angry and sick and oh so sad for that little girl and for all of us who were never safe under my mother’s roof.
SEXUAL ABUSERS DO NOT CHANGE. Even those who go into therapy rarely change. Certainly those who never get help or turned in to the police will never stop. Given the slightest opportunity they will re-offend.
Please. Please. Please. If you were sexually abused by someone never leave a child alone with them or in the home where they are.