Discovering Love: Telling My Secrets

Sexual assault, in whatever form it takes, is not about sex.[i]

It’s about violence, power, and betrayal. Keeping the secret that one has been violated can prevent healing and recovery.

It happened to me when I was learning to walk, at the age I was coloring Noah’s animals in Sunday school and learning to ride a tricycle.

I had to be mature far too quickly. I didn’t learn to play or dance or be silly. Adults praised me for my maturity, for having such polite manners, and for being a caregiver to my chronically ill mother when my father was at work. When she was having an asthma attack and struggling for air, I pushed a chair up to the five-foot-high oxygen tank, climbed up and turned the valve, then put the mask on her face. I wasn’t yet 2 years old.

I was sexually molested by my mother’s uncle from a time before I could remember. He lived in Los Angeles, and we lived in Phoenix, but he’d come to visit for holidays and long weekends. He was a veteran living on disability for his arthritis, so he came often.

He groomed me with a Pixie doll and took me to the drugstore for decaf coffee at the soda counter. (Yes, I drank Postum and Sanka as a preschooler because my parents, and Uncle John, were from Minnesota, where coffee was the elixir of life.) For years, I remembered only that he had touched my private areas, and that was bad, and I hated it.

Reporting the Molester

One day when I was in fifth grade, I told my mother that Uncle John was touching me, had done every time he visited, and I was very uncomfortable about it. I had been embarrassed to tell until I wore my first flat bra and John invaded that space, too. Perhaps John threatened me: I don’t remember. A lot of things have disappeared from memory.

My parents had a terse conversation outside with John and banished him. They called the police, and we were sent a female officer who was probably a secretary or dispatcher, since there were few female police officers in the late 1960s. She asked a few dispassionate questions of me, took a report, and that was it. Since I held back on how intrusive Uncle John had been, saying merely that he’d touched me under my panties, neither my parents nor the policewoman considered it a sexual assault. Uncle John was a “sick” man with a dirty mind, and we didn’t discuss it again. They probably thought I’d forget.

What John did to me is what the Stanford swimmer, Brock Turner, did to a woman--and served only three months in jail. John molested me (technically, it was rape) on every visit, until I was almost 11 and on the verge of puberty. Using his superior authority as an adult, he used his adult power to overwhelm my own self-worth and right to privacy and dignity and personal space.

Lingering Consequences

My mother and father tried to protect me from the fallout, not wanting to put guilt on me, but my experience affected the whole family. When they reported my molestation to police, Uncle John’s siblings (the aunts and uncles who had helped raise my mother) gave her the cold shoulder, and while the police were half-heartedly looking for John, his siblings sent him to Hawaii to live for a few years. This wounded my mom very deeply, and she wept about it. One of John's siblings was a law-enforcement officer.

My brother remembered that our family had an anonymous bomb threat, and that Uncle John may have stalked our neighborhood once or twice. He’d injured his back years before, and arthritis had given him a deep hunch, so he was easy to spot. As an 11-year-old, I would stand in the dark behind the sheer curtains of my bedroom window and watch the street and sidewalks under the streetlight, fearful that one of those neighbors walking their dog might be him.

My parents did the best they knew to do in those days. Our denomination believed that psychologists and psychiatrists could control your mind and implant in it ungodly things—or urged false memories. Only recently have we learned that sexual abuse lies dormant or festers for years or decades if not treated in therapy.

In school I was a serious child, not one to play with the other kids much, because I wasn’t good at playing games and was afraid of not being good enough. Several teen girls asked if I was pregnant, because I was one size larger than they were. I heard them in the restroom, saying I was stuck up. I changed for physical education in the restroom stalls, from elementary school through college. And because these schools were conservative Christian schools, I never learned to dance.

I didn’t understand it until I was 40-something, but I never learned to play. I mistook play for practicing the piano and reading books. I wasn’t interested in making up stories about dolls or toys, and I didn’t play sports or even enjoy board games.

Considered Easy Prey

My mother warned me to never tell family secrets—not to friends, not to other relatives, and definitely not to people at the school or church. But I’d already had a sense that knowledge was power and that revealing my secrets would render me powerless. I kept a stoic face when teased or criticized, and I never let a tear fall that might give away my pain and let someone dig deeper. Telling sexual secrets would make me appear to be damaged goods, or a slut, in the eyes of a potential husband.

When I went to a new high school, I had to have a physical exam. Because we didn’t have much money that year, Mom took me to the county health clinic instead of our family doctor. I was only 13, but the male doctor did a “breast cancer exam” and said something derogatory about my areolas as he pinched my nipples.

In later years, health providers taking my medical history would ask about physical or sexual abuse, which I denied because I discounted, even to myself, Uncle John’s assaults as “molestation” since he hadn’t raped me with his penis.

Imagine my shock when I learned recently that Uncle John had not only finger-raped, but also penis-raped several of his nieces and great-nieces and their friends, from 1947 until at least 1969, when my mother blew the whistle among the family members. We don’t know if he continued to prey on girls outside the family, because only one woman will talk about it. She was 6 years old when John raped both her and her friend. “He was inside my body,” she said. Her little, innocent, first-grader body.

Her mother was one of the siblings who sent John to Hawaii to hide from police. This cousin grew up to be promiscuous and had strained relationships with the enablers. At age 78 now, she has no desire to forgive John, who has been dead for 30 years.

Today, perhaps because of the #MeToo movement, sexual abuse survivors have come forward by the millions, and there’s power in numbers.

There’s also a lot more enlightened sympathy, for what it’s worth. But misconceptions persist. In 2017 and 2018, the women who made allegations of sexual assault by Judge Roy Moore and Judge Brett Kavanaugh were ripped apart for not reporting their assaults decades ago. Yet at that time, in the ’70s and ’80s, keeping secrets was the sensible thing to do because abusers prey on the vulnerable—women and children who are already traumatized or helpless. If the victims had reported the attacks back then, they’d have risked further harm to themselves or their families; they would likely have been shamed for leading a man on; and other abusers would have found them easy prey. Telling the secret is why many assault victims are abused again.

A Self-Protection Tactic

A kept secret is like a thin blister of skin over an abscess. Keeping the secret meant that I couldn’t heal and grow. It meant that in order to protect myself, I gained weight. A lot of weight, despite constant dieting, fasting, and using artificial sweeteners. When you live a temperate Christian lifestyle, you don’t self-medicate with alcohol or drugs, you comfort with food. It doesn’t have to be a lot of food or fattening food to gain weight.

I didn’t want to be fat. I prayed for healing. I wanted to be beautiful and intelligent and desirable. I wanted to marry a godly man and have children. But I gained anyway and, as a consequence, was not asked on dates. I was told I had a pretty face (implying that the rest of me was not pretty) and that men thought of me as a sister, but not a girlfriend or wife. The jobs I might have been offered were given to others who “fit in” with societal norms of beauty.

Peer-reviewed medical research has shown that adult “women with documented histories of sexual abuse were more than twice as likely to be obese as their non-abused peers.”[ii] Based on a meta-analysis of 23 studies with a total of 112,000 participants, one research team calculated that “the risk of obesity was 34 percent higher among adults who had been subjected to abuse as children than among non-abused adults.”[iii]

Medical research also shows that childhood sexual abuse survivors often have lifelong sexuality issues (promiscuity, celibacy, fear of intimacy), substance abuse problems, and eating disorders (self-medicating with food is part of it). It’s not because we’re lazy and eat a dozen donuts every day. It’s because some part of our brain packs on the weight and refuses to let us lose it, despite our best efforts. Stress adds pounds. Actress Rosie O’Donnell realized, after her heart attack, that she had gained weight as a result of being raped by relatives. Over her vulva was a fold of fat called an apron, which she felt protected her from later assaults.

Our Deepest Desires

Keeping family secrets repels love and acceptance and makes abuse victims feel that we must please others at all costs. I’ve spent most of my life trying to compensate for not being “enough”—whether that meant being the popular girl in school, or a wife to be chosen and cherished, or a high wage earner, or the best church musician, or the best author—the best something.

I worked my way through university with long hours and academic scholarships. After a serious injury, I began teaching and freelancing from home. When my mother died and my father remarried, he devoted himself to the new wife and put his and my mom’s estate into the new wife’s name, disinheriting me and emotionally distancing himself from me because I’m so much like my mother. I worked longer hours and earned less pay than a man in my position, and the chairman of the board still wanted to know which man I was related to so he could place me in a niche. Rejection and not being accepted (or hired) because of physical appearance is part of the experience of abuse survivors.

Keeping secrets also makes survivors of abuse try to prove ourselves useful and lovable in human eyes—and in God’s eyes. As a single woman, I was lectured again and again on the verses in Psalm 34 about delighting in God and then being given the desires of one’s heart, as if God is holding out on me until I attain some benchmark of faith.

Dutch professor and theologian Henri Nouwen wrote in Life of the Beloved: “Aren’t you, like me, hoping that some person, thing, or event will come along to give you that final feeling of inner well-being you desire? Don’t you often hope: ‘May this book, idea, course, trip, job, country, or relationship fulfill my deepest desire.’”

My deepest desire has been to be cherished. To be loved for every reason and no reason.

Finding Health and Healing

Donald Trump’s tape boasting about his grabbing women’s genitals and trying to “f---” a married woman gave me waking nightmares. Comments by those who affirmed his speech and actions filled me with anxiety, fear, hatred, and physical pain. I suspect it was a form of post-traumatic stress. This brought back memories I’d banished for 45 years.

Then, as I was making my low-calorie breakfast one morning, I had a momentary vision of a grizzly bear standing on her hind legs. God spoke to me in that flash: I’m a grown woman now, strong and fierce, and I can fight back attacks. I can protect my tender, wounded inner child. I no longer need the body armor I’ve put on since my teen years.

I began to tell my secret to a few close friends, then a few who were also #MeToo survivors. There are millions of us, men and women.

Although I didn’t realize it then, I began to lose weight. I wasn’t trying any harder than I had already. I didn’t weigh myself for two months, by which time I’d lost 20 pounds. After age-related medical tests and some serious oral surgeries that required a high-protein liquid diet for several weeks, I lost another 20 pounds. With most of my medical issues resolved, my meds were reduced or eliminated, which let me lose more weight.

I continued to tell my secret, and friends have congratulated and validated my weight loss progress and improved health status. Although I keep hitting plateaus, my doctor is pleased with my overall progress. I’ve lost the equivalent of an adult person’s weight, and I still need to lose a child’s body weight.

Empowered to Help Others

One of the many debilitating effects of childhood sexual abuse was my perceived disconnect with God. I didn’t know how to love him or other people. I vowed that I would obey God and honor him the best I could, though my emotions were drained. He slowly healed that problem, however, as I volunteered with an interfaith group that helps Hispanic refugees, and as I donated plasma and platelets to strangers, and as I got involved in other outward-focused activities. I’ve cultivated gratitude for the many ways my friends and my God have blessed me, and that has brought me to a place where I can add passion to being a blessing to others.

The following scripture contains a powerful promise from God:

You survivors in Israel,
    listen to me, the Lord.
Since the day you were born,
    I have carried you along.
I will still be the same
when you are old and gray,
    and I will take care of you.
I created you. I will carry you
    and always keep you safe. Isaiah 46:3-4 CEV

I’m a cherished daughter of God who can think and act for myself, and can be fierce as a bear. My God-given talents and intelligence are “enough.” I can, by telling my secret, help others heal and learn to protect themselves. That, in turn, strengthens my own recovery.

[i] Lyn Yonack, “Sexual Assault Is About Power,” Psychology Today (Nov. 14, 2017). Online at www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/psychoanalysis-unplugged/201711/sexual-assault-is-about-power

[ii] Aaron Levin, “Obesity, Childhood Sex Abuse Show Strong Link,” Psychiatric News (Aug. 3, 2007). Online at psychnews.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/pn.42.15.0023.

[iii] Erik Hemmingsson, “Childhood Trauma Could Lead to Adult Obesity,” Karolinska Institutet (Sept. 2, 2014). Online at ki.se/en/news/childhood-trauma-could-lead-to-adult-obesity.

This article appeared in the May 2019 issue of Adventist Today magazine.

* A few of dozens of peer-reviewed articles on childhood sexual abuse and obesity:

https://ki.se/en/news/childhood-trauma-could-lead-to-adult-obesity

https://psychnews.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/pn.42.15.0023

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2941402/

COMMENT MADE THROUGH MY WEBSITE CONTACT FORM:

"What power you possess, Christy. You deserve every good thing God has for you. Live well. H.A."

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