Lee I'm so sorry.
When I was in therapy for abuse my therapist, Carol, told me there are three roles in an abusive family -- abuser/victim/denier. Denial and enabling oftentimes come to the same thing, as I've found out to my chagrin the past year. But it's clear which role in the family your mother plays.
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.
There is nothing, not a burning bush not even if the heavens opened, a flashing neon sign lit up complete with HD video of the abuse. She does not see because she does not want to see. None so blind as those who will not see. How many times have we all debated with active JWs on this board, disproved down to the very DNA of their teachings that The Truth is not true? And yet many still stay. My ex-wife was like that, she stayed for 13 years. My father in law read Ray Franz's book, handed back to me and said "I don't disagree with anything in that book." And yet he stayed. Till he killed himself.
I will never understand it, but I accept as a reality that there are many people in this life who turn a blind eye. We all make mistakes, god knows, but these people once they become aware of a problem, once they see there is evil they do make no effort to stop it. In point of fact, they do the opposite and enable the evil to continue.
To quote Professor Dumbledore -- "We all have the choice between doing what is right and doing what is easy."
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.
Incredible. I've often wondered how OJ Simpson lives with what he did, late at night when no one is around, no act to perform just he and his memory. And whatever conscience, if any, exists.
She knew and yet still took up with this "man". Disgusting. Enabler is the kindnest thing to be said about her.
Oftentimes victims are angrier at the non-abusive parent than they are towards the one who actually raped them.
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.
Again -- incredible. She's sort of like a heat-seeking missle, just some mindless machine looking for the most dysfunctional predator out there. Talk about an open door policy. Absolutely disgusting.
I don't believe in hell, but I can understand how the concept was invented. Some crimes are so horrific prison or even death just isn't enough is it?
And besides it's always easier to silence rather than address the problem. Easy but not right.
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.
No predators do not change. I'm a bleeding heart liberal yet from what I've seen the world would be a better place to simply lock up offenders. It's a bit like an alcoholic or an addict, except in this case even if you give to the offender the best motives for redemption, look at the consequences if they fall off the wagon.
But they don't see anything "wrong" in what they do. They live in abscence of morality and want what they want and often enjoy the pain they inflict. It is a reality I accept without truly understanding it. Sort of like algebra.
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.
And I hurt with you.
If there is anything positive, no matter how small, there are so many more resources available now. It is so much easier for a child to get help now than it was for us 40 years ago. We were literally on our own, with no Internet, no Facebook, no chats -- no one to reach out to and even if we did society back then refused to hear us. That's not the case now.
And isn't the real damage not the physical act but the years of living with the shame and guilt put on us by others? If the children can get help, sooner rather than later, then the damage done is nothing compared to what we went through. And yes, it is sad. Very sad.
Chris
