For a few days I have been thinking about what exactly to write in my second post about the beginning of my journey.
The Beginning Part 1, talks about the start of that journey - the start of a sordid period in my life being sexually abused by my stepfather... If you haven't read it yet, you can read it here.
I am not comfortable using the names of the people in my stories, and so - at least for the time being, whenever I need to mention a name, I am going to use the first letter of the person's first name.
What I am about to write, has been weighing on me heavily. It is something I have only shared with one, or maybe two people in my life. After much consideration, I have decided to share it, because maybe by sharing it will help to heal me, and maybe it will help someone else to talk about their experience, so that they can heal too.
After the initial incident in the bed, my stepfather started finding many opportunities to be able to touch me, and to make me touch him. He talked to me a lot about what he was doing, and how people wouldn't understand, that I must never tell anyone.
Often once a child is sexually abused, their eyes are opened to the world of sex, in a way that they never were before. Often their behaviours and interactions with other children and adults can become overtly sexualised.
This was true in my case.
On access visits with my Father, we often used to spend a lot of time with at his parents house. My stepmother hated these access visits, and wasn't too fond of me, so I tried to stay out of her way as much as possible. Dad would often read the paper, and watch tv, and I often spent a lot of time with my Grandmother and Grandfather. My Grandfather had a chicken coop, where he kept chickens and pigeons, and a large paddock that other people often kept horses in.
One afternoon, in the shed next to the chicken coop with my Grandfather, he lifted me up onto one of his workbenches. Automatically, I spread my legs so that he could touch me. He said to me that he shouldn't touch me there. I said to him, "But J does it all the time."
What should have happened at that moment? I have pondered this many times.
In a perfect world, my Grandfather would have been horrified, revolted even.
He would have taken hold of me, bundled me up with love and carried me into the house to talk about this horrible revelation with my father and grandmother, and he would have made sure I was safe...
He would have made sure I was kept away from my Stepfather so that this terrible thing never happened to me again. He would have called the police. He would have confronted my stepfather.
In a perfect world. I have had plenty of time to think about this scenario.
But, it is not a perfect world, and my Grandfather was not a perfect man.
He took my invitation at my word.
He has been passed away for many years now, so I will not ever know what he was thinking. I can only imagine. I know that he was not thinking like a grandfather who wanted to love and protect his granddaughter.
Perhaps he was thinking this was a perfect opportunity to do something sordid and secret - a willing participant - served up to him on a platter. After all, it was pretty safe, I was used to keeping this type of secret.
He just had to coach me a little more than J did - he didn't want me telling anyone else - that would be much too dangerous... I had to promise I would never, ever, tell anyone, not even J. And I had to be careful about how I acted around other grown up men. I couldn't do this type of thing with them.
And so I kept his secret.... and for years, kept keeping the secret. Even when the truth eventually came out about J , I kept his secret.
But I won't be defeated by the strife I have faced in my life.
Today I am telling the world.
The world knows my secret.
And I am a survivor.
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