Katrina's Story

There was something wrong with me, I was sure. Simple things, like going alone into a new place, terrified me. I was afraid of men. I had an overactive caution meter that made certain situations unbearable, everything within me screaming, "GET OUT NOW!" I cried at the drop of a hat with people I trusted. I was seldom happy and never contented, never safe, even at home. After a disastrous dating relationship with an abusive guy, I married a wonderful man with whom making love was uncomfortable at best and at worst, I wasn’t even there for it. I had this uncanny ability to disappear, leave my body and come back at a later point. Sometimes I went into the wallpaper, sometimes into the rest of my day and sometimes into nowhere. This wasn’t normal, was it?

Then, one evening, sitting with my legs drawn up on the floor in a friend’s living room with the lamp light behind my left shoulder, I remembered. I remembered episodes of "special games" that a 17-year-old male babysitter would play with 6 year old me. I went home that evening and told everything to my husband, and it felt as though I had never forgotten. I felt relieved, at some level, to understand that I was wounded; I wasn’t "normal." Then I slid into deep depression.

Mercifully, love and support surrounded me. At this point in our lives, my husband was in graduate school and there was a counselor on staff whom I could see free of charge. She was experienced in dealing with abuse survivors and we worked together for two full years on a weekly basis. There is no way that I can ever repay the gift that she gave to me of her time, her energy, her love. She mothered me toward health and healing and was the midwife to my most difficult birth. My husband was a rock, staunchly loyal, protective and patient. He even sought counseling himself as he tried to deal with my depression. He held me or didn’t as I needed, coached me, comforted me, cooked for me and prayed for me. And I had a doula too, a brave survivor herself, further along her healing path, who held my hand, raged with me, wept with me and believed in me.

After two years, my counselor moved on and I continued for one year with someone new. Two months into that time, I discovered that I was pregnant with our first child. We had stopped using birth control four months earlier and I had wept through each of my periods since then, sure that despite all my work, the abuse was going to interfere with my life one more time and prevent my pregnancy. But here I was, pregnant. What a miracle! I had an easy pregnancy and slid into prenatal care by the OB group who had a female nurse practitioner whom I had found for well woman care.

Part of the work of my healing involved exploring "normality." What did it mean to be "normal"? I confused health and wholeness with "normality." I so badly wanted to have a normal pregnancy and a normal birth and a normal baby, having felt so abnormal all of my life. I have no sisters and none of my women friends were pregnant at the time that I was. The only stories that I had to go on were of the women in the office where I worked and they were all at least 15 years older than I was. I knew I wanted a natural birth, though. My mother had two natural births and taught Lamaze when I was young. She talked all of my life about the beauty of her births and her joy at the end of pain. My friend, my doula, also steered me in the direction of childbirth classes as a way to prepare for a natural birth.

In my sixth month I read a book that said that for survivors of abuse, birth in a hospital into the hands of doctors could entail elements of re-victimization. I toyed with the idea of a home birth but only knew about lay midwives locally and knew that where I live the practice of lay midwifery is illegal. I did not have the resources to break the law. I was trying to be normal.

Three weeks before my due date, I lost my mucous plug and began having contractions. For three days, I labored off and on, mostly at home, punctuated by trips to the hospital to be checked, and made no "progress." I began to doubt that labor led to birth; it only led to more labor. On my final trip to the hospital they surmised that I had a urinary tract infection (a phone diagnosis by the doctor) they put me on antibiotics and sent me home. So hard. I felt supported by my husband and doula but not by my doctors. For several more days I had contractions off and on, which I knew were more intense than Braxton-Hicks. Meanwhile, the baby grew.

At my weekly appointment a few days before my due date, the doctor expressed concern at the size of the baby. I already measured 44cm. She suggested that we schedule an induction after the weekend or (as I hesitated) I could come in for a non-stress test. No patience, no sympathy, no trust in my body. We went in for the induction on Monday. And thus followed a cascade of interventions: amniotomy, pitocin, premature pushing (I pushed before I had an urge to) and CPD. After 20 hours of labor I had an epidural and a c-section. Bruce was 10 lbs, 5 oz.

As I look back, I marvel at my capacity for pain: enduring a Pit induced labor with no medication and no bag of waters cushion. I had terrific support from both my husband and doula and the nurse assigned to us. She said later that she had never seen a couple work together so well. I am also amazed that I stayed present for all of my labor. At no point did I disappear into the wood- work even as the male OB tried to turn an already stuck baby. Still, I felt that my body and I had not worked together. I had not trusted.

Immediately following my surgery I was given medication to make me sleep. I was not consulted about this. I was out of it for many hours and Bruce and I nursed for the first time six hours after his birth. In the meantime they had given him a bottle of glucose water because his glucose level dropped. Thus ensued a troubled and trying nursing relationship. Bruce lost weight and then gained only slowly. I finally was convinced to supplement with formula and wore a supplemental nursing system for the next year. My consultation with lactation consultants and La Leche League leaders has suggested that the Pitocin (which artificially swells breast tissue causing poor latch on), the delay in our nursing and the initial bottle were all causes of my low milk supply.

During the next weeks and months I held and nursed and wore a high need Bruce and struggled with depression. When Bruce was 9 months old I began studying to be a natural childbirth educator. The process of learning unleashed my anger and I agonized over feeling unsupported and voiceless and re-victimized. This anger gave me energy to study, to begin teaching and to promise myself to make different choices the next time.

I became pregnant again when Bruce was 16 months old. By then I had more knowledge of the birth community locally due to my association with other childbirth teachers and midwives. I explored the possibility of a home birth with a Certified Nurse Midwife and birth at the most natural childbirth friendly hospital. I found a wonderful midwife who wanted a record of my surgical incision but otherwise treated me as a healthy pregnant woman.

Mary’s office was in the back of an old Bed and Breakfast almost 25 miles from my home. Behind the building there was a farmyard with horses, a stream, and a beautiful weeping willow tree. Each of my prenatal visits was profoundly healing for me. Mary spent at least an hour each visit with me, talking about me, my hopes, fears, my previous birth, and my dreams. She was attentive to two-year-old Bruce. She had me check my own urine and weigh myself and gave me copies of all of my records. I felt empowered and cared for and strong. Then after our check ups, Bruce and I would go to the local general store, buy peanuts and juice and sit under the willow tree watching the stream.

I decided early on that I wanted to labor in water this time and rented a birthing tub from another local childbirth educator. We picked it up three weeks before my due date and set it up in a back bedroom of our house. We filled it once to be sure it didn’t leak and my husband, Peter, and I tried it out for fun.

What a different birth this was! My husband called the midwife at 5:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning and said that we thought this was it. He asked me how far dilated I thought I was, "Six,” I said. He told her not to hurry that we would be fine until she got there. At 6:00 a.m. Bruce woke up and I instinctively went in to him to put him back to sleep. He dozed until I had to move onto my hands and knees for a contraction. That upset him, "Mommy no have contraptions," he cried. My mother said she would take him to the other grandparent’s house and Peter put him in the car screaming. I cried. After they left, I looked at my belly and said, "Ok baby, time for you to come. I need to take care of my other baby." Then I went into transition. I got in the shower and moaned and moaned. I felt the moment the contractions begin to change and felt the powerful pushing at the peaks begin. “ I feel pushy,” I called to Peter outside the curtain. "Don’t push,” he said. “ Mary isn’t here yet." He ran back and forth to the door looking for her.

Mary arrived just as I was getting out of the shower and wondering why the next contraction wasn’t there yet. She checked me and I was complete with a bulging bag. So we called all the friends we’d invited to be at the birth, sent my father off with the car so my mother could come back and settled down to wait. I had an hour break during which I had three contractions. We listened to music; I ate banana bread and a popsicle and smiled at my friends as they came through the door. They were amazed to see me up and smiling and completely dilated. Then I began to feel pressure: all these lovely people here are waiting for me to produce the baby. I told Peter I needed to be alone with him in the bathroom. Mary said to call her if I felt the baby move. Fifteen minutes later I was squatting and pushing and I felt the baby slip under the pubic bone. Mary came in and with the next contraction I soaked her by popping the amniotic sac. This was all new now and I began to panic. “The baby is too big,” I thought. “No way is something that feels that big getting out.” I called for honey and I clung to Peter saying, "I can’t do it." “You are doing it,” he replied. Then I said I wanted to get back in the water.

A few contractions later the head emerged and then a good push or two and out came the shoulders and Peter yelled, "You did it, Katrina!" There he was, wet, wiggly and precious and I held him just moments after he was born. I was a queen!

I look back on Nate’s birth as both the result of and a vehicle for healing from the abuse. Choosing to birth at home with a midwife who trusted the process of birth and the ability of my body to birth were crucial. By choosing to be at home I put myself at the center of the birthing process: I took responsibility for the possible risks of being at home and gave myself permission to say and do what I needed and wanted. I gave myself a voice. I also declared myself valuable enough to have friends around me to support me and share in the miracle. In choosing Mary to be my midwife I learned what "normal" pregnancy and birth is all about. I drew on her trust of birth and my body to learn to do the same for myself. I not only stayed in my body during Nate’s birth; I also learned to trust.

Since beginning to write this narrative, I have become pregnant with our third child. We are planning another homebirth, with the midwife who served as Mary’s assistant at Nate’s birth. This pregnancy has been one of joy and celebration for me. I feel the freedom to speak as I need to about my needs and wishes. I trust my body’s ability to grow a baby and to birth it. My dreams for this birth are the healing of two more shards still broken from the abuse. I would like this to be a sexy birth, a birth that highlights the intimacy of the creation of the baby and my connection to Peter even as I push the baby out. I want to rewrite the synapses in my neural net that prevent me from fully surrendering to sexual pleasure even as I surrender to the powerful forces of birth. We have talked about Peter catching the baby so that I can look at him as I push the baby out, face-to-face, eye-to-eye, wonder-to-wonder. I also want to experience greater healing in breastfeeding. Nate, like Bruce, lost weight and put it back on slowly. I grew anxious before the doctor did and wore the SNS for several months. I would like to not have to do that again. I would like to trust my body to nourish the baby outside the womb as it did so beautifully inside.

To learn more, order Survivor Moms: Women’s Stories of Birthing, Mothering and Healing after Sexual Abuse

Deborah's Story

I was born in the early 1950’s into a conservative, Christian home. I was well cared for and felt secure. I don’t believe my mother knew how to bond very well with her children, and didn’t know how to relate very personally with her friends either. I did not feel close to my older brother, or even my only (older) sister, although we were only 15 months apart. I played with my two younger brothers and tried to give them the attention I felt was lacking from my mother. My dad was better at relations, and tried to spend time with us children, but was very busy with work and organizations. I was a good, compliant and reserved child. I took a very responsible view of life, including commitments to God.

When I was 13 and starting to mature, my older brother (by three years) started interacting more with me. He asked personal questions about the developing bodies of my girlfriend and I when she spent the night. Another time he wanted to demonstrate wrestling moves on me, and gained sexual arousal, as he had planned, I’m sure. I did not like any of this; was shocked and unassertive. However, I never participated again. I had not had any sex education besides the fifth grade health film at school.

One night my sister had a friend overnight, so I slept in my brother’s room. He slept in the family room, separated by sliding glass doors. He came over several times to touch my breasts and bottom, even making comments. I was scared stiff, literally, wanting to escape, yet frozen. Finally I managed to say stop, when his hands reached my vaginal area. He left. Again I waited in suspense, and he did not return. My mind and emotions were buzzing. In the morning I acted as normal as I could. I don’t remember even thinking of telling my parents or sister. It was just too unbelievable and shameful.

A few weeks later, I told my girlfriend. I don’t remember her response, other than it was short. A month or so later, my girlfriend and I spent the night with another girl. My friend threatened to tell her the story if I didn’t. So I felt forced to tell it myself, to keep it short and quick. I felt I had been betrayed and that I had betrayed myself. I always felt like that betrayal affected my life more than the abuse itself. It cut me off from deeper friendships that could have allowed me to share inner thoughts and feelings, perhaps even the pain of my abuse. I decided women couldn’t be trusted, and only my husband would be worthy of that trust. I don’t remember thinking about it again and, in fact, treated my brother with love and respect.

In high school, I was more quiet and withdrawn, and sometimes sensitive to the point of tears, without knowing why. Since I could not share or even articulate my problem (I didn’t connect it to my brother), I couldn’t get help, and had some depression.

I went away to a small college, and decided it was my big chance to change. I was more outgoing and friendly, especially toward those I thought needed a friend. I had an easier time making friends with guys, and actually had some fun and happiness. I enjoyed these platonic friendships. I did date, but did not enjoy the kissing, and never allowed anything further. The dating relationships were short. I got depressed and restless, wondering what was wrong with me. I just couldn’t relate closely with girls, and felt different from them, left out but not wanting to be “like them” (foolish and too talkative). I was rigid about eating only healthy foods. When I strayed I would regurgitate, although I never binged. I avoided going home by volunteering at a mental hospital for the summer. I was very depressed, thought of asking for help, but did not.

My second year at college, I dated a guy my intuition told me to beware of. I was so “nice” I thought I should give him a chance. Outdoors on one date, he leaned against me and made me feel his erection. I believe I spaced out after that. I remember being naked on my bed, digital penetration, and his saying I was beautiful as he walked out the door. I don’t know what I did immediately afterward. I told no one. I saw him once more when he told me he was leaving campus for good. (He wasn’t a student.)

I told God I’d quit dating until I got help, but I didn’t know where to get help. Soon after, I met a guy who was different. He talked about God and didn’t make a lot of physical moves toward me. He seemed to really care about me. I knew he was the one I’d marry. I told him very brief accounts about my brother and the date incident, releasing some emotion. We had a lot of fun together. We married and were part of a close-knit home church. I still did not connect with women in a deep way. I was quiet, yet nice. I still felt something was wrong with me, and sometimes felt depressed. I never thought about the abuse. Our sex life was fine. I didn’t initiate, but could go along and even receive some pleasure.

At first I did not want children because I knew childhood as a time of pain and isolation; being in the midst of a family, yet unable to connect and share. Marriage created a desire for children, and I had no career to distract me. I thought I’d be better at parenting boys, since I didn’t feel very feminine and could not connect with girls.

Once I was pregnant, I only wanted a healthy baby. Perhaps God has a sense of humor. We have five girls and one boy. Maybe he wanted me to learn that girls are all innately different, some more “feminine” than others, yet all normal. We had a home birth with a midwife to help. I’d never felt so close to another human being. I was a natural at birthing and nursing. I was able to do what my mother had been unable to do for me. Mothering has been a nurturing experience for me and, therefore, a healing experience. I finally felt more connected, not only to my babies but also to a group of women called mothers.

Sexual abuse affected me as a mother. A side effect has been a desire to be in control or at least know what to expect of situations and people. So when I wanted children, I did a lot of reading and chose to give birth in my own home with my husband and a midwife. I like to raise my children following my own instincts. I nursed with baby-led weaning and natural family planning. I avoided the need for routine doctor visits by obtaining exemptions from immunization, which I also researched. I learned about natural remedies, nutrition, homeopathy, and herbs. I also did some home schooling. I really enjoyed the children as infants and toddlers, and missed being as close as they grew older.

Mothering adolescent girls was especially hard for me. I read some books to them about the physical and emotional changes of puberty. I did not add personal comments. I’d often think of things to share about love and sex and how wonderful it could be, but could never say them. I knew the right words but I feared my feelings would betray my ambivalence. I relied on church youth group leaders to cover it for me. I very briefly told them of my abuse after I wrote this account.

In general, I was a good mother, but I know I lacked some emotional dimensions and spontaneity. I also suffered from migraines, so the older girls learned to help care for the younger ones as needed. After my fifth child, the only boy, I was really run down and began the slow descent into a major depression (three years later). I could not relax, and he was fussy for a year. Initially, he lost weight, but slowly regained it. I was home-schooling two children, we were under financial strain, the oldest girl reached puberty, and I could tolerate sex less than ever. I was just doing what I had to do, but I was dying inside.

I met a loving couple, and she shared about her childhood sexual abuse. I obsessed and agonized about whether to tell my story for months. When I told it, they assured me that I needed to get help. With their love and support and that of my husband, and with no more babies needing me, I let myself get help from a Christian psychotherapist. This actually made life harder, as I had to deal with emerging emotions. I didn’t have much patience with my kids, or time. I was gone biking, walking, and to therapy. As therapy progressed, a lot of anger and pain came up, but I didn’t know how to express it. It was very hard to pull myself together and return to my responsibilities at home. I’d often cut myself to shut down the bad emotions and anxiety. There was too much to handle all at once.

I signed myself into a Christian mental hospital for 22 days. This was very hard for me to do. I had rarely left my children, and it was especially hard for some of them. Although they came to see me a few times, when they left it was “out of sight, out of mind.” I couldn’t bear to think of the pain of separation. I was still very depressed, in therapy, and on medication for the next year.

All of my children were neglected, at least emotionally, during this time. My last child was born in the midst of it all, but was probably not neglected as much, because I was good at and enjoyed meeting a baby’s needs. She was a ray of sunshine in the storm. At first she had considerable weight loss, probably due to my depression and stress. Mother’s Milk Herbal Tea solved the problem. I took about a six-month break from therapy after the birth, and then resumed it for about two years.

I’m not sure why therapy took so long for me. I was distracted with so many responsibilities. I had such a block in my emotions. I took so long to trust, to accept love and acceptance. I thought too much, intellectualizing myself out of feeling emotions. It’s hard for a nice, good girl to feel such bad emotions.

I also have a biochemical imbalance of the brain. I still take a low dose of medication. Now I feel pretty stable. My family sees a fuller range of emotions and hears more laughter. Laughter is the easiest way to gauge how I’m doing. When I get down about my failures as a mother, especially when they imitate my own childhood, I remind myself that I have improved on it. I do the best I can with what was given me, my motive is love, and I’m human. I hope my children will improve on what I’ve given them.

I have shared my story with two women who were also abused, and have formed the closest friendships I’ve ever had. The more I talk or journal, getting it out of my head, the more healing and proper perspective takes place. God’s word and scripture songs help replace my own negative thoughts. I hope to pass on God’s love and truth by co-leading a support group at my church and sharing one-on-one. Only by sharing the story with a loving and accepting person can the shame be lifted and love be felt. God can bring good out of evil, as we accept His healing love and extend it to other hurting people.

When I was two and one-half, my mother noticed vaginal bleeding and took me to our doctor. He wrote on my chart, “vaginal bleeding secondary to trauma.” I found this on my chart when my mom gave it to me as part of my health records. I asked her if she knew what had happened. She has a bad memory, and could offer no plausible explanation. I was in therapy at this time, and I shared this with my therapist, whose immediate gut reaction was that this was probably sexual trauma and explained what he had seen as “developmental problems originating at age 2-3, especially the issue of trust.”

I also asked my medical doctor what these words would mean to a doctor. He said quite definitely something was pushed with some force against the vagina, and today would have been reported as possible abuse.

This incident is frustrating to me. If it were sexual abuse, it certainly would explain my difficulty in therapy, especially with trust and sexual issues. I could say, “See, this is why I have such a hard time.” It would explain why I froze with my brother and spaced out with the date in college. I wasn’t weak and stupid, but previously traumatized, and “split off” for safety. Thankfully, I don’t have to know. I can still deal with symptoms, poor ways of relating, negative thoughts, and automatic reactions to certain stimuli.

Abuse effects how I relate to others with trust and vulnerability, and how I see myself. I can always look to Christ and loving friends, and risk relating in a new way. Healing comes through relationships, not new intellectual knowledge alone.

To learn more, order Survivor Moms: Women’s Stories of Birthing, Mothering and Healing after Sexual Abuse

Laura's Story

I was raised in a family of ten children, eight girls in the middle and brothers on each end. Many people have romantic notions about what it would be like to grow up in a large family, but our household was full of chaos. My mother suffered from depression, and was largely unavailable to us. Both of my parents were consumed with caring for my older sister, who was hospitalized for a large portion of her childhood and died at the age of 12 from cystic fibrosis. Often they would put my oldest teenage brother in charge of the rest of the children while they went to the hospital. He was resentful and angry about this responsibility and took his anger out on us, first by physically abusing us and later sexually abusing us. I did not know till I was older that 3 of my other sisters had also endured his abuse over the years. The abuse began around the time I was 5 and ended when he moved out of the house around the time I was 7. When I tried to tell my mother about the abuse, she said I was dreaming.

I am not sure I would have ever dealt with the emotional scars of my abuse had I not had children. I never would have expected the changes in me that occurred after the birth of my first child, a boy. His birth was difficult and long and I was extremely tense as soon as we arrived at the hospital. Though I liked the midwives who helped deliver him there, I did not feel as if I had any control over the birth process and it brought a lot of emotions to surface. Nursing my son was incredibly difficult and painful for me, and without much support at home, I gave up after a few weeks and began bottle-feeding. I still regret this lost opportunity to bond with my son. He became a very colicky baby and it seemed that I could not comfort him in any way, and because of my frustration and feelings of inadequacy, I pulled away emotionally. I slipped in to a deep depression that went undiagnosed for a year and a half, because I was too exhausted and overwhelmed to seek help. I reluctantly began therapy, and through the help of the therapist, was able to finally make some connections between my childhood and what I was experiencing as a young mother.

I continued therapy through the pregnancy and birth of my second child, a girl. The circumstances around her birth were very different, as I chose to have a homebirth with 2 incredible midwives, whom I spent many hours with in the months leading up to her birth. When I envisioned a water birth as the most soothing and peaceful way for me to give birth, they supported my instincts. Her birth was gentler and easier than my first, and I felt in control and supported during the whole process. Nursing my daughter was again very painful and difficult for me at first, but I had a lot of support this time around to help me stick with it. I ended up nursing her for 2 years and having no problems with depression after her birth.

When my third child, a girl, was born 3 years later, we had moved to a new city, and since a homebirth was not possible, I birthed at a local hospital. Though I prepared myself as best I could, my fear and anxiety returned with this birth and I had my longest labor yet. I nursed my daughter through the painful period, but weaned her after a year, when my depression became so severe that I needed to begin taking medication. I also began therapy again and in conjunction with the medication, I was able to make a lot of progress in dealing with the ongoing pain of my abuse. I had many dreams during this time that were incredibly insightful, and I also did a breath-work session, which I would highly recommend to other survivors. It allowed me to reach a part of myself that I never could through regular therapy.

I don't think that I could have anticipated the enormous changes that came about for me after the birth of my first child. But in retrospect, the journey would have been a much healthier one if I had been sure to surround myself with nurturing, familiar caregivers in a non-stressful environment during his birth. I also wish that I had been better prepared for the difficulties I would encounter through breastfeeding, perhaps by having a familiar support system set up beforehand, rather than talking to strangers about my difficulties when my frustration level was so high.

But most importantly, I believe it has been a strong faith that has carried me through these difficult years. Prayer and meditation give me calm and a sense of peace that I can find nowhere else. My belief in God has helped me see that in spite of what has happened, I can love and I can forgive and I can grow from my past experiences. As difficult as the journey has been, I am thankful that the pain has not been buried but has been freed, for it allows me to open myself up and be free as well.

To learn more, order Survivor Moms: Women’s Stories of Birthing, Mothering and Healing after Sexual Abuse

Kate's Story

“One or two things I know for sure; and one of them is what it means to have no loved version of your life but the one you make.” Dorothy Allison

The day I read the above quote was the day I decided that being a victim no longer had to be my primary identity. I was a survivor and I could embrace that. I may not be able to change my history, but I could write my future.

My life was one of fear and hate. My father was filled with the hatred of one who was wronged in life and would continue to perpetrate the chain of abuse. My mother was filled with the hatred of one who had no idea how to escape her situation or how to protect her children. She hated life and she was very afraid.

My first memory of my father was at the age of three. I was tied, bound around my wrists, to the bed my parents slept in. My mother wasn’t there. I remember the wood grain of their closet door as I tried to lose myself in the patterns of the wood. I remember my father standing next to the bed. I remember nothing else.

This was the pattern of my childhood. Later, when I was recovering in an incest survivor’s support group, I learned that I had disassociated. This survival technique served me well during my childhood, but robbed me of years of time.

When we moved year after year to different apartments as I grew up, my memories would differ depending on the room and floor plan of each apartment. When I had my own bedroom, I have full memories of my brother and mother, very few of my father. When the apartment space demanded that I sleep on the couch, I have far more memories of my father, along with a sense of dread and dis-ease. Often, few memories of my mother and no memories of my brother existed. It was as though I was putting far more energy into my father’s presence. Still, even in these situations when I have memories of my father, specific memories of nighttime elude me. I do not remember going to bed when I slept on the couches.

By far, the most disturbing memories evolve around a neighborhood in Cincinnati in the 1950’s called Mt. Auburn. I was five years old and attended kindergarten in the year of 1955. It was a racially mixed neighborhood and, except for my father, I was very happy there. My best friend was African-American. We held hands going to and from school. Her family was what I considered a real family; loving and caring. There was joy in their house. When I would get home from school (I would walk my friend home and them come home afterward . . . my father would have never allowed me to go into their home and I would have been beaten if he knew I stepped through their door), my father would say terrible things about her, simply because of her skin color. It was at that age that I decided that my father was wrong. I could sense his intense hatred and knew that my friend loved me and he could not, since me made me do terrible things at home and at the bar down the street.

It was called the Flatiron Bar. It was a funny building. Built on a corner, at the top of the hill, the front of the building was very narrow and, as the streets expanded on each side of the bar, so did the building that housed the bar. It looked like a flat iron. My father would walk me down the street at night to go to the bar with him. I would always have a dress on. I remember having to dance on the bar tops while the men watched and cheered. I would be given shot glasses of beer to drink. For many years, I never remembered getting down off the bar or ever going home. Later, in my adult years, I would remember lying down and the men’s faces being close to me; the stench of stale beer, and then blanking it all out. That year, my attendance in kindergarten was terrible. I missed two-thirds of the school year. I remember day after day of lying in my parents’ bed, with my mother there, trying to calm my upset stomach with glasses of ginger ale. I was still passed that year to the first grade and, thankfully, we moved.

The next three years were happier ones. The apartment we had provided me with my own bedroom. I could shut the door and escape into my own little world. I have few memories of my father during those years (except for occasional beatings with a wooden paddle), but well remember my mother and brother. I remember how my brother (10 years my senior) would practice his rock and roll on me. I was delighted to be his jitterbug partner and developed a life-long love of music and dancing. If my father was abusing me, the memories are totally buried still. I only remember the happiness. We then belonged to a Baptist church and I had friends there too, and have many fond memories.

The years following, however, are murky and vague and continued that way until I entered junior high. My father moved me to an all-white neighborhood in 1962, and we had the third floor of an old home. I have one clear memory of the two years I spent in that apartment. I would come home to an empty apartment because my mother had a job then. I would sit at the front window and look for her each day. I remember the feelings I had . . . a jumbled mix of terror and dread. I never felt like I could breathe in that place. I have no memory of my father and do not even remember where I slept. I only remember the living room and that window.

The last year of junior high and my high school years were spent in the home my parents finally bought. I had my own bedroom again and I believe this is the first time that the physical, sexual abuse ended. My memories of this home are complete. As my body began changing, so did the method of abuse my father used. He would continuously say inappropriate comments about my body and, simultaneously, insult my mother’s body in front of me. (My mother stopped speaking to me, for the most part, during these years. She must have been so hurt and felt so helpless.)

My father had a factory job that required he leave at 5:00 each morning. With my mother standing there, he would open my bedroom door and kiss me on the lips before he went to work. I would rarely fall back to sleep afterward, and bought a transistor radio. I would listen to the Detroit station, CKLW, which played all the popular music. I learned to love the Motown sound. Once again, music was the lifesaver I could grab when I couldn’t bear to think about what was happening. My father also subscribed to a filthy adult magazine that had multiple pictures of people performing various sex acts. My father would open to one of the pages in this magazine and leave it on the living room coffee table.

At 16 years of age, I turned a corner in my life. I felt that I couldn’t cope any longer. I was experiencing many body memories at that time. Of course, I had no idea what was happening. I just knew that I couldn’t stand being in my own skin. One hot summer night, my parents were visiting a neighbor across the street. I had a bottle of pain reliever pills and took all that was in the bottle (maybe a little over half full). (One of the other habits of my father was to not allow proper medical care for my mother and I, so I knew he wouldn’t do anything to help if I got very sick.) I remember taking the pills and can still see myself crawling into my bed that night. I was calm and prepared to not wake up again. Our home was small and, to get to the bathroom, I had to walk through their bedroom. The bathroom was part of their bedroom. Later that evening, as I began vomiting violently for hours, neither my mother nor my father asked me if I was okay. The next day, nothing was mentioned.

The next day I was drained and sick. But, for the first time, I found a will to live. I knew that if my parents did not care if I lived or died, then I had to. As I grew older, and had more freedom to be away from the house, I would be gone as often as possible spending time with my friends.

My father tried many manipulative tactics. He basically ruled through fear. He would tell me that, for example, if I made him angry, he could be killed in a car accident the next night and it would be my fault. Of course, he frightened my mother as well. Every night she stood at the front door, wrenching her hands, frightened he would not come home. He was her survival. She was not allowed to drive, handle her own money or speak her mind. She found the control to be her safety.

On night, shortly after my suicide attempt, my father was angry at me about something and, the evening afterwards, was late getting home from work. My mother was frantic, but admitted to me that he was going to be deliberately late to “teach me a lesson.” She insisted I go to my room, get on my knees and pray for his safety. I went into my room, got on my knees and prayed that he was killed on the highway and would never, ever step foot into that house again. If felt SO good. But, come home he did, drunk and disgusting.

About that time, as his drinking problem increased, he would either bring out his loaded gun, or at least threaten to kill my mother and I if he was angered. My mother would just sit quietly during these threats, as if she was just waiting her turn to die. I learned to be an expert arbitrator. Regardless of whether I was telling him the truth or lying, I was always able to defuse the situation. I have the negotiation skills of a SWAT team.

I married when I was barely 20. He was in college to become an engineer. As soon as he finished his degree at the University of Cincinnati, we moved out of the city. My children came and with them a fear that somehow, something would happen to them. The underlying tension I felt was endless and draining. I was as protective as a bear, and would watch them like a hawk. If I couldn’t find one of my daughters playing outside after a few minutes, the panic and terror would nearly overwhelm me.

Back home when we would visit our families, my father seemed turned-on to the fact that I was a married woman. As in high school, he continuously told crude, dirty jokes and the content and frequency worsened as I grew older. They were senselessly dirty. He never tried anything but, when I got pregnant, he would look at me in a way that would cause such terror in my body. I made the decision to not nurse my babies. Even though we lived five hours away, I didn’t want him to think of me in that way. I knew that when we visited them, I could never go to another room and nurse my children. I couldn’t bear him knowing.

The body memories worsened during pregnancy, and visited me frequently until I began extensive therapy at the age of 35. I didn’t understand them; I just knew that I felt dirty, like I was on fire, and couldn’t get away or breathe.

In 1983, my husband and I were at a Wednesday night church potluck dinner. The kitchen phone range and my friend, Ted, picked it up. It was my brother. My father had been ill with throat cancer (a combination of decades of alcohol abuse and cigarette smoking). My father had been on the telephone the hour before with his doctor. My mother was upstairs on the extension. As the doctor explained to my father that his cancer had spread to his brain and lungs, my father took his handgun, placed it to his temple and pulled the trigger.

As my brother told me the details over the church phone, I felt a weird calmness come over me. I hung up the phone and sat down next to my husband. He asked me what was the matter. The first words I said were, “I don’t have to be afraid any longer.”

Within the next two years, my marriage ended. I joined the work force after staying home for eight years caring for my daughters, and I began therapy. Between my therapist and my survivor’s support group, I retrieved some memories, but most importantly I created a life for myself. I stopped thinking that I was a victim who had to fear life, and found that I could make the choice to embrace the life I would make for myself.

March 9th of this year marked the 16th anniversary of my father’s death. It doesn’t feel like it was that long ago. Sometimes I still feel afraid and raw. It could be an old song I hear on the radio that triggers it, or someone who looks like my father that walks by on the street. The body memories are much less frequent now. I have the skills to handle them now, and they control me no longer.

I have learned to love myself. In learning to love myself, I give myself the nurturing and support that was not available when I was little. The version I’ve made of this life continues to evolve, and I feel certain that it’s going to unfold in a way where inner-peace is a primary focus. I’ve earned it.

To learn more, order Survivor Moms: Women’s Stories of Birthing, Mothering and Healing after Sexual Abuse

Liz's Story

Sometimes a wide plain, sometimes barely a trail, the path is ever changing and long. In places it has deep ruts that fill with water from the rains, elsewhere there is only twisting sand, under the intense beating sun. It can be almost impassable with thorny overgrowth or so steep and exposed that nothing can grow. But as I travel it, I learn to weather its challenges and recognize its patterns. And I try to always remember it is my path. It does lead somewhere. It goes on.

This path is mine. My path as a woman, a mother, and a survivor. I became a mother before I became a survivor. Although my abuse happened as a child, becoming a mother allowed me to embrace who I truly am and allowed me to look into the dark places. Each birth left me with an imprint of the sacred, and I had no choice but to be transformed.

Now it takes effort to remember what my life, and my path, looked like before having my children. It takes effort to remember that I used to avoid remembering. I used to stuff the memories down into any corner or crevice. I had a mile-long body with rows upon rows of caverns, locked tight. It was my way of coping, shutting in the dark, so only the light would show. I could go on being the person I wanted to be, the person everyone knew--happy, smart, successful, well-raised--a model life.

The Past

Not the person who I really was. That person would have to remember the spring and summer of 1980, when I was twelve years old. That person would have to recall the day my younger sister and I went over to play at our neighbor’s house. Playing in the basement. Her older brother’s bedroom was down in the basement too. The cool, older brother, dressed in army fatigues, with a hunting knife and a BB gun. The popular one who killed the frogs down by the stream and kicked his dog if enough people were watching. No firm memory of the sequence of events, only patches of events and feelings. Him being there, “we will play hide and seek now.” Always, it is my turn to seek. The others must hide. They run away, giggling, leaving me to count. Leaving me to suck. Him up against me, a large penis being pressed into my mouth. When will I get to hide? When will I get to run away? I will get to hide and run away for many years.

I remember being let into his “fort” in the yard. A clubhouse, an older teen-age hang out, a privilege. None of the younger kids were allowed in. But Liz was. How lucky. More blow jobs on a Saturday afternoon. He never reacted. He never came. A robot, just like me. My lips had never been kissed, yet they had been wrapped around a penis. I longed for a kiss.

In the woods, by the creek. Him against me. Smell of cigar. Grabbing on, hands thrust down my pants. With clenched jaws, I hung on and blocked out the searing pain. My head was cut off and put back on when it was over. Running home, afraid of being seen or smelled. A wounded animal with underpants filled with blood. Deflowered. Locked in the bathroom, cleaning, washing, purifying. Wadding my underpants and my shame into layers and layers of paper bags and stuffing them at the bottom of the garbage. The bottom of my soul.

The hunted survive through learning the ways of their hunters. “No, I don’t want to go outside right now.” Sensing, listening, always aware, I rendered his weapons (isolation, intimidation, strength, a penis) obsolete. He turned to humiliation. The teasing began. The cool, older crowd heard his stories. “You begged him for it. Little slut. Little slut.” Shame. Shame. I swallowed the shame. I told no one the truth. Too afraid, too confused. To preserve my dignity, and myself, I split in two. Liz and the sexual Liz. The sexual Liz became the bad one, so the rest of me could stay intact.

This is how I went through my teenage years and early twenties. As half of myself. Demi-being. My relationships, of course, suffered. No one ever knew me. With men, I was curiously flirty and fun in public where I felt safe, but frigid and in control in private, determined to protect myself from abuse and its shadow of humiliation. I had learned that if love does not accompany sexual feelings, only dirty, disgusting acts and pain result. Therefore, masturbation, having sex with people you do not love, and sex for sex’s sake was wrong. By never performing these acts, I salvaged a scrap of self-respect. Read my mind: Even though I used to be a slut, I am not dirty anymore because I now only have sex with people I love, in committed relationships. I don’t let them touch my boobs until we have been seeing each other for at least four months, and don’t let them touch below that for two months after that . . . I chose only “safe” men; men I had been friends with for a long time, men who were gentle, kind, and those who did not challenge me. Men who were virgins. I could have made worse choices.

With women, I felt no solidarity, a mirror for my inability to connect with my own femaleness. I was disgusted with/afraid of the female aspects of myself, and paradoxically, was always jealous of women who seemed to have these aspects perfected--those that I deemed flirty, pretty, and sexy. Competitive by nature, I was determined to perfect these aspects in myself as well, even if it was all an act. I remained a frozen bud; a sense of sisterhood would not blossom until much later.

Marriage

In my mid-twenties I married. A gentle, loving man, who was, as fate would have it, comfortable with his sexuality and its expression. What a challenge for me. Even so, I believed that on our wedding night, all my baggage about sex would miraculously disappear. It took six months for sex to become THE issue in our otherwise seamless relationship. I felt no power or control in sex with David despite controlling every aspect of our sexual relationship: what we did, when we did it, how we did it. I considered my sexuality as the sum of my body parts--crotch and boobs mostly--and felt that this is what David wanted to have sex with, not me.

So I set out to fix myself. With my motto “there’s nothing that can’t be accomplished through thorough research,” I read a multitude of books about sexuality, adult massage, tantric sex, and being your own sex therapist. In my head, I gained many new insights and ideas, but in my body, nothing changed. I couldn’t make the connection. I couldn’t go about healing in the same way I went about graduate school. It was quite a shock.

Birth of Eric

During the second year of our marriage, I became pregnant. My gynecologist had told us that it might take a year or two to become pregnant due to my erratic and infrequent ovulation, but it took only three weeks. We were thrilled, surprised, and a little overwhelmed. David and I were still dancing awkwardly (and I, reluctantly) the salsa of our sexual relationship, and we worried that having a baby would turn the music off completely. Lose the CD. Sell the CD player. Fire the DJ.

I applied my ever-strong research skills to pregnancy and birth and deciphering the myriad of ways to approach them. I found many studies pointing to the safety of homebirth with midwives for low-risk women. My need for controlling what happened to my body led me naturally to midwives, as did my experience overseas working with a rural African midwife.

As I progressed through my pregnancy, I marveled at how my body was changing. I read everything possible on fetal development, ate well, kept in shape, and generally, felt great. I did have a raging yeast infection for the last six months but loved the fact that it meant I was exempt from having sex. When the day of birth came, David and I were excited and felt prepared. I turned inward to deal with the pain, as I was accustomed to doing, but was aware of David and needed him by my side, literally, for the entire process.

I pushed myself through the birth of my first child through sheer power of will. I was determined to have a “good and natural” birth (read: a “perfect” birth), yet was unable to open up to the pain, to the experience of it. I associated pain with my genitals and knew how to deal with it: block it out. I pushed for two hours with out uttering a cry, only low moans could escape. I could only choke on the hoops, hollers, and screams of joy and agony that I wanted to utter. Despite my midwife’s encouragement to open my throat and voice, so my vagina would follow, I could not. I could only swallow.

Despite this difficulty, my Eric came wailing out of me all at once after a particularly strong push. Bright pink with bright red lips longing to suck. The feelings of relief and wonder were equally immense. I felt the presence of the sacred for the first time in my life. Giving birth gave me the first positive, blessed connection with my own sexuality. My genitals had held only shame for me before; I never owned them, never loved them. Now look what had come out of them! Sex could not be all bad if this beautiful child was the result. I also experienced the strength and power of my beautiful, female body, because everyone trusted it that day. Everyone trusted me and my body to bring this baby here. With the help of some wise and gentle hands, I too began to trust myself. To trust, and therefore respect, my body.

Breastfeeding went smoothly with Eric. I was absolutely determined to breastfeed for as long as he was willing (16 months) and did so whenever and wherever he was hungry. In public places, I did not ask people for permission or go hunker down in a corner. If people felt embarrassed because they stared and got a wee glimpse of skin, good for them. It would loosen them up a bit, as I was becoming loosened up. I tried to be discreet, but I was not going to be ashamed.

Therapy

But I was afraid. I was afraid of cutting this beautiful child off from his sexuality, as I was still alienated from mine, and afraid of the growing sexual isolation from David. Filled with courage and power from the birth, I went into psychotherapy. This was a major hurdle as I come from a family of teachers, social workers, and psychologists. (We help others; we can’t possibly need help ourselves.)

Entering therapy was like entering a new world for me. I realized I wasn’t crazy--that the things I felt and did, my “coping techniques” were normal. I began the long process of turning myself as victim into myself as survivor. And being proud of it. David was steadfastly by my side. Encouraged by his reception, I slowly gained the courage to tell a few close female friends my story. I showed them my dark side, and they didn’t turn away. This brought warm, welcome light into my cold dark caverns of shame and self-loathing. I began to feel known and whole. To realize just how many women felt devalued and shamed, by men and by greater societal beliefs and values, and that we were together, fighting on the same side.

Through visualization exercises in therapy, I became aware of a coarse rope around my neck, inhibiting access to my voice. This made it difficult for me to cry, to become angry, to voice any scary feelings, to make sounds. I had to regain my voice. I began group therapy in a women’s “circle of sound” for survivors. A combination of music and voice therapy, I grew more in this setting than anywhere else. Not only did I see my experience reflected back to me in the lives of the other women again and again, but also I was challenged by the experiential aspects of the group, its intuition-led, let-come-out-what-comes-out structure. There was no goal, only to be where you were, to feel what came up, and to trust that it would be all right. The non-judgment the women showed me will forever serve as a model for how to be in relationship. David and my relationship, as well as my other friendships grew immensely during this time.

Birth of Will

I was in the midst of this therapy when I became pregnant with my second child. At first I considered stopping therapy, as I did not want to expose my yet-to-be-born child to the dark places we entered during our sessions. I was afraid of what he would hear and feel in utero. After much internal debate, I realized that the personal growth I was doing, the growth of this child’s mother, would more than make up for any damage done. I chose different midwives for this birth. As I was filling out the required forms I checked the box marked “yes” for the question “Have you ever been physically, emotionally, or sexually abused?” for the first time in my life. A warrior wears her battle scars with pride.

Will’s birth was different for many reasons; he was my second child, he was smaller than Eric, he was born into water. He was born to a woman who could make noise! I moaned and groaned and felt so open during the labor and birth. Much of this openness I attribute to therapy and to my midwives who allowed me to create the setting, energy, and space I needed to bring my child into the world. And to David who was right there in the pool with me, my quiet pillar of support. I felt again the gratitude that something so precious could come out of a place I had loathed for so long.

Having two children was a transition, especially for Eric (he was almost three). I breastfed Will for a year and made sure Eric got enough hugs and other physical time with me. Now, with the boys at almost six and three, we are in a groove, the four of us, together.

Being A Mom

Being a survivor has affected how I mother. In good and bad ways. On the positive side, I am determined that my sons not be cut off from their sexuality. I want them to see it as beautiful and special. For me, that means not overtly or covertly expressing things that would make them ashamed about their bodies; pooping, peeing, masturbating, or being naked. Also, I want them to be comfortable with all their emotions. I don’t tell them that “boys don’t cry” or that feeling angry is wrong.

Do I mother in ways of which I am less proud? Oh, yes. Though I encourage the expression of emotions, I overreact when my sons are aggressive towards others. My reaction can be out of proportion to a petite offense. I want them to know it is never O.K. to hurt people. Yet I am also afraid they will be hurt by people. Suspicious of strangers, care providers, older boys, well, really anyone male that I don’t know, I can be overprotective. I only want them to have sweet, joyful play with kind, safe people. This, of course, is every mother’s wish for her children and also ridiculous. It exemplifies the fine balance that mothering must accomplish; protecting one’s children from the truly damaging experiences of life, while still allowing them some struggles so they develop the skills with which to cope with adversity. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. But how is a mother to know?

Being A Woman

As for my life outside of kids (threadbare, but existent), my path of healing has continued. I do energy work. I take dance classes that move me through my chakra centers and keep the energy flowing through the places that shut down easily. Dance helps me remember that I can move my body however I want to and that it is beautiful and my right. The sexual relationship between David and me continues to be our biggest struggle. I must remain conscious and vigilant of my sexuality. But we have learned slowly to stop trying to fix me and instead grow as “us.”

My experience as a survivor has also helped to shape my professional life. I worked for years at Planned Parenthood to support women in their choices about their bodies and sexual lives. In public health graduate school, I studied women, social power and support, culture, and birth. I worked with inner city, community-based organizations to increase the choices that women had in birth. Through these experiences I was reminded of what I knew well in my own heart: the best way to help women is to listen to women.

Now my interests have led me to examine birth and women’s lives in other cultures. With the global dominance of Western ideology, practices surrounding birth can often be a last vestige of a traditional culture. In fact, healthy traditional practices and rituals surrounding birth can be a sign of a culture’s very survival. And so I ponder: if we brought this idea down to an individual level, to what degree are we destroying a woman by not letting her determine where she wants to give birth, with whom, and how? I believe having a voice can mean a woman’s very survival: of her spirit, her will, and her identity. I believe that for a woman who has been marginalized, either through race, socioeconomic status, or past history, having choice in birth is especially critical. It can plant the seeds of trust in her intuition, her knowledge of her body and of how to mother.

Sometimes a wide plain, sometimes barely a trail, the path is ever changing and long. My path of suffering, survival, and healing. Out of this suffering comes compassion; compassion for others who are suffering. I can love them because I am not afraid of them. I am not afraid of them because I am not afraid of myself. I am a warrior and will wear my scars with pride.

To learn more, order Survivor Moms: Women’s Stories of Birthing, Mothering and Healing after Sexual Abuse

Lynelle’s Story

I had an extremely typical American pregnancy, you know the type: OB care from the start, all the necessary tests, and hospital-based childbirth educator. I had read every mainstream book I could get. After all my preparation, I was delivered of my 9lb, 6oz son in 1993 via cesarean section. A failed Pitocin induction because I was “big” added to the premature artificial rupture of membranes, leaving me with no other choice than to agree with my doctor that I couldn’t deliver vaginally.

I remember during the prepping for the c-section I felt very panicked. I had once seen a movie in college about a woman who was undergoing hypnosis and re-living a botched c-section where the sedative had worked so she was asleep but the anesthetic had not worked and so she felt everything. It was horrible, she was screaming and crying as they cut into her flesh, her body memories amazingly strong as she recounted that experience. I was terrified I too was going to be able to feel the surgery, even though I had a very strong epidural in place. The hospital staff seemed more annoyed at my panic and told me to “calm down and quit crying”. In an effort to appease me they re-dosed the epidural, which only served to completely over-anesthetize me. I couldn’t feel anything, not my face, arms, legs…nothing. I couldn’t even be sure I was still breathing. None of this helped to calm me down and my arms were tied to the table in a crucification pose to keep my numb arms from falling off the operating table. As I cried and begged them to wait just a minute before they started so I could calm down, my doctor made the first cut. I have a vague memory of praying to God to keep me safe and get me through this, and thoughts of my baby were nonexistant.

When my son, Ian, was removed the doctor popped him over the sterile drape so I could see him. After he was cleaned up he was given to my husband, Dave, who brought him over to me. Since my arms were tied down I asked my husband to rub my son’s cheek against mine. I smelled him, sniffing like some primal animal, it being the only way I could relate to my baby since I couldn’t move.

I don’t remember much after the surgery, I was very ill from being over-medicated. I do remember there being a room full of people, family and friends, all coo-ing over Ian in the corner. I was jealous. I was the one who was just cut open damnit –why wasn’t anyone paying attention to me!!

It was a bad start to parenting to be sure. The next few days and weeks were awful. I didn’t feel bonded to Ian at all. I didn’t know what to do when he cried; I didn’t know why he cried so much. I didn’t know why I cried so much. Dave took 1 day off work after the c-section and left me alone with this infant and postoperative pain. I felt so sorry for myself. I began fantasizing ways to hurt myself. Not kill myself, just wound myself enough so I’d have to be admitted to the hospital and no one would expect me to care for an infant and I could get some sleep. I also envisioned hurting Ian – throwing him against the wall in desperation for peace and quiet. Please God, just 5 minutes of sleep. Thankfully I did neither of those. My pitiful cries for help went largely unheard. Dave was never home, he worked all the time and when he was home he was mad that the house was a mess, dinner was not cooked and why was everyone crying?

Finally, a neighbor who had a c-section 10 weeks earlier called to see how I was. I burst into tears and she promptly came over. She forced me to go to a new-moms group at the hospital. It was a good start. A room full of women who were just as screwed up as me. So I’m not the only one who doesn’t know the first thing about parenting? The group leader recognized my signs of major post partum depression and had me stay after class for a one-on-one chat. Knowing that I may have a real illness made me feel better, since I thought I was just an awful person. The next day she called me at home and invited me to meet her at the hospital to meet with a lactation consultant. I wasn’t having breastfeeding problems other than normal engorgement but she saw what I couldn’t.

At that meeting the 3 of us decided that given my mental and physical states, what I really needed was some food and rest. I didn’t have the energy (or care to) pump breastmilk for Ian so I switched to formula. Dave’s mom, sister and aunt came to the rescue after that day. I still wonder if the nurse called one of them and told them how very serious my problems were. We had a schedule where either Dave’s mom or sister came over every day at 5pm and took Ian away until 10pm. During those precious 5 hours I could eat or sleep or do nothing at all. On Friday afternoon, Dave’s aunt would come get Ian and take him for the whole weekend, returning late Sunday afternoon. Dave never seemed to care that other people were raising our child. I watched the clock like someone waiting for a fix. I would tell myself “ If I can just keep it together until 5pm…I only have to survive until 5pm….”

I didn’t care about who had Ian as long as he was gone so I could be alone. It took about 4 months for me to be “ok” with Ian. I regularly attended the new moms’ group and had private chat-sessions with the leader. Things slowly got better. When Ian was 6 months old I discovered I was pregnant again.

About 6 months into the new pregnancy I heard about doulas. They sounded interesting so I checked it out. I decided I wanted to be a doula and during my eighth month of pregnancy I enrolled in the Seattle Midwifery School’s doula training program. Talk about an eye opener!! In a few short classes I had a whole new perspective on childbirth, breastfeeding and parenting. I developed an intense desire for a VBAC and knew I would breastfeed this new babe.

At one point in the class we were to watch a c-section video. I thought it would be interesting to see what had been done to me. Wrong!! Within the first minute of the video I began to hyperventilate and cry and had to run out of the room before I threw up publicly. Penny Simkin (an angel from God for sure) was teaching the class and followed me into the bathroom. I was curled up in the corner, on the floor like a frightened animal. She kneeled down and just smiled at me. I whispered that I didn’t want to go through that again, meaning a c-section. She reached out a hand and said, “Then don’t”.

I finished my training and the next day met with Penny for a private counseling session. One of the first questions she asked was if had I ever been sexually assaulted or abused. A few hazy memories leaped into mind, which I promptly tucked away where they had been for years and told her no, of course not. We chatted for a while and she gave me the name of an OB who was very pro-VBAC. I met with her and at 37 weeks pregnant switched doctors.

6 days past my due date labor began. This labor was very long and drawn out. I labored hard, all day long with the help of my mother-in-law who was very supportive of VBAC. Sidenote: Dave had fought with me about the dangers, he wanted another c-section; he didn’t want to see a baby come out of my vagina. After about 19 hours of hard, long strong contractions I was only at 1cm. My doulas were with me (I had hired 2, against Dave’s wishes: I was beginning to find my fire) and after I began begging for pain medication they advocated for me to get an epidural even though I was only 1cm. About 2 hours after the epidural I felt the urge to push. Anna was born, vaginally, in September 1994.

I immediately breastfed her and bonded like I had not known with Ian. I felt strong and proud and was ready to parent. I had a support system to help me if I began the downward spiral into postpartum depression again (which I didn’t). A few days after Anna’s first birthday I told Dave I was leaving him. His response was “no kidding”.

I began therapy because of depression around what I thought was the divorce. I saw a cranial-sacral chiropractor (Peter) and a hypnotherapist (Nancy) simultaneously. We began to explore experiences I had locked tightly away. In their gentle hands I allowed myself to relive a rape I had suffered when I was 15, my first sexual experience. I was at a party, drinking, and woke to find myself in bed, being raped by a young man who was at the party. I remembered that it had felt much like the c-section. I was so drunk it was like my brain was functioning but not my body. I was crying out “STOP STOP” but no sounds came from my mouth; no one was listening. I tried to move but my limbs didn’t work. The realization of the similarity of the two events was a turning point for me. Using hypnotherapy, I relived the rape, stopping it in my mind and reframing it. I fought off the boy and told authorities. The pain and shame and anger were diffused; it didn’t hurt so much any more. I used the same technique to re-do (my therapist and I call them “do-overs”) Ian’s c-section. I replayed the memory but this time the c-section was calm and quiet and lovely. I bonded to him and we were in love. It was a catalyst for change in my parenting and in my outlook.

Further down the road, Nancy and I worked on letting go of the shame I held from being molested by an uncle when I was a very small child. I realized I had been mad at my dad for not protecting me. He had known that my uncle was a pervert, yet he allowed me to be alone with him. This was especially difficult for me to let go of because I loved my father dearly and he was killed when I was 15. How could I be mad at my dad? He was dead for God’ sake; I had martyred him in my mind and allowed no room for human error. In hypnosis, I spoke with my dad and told him about what had happened and how I was mad at him about it. He apologized and I forgave him. We sat by a stream and talked. I devised little angel/demon people to take care of my uncle. I still saw him at family functions and confrontation was not an option for me. Now when I see him I also see these little angel/demon people sitting on his shoulders and flying around. It reminds me of how he’ll get his punishment – someone did see what he did-someone he’ll have to answer to someday.

The c-section reminded me of that molestation because I held Dave responsible for protecting me and he didn’t. Much like I held my dad responsible for protection and he failed me too.

All in all I spent about 2 years in intensive therapy. A lot of it was to resolve and let go of the c-section, the rape and the molestation. But I also learned patience and forgiveness. I became my own best advocate. I became my children’s best defender and biggest fan. I became a mother. Now don’t get me wrong, those were the hardest, most painful years of my life. I would NOT want to do that over again. I cried so many tears.

I created a guardian angel out of those hypnosis sessions. She’s still with me today. A big, strong Amazon woman who can beat the crap out of anyone and doesn’t take shit. She’s kind of like Xena, from the TV show (which I LOVE.) When I feel small or frightened or overwhelmed she pops up, carrying her sword and stomping around the room. I get strength from her; we’re good friends her and I.

Now I’m a new person. People who knew me years ago are astounded at the person I’ve become. I work in maternal child health as a birth doula and lactation consultant. I regularly pick fights with the medical establishment to test my resolve. I don’t let people push me around and I speak my mind regularly, much to the dismay of a few of my more timid family members and friends. I’m a bit of a bitch!

Oh yes, and Anna breastfed until she was 5 and a half years old and is the feistiest girl-child I know. Ian has the heart of an angel; always concerned for the well being of others. He tempers Anna and me when we get a bit shortsighted. We’re a great family!!

To learn more, order Survivor Moms: Women’s Stories of Birthing, Mothering and Healing after Sexual Abuse

Amy's Story

I don’t really remember a time when abuse wasn’t a part of my life. From the time I was born, my real father was abusive to my brother and I and our mother. He physically abused us, and I imagine he was emotionally as well as physically abusive to my mother.

About a year after they divorced, when I was six, my mother married Fred, and that’s when I entered hell. He was extraordinarily controlling about everything down to the way that we closed doors, and raked the yard, to how much toilet paper we used and how often we took showers. Breaking the rules brought punishment that might be as small as being grounded for a few days all the way to a beating with the belt. Beatings were carried out in the bathroom, with our pants around our ankles, and our hands on the bottom of our claw foot tub, as he beat us with his belt on our legs, butts and backs. My mother would go to their room, close the door and turn up the stereo so she wouldn’t have to hear us crying. She would run away, and leave us to him. A pattern she would repeat for many years to come.

As we grew older, he became more and more controlling. He would check to make sure the garbage was filled to just the exact fullness when we emptied it, and if it wasn’t, we were punished. He would buy dozens of boxes of cereal at a time when they were on sale, and store them in the basement, where they would invariably draw bugs. But that was ok, we could still eat it, just pick the bugs out before putting it in our mouths. I still won’t eat Cheerios.

This environment made it very easy for him to begin molesting me. I think his feelings of power and control made him feel as though he could do no wrong. He never threatened me with violence, or told me not to tell. He didn’t have to; I didn’t believe I could tell. Who would care?

I was nine when he began letting me take more frequent showers, but there was a catch. They had to be with him. We were a very open family, and often walked around nude, so this wasn’t that unusual. My mom joined a bowling league around this time that met every Tuesday night, and she wasn’t home until after I was in bed. He couldn’t have had a better opening. The sexual abuse progressed from simple back rubs and showers to him fondling me and masturbating in front of me. He never penetrated me, I think that was somehow going too far in his sick mind, but he did just about everything else.

I have something in me that helped me during that time, and that helped me to finally confront him. I remember very vividly how that confrontation took place, too. I had done something that had earned me a beating, and I became furious. I was about twelve, and had started to realize that what he was doing was very wrong, not just the stuff he was doing to me, but the beatings and the control issues also. When he grabbed my arm to drag me into the bathroom, I pulled away and grabbed a Time magazine off the table that I had read earlier. On the cover was a little girl holding a picture of a scary monster with big hands and teeth, all done in black with the words “Daddy” printed in a child’s hand on the front. I threw it at my mother and screamed,

“This is what he’s doing to me!”

“No he’s not”, she said. “This is totally different.”

I looked her dead in the eye and said, “No, that IS what he is doing to me, and has been for a long time.”

Well, she of course became very upset, and asked him, and he couldn’t say much, but his inability to deny it told her what she needed to know. She went into a rage and started to beat on him with her fists, yelling, “How could you?” the whole time.

Then she sat me down, and broke my heart and my spirit in one fell swoop. She told me that we could tell the police, but that that would mean Mark, my little brother, would be taken from us and we would never see him again. And that we would have no place to live, and would have to live on the street and go on welfare. And who knows, Will and I maybe taken away, too. And if the police thought that my mom knew, she would go to jail along with Fred. And then she said it.

“He did it to you, you decide. Should I leave him or should we just stay and pretend it never happened?”

I was twelve, and my mother forced me to make a decision that no adult should ever have to make. She betrayed me so badly that she might as well have been in the room as he fondled and violated me. I realized then that I was all alone. Totally, completely alone. No one cared enough, I wasn’t worth enough, for anyone to bother with me. I was an afterthought that was to be used when needed and then discarded. A part of me died that day, and I’d like to think I have resurrected it, but I just don’t know.

I became a model child. I did what I was told, I smiled and laughed at school and at home, I never did anything outstanding, or incredible. I just survived. And I slept with everyone. I had 8 partners by the time I was 15 years old. I contracted chlamydia from a one-night stand with a college kid who thought I was 18. I thought that sex was a way to be loved, and if I had sex with them, they must love me, right?

I had nightmares about running and running through a dark place with horrible monsters that looked like the drawing from that Time magazine. I flinched if Fred came near me. The sexual abuse stopped, and he was hesitant to even beat me, but he became ever more controlling and still found ways to refer to me as a sexual partner. He walked in on me one day when I was 14 and changing a tampon, and stood there and watched. He told me it was ok, he understood because he had taken them out of my mother before so that he could put something else in. And the showers continued. Often, it was the only way I had to take a shower, but he didn’t touch me. He would, however, masturbate in front of me.

Those years were hell. I had no childhood; I went from being nine to being 30. I often thought of suicide, but I realized that he would really win then, and that I would beat him, one way or another. And the betrayal by my mother hurt more and more every year. She was so weak, and so incapable of standing up for herself or her children. I was determined that I would not be my mother, and I think that stubbornness helped me to survive.

When I was sixteen, at Christmas time, I began to date the boy who would become the wonderful man that is now my husband. I had a reputation around school as being easy, but he dated me anyway. He was handsome and strong and sensitive, so unlike any of the boys I had been with. He actually wanted to talk to me, not just sleep with me. I think I began to heal with every passing day we were together.

After we had dated for a few months, I told him what had been happening at home. He was so angry; he wanted to hurt Fred, to just do anything to get back at him for what he had done. I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe that I was important enough for someone to want to protect me, and that someone cared about me enough and loved me enough to be so angry. I look back now and realize how horrible it would have been if Ray had done anything, but it was a turning point for me.

The following fall, Ray was leaving for the Navy, but we knew that we were going to be married someday, and we promised to wait for each other. And we did. He came home at Christmas, and gave me a ring.

My senior year, I finally told someone in authority what had happened. I had been put into a Pre-calc class that was a little too hard for me, and I wasn’t doing well. When I learned that I was going to get a D in the class, I went to the counselor in hysterics, and told her everything. When I was done, she brought in the school psychologist to talk to me. I cried so hard as she told me that none of it was my fault, that my mother was an awful person for not helping me, and that Fred was an evil man to have harmed me in such a way. I couldn’t believe that they were being so nice to me, and that they knew it wasn’t my fault. It was also a great relief to hear that my mother was an awful person, and that I could be angry with her, and hate her as much as I hated Fred. Someone listened, someone believed and someone helped me for the first time in my life.

They contacted the police and a child psychologist. The police said that I wasn’t in any danger now, so they would not pursue the matter, let alone press charges. That still bothers me to this day. I was well within my rights to press charges, but I was only eighteen, I didn’t know that then. And all they had was my word.
The psychologist was a little more helpful, thank heavens. I saw her for about three months after school without my mom knowing. They thought I was at work, and never questioned it.

They did eventually find out when I confronted my mom and Fred a few months later. My mother and I had been arguing, when it escalated and Fred intervened and started to hit me, that was it, I wasn’t doing this anymore. I turned around, pushed him away, and said very quietly,

“If you ever touch me again I will be at the police station faster then you can say your own name.”

He went white as a ghost and stepped back as if I had burned him. I told him to leave and he did. I packed clothes for work, and left without saying anything to either of them. I take a lot of sick joy in hoping that they sweated it out thinking that I was at the police station. Instead, I went to my future in-laws house and told them what had happened. They had had their suspicions about my home life, but now they knew for sure. I asked to stay there for a few days, and they asked if I would stay until the wedding.

I confronted them again after work about the abuse. Fred said,

“I don’t understand what all the fuss is about, I thought this was all done and forgotten about.”

The jerk. He really thought that it was nothing. He never really thought he had done anything wrong.

My mother was a little more sympathetic. She again went over why we needed to keep it our secret, and just forget about it. That’s when I quietly informed them that I had told the school and had been seeing a psychologist for the past few months. Of course my mother panicked, and wanted to know what had happened. I told her not to worry, she was going to be just fine, and told her what had been said. I then told Fred that he was to stay away from me for the rest of the time that I lived under that roof. He wasn’t to talk to me, touch me, look at me if at all possible, and if he did, I would be going to the police.

I knew that I wouldn’t stay with my in-laws until the wedding. I still had the need pounded into my skull that we needed to keep the abuse quiet. What would everyone think? What would we tell them when I wasn’t living there anymore? It would take many more years of therapy to erase all the brain washing they did, and I was far from that at 18.

We were married in July of 1989. It was and still is one of my happiest memories. I was free, and I was with someone who loved me. I won’t lie and say that my getting out of the house wasn’t one of the reasons we were married 3 weeks after my high school graduation, because it was. I was more than willing to just move in with Ray, but my mother wanted to pay for the wedding, and not have the disgrace of us just living together, so why not?

It was great being married, but something was still wrong. I realize now that I was in a very deep depression, and even wonder if I was dealing with some post- traumatic stress. Ray was wonderful during this time, as he always has been, without fail.

I finally made a good friend, Maxine, a year after we moved to New York whose husband worked with Ray. We quickly became inseparable, and we began to tell each other everything. She was also abused as a child and teen. She became my angel. I again started to see a psychologist, and even though it didn’t last very long, it was a big step. Maxine has been my counselor for many years as she has given me her love and support. She showed me that everything I was going through was ok, it would pass.

An incident in the second year of our marriage made me realize that I could overcome this, and that I had what it took to never let anything like that happen again. Ray and I were arguing and it became pretty heated. We didn’t fight often, and when we did, we rarely would become nasty with each other, but this was one of the worst arguments that we had had since we were married. So we were yelling and hollering, and he raised his hand to me. And it just hung there, above my head; time stopped and did a quick rewind. And it wasn’t Ray anymore, it was my father, and it was Fred and it was all the boys in school who had slept with me, and then made crude jokes about me. I stepped forward and put my face inches from his. Then told him,
“Touch me and I’m gone, and you will never see me again.”

It was as if time stopped for him, too. He looked at his hand as if he didn’t know how it got there, and then he just crumbled. He has apologized for that day a dozen times through the years. I don’t know if he would’ve hit me if I hadn’t said anything. I would like to think that he wouldn’t have, because he has never raised a hand to me again. Which is a good thing, because I would be gone. I will not be my mother; I will not let anyone treat me that way ever again. Or my children.

That was the day I realized I was strong. I was strong, and fierce, and I was not a victim. I was a survivor, and I knew that I would get through anything else that came at me. And I have.

In our third year of marriage, Ray had to go to San Diego with the Navy for an entire year, and I was alone for the first time in my life. I found myself doing a lot of soul searching that year. I confronted my mother again, and tried to impress on her the damage that had been done to my life, and how I was still struggling to get through it all. I don’t think she grasped it then, and I don’t think she ever will. I tried to make sense of my life and all the anger and hatred I had inside of me. I also became very independent, and started to comprehend how submissive I had been the first few years of our marriage. I realized that I had always deferred to Ray, and had felt that if I didn’t, he wouldn’t love me anymore. So many things tied back to what had happened, I was just beginning to realize how much I was letting my past control my life.

It was very hard when he came home after that year. We were almost separated at one point, and we weren’t sure we would make it through. My independence was a new thing for Ray, and it took us both a long time to adjust to our new relationship. It was worth it though, and we are both happier with the new me.

It was just a few months after he came home that I realized I needed to talk with someone about my anger, and the feelings I was having about my mom. I called the local rape help line, not knowing what I really wanted, but hoping that that was a start. It ended up that I had contacted our local chapter of Contact USA. They are a wonderful non-profit organization that centers around a telephone helpline for the community. They also have AMAC (Adults Molested As Children) and rape survivor support groups. What a gold mine! I attended the meetings for about 6 months or so, and saw an individual counselor occasionally. I realized that I didn’t have to forgive anyone for what was done to me. It was ok to feel angry towards my mother for not protecting me, and for being so weak. It was ok to be angry and outraged at what Fred had done to me, and for stealing my innocence and my childhood. It was as if a weight was lifted from my shoulders. And I realized that once I allowed myself to be angry, to be horrified, to hate them both, it all stopped. I wasn’t angry any longer, and I didn’t hate them anymore.

I will always be horrified at what was perpetrated upon my body and my mind, and I will never forgive them for allowing it all to happen. Because to forgive them is excusing what they did, it’s letting them off the hook, and not holding them responsible for their actions. Forgiveness is for the perpetrator, it doesn’t benefit the survivor. Think about it. What am I telling you if I forgive you? I’m telling you that I am forgiving you of your sins upon me, I am giving you absolution. I can’t do that. Only God can do that. I am not a religious person by any stretch of the imagination, but I do believe that we will have to answer in one way or another for the things, good or bad, that we have done. I will not give absolution for these horrible acts, and the inaction of my mother. I will not because I am a survivor, and to forgive is to excuse, and that is not an option. I will move on, and that will be a part of my past, but I do not have to forgive.
After coming to this incredible revelation during my group sessions, I realized that I wanted to give back some of the help that was given me. I left the group, and began volunteering on the phone lines. I then went through training to also help with the rape crisis counseling that Contact does. I went to the hospitals several times to console and talk with rape survivors as they went through the horrible ordeal of the rape evidence collection kit. I also talked with husbands, boyfriends and parents of these women and gave them information on what they could expect to happen next with the legal system, and with their loved one’s reactions.

This was an empowering time for me. I was making my life, and all that I had gone through mean something, and I was making a difference. I lived and breathed the abuse for days, weeks, and months on end. I examined it, dissected it, and held it up in front of myself like a badge of honor. I am a SURVIVOR. I am strong. I am healthy. And I will never allow myself or mine to be hurt.

This lasted for about a year, until I realized that I was defining my life by my abuse and my status as a survivor. This was a step that I needed to get through and that I feel was essential for my healing. But after awhile, I realized I needed to make a life for myself, a life that was removed from my childhood. I needed to put it where it belonged, in the past. I left Contact, and I cut ties to the people around me that I felt were having a hard time getting beyond their abuse. I know that sounds cold hearted, but I needed a clean break. I survived a horrible childhood, I came through, and now I have my own life. That’s what I wanted to portray to people, if I ever told them of my abuse. And I stopped telling people, for the most part. If I knew someone for a while and our childhoods came up, I may refer to it, but it doesn’t become the focus of our friendship as it would’ve before. I found I make a better friend this way, too!

We waited six years to start a family. With the baggage that was brought into our marriage, it only seemed fair that we clear our own minds and hearts before having someone join us. We were so young, we had some growing up and growing together to do, also. We had a hard time at first. I miscarried our first pregnancy at twelve weeks, and it scared me very badly. I had a few months of serious doubt whether I could handle being a parent after that. Wondering if I was worthy. A lot of my old self-esteem problems came into play. Ray was a rock for me, and helped me realize that we could be good parents, and that we could get through this hurdle. We planted a lilac bush in our front yard as a memorial, and I think of our little angel that helped us realize just how precious the children we do have are whenever I look at her. I talk to her on the occasion while I’m in the yard, and tell her about my day, or my life, or the children. I always felt that that first baby was a little girl, and that she is watching me now, knowing how badly I wanted her, and how badly I missed her once she was gone. I miss you Amanda.

I became pregnant again right away with our son Jacob. A beautiful, happy, wonderful little boy. I never felt that my abuse affected my birth or my nursing him. I do know that whenever I changed his diapers, I would wonder if I was abusing him when I cleaned him. I finally made myself stop and take a look at what I was doing. I was cleaning my baby! Not violating him or hurting him. Once I overcame that, things went smoothly.

I lost another pregnancy three years later when Ray and I were trying again. It was a blighted ovum this time, which is basically a false pregnancy. This time, I didn’t have nearly the emotional trauma that the first one caused. There wasn’t a baby there that I lost; it was just my body playing tricks on me. We were disappointed, but we knew we would try again. A few months later we became pregnant with Anne, our beautiful, tiny baby girl. She was such a joy, and came so fast; I grabbed her from the doctors and didn’t want to let her go. She is our blue-eyed baby, and I am fiercely protective of her.

I don’t feel that my abuse came into play with either of my children’s births. I feel that I had healed enough by the time they came along that it simply wasn’t an issue. I nursed both my children, Jacob for only seven months because I ended up doing hospice care for my grandmother, and lost my milk after she died. I was devastated because he was such a super nurser, and I wanted to nurse him for as long as he would want to. I’m still nursing Anne; she’s only ten months old. I hope to nurse her for at least a few more months, but she is a stubborn little girl, and is too busy to be bothered with nursing when she can grab cheerios and a cup.

We practiced a family bed with both our kids, although Anne would rather be in her crib. Jacob is our snuggly child, and even though he is four, he still climbs into bed with his dad and me several times a week. We do have a very open home, and we run around the house naked without a second thought. But we have also been very careful to keep any kind of sexual contact out of the sight of our children. Nudity does not equal sex, and that is an important lesson I want my children to understand.

I have noticed that since we have had Anne, I have had a few issues come up because she’s a girl. I look at any man who comes near her with suspicion. Ray insists that I am much more protective of her then I ever was of Jacob. It’s because I have so much hope for her, so much joy for her, I want to make sure she never has anything taken from her future, or from her childhood. I want all of this for my son, too. And I do know that boys are molested and preyed upon. But there is something about my daughter that brings out the mother lion in me, I just can’t explain it. I will defend both my children to the death, and the person that would ever lay a hand on my children had better be right with God because they won’t survive long after I am through with them. But with Anne it goes farther. I feel that I am making up for my mother in how I raise my daughter.

I refuse to spank my children, and I have already taught Jacob about good touching and bad touching. He knows that his body is his and his alone, and if anyone ever makes him uncomfortable, even mom or dad, he should say no, and tell mom or dad right away. He is a good, bright, independent boy with a bright outlook on life, and I will keep it that way.

I will break the cycle. My mother was molested, as well as one of her brothers, and her mother, and her mothers’ mother. This will not continue in my children. I will not allow it. It stops here, with me. So yes, my abuse has affected my motherhood. It has made me a better, more protective, more ferocious mother than I think I could ever have been if I hadn’t been shown what happens when a mother is not.

To learn more, order Survivor Moms: Women’s Stories of Birthing, Mothering and Healing after Sexual Abuse