I remember just feeling empty, just this sense of emptiness that, oh my God, there's nothing I can do to stop this. There's really nothing I can do to stop this man. My first experience with sexual abuse was when I was five years old. He was a babysitter looking after my younger sister and I.
And I was walking by the washroom that evening and noticed that she was performing oral sex on him. And he asked me if I wanted some. I just shook my head and walked away. Well, honestly, I can't remember a time when there wasn't any abuse in my family. As far back as I can remember, there was always abuse, and there was always sexual abuse, there was physical abuse, emotional abuse.
I mean, it was pretty much a daily thing. One particular week that we, it was all of us girls, and I was laying in the, we were all sharing the fold-out couch bed, and he came into the living room after everybody had gone to sleep, and I remembered thinking, well, that was really strange. And then he reached over me to this young girl, Toni Marie, to take her into the room, and I said, no, no, no, I'll go. And I went with him. That night, and I realized that, you know, basically the abuse was never going to end.
I think what happened was that something in me shifted or went off when I realized that he was doing this to other people. When it was just me, I could handle it. But when I saw that he was doing this to this other young woman, to my sisters, I was like, you know, this is wrong.
And I didn't know what to do to stop it. There was an incident one time when I was in the kitchen of the house and my mom and dad were there and my dad grabbed my breast and I smacked him on the shoulder and my mom said he's dad, implying that it was okay for him to touch me that way. My dad led us to believe that it was normal to be naked in our home and touching was supposed to be comfortable. And I was 16 and I didn't feel comfortable with it. I didn't want to do that.
And the whole family made me feel like I wasn't part of the family if I didn't join in. I grew up in an environment where this was all I ever knew. So in my mind, the horrors that I lived was what everybody lived. The stuff that you see on TV, the Partridge family and the Brady Bunch and all that, that's just make-believe.
Nobody actually ever lived that. And that's what I was led to believe. At that point, my friend came and picked me up at work.
And I said, where are we going? And she said, we're going to this person's house, and there's a social worker there. And I just started crying.
because I knew this would be the end of my family life as I knew it. So at the end of the sentencing, and he was being wheeled out in the wheelchair by my mom, it was very... very heartbreaking for me. I mean, he was still my dad, but I knew I was doing the right thing.
So there was a lot of emotional things happening for me. And he was being wheeled out. My sister followed after them, and she leaned over and said, burn in hell, bitch. That was very hard.
I did take him to court. There was a case against him and we lost. Four counts of statutory rape and we lost.
He lost custody of the kids, so that was the one good thing that did come out of that. It was really unfortunate for my mother because then she got custody of the kids and her new husband didn't like them. He, I guess, had enough and buggered off, and of course my mother packed us all up and chased after him, and then when we finally caught up to him again, he started raping me, and I said, you know what, I just, I can't take this anymore.
I just, I can't take this anymore. And I told my mother the truth, and... She basically told me that I was lying and I was only saying it because I didn't want her to be happy and I The feeling that I got because I always thought that my mother cared about me and loved me and would protect me and in that Moment it was like she was saying that you know, I really I don't give a shit what happens to you this man that I'm with is far more important than you will ever be and Guess what?
You're just going to have to deal. It was very difficult for me to be with my family during those visitations. The feeling was still there that they were blaming me, so I left town.
I was drinking heavily. I was very promiscuous, using drugs. So I had to leave and start over.
You know, I never once denied any of the stuff that happened to me when I was a child. But I didn't ever really look at it either. What ended up happening for me was that I opened the door, I didn't know what was going to come out from behind it.
And it was like somebody turned a movie camera on inside of my head, and I started reliving everything from the beginning. And that's when I found out that everything happened from the age of three. And it just started, and it was like going through every single day again, and the emotional and the physical and every part of the memory.
And I couldn't shut it off, and I started drinking excessively, and the drinking didn't stop it. I started using heavy drugs. The heavy drugs wouldn't shut it off.
Finally, I thought I was losing my mind, and I knew that I was coming to a point that I was going to hurt somebody, and I didn't want to hurt anybody. I didn't want to ever hurt anybody. Personally, I wish that people got more of a chance to get right up in the face of these people years and years and years later and tell them. If they could just feel one day, one day, the pain that we carry around for the rest of our lives, just one day, I'll guarantee they would never do it again.
Just one day. I feel now that I'm in a healthy place where I can recognize if something's going on for me, I can recognize it and deal with it right away. Whereas before, when I was seeking help, I really felt that nobody could help me, that I was just this broken person and I couldn't be fixed.
I was a mess and that nobody wanted me. My experience with sexual abuse is something that I can't ever forget. It's part of what's happened to me, but it's also part of what's made me stronger. I don't really know what it looks like to them, but I know that who I was then and who I am today are two very different people and that I am way happier today.
And I have hope. I have something that I was losing. My entire life up until just recently has all been about surviving. And there is a huge difference between surviving and living.
And I finally got to that place where I'm living. I've stepped on a shoe to the door And I ain't gonna take it I ain't gonna take it no more I ain't gonna take it, yeah I'm not gonna take it, I don't know