***Trigger Warning – mentions grooming as it pertains to sexual abuse of a child/teenager
Exposure
I am not sure what I truly expected from the outcome of exposing the sexual abuse I suffered at the hands of the instructor. I had not really planned on the outcome. I had not considered that I might be branded a liar or that the person that I told would become so angry with me. Yet, I suppose I should have expected an unhappy reaction. After all, I exposed the instructor as a predator, and I exposed his deeds to his sister.
After leaving the martial arts studio, I did not expect such an immediate reaction. When my siblings and I arrived home, my father was on the phone. My mother immediately shared with me that he was on the phone with the instructor’s mother. The instructor’s mother had been told what I said to the sister. The mother was not happy; she was livid. The instructor’s mother wanted to get to the bottom of the situation immediately.
As soon as my father got off the phone with her, he looked at me in disbelief and asked me, “What have you done? What did you say?” I had no words. I waited to respond because I did not know what had been said, and I did not know if the instructor’s sister had stretched the truth of what I told her or simply denied everything. So I waited for my father to speak.
The immediate reaction was for my father to send one of my siblings to find “the strap”. The strap was a thick piece of cowhide that my father often used to chastise us. Now that I was in high school, I believed that I was beyond such punishments. For a time, the strap had been off limits to me and so had belts and any form of corporal punishment.
My father stopped spanking me when he learned that I had begun my menstrual cycle. The last time I was spanked, I froze in place and soiled my pants. It was most likely a post-traumatic reaction that had occurred with me, and it was enough to frighten my father. After that episode, physical punishments were off limits for me.
Yet, this was a far different circumstance. I had accused an adult of something heinous, and I suppose my father believed that the strap would prevent me from further lying about it. In fact, both my parents wanted to believe that I was lying, particularly my mother. My mother hoped that I was lying for more personal reasons.
Although I had forgotten about the sexual assault against me when I was nine, I knew intuitively, that there were secrets that she and my grandmother held onto about me. In their eyes, it was best for me to be a liar. For the life of me, I have never understood this. It had never mattered that I had told the truth about all of the events that had transpired with me. I was still labeled a liar. For some reason, it was simply easier for people to accept me as a liar than as a truth teller, but the fact of the matter is that my life was tragically wrecked because of this. The damage, for the most part, has been irreparable for me.
Needless to say, when my sister found and brought the strap to my dad, she would not look at me. Any time either one of us took the strap to our father, it was seen as the ultimate act of betrayal for the one who was under punishment. We all had joined in to keep the strap hidden and out of sight. To actually go and find it because it was going to be used against one of us was an act of betrayal because we stood together to protect each other. Yet, I held firm. I was not afraid. If I was to be punished, then so be it.
My father held the strap and looked at me. There was a fear within his eyes, and I discerned that he knew the truth and was deeply frightened that he was going to have to listen to the fact that his daughter had been molested by a person whom he had regarded as a close friend of the family. I reasoned even then that the strap was merely for my dad’s own security. I think he thought that if I saw the strap, then I would immediately recant what I had told the instructor’s sister. It would certainly make things go back to some type of normal.
The Interrogation
My father: Is this true? Is it true what you told [the instructor’s] sister?
Me: Yes. It’s true.
My mother: Why didn’t you tell us if it’s true?
My father looked at my mother. He was annoyed and said to her, “I’ll handle this. Let me ask the questions.”
My father: Well, why didn’t you tell us if it’s true?
Me: You would not have believed me.
My father: How do you know that? You never even gave us a chance.
Me: Yes I did. When I told you about what our cousins did to me, you didn’t believe me, and everyone called me a liar. So I figured if you said that I lied about that and the other things that have happened, then you’d say I lied about this. So I didn’t tell you.
My father and mother were silent. The truth of matters hit them both squarely in their faces.
My father turned to my brother and sister and told them to go to their rooms and watch television.
My mother: What did that man do to you?
I was silent for a moment. Internally, I felt my world was crashing in on me. Having to explain to either of my parents in any detail about what the instructor had done to me was humiliating. But I took a deep breath. I could feel an uncomfortable sweat form above my top lip. I sighed and began to explain, but I did not want to go into any graphic detail.
Me: He touched me where I did not want to be touched. He kissed my mouth and did other stuff.
My father was silent.
My mother: How many times did he do this?
Me: Too many times to count.
My mother: Was it every time you had class?
Me: No.
My mother: When was he able to do this if there was a class?
Me: Whenever I went to the bathroom or whenever he called me out to talk to me.
My father: Talk to you about what?
Me: I don’t know. Anything that I did or didn’t do in practice.
My father was holding his breath. I could tell that he was upset. My mother had a smirk on her face. I could tell that she did not believe me.
My mother: Are you making this up?
Me: Would it make you feel better if I were making it up?
My father: Don’t get smart with your mother! Just answer the question!
Me: No. I’m not making this up.
My father: Then why did you wait so long to say something?
Me: Because he’s in jail, and now he can’t do anything to hurt me. Now he can’t do anything to hurt [my brother] and [my sister]. I’m safe now.
Silence. As much as I loved silence, I hated this particular silence. It was daunting. It did not bring calmness. It created anxiety for me. I wanted the questions to be over. I was tired and hungry.
My father: Well, we are going to figure this out if it’s true.
My father looked at me. I could tell in that moment that he would have rather I had been lying. The strap had done him no good. I think he knew the painful truth.
Exposure
That night was an incredibly long night. I did not sleep, and it was not because my fragmented selves had anything to talk about. They were all silent. My only thoughts were centered around what might happen next. I had brought exposure upon the sins of the instructor, but somehow I felt like I was the one who sinned. The questions of my parents asked should have been the types of questions asked of the one who committed the acts, but he was safe from such questions. He was in jail.
I could hear my parents muffled talking in their bedroom, but I could not clearly make out what they were saying. Yet, I knew that any time my mother did a lot of talking, she was always expressing the worst about me. She always expressed the worst about me. She never had anything good to say, and this situation was no exception. In her eyes, I was always the liar. I had been branded this from the moment I was old enough to talk. She never saw the good in me, and there were specific reasons for this.
However, none of my parents’ thoughts even mattered to me. No one’s thoughts about the situation matter to me. I was free. The secret was out, and the truth about what this instructor had been doing to me was now exposed. I just did not know what was going to happen next, but I was surely about to find out. It did not ever take long for news to travel in my neighborhood and community, especially when intermingled with gossip, and this information about me was no exception.
Although the very next day was a school day, I still went as normal. If there were whispers or talks, I was not bothered. At school, I was in my element, and I had found my niche even as a loner. Most of my time was spent hitting the books and focused on the work in my classes. I did not have time for leisure. I was about my business, and the business at hand was learning. I got through the day without any issues. So I assumed that maybe things were okay. When I arrived home, however, things were not okay. I had entered into the midst of a firestorm.
Aftermath Of Exposure
In the aftermath of exposure, I had angered a lot of people. The news had spread like wildfire, and almost four years after the situation with my cousins, and three years after a situation involving some classmates and a neighborhood so-called friend, I was back in the limelight again for being the town weirdo and liar, but now added to the list was something new – “a girl hot in the pants for grown men”.
Apparently, a neighborhood relative of the instructor who lived up the street from my family stopped by our home when she heard the news. My father greeted her at the door. Along with this relative were her two sisters and mother. They were upset with me because they believed that I had told lies about the instructor. They demanded that I recant my statements because the instructor’s mother was going out of her mind about the accusations against her son. They explained that the instructor’s mother had been diagnosed with cancer and was dying, and they blamed me for speeding up the process.
Although my father tried to reason with them, they would not hear him. It was apparent that they did not care about my side of the story. They only cared about protecting the predator. They saw him as the real victim because of what my exposure had brought to the surface for the instructor’s mother. She was emotionally upset and found my story too hard to believe. They felt that they had to protect their relative from the onslaught of what they believed were perfectly calculated lies.
One of the women exclaimed that “She waits until the man is in jail to say something? That makes no sense. Why not say something so he can defend himself?” The other women were in agreement. Then the older woman who was the mother of the women told my mother that she really needed to talk to me about my lies because they could destroy someone’s life. I could not help but overhear them, and since I was in my own home, I casually and quietly walked into the room where they were all talking.
There was silence until someone spoke. “Little girl!” said one of the women. “Do you realize what you have done?” I stared at each woman, and I carefully looked them all in their eyes. I discerned that there would be no reasoning with them. They believed what they wanted to believe. If I was a liar to them, then that is what they chose to believe. There was nothing I could do about that.
However, I still stood in my truth, and it was not just my truth, it was THE truth. Then I spoke, “He did exactly what I said he did, and I have nothing to lie about, but I’m sure he does. He’s a drug dealer. Drug dealers are known for lying, and that’s why he’s in jail, right?” Then I turned and walked away leaving the women in quite a tizzy, and my father and mother in a silent state of shock.
In the aftermath of exposure, I knew it was all over for me, but I did not care. I was free. I had spoken the truth, and I was free. I just did not know that it could become any worse because it did. It became a lot worse. These women and the family of the predatory instructor orchestrated a smear campaign against me.
Stay tuned because there is more to come.
My Voice Unchained 