Category: child sexual abuse

trying to stay in the saddle

[image: the Osmington White Horse]

It has been SO LONG since I’ve been here. As with everything, then the guilt of NOT doing something accumulates, and then there’s so much water under the bridge that… the task becomes impossible. Or feels it.

However. It is not like me to stop something or give up. There are lots of reasons — some of which I’ll post about here — why I keep repeating this to myself. Never give up.

First: the really fab news that I hinted about last time. Way back in March of this year, 30,000 words from my memoir about Child Sexual Abuse (Learning to Survive) won Highly Commended in the Bridport Memoir Awards. Soon after, I discovered that there were about 1,000 entries. Top 5 out of 1,000 entries. It has been such a joy, a real lift, to have my work validated and valued in such a competition. One of the HUGE blocks to getting stories of CSA out is the resistance of the ‘mainstream’ (whatever form that takes — whether media, arts, medicine) to hearing about these stories. Those of you who circulate in this world of survivors know all too well: the ‘mainstream’ is hugely more likely to draw back than to bear witness, or listen, or support. The ‘mainstream’, generally, turns away.

My prize in the Bridport felt like the beginning of something — at last! I have been struggling for two years to get a bit of purchase for Learning to Survive. My frustration has always been: I have published five books, one of them prize winning, and my work has been collected in various high profile national anthologies, published in newspapers etc. So WHY — why?! — is this book, a book I know is worthwhile and sound and well-written — staggering through almost universal rejection from literally dozens of potential outlets? The Bridport win gave me hope that the book may now be championed — despite the lack of precedent in the publishing world for stories such as mine (as OURS) — hope that someone may be willing now to take a risk.

Second, and alas, it’s clear now that the Bridport accolade has made little difference to the book’s future, at least in the UK. As a result of the Bridport however I have met some wonderful people, people cheering me on, people who — alongside me — are shocked that I’ve not been able to place the book. I’ve also been in touch with some of the judges/readers of the Bridport for advice from within ‘the industry’: from each, the writing is lauded (more than my writing has ever been lauded before, just for comparison), the subject acknowledged as important and vital, my handling of it ‘just right’…. but these effusive compliments are mitigated with ‘the subject is too dark to sell’, ‘maybe child sexual abuse has been done to death’ — etc. In other words: great writing, but the material itself is unpalatable. It’s scary. It’s ‘too much’ for readers. Not worth the risk for publishers. I want to scream what about memoirs about the Holocaust? What about memoirs about domestic violence? Murder? Grief? They exist, and they are ‘dark subjects’; they are horrifying and difficult. Yet somewhere along the line, someone has considered them important enough to be in circulation. Important enough to learn about, to witness. Not so Child Sexual Abuse, clearly.

I have indulged in a couple of threads on Twitter around these responses. Here, in short:

1) CSA affects at least 15% of the population, of ALL adults and children. THERE’S your readership publishers, not to speak of the millions of people who love, support, and care for survivors. It’s a huge audience, ready-made, an audience in dire need of stories which speak to their experiences. Which break the awful silence and shame, which raise social awareness. Which comfort and support, which tell them they are not alone, that there is a future for them and all of us.

2) Child Sexual Abuse has absolutely NOT been ‘done to death’. What we do hear a lot about are ‘serial’ pedophiles such as Savile, Maxwell, Epstein. What we do hear about are ‘monster narratives’ about ‘evil people’. We read about abuse that happens ‘over there’, that is NOT in our lives. We do not read about intra-familial CSA, or CSA perpetrated by someone the child knows. Which makes up 90% of all CSA. We do not read about abusive fathers, uncles, grandfathers, brothers, babysitters, boyfriends, carers. We do not read about the most common form of CSA, that which happens in our lives, right under our noses.

3) There is a clear moral imperative to publicise these stories. Given that there are millions of survivors in the UK alone, and thousands of millions of survivors around the world. Given that these victims and survivors are — wholesale, forcibly — drowning in silence. Given that most survivors of ‘everyday’ CSA believe that they are pretty much the only victims of this in the world. That they are alone in their trauma and loss and shame. Given all this, survivors surely deserve better. There is only one literary memoir published in the UK about CSA (by Clare Best), and only a very few in Europe and Australia. We deserve more. We deserve to be seen. We deserve to be included in the long list of wrongs which need righting in our world.

4) Finally: it’s insulting to label anyone’s suffering as ‘too dark’ for general consumption. Particularly if that suffering is widespread, or ultimately turned toward doing good. My book and writings, and the work of so many other survivors, exist with the explicit aims of relieving suffering and of prevention. Of reaching out, empowering, and bringing strength and hope. All of the abuse in my book is finished by 30,000 words in. The rest of the book — 35,000 words — is about survival, hope, and living.

***

I could go on. Fortunately, as you can see, my anger has returned. Anger turned inward is sadness and depression, and I admit that I have been battling these consequences over the last couple of months. I am silenced AGAIN. We are silenced AGAIN. It’s painful, re-traumatising, and heartbreaking.

I am holding on to the belief that things may be shifting. Slowly, granted, but shifting. There are hundreds of us doing work around CSA in the UK alone, and much of it makes forays into the mainstream. Recently, Channel 4 aired a documentary which told Emily’s story: her father was her abuser. Recently too, Nicole Caroli featured in the Metro newspaper — telling her story and raising awareness. (Nicole also runs an excellent blog, here.) Sophie Olson’s (The Flying Child’s) ‘Last Taboo’ Radio 4 programme, aired nearly two years ago, continues to break down barriers, as does her work with schools, midwives, social workers, etc (Sophie’s blog is here). The glorious and indefatigable Viv Gordon continues her moving performances and showcasing of fellow survivors, championing the necessity of their work. Elizabeth Shane publishes poetry and devotes her time to supporting and speaking up for survivors. Jane Chevous at Survivors Voices and Antonia Sobocki of LOUDfence (also at Survivors Voices) are frankly astonishing in their breadth and dedication to raising awareness and holding others to account in the world of CSA.

There are many more. We are forces to be reckoned with, and there are lots of us.

Many activist/survivors are old hands at this. They know the battles and are not giving up. I’m very new here. And the stark nature of these battles has hit hard. The reality that CSA is drenched in stigma and silence, at every turn, regardless of external validation and the accompanying shocking statistics around CSA — still, in the 21st century! — has hit hard. The fact that my book seems not to stand a chance in this country due to social attitudes toward something that has nothing to do with me — that was not my fault, that I did not choose, that I wish more than anything had never happened — has hit hard. Once again, I’ve had to face that none of this is my fault. Yet I still suffer the consequences.

Saying all this: I cannot give up. I won’t give up. I am able to speak when so many cannot. It really is that simple. I’m back on the horse, with my sights now turned to the US market. I welcome any tips, advice, leads. Something has to give.

post-traumatic growth

This photo of me was taken a few weeks ago by the same brilliant photographer who shot E and A’s wedding last summer (Hannah Hall Beddoe/Cuts the Mustard). I have known for a while that I needed new author photos, as the wonderful ones I had (by friend Nancy Wilson Fulton) were over 10 years old.

After discovering that my work was shortlisted in the Bridport Memoir Awards this year, I needed author photos urgently. I’ll say more about the awards in the next post, but suffice it to say I’m thrilled to bits. Child Sexual Abuse reaching the top five in an international, open competition. This is a win no matter what.

But back to the photos. I went to see Hannah of Cuts the Mustard because I trusted her. She was in the Lakes (six hour drive from here), so a bit of a haul over a weekend, but I knew I couldn’t go to a stranger. Especially a man. That was not ever going to happen.

In the couple of weeks which followed the shoot, I tried to identify my feelings. The process of doing them had felt harder than I anticipated. I felt on the spot. I felt awkward. And at some point, I realised that I felt scrutinised. Not, I hasten to say, by Hannah — but by the camera itself somehow. I tied myself into a knot trying to appear ‘normal’, all the while feeling so very ‘different’.

It’s not rocket science to figure out what is going on here. Being forced to appear ‘normal’, to perform, when really so much is NOT normal under the surface. Really you want to run away forever.

To Hannah’s enormous credit, I began, as the session went on, to see the person behind the camera for who she is: a friendly face, a face which means me no harm, a face which believes in me. Hannah knows my history, and I began to think ‘oh, just be how you are every day’ — she likes you! You like her!

The shoot improved exponentially partway through. I can identify when I began to ‘risk’ showing myself. I realised she wasn’t going to use anything against me. That I did not need to hide.

Because that’s what my father would do. Swoop into any show of my ‘true self’, try to weasel his way in, try to ‘steal’ it — or so it felt. So I learned to hide the way I felt, nothing showing on my face. I learned to live with scrutiny, with my father seeming to examine my face, my movements, for anything he could bring up later, in my bedroom, that night. Anything to get ‘closer’ to me.

At some point, in my teens, while the abuse was still going on, my father took pictures of me. They are not explicit pictures, but they are agonising nonetheless. They look grown up, so focused on me, the camera’s cold gaze. I was frozen, yet required to be ‘relaxed’. A child forced into grown up poses. Thinking about it now, I feel just sick, sick to my stomach.

Somehow, these experiences led to me being convinced that I do not, under any circumstances, ‘take a good picture’. My children and husband are ‘photogenic’. I am not. I have felt this way for as long as I can remember.

When the photos come through from Hannah though, I am gobsmacked. And elated. There, on the page, in so many photos, I am myself. I recognise me. My husband recognises me, seeing in my movements and expressions so much that is ‘typical’. I look: yes, I am happy with that kind of ‘typical’. I am happy with how I guess I must appear to the world. This is me.

I have always hated representations of myself. They feel so far away from my nebulous idea of ‘me’. I harboured a fear in fact that I always looked fake, that there was always some of kind of ‘wall’ between my interior self and my external appearance, and never the twain shall meet. I honestly had zero idea that these photos could be ‘me’ in the world. But my friends and family assure me that they are.

So what happened? How did I arrive here? Later, I spoke with my good friend Clare Best (another CSA survivor) about this. It turns out that she wrote a blog post herself about having author photos taken — by her son in this instance — and how this led to a sense of growth, of being more rather than less grounded, connecting with the self in profound ways.

Clare mentioned the idea of ‘post traumatic growth’. I’d never heard of it. But reading up on it: this is clearly what has happened to me, in particular ways, over time. The latest one being finding my way through being photographed, and experiencing it differently than ever before. There is a part of me that might have turned away completely from having these photos taken. I did find it gruelling at first, extremely emotionally challenging. But at some point, unawares, I grew past/through the initial, old trauma. I can now see that I have done this a number of times in my life, around very specific things. It is patently obvious that PTG is by no means the inevitable outcome (‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger’ — NO!), nor should there (as the above linked article is careful to point out) ever be an expectation or imposed narrative of certainty around PTG happening. Because we all know that there are some things about having been abused which will always remain raw — different things for different people — but forever traumatic and triggering. It’s just that for me, surprisingly, being photographed is now not one of them.

Last night we went out to dinner to celebrate the Bridport prize. My husband took a picture of me in front of some nice food, to send to the kids. He showed it to me — ‘you won’t let me send this, will you?’ After 37 years together, he is prepared! But I looked at it and thought: nah, I don’t care. Send it! So he did.

***

The following excerpt from my memoir LEARNING TO SURVIVE, recounts being scrutinised by my father. This particular event happened when I was over 18, but it is one of many such occurrences throughout my teen years.

***

That same summer, the household in Blacksburg acquires a set of weights and some gym mats. They are in the basement, in the half of the downstairs sitting room which has never been used for much. After a serious knee dislocation during a modern dance rehearsal at Oberlin College, I am in rehab, building my leg muscles, generally getting back into shape, and I use the weights every other day, doing sit-ups and stretches as well. When he’s home, my father comes downstairs to watch me. He says he is learning about weights, and smiles, laughs a half-laugh. But I know he’s simply coming down here to look at me. When [my stepmother] comes home, he quickly gets to his feet, goes upstairs.

            Encounters like this are common, I realise now. From age 11, when the abuse starts, right up until the last time I see him, at age 21, every time we are alone he behaves as if I am party to a secret, a secret between us. He behaves, I realise now, as if we are actually in a secret relationship. As if external forces ‘keep us apart’, but we still ‘long’ for each other.

            For me of course, nothing could be further from the truth. He repels me, disgusts me. His laugh, his hands rubbing together, fingers clasping. His physical awkwardness. I have a hard time being around him at all. I have no wish ever to see him again. Yet: here I am. Here is the family. Here is Blacksburg. Here is where I grew up.

            What I struggle to accept now is my tolerance of the situation. How do I not storm out and never come back? How do I eat in the same room? How do I smile? How do I breeze in and out every day? Secrecy, I guess, is hard to break the surface of. It holds firm, membranous and tough, despite the liquid chaos underneath.

            And I suppose, if I’m honest, a part of me still hopes. I hope that all of this will pass, and I know that some part of me is strong enough to last until it does. I continue to hope – for years – that he will change. That he will seek help in the ways that perpetrators I later witness are forced to seek help. I know – deeply and with real regret – that everything about his attitude to his relationship with me is wrong. What takes me so many years to do is give up on him. Give up on the family, give up on [my stepmother]. And it’s this giving up which brings lasting pain, to this day.

celebrations

We have had a really lovely ten days in our household: one ‘child’ and partner with us for Christmas, and the other and his wife surprising us with a visit from the US tomorrow. I have loved every moment of stringing fairy lights, having sherry (yes, my American and elsewhere readers: it’s a thing, and a very good thing), eating good food, going on some walks, and opening some presents.

Overall, and as is the pattern for years now: we are so relaxed, so easy, so loving and full of good humour.

In the last few months, I’ve had a couple of Twitter conversations about celebrations in families where Child Sexual Abuse was a feature. My own memories of Christmases, birthdays, Thanksgivings, etc are opaque. I remember them — such as they were — as fraught times, tense times. Never daring to put a foot wrong, say the wrong thing — or worse, attract the ‘wrong’ kind of attention, whatever that might be.

My family was not violent. I remember one tap on my bottom my whole childhood. There was no corporal punishment of any sort, ever.

Yet I was afraid. All the time. And especially at celebrations, which seemed by their nature to threaten to spin out of control. And I was certainly afraid of anything out of the usual routine. Anything I could not predict. Because that unpredictability might lead to more abuse — out of sight, under others’ celebrating noses. Anything different just seemed to produce an opportunity for my father. Maybe it was the enforced proximity — more chances to strike? I don’t know. I know I tried anything and everything to avoid being alone with him. Mostly — I think — this involved always being around other people, always talking (so that I would be missed if not there, perhaps?), and always volunteering to help.

I remember almost nothing tangible about the 11 Christmases I spent with my larger family. I only remember one present, one that didn’t happen: I remember desperately wanting an opal necklace one Christmas. When it came to it, my stepmother received an opal necklace, and I did not. I was cut to the quick, and knew even then, age 13 or 14, that someone was putting me ‘in my place’. I had bookmarked the page in the catalogue and everything…. But I didn’t get the opal.

I was a child my father abused, and claimed to be in love with, most nights. But I wasn’t his wife. Someone — whoever bought the opal — was telling me that. I knew this of course, but the icy isolation of this punishment made me feel like it was all my fault: I was being punished for having his attention, no matter that I didn’t want it. It somehow seemed the natural order of things that I be ‘frozen out’ of Christmas celebrations.

As for birthdays and Thanksgivings, I think I’m right in remembering we barely celebrated them. No birthday parties. And no Thanksgivings? Can this be right?

It is as if — in my waking, daily life — every effort was made so that I NOT feel special. It worked. In my daily life I felt almost invisible at home, unimportant, damped down. Yet my father claimed otherwise at night.; he sought me out, he gave me gifts, he said he ‘loved’ me. In the day I felt punished, ignored. At night I wanted nothing more than for the attention to stop.

With all of the abuse and twisted loyalties going on in our household — against the background of that — I can’t seem to settle in myself how much of this bleakness, fear, tension, is actually ‘normal’ in families around celebrations. What do the children in ‘ordinary’ families feel? Do they have fun? Or are they always worried? Do they like being around grownups? Or are they just waiting for it all to be over?

Once again, I have no bearings when it comes to any of this. I have no idea how much conflict is to be expected around celebrations and holiday times. All I know is that I dreaded trying to find my way through it, all the while trying to avoid my father. I even hated it anytime he spoke directly to me in front of anyone else, family or not. My fear of him ‘giving it away’ by too much attention, and how that would shame me, was profound. My ‘double life’ was completely entrenched.

And yet: were these tensions actually present? Were they able to be perceived by others? Or were they all ‘in my head’? It’s so easy to fall into believing that I’m making something out of ‘nothing’, much like how my unspoken fears around the first steps of my father’s grooming and abuse were waved away: it’s no big deal, it’s ‘natural’, ‘I’m just preparing you for when you are older’.

In other words: what you feel isn’t real.

It is so so hard to believe your feelings again after such gaslighting. Even harder to stretch your perceptions back in time, and believe those feelings are accurate reflections of how things were generally in those years, and how we did Christmas. I just don’t know. Those years feel so emptied, the cold wind whipping through them, that every last bit of warmth, of possible care, blew away long ago. I don’t know what to think.

I am relieved and proud that my grown up family and friends — our celebrations — are authentic. I trust that now. But to get here, I had to start from scratch, had to learn over and over that that there was nothing secret going on, nothing unsaid. I had to start over, and did.