Tag: betrayal

familial betrayal

Pretty much everyone in the literary world — and most of the world in other areas I imagine — will now know about how Nobel Prize-winning writer Alice Munro did not protect her daughter Andrea Robin Skinner from the sexual assaults of her abuser husband, Gerald Fremlin, either during or after the events. Andrea’s story broke internationally last weekend, although it had clearly been known about for years and years — and kept quiet — in some circles.

Long and short: Andrea’s stepfather first assaulted her when she was nine years old. She told her stepbrother, who insisted she tell her bio father. The right reaction, but badly received: her father did nothing. Andrea returned to her mother’s house and to abuse for several years as a result. Andrea finally told her mother about the abuse. Munro briefly left her husband, but then returned. She stood by him even when he was accused of exposing himself to a neighbourhood 14 yr old girl. In 2005, Andrea took her stepfather to court — and won. Even then, Munro stayed with Fremlin.

Throughout it all, Alice Munro remained an icon, her reputation unsullied. We know now that even her biographer knew about the abuse, and chose not to write about it, as did a number of other literary people.

Here is the international Guardian article which appeared earlier this week. All of the major news and journal outlets have covered this story however, in varying degrees of depth and enquiry. I like Megan Nolan’s article in The New Statesman; she asks questions that need asking, and bares realities that need revealing.

There has been a fair amount of shock-horror and hand-wringing around the revelation of these ‘secrets’. But to anyone in the Child Sexual Abuse survivor world, Munro’s reaction, and the reaction of Andrea’s bio father — are the norm, not the exception. It is very, very common for the family to close ranks and eject the victim, whenever the disclosure occurs. It is very, very common for the victim to be implicated and blamed, and treated (in the case of a girl) like ‘the other woman’. Overall, it is very common for sexual abuse to be viewed as an infidelity by the non-abusing parent or partner. This allows the non-abusing parent/guardian to consider herself (as it is most often the wife/female partner) the injured party — thereby relieving her of any accountability when it comes to the abuse. She can say that she had ‘nothing to do with it’. Any family patterns or dysfunctions can be ignored. And often: the energy is then spent ‘repairing’ the marriage.

This is what happened in Andrea Robin Skinner’s/Alice Munro’s family, and happened in mine. It is what happened in a huge proportion of survivor families I know, and continues to happen in them today.

It is tempting to believe that women don’t leave their pedophile husbands because they are financially trapped, or lacking options. While this will no doubt be the case in some instances (even then: the child should be priority?! Some women DO leave their husbands or families when they discover sexual abuse, regardless), we cannot say the same about Alice Munro’s situation, which is why I bring this up: Alice Munro must not have wanted to leave her husband. She did not feel compelled to leave him.

If the non-abusing parent who has financial stability and status still does not leave the partnership or protect the child/victim/survivor, there are other elements at work here. What makes a person stay with a partner who is a proven or convicted pedophile?

All I can say to those who are shocked: welcome to my world, and the world of millions and millions of child victims and adult survivors. Andrea Robin Skinner’s courageous speaking out (alongside her now-supportive siblings) shows us once again that the incidence of Child Sexual Abuse does not discriminate. CSA is perpetrated at ALL levels of society, across ALL ethnicities, regardless of financial stability, education, or social status. These are facts. They are not supposition. They are real. CSA happens everywhere, every single day.

We have got to do better. We have to offer children safe ways out (which, too often unfortunately, are not about disclosing to parents), and we must continue to raise awareness not just of the existence of CSA, but of the lifelong damage done to victim survivors. Perhaps then non-abusing parents/carers will begin to understand the repercussions of their actions or inactions. Perhaps then there’s a hope that non-abusers will not so frequently side with abusers.

The truth I live with every day is this: I would have liked to stay in my family. I would have liked my father to leave. I would have liked to stay close to my siblings. But at root, because of my stepmother’s reactions/lack of action, none of this could happen. I had to save myself. I had to leave, and eventually become estranged. This is the painful reality. And it is the reality for millions of us.

***

Here is an older post which looks in detail at how I have wrestled with my stepmother’s role in my father’s abuse of me and the subsequent disclosure: forgiveness and complicity. All crashingly familiar, again.

we’re here, folks, in droves

It’s been a week. My head has been down, to the grindstone. I’ve watched the Maxwell trial spin by. Relief has been followed by distress, and the too-familiar feeling of loss of control: a juror was abused. He helped others to understand the elements of abuse. Along the way another juror realised they’d most likely suffered child sexual abuse as well. All is up in the air.

What does this tell us? For those of us in the Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) world, it reinforces a few hard facts, all of which we know, all too intimately:

  1. CSA is very common. In the UK, the NSPCC can be sure that 1 in 20 children is sexually abused. In the US, the CDC splits this figure by gender: 1 in 4 girls, 1 in 13 boys. These are the surveyed and reported stats.
  2. There is also the hard fact that a third of those abused NEVER disclose or report it. So we can be sure that the figure is higher than either the NSPCC or CDC can report in good faith.
  3. No one likes to think that the person next to them has been a victim of child abuse. See number 1. No choice, folks.
  4. No one likes to think that there’s a chance that the crimes being tried were experienced on some level by a member of the jury. See number 1. No choice, folks.
  5. Nor that anyone in any context knows or has contact with anyone who was sexually abused as a child. See number 1. You, and everyone, are bound to know numerous people who have been abused. No choice, folks.

Here is the thing. As late as 1974, Child Sexual Abuse was considered extremely rare. 1 in 1 million people. My lord. Society and culture could then (incorrectly) be supported by medics’ and lawyers’ claims that CSA is virtually unknown. From there, silences, denials, dismissiveness, deflections…all of that seemed fair enough. Nothing to do with Us. What happens to those children, and those people, is not Us. What happens is strange. Perverted. Deviant. Not Us.

Yes. I’m not going to argue anything other than CSA is awful. Wrong. Deviant.

But it IS Us. It is an everyday occurrence. It deserves to be part of the conversation, even in trials around…CSA. Because who would think of having no differently abled people on a jury in a trial about discrimination against disabled folks? Who would think about requiring there be no people of colour on a jury in a trial which involved a person of colour?

CSA — for this era, and regrettably — is part of the conversation. Part of our lives. Part of your life. We have a voice. We have logic and reason. We can make a judgement. We can hear things out, and weigh things up. But we won’t disregard our abuse.

Juries represent and reflect the Human Experience. Of course the process and the questionnaire all need examining. But let’s not jump to conclusions and state that people who have been abused cannot be part of a jury which must come to a decision about abuse. It’s not gonna happen. And it’s not right if it does.

We all long for CSA never to happen again. But we are nowhere near that yet. As the Maxwell trial, and so much else, amply prove.

[photo: me at age 15, taken by school friend David Larsen. My father was still abusing me.]

*

from my memoir Learning to Survive, about how very badly we can be betrayed by those who in theory are supposed to protect us, and by an unenforceable law:

Therapy

The spring of my junior year at Blacksburg High School is a particularly gruelling time.

            The nerves I see in my father’s eyes become something else, and he appears to take action. He tells me that [my stepmother] ‘knows about us’ and ‘about Suzanne’, giving the impression that he has had to tell her, for my own good. He locates a therapy practice about 15 miles away in Radford which he deems suitable. We are at first booked into a group session; then I start my own sessions, and [my stepmother] and my father start marriage counselling.

            This all seems to happen within a couple of weeks. [My stepmother] does not speak to me about what she knows. I do not remember her asking any questions, or expressing any concern. We go back and forth to therapy together, and do not discuss anything said within those walls. From journals of the time, I know that I am deeply, deeply confused and unhappy. About everything. I love Suzanne, but I also like boys. I hate men. I want my father out of my life. And I am utterly miserable.

            Things that emerge from therapy:

            Every Rorschach ink blot terrifies me. Every single one looks sexual. Looks creepy. Looks scary. Has monsters. I feel I am losing some battle if I admit how terrified they make me feel. I am 17. I lie about all of them, although there is only my therapist and me in the room.      

My father requests that I no longer call him ‘Daddy’. You need to grow up, he says, and I need to move on.

            Suzanne is a bad influence. I am no longer allowed to see her, at least for a little while.

            None of this can be mentioned to [my siblings].

Things that do not happen from therapy:

My father is not reported.

My father is not reported.

My father is not reported.

It takes me a long time to accept – years, and many therapists later – that in this, my first encounter with therapy, I am fundamentally betrayed: my father does not take responsibility for his actions, and, as it turns out, never does, as if that one chance missed lets him off scot-free. As a consequence I am not protected, and nor, for that matter, is [my sister], who is 13 at the time. As a consequence I am completely flattened. If [my stepmother] in theory ‘knows’ now, if the therapists ‘know’, why does everything not fall apart? Is the abuse, after all, okay?

            My own unproven and unsubstantiated theory is that my father probably locates this practice precisely because he feels he can influence its members. After all, he has been able to manage every aspect of the story so far. He prevents any explosion, or any impact on any other part of our lives. We carry on. I speak of the abuse – lightly – in therapy, almost paralysed with dread. But it is not discussed much. Of more importance it seems is my relationship with Suzanne: is it real, am I really gay? The therapist seems fixated upon how I become involved with Suzanne, and I do not recall a single direct conversation about the abuse. I wonder if, after all that, she ever really believes me.

            I know now that my father almost certainly mis-directed and orchestrated the whole thing, such that [my stepmother] and I never have an honest conversation, and most vitally, [my siblings] are told nothing. I know now too that the therapists at the practice actually break the law: in 1981 in Virginia, therapists are legally obliged to report sexual abuse to the Child Protective Services — which these don’t, because I am never interviewed, and anyway, nothing changes. I know now that this requirement to report to services is in place precisely because perpetrators are generally expert manipulators, and otherwise control the dynamics. Which is precisely what my father does.