If you have been reading my blog from the start, you are very familiar with the sickness my older, adopted brother has and the incestuous rape I only found strength to escape from two years ago last month. Some days it feels like ages ago, but on days like today it feels like it just happened yesterday… I’m really struggling with rejection today from one person I care about and I’m struggling with being controlled by another. Not a fun day in my world….
I didn’t get this tat for no reason…
As a survivor of sexual abuse, the memories and clips of instances haunt me ever single day no matter how strong my mind is or how much knowledge I try to fill it with daily to help me understand and try to overcome the damage that was done. It’s definitely not one’s mind that is broken more than temporarily, it is ones heart that is covered with deep, ugly scars that seem to never heal as time passes by…
Sometimes this tender heart of mine gets me into a whole heap of trouble. I want so desperately to believe in people, to find that good in them and believe that good is always victorious over evil. I wanted so terribly to believe my older brother really had changed over the years I had not seen him as my maternal family insisted he had… My forgiving heart has led me in the wrong direction too many times for me to list for you, but I will tell you of one very painful instance that make me sick to my stomach, almost causing me to puke just thinking about sharing it with you. I will fight to find the strength to release my story and free myself from his chains of cockiness and threats that have silenced me for so many years.
It was a scorching hot, June day in 2005. Living 18 miles from town on thousands of acres of land, founded and built up by my maternal side of the family since 1901, there was no sense in me worrying about my typical daily attire of a cute sports bra and matching, light-weight running shorts. The closest neighbor, The Taylors’, who ran the Chain Ranch that neighbored ours, were only seen on those seldom drives to town, with a passing wave, when I was desperate for a Diet Coke or pack of cigarettes. However, on that day my light attire wasn’t even breezy enough to fight off the unbearable heat that had been isolated in my almost 3,000 square foot Solitaire…
After only one year, the damn air conditioner in my new home was not working at all! I was hot, my three young children were beyond hot and making it worse for themselves as they chased each other around like little puppies heeding my warnings and tender discipline. The only heating and air guy I knew had told me he would not be able to make it out that day and I would be on a waiting list he hoped he could get to the next day at the earliest. It appeared everyone in North West Oklahoma was having issues with staying cool and he was the only go-to guy servicing our desolate area. Out of desperation, I decided to “take a leap of faith” and call my older brother, an ex Marine and also heating and air guy. My stupidity, desperation, and naive forgiveness would be very apparent all too soon….
You see, it had been six years since I had been around him, my older brother, at all. I will not refer to “him” by name to protect myself since the report I filed two years ago was never even sent to the county DA by the local Sheriff who was more than likely paid to protect him. I know for sure all the other victims like myself have been paid off, as well as connections in the judicial system my older, adopted, attorney sister had secured over the years. Oh, that’s just another silent bit of knowledge in the Gore family, forbidden to be brought up under any condition. I assume the young sheriff and my older brother are hunting buddies by all the stories the locals have told me since the report was dismissed casually and I was informed it was mysteriously lost by that egotistical asshole voted to be in charge of the shitty legal system out there in rural BFE.
“Anger is simply a result of deep rooted pain.” ~Lail Ann Haynes
“Why had it been six years since I had been around my older brother?”, you wonder. Well, in September of 1999, I finally confronted him about the years and years sexual abuse in front of my closest of my family members. There were eight of the adults present at my grandfather’s birthday to be exact as I recall: my now ex-husband, my aunt and uncle, my older sister and her husband, my gradfather who had raised us four kids, and my longest time abuser. What did they do when I pointed to my older brother in rage after learning my older sister had convinced Gail to disinherited my troubled, younger, biological brother from receiving any of the family fortune??? Of course that greedy, money possessed sister of mine wouldn’t mind getting a larger piece of the family fortune. If only I had known at 23 what I now know at 35, money is of so very little value in all reality….
“If anyone here should be disinherited, it’s that mother fucker right there
who has been raping me since I was seven years old!!!”
They all got up, as if on cue, and went to my sister’s pretty table to eat the birthday cake I had so carefully decorated with little, plastic, Black Angus cattle. Those precious little replicas …..
little, black cows I had so carefully selected with love for Gail’s birthday cake …. were treasured representatives of my grandfather’s passion for the legacy that had been built since 1901. Not one word was said to me after my humiliating outburst revealing the only ammunition my violent husband at the time had to hold over my head and chain me to the violent marriage I had committed to almost five years before. As I stood there silently watching the family I loved so dearly happily serving cake as if nothing important had been said, the tears I did not want to shed streamed down my face as my fragile heart broke into a million little pieces… The reality that they could care less burned deep into my entire existence standing in that home I never liked from the time it was built. It was cold, just like my money mongrel sister.
I realized my worst fear was becoming a living, breathing, smirking nightmare. Yes, my older brother had correctly predicted I would not be helped by my beloved family, MY biological family. I still see that sly grin on his face taking sneaky glances at me standing there in tears with my chin splattered on my older sister’s expensive neutral colored carpet and my tender heart completely destroyed… all my hopes for comfort and the dream of eventually receiving protection shattered as I stood there heaving sobs in total disbelief… and my secretly violent, now ex husband, the only one there to comfort me…
“I just told you he has been raping me all this time and you aren’t going to do ANYTHING?!!!!!!!”
“It’s not that we don’t believe you, Lail . We just had no idea.”
“Go catch your breath and come back and enjoy the party.”
“Give us time to digest this.”
It still hurts as I type the memories of my uncle’s response to my desperate scream on this triggering black keyboard and remember the love, compassion and protection I so desperately longed for at that moment was never received. The whole damned family sat there at that nicely decorated dining table eating that beautiful cake, making sure my adored, charming, still smirking older brother had an appropriate sized piece and a napkin to place on his lap to protect his precious designer jeans…. Why was I shocked??? Would you be in my situation???
“Go ahead and tell. Nobody will believe you anyway.”
“Go ahead and tell. Nobody will believe you anyway.”
“Go ahead and tell. Nobody will believe you anyway.”
“Go ahead and tell. Nobody will believe you anyway.”
“Go ahead and tell. Nobody will believe you anyway.”
That is exactly why I didn’t tell anyone what happened on that scorching hot, summer day, with my three children playing in their rooms as their uncle revealed there was a cost for his service at my request he fix my air conditioner and fill it with freon…. I wasn’t worthy of being treated any better.
Why???
You tell me, please…
“All our rough journeys are simply boot camp to prepare us to fulfill our calling.” ~Lail Ann Haynes
If you want to help me, help me stop abusers from continuing to have power over us.
Break the silence.
Stop abusers from being empowered.
Raise awareness to the reality that this happens in homes around our globe.
There is no discrimination.
The horror of sexual abuse cares not about class or color.
All abusers want is power.
Silence is deadly.
Watch and listen to Damaged by Plumb for a second with me, please.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAuNL_ucx7M
Thank you for caring.
Giggles Satin & Tear Drops 