I am a sexual abuse and incest survivor. My abuser was my best friend. She was my sister.
A few years ago when the #metoo movement began, I thought, So many women I know have suffered sexual abuse: sister-in-laws, neighbors, friends. My brain kept insisting, Not me. But then it all came back. The dam broke.
I’ve been in denial for decades.
“You see, I very much did not want to open a door that could not be closed. I wanted to get on with my life. I feared destroying by my becoming conscious of these things the hard-won and fragile peace in my family, and I was hanging on to the hope that I was making all of this up.”
–Chieko Okazaki, “Healing from Sexual Abuse”
I was eleven when it started. I remember several incidents. The abuse occurred in my family home. My sister was thirteen, I was eleven. It grieves me that my sister played a formative role in my sexual life. Not my first love, not my first boyfriend. My sister.
At first the abuse didn’t feel like abuse; in time it became systematic. She created a code to signal when to meet her privately somewhere. My older sister wanted to spend time with me. She liked me. She pulled a younger cousin into it, too. Finally, one day I told her no. She never bothered me again.
Only recently did I learn she abused my younger brother and sister, too. I want to scream and kick and cry. I wish I’d known. Could I have saved them? I don’t know.
Often, abuse is passed on. This is true in my case. A boy sexually abused my sister one day at our elementary school. It was a newer suburban school in a new area of town with great teachers and funding. It happened anyways.
My mom switched us to another elementary school. My sister cried every single morning when we were dropped off. I didn’t understand why she cried but now realize she was suffering PTSD. She didn’t know how to cope with the abuse she received, couldn’t process it. I’m not sure how my parents helped her. She never went to counseling.
A few years after her abuse, she began acting out sexual abuse scenarios with the closest people she knew: her younger siblings including me.
Fast forward to today. My sister/abuser is happily married in the temple and has held several leadership callings in the church including Relief Society President. She’s moved on. I don’t know if she’s ever addressed the abuse she caused or received. She’s never said sorry.
When I see her a few times a year, we pretend everything is fine. However I’m not OK. I’ve never confronted her. I’ve never seen my bishop or talked with a counselor. I’m terrified to tell my parents. When you’re abused as a child, the memory haunts you. You try to convince yourself it didn’t happen, pretend it was a nightmare. You have to come to terms with the fact that your innocence was ripped away. You can’t rewind time.
The fall out from abuse is real. Now as a wife and mother, I have issues with trust and control. I worry about my children’s safety. No one is safe enough: neighbors, church friends, old friends, new friends, my own father. I constantly ask my kids, “Who’s house are you going to? Who are the parents? Do they have siblings? How well do we know them?” I study self defense and safety manuals. I wonder, “How can I protect my children from possible abuse?”
I believe in eternal families which means I’m linked forever with my sister. Despite my grief about this, I’ve recently found comfort and healing through Christ.
In Luke 3:5, there is a beautiful passage:
“Every valley shall be filled and every mountain and hill shall be brought low; and the crooked shall be made straight and the rough ways shall be made smooth.”
When I read that, I felt incredible peace, knowing that through Christ and his atonement we can heal, forgive, and move on. A thirty-year weight has been lifted from my heart and my soul. I can’t explain it. I might need dozens of counseling sessions, still. But my deep grief is now gone.
I testify to you that this happened through Christ. Through Christ we can become whole again. We don’t have to carry around the weight of abuse and damage that has been done to us. We can talk about hard things and work through them, move forward. We can even forgive.
My sister is not leaving my life. I love my family. I will forgive her, I already have. I just have to pick up the phone.
Links:
Lds.org: Can I heal from this?
Chieko Okazaki, “Healing from Sexual Abuse”
Previous Segullah blog post: Please Consider Trauma Therapy for Sexual Abuse
I am sorry that you were victimized. All my best to you as you continue to respond to this incredibly difficult situation. Thank you for helping others by telling your story.
Thank you for your candor and your grace. There is consolation knowing that Christ was "a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief."
Thanks for sharing and for highlighting the healing power of Christ.
This is a brave thing you’ve done: sharing publicly. Bless you for your courage and for the years of suffering. Bless you for your moment of enlightenment and freedom. I hope the moment is lasting. If not, as you noted, there are wonderful professionals available to help. Thank you for your testimony of the power and goodness of Christ. Amen to all of this.
Thank you for your bravery in sharing your experiences. May God bless you as you heal.
How powerful. Thank you for trusting Segullah with your story. Know you are appreciated and supported.
I can only imagine how difficult it was to share your story. I have been thinking that some of the worst things about incest are the destroying of innocence and the creation of shame. This is all so very unfair to the victim! I hope you can find lasting peace because you certainly deserve it.
This post confirms the Mormon pressure that abuse just doesn't matter as long as you're forgiving enough. I am an incest survivor too. Forgiveness does not require pretending it didn't happen and deciding to never bring it up. Abuse survivors have spent years trying to dismantle the horrid spiritual abuse that "you just have to be more forgiving!" And here you go and tell a story that feeds right into the spiritual abuse of claiming that the victim can just get over it all silently without making any waves in the family. If a priesthood leader told you to keep quiet and just use the atonement, everyone would spot that as wrong, and an example of spiritual abuse, and destructive. This message is just as wrong and destructive when a victim says it.
The issue you've missed is that your sister is going to hell unless she repents. You are NOT in an eternal family with her. People who commit incest don't go to the celestial kingdom. (It's just a mistake! No, actually, it's a sin.) The victim is not the Savior and your forgiveness can't get her to the celestial kingdom. Those family bonds are broken, shattered and gone unless your sister repents. I doubt your sister has moved on any more than you have. Denial isn't moving on. She can't heal from the abuse she suffered if she hasn't admitted the abuse she passed on to you and your siblings. If you continue to let her act like nothing ever happened, you are still cooperating with the abuse. Keeping the secret is part of the abuse. Secrecy is essential to the abuse. If you really think you're over it, then when you pick up the phone, you tell her about this blog post and tell her you know what she did and tell her you forgive her. Then talk to your parents and your younger siblings who were also abused. Stop keeping the secret.
I kept my father's dirty secret for decades. (He held big dog Church callings too; that just adds to the hypocrisy, it doesn't make them righteous.) I finally *actually* healed from what he did – not just the "read the scriptures and feel peace because you're not going to confront him" but the real healing. The kind that requires a confrontation. The kind that re-establishes your worth as an actual human being because you're willing to stand up for yourself. I told him it was wrong. I told him it hurt me. It was the hardest thing I've ever done. It ended my relationship with him. He can go to hell for refusing to repent now, but I told him the truth. Silence is a lie.
You need to go see that counselor and muck through all the terrible stuff you think you've avoided. It's still out there. I had years of that "false healing" too. I know where you're at, and some day you will regret this fake-spiritual self-righteous blog post with your whole heart. Not least because someone will read it and use it to beat another incest victim over the head for committing the sin of standing up for herself and speaking out about the abuse. (Abuse is just a mistake; the real sin is talking about the abuse and making waves in an eternal family about something that happened decades ago.)
It wasn't priesthood leaders who told me to shut up, stay in the relationship and use the atonement to "just be more forgiving." It was nice Mormon women.
Bless you for sharing your story. I wish you peace and love and blessings on your journey. I found great strength in Chieko Okazaki's words as I worked through sexual abuse in therapy and group therapy, with my Bishop and certainly through the atonement. It has effected me every day since but the journey has had its compensations. It made me a more compassionate person.
Thank you for sharing your story. Every single LDS woman I know who was a victim of sexual abuse and incest, often tells the same story. Afraid to tell, afraid to break up the family, afraid, afraid, afraid. I am often startled at how many victims cannot break that connection with their abusers and their families, despite how devastating and destructive the abuse was. Many of those victims are right when they know the revelation/accusation will tear apart their family, and often they, the victims, are the ones who lose. But here is also what I know: when we don't speak it, we can't deal with it, we can't heal it, and we can't stop it.
Many years ago, we learned my sister had been abused by my uncle. When confronted about it, my grandparents and aunts and uncles closed ranks around him-acknowledging all his victims but refusing to hold him to account for his actions. Their actions shielded him and prevented him from actually repenting and changing. And it caused a dramatic rift in the family. My mother stepped away from her family. My sisters and I cut contact with our grandparents, aunts & uncles, and cousins. For years, I felt guilty because I thought I wasn't forgiving by trying to reconcile until I learned that you can't reconcile with people who refuse to acknowledge what they've done and have no desire to change. A relationship with my extended family was not safe for me or my children. I do not hate them and I have forgiven them, but I also have to protect myself and my children.
Yes, your sister was a victim. Yes, she did not receive help or counseling when she needed it. But she was also an aggressor and she abused you. Your parents didn't protect you and they didn't help her sister when she needed it. A good therapist will help you work through the appropriate steps to take in addressing the devastation and havoc abuse created in your life. A good therapist will help you decide to confront or reveal the truth to your family. Confronting and revealing the truth will have a serious impact on your family, that is absolutely true.
The truth is, the foundation of your family right now is built on a lie-a lie where abuse did not occur. A lie where abusers were not held to account for their actions. And truthfully, your sister could not have repented because an important part of repentance is going to the people she wronged and she has never approached you about her actions. Therefore, she might have married in the temple and she might have been Relief Society president, but she did those things unworthily. And you don't know and can't trust if she isn't abusing her own children, or yours, for that matter, unless you have little to no contact with her. Her own progress is false and stunted and can only be corrected through confession and repentance, meaning that until she does so, you are not linked to her eternally–there is no way you can be.
Again, thank you for sharing your story. May you have the courage to work on the healing you so deserve.