Survivors Speak
Living After Abuse
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| Val's Story |
My Dad and Mom split when I was 5. I remember him standing in the doorway of
the house with his suitcase, tears streaming down his face, and my mother throwing
a necklace he had given her at him as he went out the door. I have never forgotten
the intense feeling of abandonment and loneliness I felt that day. That marked the day
that my biological father stopped being a Daddy to my sister and myself. Whatever his
reasons were, he went into the Army and only surfaced in our lives at his convenience
and when he wanted us to meet his next possible marriage partner. My Biological Dad
was also an alcoholic. He ended up dying at the age of 60 of Cirrhosis of the Liver. My
grandfather shot and killed himself in his 50's because he, too, was an alcoholic and was
very abusive to his children and wife. A 12-year-old boy found him dead in his car in the
woods one day.
My mother married another man in the early 60's. I was so hungry for a 'daddy'.
I instantly liked him. He was handsome, and funny, and charismatic. I thought he
looked like Elvis Presley! Perhaps he would be the daddy I was so yearning for! My little
sister wasn't as easily won over. She was shyer than I, and much more skeptical.
My mother was a very loving woman, and a good mom. But as far back as I can
remember, she took care of my ailing grandparents. She was often driving back and forth
to their house to take care of them. I think she tried to be very vigilant about
protecting us girls, I really do, but I don't think she ever believed my stepfather would
do anything to hurt us. After all, he was such a wonderful guy and everyone loved him.
My step dad was always the life of any party.
I loved him. I loved him with a child's trust and heart that was searching for a father to
love and protect her and do what was right by her . I was only 6 or when
he began to act differently toward me. I didn't understand the difference,
but I liked the attention. He would sometimes put his arm around me and cuddle me
close, but it didn't feel like a daddy embrace. It felt like a 'girlfriend' embrace. But I
didn't fully understand those implications. He was so nice to me. He would offer to take
me to the store with him and then allow me to sit on his lap and turn the wheel, but then
he would push my legs apart and touch me and just keep talking to me as if he wasn't
doing anything. Its like I was expected to just pretend that the violation of my personal
body was something that didn't exist. I didn't know how to do otherwise. I didn't even
fully comprehend that what he was doing was wrong. I had mixed feelings. It felt bad,
yet the attention was so good, and he made me feel so 'special'. He would call me his
'special girl', tell me how beautiful I was, and that I must keep our secret or he would have
to go away like my other daddy had to. That was unthinkable to me. It scared me
more deeply than I can express.
I sometimes felt something under my bottom when I sat on his lap, and he made
strange noises I didn't understand. Sometimes, he would take a detour on the way to the
store and take this little path behind the woods at the end of the road where we
lived, and would stop the car and do things to me. Then he would take me to the
local drug store where they had a fountain and 'reward' me with some candy or a
'green river’, which I loved. Then we would return home with the things my Mother
had wanted from the grocery store or the drug store and act like everything was
normal. It became what was normal to me. I didn't know daddies and their little girls
weren't supposed to do such things.
| President/Founder House of Hope S.W. Michigan |
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Maltreatment, Child Cruelty, Sexual Abuse, Crimes Against Children, Injustice, Child Advocate,
Child Psychology, Child Development, Child Molester, Child Molesters, Sexual Deviant, Sexual
Law, sexual law, Radio Shows, Featured Guest, Motivational Speaker, Keynote Speaker, Cody
Posey, New Mexico, Las Cruces, Roswell, Traverse City, Radio Guest, Child Abuse Prevention,
child psychology, child therapy, Social Worker, Healing, hopeful, The Purpose Driven Life,
Failure to Protect, Child Endangerment, Hope, Healing, Compassionate, passionate, Fighter,
Fighter for kids
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