Chapter One
October 16, 1993
Dear Family,
This letter is going to raise very emotional and controversial feelings for you the reader. I’d like you to understand that my motives are from a genuine love for my family and a need to protect future children.
Somewhere in our family tree adults began sexually abusing the children in our family. Adults who were supposed to love and care for them did unspeakable things to them instead. The incest has continued on in our generations with disastrous results.
I realize now that some of you going to throw this letter away unable to hear anymore. I am sad that you will do this. Incest is a horrible tragedy that needs to come to an end. I have been forced to deal with incest when I was sexually abused by a loved and trusted family member. The devastating effects are just now beginning to be brought to my consciousness and they have affected my life in ways that leave me gasping for protection.
Incest is believed to occur in families from abuser to victim and so on. It never occurs as an isolated incidence. Statistics read that before the age of 18 one in four females and one in eight males will have been sexually abused. I don’t want to see any more family children subjected to sexual abuse. It destroys their lives just as they are beginning to trust and love, My belief is that the way to stop this from happening anymore is to bring incest out of closets and begin to discuss it so that it never happens again. The solution is within our grasp if we open our hearts and refuse to keep the secret any longer.
I know that some members of my family that read this are sexual offenders. I want you to know that any sexual contact or sexual innuendos with a child are wrong and you need to stop immediately . Counseling is available and you should seek it.
For those in my family who have suffered incest at the hands of a trusted and loved family member or friend: I am so sorry the you had to endure this. None of it was your fault and you have courageously survived. I hope that you are getting the help you need. If I can be of any help or encouragement to you please feel free to contact me.
Respectfully and lovingly submitted
Theresa
Chapter two
Early Years
I was the first child born to my parents during the summer of 1960. My mom who was barely 18 years old insisted on breastfeeding. There were no support groups or assistance at this time. All babies were bottle fed except for a few “nutty” women who thought the old-fashioned way was best. My mom found one nurse who worked the night shift that could help her feed me and when she got out of the hospital my paternal grandmother taught her what she needed to know. My mother and father very quickly had my sister within 18 months and according to my mom we had a subsistence type of living with my dad doing logging and feeding us by hunting and fishing.
We moved around a lot for the first 4 years of my life and sometimes we even lived in the tool shed that was on my grandparent’s farm. We lived in Connecticut for a bit and that is where I was first victimized by an abusive man when I was nearly 5 years old. It was a neighbor who was mentally retarded and somehow, I managed to tell my mother right away. The police were called, and we moved immediately to Rutland Vermont. I was enrolled in kindergarten right away when we moved. I had never been around many other children besides a few cousins and my sister, so it was a strange world for me. I had just been molested, relocated and thrust into city life. I remember being fearful and very shy with other kids. I did not make many friends. There were no school psychologists or special education meetings back in 1965. I was ostracized by my classmates for lots of reasons. One of them being that I wet the bed every night without fail. I smelled bad and I was teased unmercifully for it. You can imagine how hard my life was and I don’t remember anybody intervening.
Sometime around six years of age my father began molesting me. It continued a regular basis until he and my mother divorced when I was 11. After that I did not see him much until I went to live with him briefly at age 14. He molested me then and I did not talk to him again until I was 21 years old. To some of you this is next revelation is going to sound unbelievable, but it is sadly true and it testifies to the power of a mental illness called DID (dissociative identity disorder) aka multiple personality disorder. The last time my father sexually abused me I was an adult and divorced from my first husband. I will tell you about how this happened later when you understand what it means to be a person with DID.
The worldview of the chance for full recovery of an individual with DID says that this is nearly impossible. I can, with certainty, testify that I am alive and recovered. How you might ask? My savior Jesus Christ brought me through a life and a healing that is miraculous. Jesus is alive and active today despite what you may think or have been taught about him. He is who he says he is and he came to save the sick and the lost. The rest of my book begins here in 1975 when I was 15.
I was running away from my childhood home in North Clarendon Vermont to live on a dirty couch in a tiny trailer with a school friend whose father turned out to be a very violent alcoholic. My parents had divorced, and I felt empty and alone in the world. My friend’s family was in much worse shape than I thought. Violence and drunkenness were normal for them. It was a horrible place to be, so I called my mom and she arranged for me to move into a home associated with Catholic Charities. I was supposed to go to school and help the people who lived there with their children. I, however, had different ideas at this time and I kept sneaking a 21-year-old man that I thought was the love of my life into my bedroom. That did not go over so well when the people I was supposed to be helping found out. I was asked to leave had nowhere to go. My mother really wanted me to come home, but I knew that I could not nor, could I explain to her or myself for that matter why I was so unhappy at home. My life with my family was shrouded in a deep darkness that I did not comprehend, and I simply knew that my home was not a safe place for me to be. I tried living with my biological father, but he came home from work early one day and found me feeling sick and in bed, so he joined me. Not what a normal parent would do, and I was terrified by his sexual advances. I left immediately, and I never told anyone till I was much, much older what really happened that day. I never suspected that his perverted behavior was not the only time he had been sexually abusive. I decided then to move in with my 21-year-old boyfriend’s family. Nobody there seemed to care that I was radically underage and that he regularly hit, screamed at and hurt me. As crazy as it sounds now I felt relatively safe and at least it was my choice to be there. I had a job and I continued to stay in high school. Most of the time I recall being very frightened but at this time in the late 70’s no one had programs talking about “domestic violence” and no one ever approached me in a concerned manner except my sister and my mother. My sister totally got it that I was being abused by this much older man but she was powerless to do anything and I declined to listen to her.
One Sunday when I was just under 18 years old I attended a morning service at my childhood church and during this service the priest giving the message began speaking about sexual misconduct, purity and living a life pleasing to God. I began to tremble and weep for reasons I did not understand. I did not know Jesus or anything about having a personal relationship with him, so I had no knowledge to draw on. My inner thoughts on that day were that I was not Holy and that some God that I did not know was asking me to become Holy and serve Him. I had no idea what this priest meant or how to respond.
If you experienced anything like my early years on this earth you may not have been told about our personal savior and His desire for a relationship with you but let me assure you from my perspective today as a mature Christian woman that there is nothing, absolutely nothing that can separate you from the love of our Abba Father. Romans 8:38 says neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. I pray with all the power of the Holy Spirit that if you are reading this material and are in any kind of abusive or violent relationship that you would hear the voice of God (or these words) telling you to get out and find help right now. Do not wait and do not fear. Make a safety plan and Get out. Before I continue with this book I want you to have some numbers that could save you years of pain and sorrow. Please use them if you are in an abusive situation of any kind.
1.800.799.SAFE (7233) 1.800.787.3224 (TTY) Anonymous & Confidential Help 24/7. Live chat is also available 24/7 from www.thehotline.org or you may email me at
theresa@redcordministries.com. I would be honored to help you.