My Worst Abuser Was Not a Man
A Story I've Not Yet Tried to Tell
SENSITIVITY WARNING: Carefully consider the following before reading or listening. This essay discusses prolonged mental and emotional abuse of a child as well as incest.
Hear this essay read by the author.
The worst of my abuse was committed by a woman. Well, two actually. One of them was my aunt.
I grew up thinking she was magical. She was single and didn’t have all the pressures and responsibilities my mom did. She was always well-dressed in colorful, carefully-coordinated outfits. She had fascinating collections - dolls with their own elaborate wardrobes packed in carefully-kept cases, music boxes from Europe and a dresser-top array of perfumes in shapely, glittery bottles. She played the piano beautifully and was a talented painter. She frequently gave me thoughtful gifts with sweet notes. To my young mind, she was the epitome of a modern woman.
I was little and I adored her.
As I grew toward preschool age, I was allowed to spend more time in her room. I was now trusted to look-at-but-not-touch all the delightful wonders in her storybook, second-story bedroom. This bedroom was across a loft from one that lives dark and dangerously powerful in my memory.
Just the year before, my uncle had carried me into and out that room in a span of time that changed my life forever. He had plucked me from a kitchen table chair and dumped me back into it after. But this story is not about him or what he did.
But my aunt knew what he did. And she did it too. Sometimes, they did it together. I was four the first time; five, the first time with her.
By the first time with her, I was accustomed to how things would go with him. It wasn’t hard to understand - a simple pattern really. With her, I was immediately washed down a thorny rabbit hole of never-ending confusion about her intent and her sanity.
For her, the physical abuse wasn’t the point. It was a means of manipulation to get the first thing she wanted—my mind.
She wanted control of my mind in order to get what she really wanted—me.
My aunt was the cool Sunday school teacher. Her class was the one all the little kids at church looked forward to being promoted into. Or maybe that was mostly me because I loved her so much. It was the kindergarten class, though, so for a bunch of small-town, southern kids, reaching kindergarten meant you were about to learn a lot more about the world around you and the world beyond the gorgeous, southern middle Tennessee valley we lived in.
I am the oldest of three and none of our other cousins attended that church. I was excited that I would soon get to walk with her from worship to the classroom every Sunday. I wanted to be more special to this special aunt of mine.
After all, we share the same middle name - Arn.
When the time spent in her bedroom suddenly resembled the time spent in my uncle’s bedroom, I no longer looked forward to her class. I didn’t want to hold her hand as we walked across the foyer. I didn’t want to sing songs about Jesus with her. I didn’t want her to teach me anything else at all.
Time has taken none of this memory from me. She had paper flowers stapled to the ceiling of her room. I laid on that bed and only thought of paper flowers, not of anything that was happening. After, I went downstairs with a heavy mind. She had said things to me that she’d never said before.
“I want a daughter just like you.”
“You could come live here and be my little girl.”
“You know, Renée, your mom doesn’t want you anymore.”
The last statement has rung in my ears for my entire life. Not wanted. Not wanted by my own mother. Was this true? If it was true, then it made sense that her sister would be the one she would confide in. They talked a lot and were very close.
The other thing that seemed to confirm it was that my mom clearly loved my brother more than me. Boys and men could do no wrong in her eyes. My femaleness at five already seemed a threat to her. Add to that that I now had a baby sister — bubbly, blonde, brand-new.
All the things I was not.
Being the first-born, I was a smile-when-told, silent-when-commanded child. I was soft-spoken, introspective and sensitive to reprimand. It wasn’t hard to have children better than me, especially when they were either male or precious.
So my fifth summer of life was spent daydreaming, hollowing out the far recesses of my mind to make space to work out the problem of why I wasn’t wanted by my mom. What had I done wrong? Could I change the way she felt? Could I grow up into a real person without her love? The loaded question beyond all of that was clearly, wherever I landed, could I afford the price I’d have to pay for my raising and my keep?
In my mother’s house, that was clearly being silent and congenial enough to fly under the radar but also to be able to withstand the storms of her rage that often named me the scapegoat. In my grandparents’ house, I would have to continue paying a very high physical and emotional price that I then had no words to describe.
I longed for the last Sunday when I would be pulled onto the lap of my aunt or uncle during worship. I wished desperately for growth spurts to make it too awkward for them to do this. Relenting to their wishes meant them holding my body close through sermons, singing, communion and prayers. I felt fires of rage and searing pain coursing through me as their hands touched the hem of my dresses, their fingers caressed my bare knees or they blew softly on the back of my neck.
I hated the power they had over me. I hated that I used my strength to survive them and not to fight them. And to this day, I hate that some Sundays, I would be so distressed about going my grandparents’ house for lunch that I would sit in my back seat spot and kick the back of my dad’s seat as he drove. It was the only way to hold back my tears and my screams and my desire to unbuckle so I could run away at a stop sign. My dad sure didn’t deserve to be kicked.
My resources were few and my agency was non-existent. The only authority I knew I could trust was an inanimate object with limitless power.
The Bible. Not church, mind you, but the written word of God.
The braiding of sex, religion and family in my life was well under way but I didn’t know this was unusual. I didn’t have the language to describe nor the courage to disclose what was happening. I also didn’t know if I could do enough to protect my siblings and cousins. If I made so many solo visits to my grandparents’ home, did they too?
Compliance became my childish mind’s way to protect others. And yes, compliance almost always meant sex.
The why of all these things confounded me. Even at five, my mind never stopped. I learned how to divide my mind into two spaces of thinking. One made sure I appeared normal as I participated in the usual aspects of life while the other continually strove to solve my problem. There wasn’t enough time in any of my days to find either reason or resolution. It hurt too much to imagine what life would be like if no one touched me in their beds. Even as I worked toward that goal, I wasn’t sure it would ever happen.
Though the traditions of religion and family continually delivered me directly into the hands of my abusers, I was grateful for the sharp, clear mind that God gave me. With it, I recognized the difference between what His word conveyed and what emerged from the throats of the men who read it aloud. It’s not that I mistrusted all these men; rather, the incongruity I saw between their public and private behavior gave me pause. Thus, I saw only one way to find the truth I believed would protect me.
I needed to learn how to read.
Surely, the Bible would tell me the answers I needed. Maybe I could find a word near the name Satan as a context clue for what was happening to me. Maybe there was a story about Jesus that would make me bold enough to speak up. Or maybe I would find out that what they did to me was a normal way to love a child. I hoped the latter wasn’t true though. I didn’t want to be overly sensitive but I also wanted to run and laugh and play without sadness pulling my forehead toward the ground.
My birthday is in December and in those days, the cutoff date for kindergarten entrance was strictly enforced. I had to be five before October 31st in order to start. This meant I would be nearly six when I entered public schools.
I couldn’t wait that long so I worked out a plan. A childish one, for sure, but with limited options, it was the best I could do.
I could already read some words and I could easily follow along in the children’s books that were read to me. The Bible, especially the King James Version that was most often used at church, seemed almost like a different language. I needed to learn more in order to decipher and decode the meanings of it. My plan involved watching Sesame Street and The Electric Company every day, making sure to not miss any of the reading and phonics segments. Then I retreated to my hiding place to practice.
My bedroom had a large closet. One one end, a previous owner had installed two shelves made from an old pool table. I was fascinated by the soft green surface and I loved the thick overhang along the front edge. It made for a cozy, secretive space in which I could sit cross-legged with my Bible in front of me. I was careful to have a doll or other toy nearby so I could quickly switch to looking like I was simply playing alone. I strongly suspected that my mom would see my quest for knowledge as subversive and somehow disobedient.
I supplemented this self-education by following along in an open Bible at church when men read scriptures aloud. I tried to always sit next to my one of my parents or an adult family member who could find the verses faster than I could. I lined up the words on the page with the words that were spoken. This allowed me to memorize at least a half dozen new words each week.
I made a game out of retaining them on the days that we went to my grandparents’ house after church. I couldn’t afford to ‘lose’ my new words so when I was taken to one of the bedrooms upstairs, I made sure to dissociate before we reached the landing at the top. During my time ‘away’, I repeated the words over and over. I pictured the shapes of the letters on the page and wrote them with my fingertips on the sheets.
I used words to comfort and soothe me. The pursuit of language charmed and entertained me. The lilting, lyrical nature of words scrubbed my heart clean of evil and preserved my ability to laugh. Intelligence, I told myself, was the way to overcome what I knew was stealing my life from me even as it was beginning. Intelligence, somehow, I knew I had.
It’s a curious thing to think objectively about the power abusers give up. Overpowering a child is easy. I didn’t kick and fight or call for help. The people hurting me were the exact ones tasked with my care. There was no one to respond to a cry for help.
Instead of fighting, I watched. I didn’t watch was happening. What they were doing to me. Dissociation allowed me to escape that visual knowing. No, what I did was observe. I focused deeply on their energy, on the war their souls inside them were waging as they went about their work. I saw a lot. It was easy to break in and see them for what they were.
There is no greater power a person can give than to show another their ugliest truths. The most dangerous occurrence for an abuser is for their prey to become stronger than they. I did not become strong enough to stop the abuse. I did, however, come to understand truth enough to win in the only way I could — I refused to hate those who took my childhood away.
The pattern of those flowers on the ceiling tiles was perfect. I studied it for years and never found a single flaw.
The last time I spent alone with my aunt was at her apartment when I was 11. As I sat in the back of her Mustang coupe on the way home, I pressed my face so hard against the seat back in front of me that the leather stitching left its imprint on my forehead.
Never again, never again. Never, ever again.
I needed so desperately for this time to be the last time. I was deeply angry and I knew that soon my body would change in a way that would bring attention from others. I didn’t want to be seen, noticed or appreciated anymore. For seven very long years, I had relented to the will of my uncle and my aunt. All I had wanted was to be the only one they did this to but I couldn’t take any more.
This last night of pleading for me to let her adopt me had broken me. It was so pathetic and I felt so hopeless in my ability to understand why she continued to pressure me. I wanted to hate the whole lot of them but I couldn’t.
She dropped me off and I listened to the usual exchange between her and my mother about what a great visit it had been. My mother, as usual, wasn’t too concerned about my enjoyment. The attention soon swung her way. Which was fine with me. I’d slept less than two hours the night before and the hours I had been awake were ones that fractured my soul.
All I wanted was to go to bed and sleep for a week.
“I hope you were polite and helpful and that you said, thank you.”
My mother’s words after my aunt left.
“Yes mam, I did.”
“She spends a lot of money on you, you know.”
“I know,” I said. What I didn’t add is that I was the one who had done all the paying.
I made good on my promise to myself and never set foot in another bedroom of either my aunt or uncle again. My life went on. I became a teenager and the abuse of my grade school years took a hard left into a much darker form of abuse. That, too, is a story for another day.
At family gatherings, I kept my distance from my abusers but was unfailingly polite. When my aunt asked me to be her maid of honor, I stood beside her and smiled for the camera.
When I was 27, I spoke to her for the last time. From the time my son was born, she had resumed her pleas for me to be her daughter and for my children to be her grandchildren. On this day though, I stood holding my second baby in my arms as I watched my toddler play. Only two weeks before, a woman at a party accidentally revealed to me that my then-husband also had a girlfriend. I was an overworked, exhausted mother without the economic or social support to leave. I was trapped and I knew it. I was in no mood for the plaintive, pathetic begging of my aunt.
“Please, Renée, your mom has other grandchildren. I don’t even have children so I never will unless you do this for me.”
At this point, my memories of the abuse were repressed so I hated myself for the words and their tone as they exploded from my mouth.
“Stop saying that to me. You are pathetic and mentally sick to keep calling me. I never want to see you or hear your voice again.”
I clicked the OFF button and threw the cordless phone at the floor, startling the children. I quickly moved to comfort them and turned on Sesame Street. If I was to be successful at one thing as a mother, it would be teaching my children to read.
I have never spoken to my aunt or uncle again. As so many adults who were sexually abused as children do, I doubted my memories once they returned. As it turned out though, my aunt, had one final present for me and it arrived via my uncle. It cost nothing but is worth more than vast caverns of gold.
About eight years ago, my uncle sent me a friend request on Facebook. He also sent a private message saying he wasn’t really sure how these things worked but he’d like to connect with me. At the time, I was deep into trauma work over the hell he poured a large foundation for. I stood with trembling hands and knees, my insides threatening to liquify at any moment. Still, I typed my reply.
“You may not have heard but I now remember what you did to me. I remember it as clearly as if it were yesterday. You are not my friend, nor have you ever been my friend. You will never contact me again. If you ever make the slightest attempt to contact any of my children ever, I will come after you without mercy.”
A few days later, the gift was delivered in the form of a string of phone calls from my aunt to my brother. I never heard the messages she left. Alone, my brother bore the pain of having to hear her voice and her madness again. What he shared was that she had talked enough for the answering machine to end the call three times before she was finished. He shared with me this simple summary of what she said:
“I don’t know what Renée is talking about. We didn’t do anything to her. We loved her and she shouldn’t say such bad things about us.”
We??
My message to my uncle did not mention her at all yet here she was panicked and ranting about what I said about the two of them. This also told me that he had called her. Not my parents. Not my other aunts and uncles but her.
All of my doubt vanished immediately.
This was a watershed moment in my healing. The plan I hatched from my small child’s mind had worked - educate myself, learn to discern between truth and lies and don’t ever, ever hate. Though I had much more work to do to sort it all out and to heal my life from what came after, I had suddenly turned a corner sooner than I could have ever dreamed all because my first abuser wanted to connect.
What he found was someone far fiercer and far more mighty than that little girl he used so long ago.
I’ve told many people small bits of this story but this is my first effort to bring it all together into a cohesive one. This story overwhelms the mainframe of my mind. Sharing it sheds light on the dynamics that brought it all to be and allowed it to continue. This story is the why for some much of what came after. This story informs much about my failed contributions to relationships of all kinds.
Please hold my story with tenderness. The little girl who lived it lives on inside of me. Sometimes, she still weeps for the unanswered questions about certain aspects of worth, love and being wanted. Nothing about her was left untouched by this abuse.
This is the story of a woman who abused me more than any man. A woman whose abuse would only be eclipsed by the treachery of another woman.
These women. These two. These oh-so-horrific two.
One of them was my aunt.
The other was her sister.
And my mother.
Thank you for sharing. HUGS