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July 19, 2005

Protect children - take action

By Caitlyn Mayfair

One day in 1991, I woke up from the fog I was living in and in front of my face was the fact that I had been abused as a child. I remember the exact day, almost the exact hour.

I was raised in a lower middle-class family in West Virginia. My mother was a nurse and my father a skilled laborer. I was the second of five children. I saved myself by entering the convent when I was 18. I further saved myself by leaving the convent when I was 30. It took the death of both of my parents for the memories to start ... This is my story.

Who am I? I am one among the many. Who are the many? They ... we are the survivors, the overcomers, the victors who were abused as children. We are the ones whose childhood was taken from us.

I was abused as a child. Relentlessly so. By those who were supposed to protect me and show me how to become a mature adult. My abuse was sexual, emotional and physical. And it was hidden. It was a secret. It was constant and from a very early age.

It was my fault ... I cried too much ... I acted out ... I made them do it ... I had to be punished ... I even liked it ... It was the only attention (love) I ever got.

They were the adults. They were the ones who should have made things right. But there are no "shoulds" in this life and they didn't make things right. They put the responsibility on me. I was told to hold it in, to stuff it and stuff it, and above all else, to tell no one. And I did.

I succeeded at holding it in. I repressed the abuse until my abusers were dead.

Then I started the therapy and it continues. The shame and self-loathing, the feelings of helplessness, of not being able to trust anyone, have stayed with me my entire life. As a child no one noticed. All the screaming that was going on inside me wasn't heard. No one seemed to care.

Learning to let it go after all those years of holding it in is a lifetime task. Learning to rid myself of the shame. Learning that is wasn't my fault. The task goes on. And now the stuffing is coming out. I have an enlarged heart, congestive heart failure, diabetes, fibromyalgia and an irritable colon. And that's only the physical stuffing.

To this day I can't cry and I don't relate well. Intimacy continues to be a problem. I am mostly a hermit. On many days, my fear, anger, grief, sadness and depression leave me glued to the walls within my house.

And who did this? Whose ugly face is it? It was done by people who look like the ones you see walking down your street every day. Regular, ordinary people you would never think of being so ragingly angry, let alone abusive. Normal America - that's what the face of my abusers looked like. That is what most child abusers look like.

Most children are abused by someone close to them - by someone who is a caretaker, a "protector" of sorts. And it doesn't matter if a child is abused once or repeatedly, it causes the same pain. And it stays with the child. It continually says to the child, "You are no good," "You can do no good," and it reaches into every cranny of the abused person's life until it is next to impossible to let go.

This is why you need to know what child abuse is. Not because of what I went through, but because of what present-day children are going through and what it is doing to their lives.

Do your part to eliminate child abuse and to help those who have been abused to heal. Learn the signs of child abuse. Teach those around you what they are. Respect children. Get help if you can't do it yourself. Hear the unspoken voice of the abused children you see every day.

Act. Protect. Empower.

Mayfair is a retired natural health practitioner who runs the Web site www.ad3pt.org, a source for abused children, adult survivors and those seeking information and ways to help.

Posted by Nealus at July 19, 2005 12:49 PM

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