By Julie Mansfield
Special To NAN
News Americas, MIAMI, FL, Fri. Jan. 17, 2014: Think of all the women in your life. Now think about this alarming scenario: of every four women you know, one was likely sexually violated before she reached age 18.
And if you’re like my two daughters and myself, the numbers are downright frightening: all three of us experienced the ravages of Child Sexual Abuse (CSA).
My own abuse at the hands of my mother’s brother started when I was just 8 years old. I knew the ensuing destruction so intimately and vowed if ever I had children, I would protect them with the might of a thousand armies.
Imagine the horror upon learning that my first-born was victimized. No, it wasn’t a lack of vigilance that led my brother-in-law to rape my then 11-year-old daughter. I was simply too busy shielding her from predators unknown, barricading her from a world ready to pounce. Unbeknownst, however, the devil we knew was laying in wait to devour her.
When it comes to CSA, the statistics don’t lie: most victims know their abusers. They know them by name, by face, by familiar, sometimes by blood.
Like me, my daughter knew her abuser, or so she thought. She wasn’t to know he would rape her three separate times. She wasn’t to know the pain he inflicted would cause her to attempt to take her own life, getting her Baker Acted to protect her from herself. She was not to know a loving, caring, empathetic aunt would choose to stay married to a predator whose extra-marital exploits had produced an additional five children, including two sets of twins with women other than his wife.
My daughter now knows the fragility of trust, she knows the pain of depression, she knows the abandonment of a grandmother who asked her not to say anything for fear the predator would go to jail.
She knows guilt, opting not to testify against her abuser to gift his children a life with their father. She knows the suffering of a soul interrupted. But I’m grateful she’s now found the strength to embrace resilience and the power of self-love.
Upon learning of my first-born’s abuse, I had doubled up on the vigilance with my other daughter. At times she must have thought I was a warden and she a prisoner. But I’d long thought better to live a prison-like setting than in the mental prison imposed by CSA.
The years of shielding and over protectiveness were useless as it turns out my youngest was also violated. Tried as I did to shield my girls from the horrors of CSA, both my girls were victimized; both now share an unenviable link to me.
That’s just one reason I wrote ‘Maybe God Was Busy,’ (amazon.com), a memoir of an idyllic childhood violently interrupted by CSA.
We need to break the silence especially in the islands. The pervasiveness of CSA is made worse only by the silence of survivors. And the complicity of those who know about the abuse and do nothing, is telling predators it’s okay to ravage our children.
EDITOR’S NOTE: Julie Mansfield is the author of “Maybe God Was Busy” available on Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/Maybe-Busy-Julie-Marie-Mansfield/dp/061581476X
