I'm going to open up on here a bit on my past abuse history to hopefully explain why I hold the views I do on the patriarchy movement within the church, my inherent dislike and distrust of the IFB (Independent Fundamental Baptist Church), my disdain for the purity movement, and why I hold the church accountable for not only allowing, but fostering abuse within its confines.
I also want to make it clear that although I am highly suspicious and often triggered by the corporate church (just attending church is often difficult and I do not do it often anymore) I am still a believer. Sinful, errant, evil people hurt me, and have hurt others. The message of fear, control, and shame is not Jesus' message, it is man's. I want to tell some of my story so that others can recognize the pattern of abuse, how the grooming starts, and some red light moments that should make a parent take pause and investigate if something untoward is happening.
My birthday is a trigger. I have had many great birthdays, many memorable birthdays. My surprise sweet 16 is a great memory (I have the best girlfriends in the universe, we are still friends, some 20 plus years later). Going into labor late at night when I turned 30 and giving birth to my youngest early the next morning is a great memory. My tenth birthday though, is memorable for another reason. It was the day the abuse started. It coloured all of the birthdays I had after that with a dark cloud of shame. I have never had a birthday since that birthday where I didn't remember the events of that day.
Doc was a member of our Baptist church in Ohio. He was an upstanding member of our community. He was a former deacon. He was in his early 60's. He gave generously to the church and was involved in missions trips there. He always donated five lbs of carrots to any church fellowship (Why? I don't know. Carrots were his thing and when his hand would shoot up during the church service asking for food donations often other church members would yell out that he was donating 5lbs of carrots as we all knew that was coming before he had a chance to reply.) He was at every service. His wife was the school nurse. He and his wife were best friends with my parents. He was a great guy. He had a large family, six kids, all of whom had left the nest, with his youngest attending a well known bible college in Ohio, and one of his sons was a missionary. He was exemplary.
He was also a pedophile.
He was sick.
He was evil.
We had moved to Northeastern Ohio in the middle of a January blizzard from our home in Maine. My Dad felt called by God to go to Ohio. He felt that God wanted him to give up being a pastor and to dedicate himself to christian education. In Ohio was a small Bible College that our church ran. Our Dad worked on his masters in Christian Education and was the academic dean of the college while we lived there. My mom was his secretary. We lived in a small two bedroom trailer when we first arrived, and lived there for about a year while my parents tried to find a house to purchase that we could afford. It is important to note that for most of my life, we lived at or below the poverty level. My parents worked hard, and sacrificed much to give us the illusion that we were not poor, but we were poor. The hand me downs, no health insurance, and crap cars didn't lie. I give mad props to my parents for raising my sister and I in as much comfort as we enjoyed, I don't know how they did it. We never received government assistance. That was sinful, people in our church were taught not to accept medicaid, welfare, or food stamps. It didn't matter how poor you were. Also, you tithed ten percent of your paycheck to the church,and that ten percent was to be calculated from your gross before taxes.
We met doc in March. I was nine. I was sick. Really sick. I had the flu and we had no health insurance and hadn't yet established ourselves with a family doctor. I got such a high fever that I became delusional. I had watched Moby Dick earlier that day and I had visions of Moby Dick coming through my wall at me, attacking me with Captain Ahab waving at me from his back where he was tied to him by the harpoon that he had impaled that white whale with. It was terrifying. Tylenol and ice water, cool cloths, etc. had not brought my fever down. My mother was frantic with worry. My Dad came and stood in the door of my room with my mother sitting on my bed and told her to take me to the ER. They'd figure out how to pay the bill later. God would provide.
She took me to the local community hospital and Doc was there. He was a cardiologist, but occasionally he was in the ER when the staff was low. He recognized my mom from church. She was relieved to see a familiar face. An IV was started with antibiotics in case it was bacterial pneumonia and they put me on a cooling blanket to bring down my fever and gave me some Motrin.
By the time we left, I was smiling, the fever had broken, and I had coloured Doc a picture and given him a hug. Weeks later I saw that he had that picture on his fridge and it made me feel so special. I wanted to be a nurse when I grew up, and he told me that I should think of being a doctor instead. He believed in me, he encouraged me to think beyond nursing and to dream bigger. I loved him instantly. Men in our churches never encouraged women to do things outside of the home. Nursing was "ok" but being a doctor was unheard of. He sent us home with some antibiotic samples and told my mom to bring me to his office, no charge, for a follow up and he'd do what he could to help with the ER bill. My mother thought he was a Godsend. We all did. My mother had a heart condition, so did my sister. I had one but I had mostly grown out of it. But, I was sick a lot. I have rheumatoid arthritis which brings with it a compromised immune system. Doc helped us with free or deeply discounted care and lots of samples over the next three years. Within a few months, he and his wife and my parents were fast friends.
Doc would play chess with me and introduced me to a show called Star Trek. I loved this show. Star Trek would become a huge part of my life, and was key to my survival over the next few years. I hadn't been exposed to sci fi much before this. I do remember watching some Buck Rogers at one point when we lived in Maine but that's about it. Most fantasy or sci fi things were questionable in the IFB church, too much humanism, too much evolutionary talk, too much magic. But because Doc watched it, and we would go to his house after church frequently, and then every Friday night, I started watching it. Also, since it was a "classic" show it was passable. Doc treated me like a little adult, not like a child. He would compliment my golden hair, my deep blue eyes, and how tall I was getting. He would compliment my love of learning, my good grades, my addiction to reading everything I was permitted to. He would take me for rides in his Mercedes Benz. He would hug me when he saw me and hug me before he left. He was like another grandfather to me.
And then it was my birthday.
I turned ten. Doc and his wife came over, along with his daughter, home from college. She and my sister were only a couple years apart in age, we had spaghetti and meatballs (a family favourite, my mom's crock pot meatballs are the best!). Doc and his family always did the sacrilegious thing of putting sugar on their spaghetti sauce. Blech. I blew out my candles, opened my presents (More barbies, my little ponies, and a dictionary, yay!) and we all sat around and chit chatted for a bit. My sister and the daughter went to watch TV. For some reason, I needed to go get something out of storage, probably some toy that would go with my new barbie. We had a large storage porch off of the front of our trailer, it was freezing in the winter, and hot in the summer, but we had seriously downsized in our move and our stuff needed a place to stay. I went out to storage and in the back of the room, found what I was looking for. It was in a box near the floor, so I had been bending over to get it. When I stood up, Doc was there. He took my face in his hands and he kissed me. He held me tightly to him and put his tongue in my mouth.
I was frozen.
I was disgusted.
I was ashamed.
I was confused.
If I could go back in time I would tell that little girl to scream, to bite the offending tongue, to push at him, to yell No! I would tell her to run to her Daddy and tell on that disgusting man!
But I can't go back in time, and that little girl was me, it wasn't someone else. I very often relate to what happened to me in the third person. It's easier to handle that way. It's also how much of my experiences felt. Out of body experiences while he abused me was commonplace. It was easier to watch than to feel it happening.
When he stopped kissing me, he wrapped his arms around my trembling frame and told me not to be afraid, but not to tell anyone what had happened. He said no one would believe me anyhow. He said that he loved me and that others would not understand our "forbidden love". "I did love him after all, didn't I?" he asked. No, I hadn't lied about that I affirmed to him. But I didn't mean it like this. I didn't want this. I didn't even understand what the hell had just happened. He smiled and looked at me up and down appreciatively and told me that he was so glad that God had brought me into his life.
He left then, and I was standing there, motionless, dazed, watching him walk back into my house, he was getting his family together and leaving. I felt nauseated. I had just done something awful. I wasn't supposed to date until I was 16, no kissing until I was engaged. I had kissed a couple of boys before this, and a couple of girls, but they were childish, innocent kisses, pretending to get married or date or just see what the fuss was about. But I knew the rules. I was ten. I had just broken the rule. "Obedience is the very best way, to show that you believe. O- B -E- D- I- E- N- C- E" (sing along with me there, I bet many of you know that little ditty.) I had just disobeyed, with a grown man old enough to be my grandfather. I didn't mean to disobey, but I had just done it. But I had disobeyed with an adult man, who was in authority over me. So had I disobeyed?
Obedience was very important. It was imperative. Men were in authority, and parents were the absolute authority. Think I'm overstating or oversimplifying this? Take a look at some of the comics that were in my christian school curriculum at this age.
I thought briefly about telling my parents. But it was a fleeting thought. I highly doubted they would believe me over him. I was a kid. And worse, I was a girl. He was a man, he had position and power in the church, and in our community. I was nothing. I was no one. I knew what happened to girls who were promiscuous in our church. They were sent away to "homes" or "camps", or worse, they were completely shunned and kicked out of their homes. I didn't want to be sent away. Fear kept me silent for years. Shame kept me compliant for years. Lack of knowledge about sex and what was appropriate touching kept me confused and suffering.
Kissing before engagement meant promiscuous. That I knew. Kissing meant you needed to get engaged. Doc was married. I didn't want to marry him anyway. Eww. Was I an adulterer? That was even worse. I'd heard enough about adultery to know that was the ultimate sin, and adultery was almost universally painted as being brought about by the woman's wiles over the man. I remember looking at my oversized t-shirt and beyond the knee length culottes and wondering if I had somehow tempted him by my appearance?
I got myself together and came back inside said goodbye to Doc as he left, then buried myself in my new dictionary. Websters, dark blue, hardbound copy. Word to look up: "forbidden". Adjective; not permitted or allowed. I already knew what forbidden meant, but now that word was stuck in my brain. See also, "illicit". Yuck.
My mind was whirling. Had God brought me to him? Why? Why would God do that? It must be true though, since my Dad had said that God called him here, He had called us to move to Ohio. Nothing happens to Christians that is not of God's will. That much was true right? Right?! Was God trying to teach me something? Was I being tested? I didn't know. I didn't know how to process this, how to respond. I just felt sick. I could still smell him, could still feel his hands on my face, then my body against his. Shudder.
I pondered the possibility of asking my sister what she thought about what I had experienced. She was 7 and a half years older than I was though, and at this time we were not all that close. I was still the annoying little kid sister that she put up with. So that was not an option. I needed to remedy that, I needed to figure out how to get closer to her, to find a way to convey to her what was happening in a manner that she would not judge me. I had a new mission.
Happy Birthday Jeney.
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