One in six women will be sexually assaulted. 44% are under the age of 18.
College age women are 4 times more likely to be sexually assaulted.
Every TWO MINUTES someone in the U.S. is sexually assaulted.
The even scarier part of these numbers is that it is estimated that 60% of sexual assaults are not reported to the police.
The awful, sad, horrible truth is that approximately 73% of victims know their assailants. 93% of juvenile victims know their attacker. 32% of perpetrators of sexual assault are family members.
As I have mentioned before in this blog, I was sexually molested when I was 12 years old by a family member. It is my family’s best-kept secret that is no secret. It is my understanding that most everybody in my family knows that I said that this happened. I phrase it like that because I think most of them don’t want to believe that it did happen. If they actually believed that it happened, they’d have to deal with it and do something about it.
In my family, I was sacrificed for the well-being of my assailant’s wife and child. It would have been too tragic for them, I suppose, to really bring this out into the light. It would have caused too much family disruption for them. Whether they understood it or not, they were all actively deciding that it was better for the tragedy to rest solely with me, to cause me disruption for the rest of my life, than to try to protect me or bring a deviant pedophile to justice.
Tragically, there is a long, documented history of families turning a blind eye to sexual assualt. Did you know that King David, yes, the one from the Bible, the one who wrote so many of the Psalms, did nothing when he discovered that his daughter, beautiful Tamar, had been brutally raped by his son, Amnon. It was recorded that he was furious, but that he did nothing. Nothing. A king, chosen by God to be king, who had slain the giant Goliath when he was only a teenager, who had fought many battles, did nothing for his daughter. David's other son, Absalom, eventually killed Amnon, then plotted to overthrow his father. Thus began the complete unraveling of David's family. It's an amazing story that takes place in 2 Samuel.
David never rose to Tamar's help and it cost him dearly. His son Absalom avenged Tamar's abuse by killing Amnon, David's other son. Again David said and did nothing. Absalom fled Jersusalem for three years. When he returned, David refused to see him for two years. Eventually David was overthrown and cast out of the city he founded. Even though David was ultimately returned to power, his son Absalom was killed and David was devastated, understanding how much he had lost by his inaction.
It is clear that, when regarding how David treated his family, God was not pleased at all.
Is it any wonder that 60% of sexual assaults are not reported to the police?? Sexual abuse can and does destroy families, indeed multiple generations of families. But it is NOT the fault of the victim.
Ignoring it, pretending it didn't happen, does NOT make it go away. It only takes a horrible situation and makes it worse. Twelve year olds are unlikely to go to the authorities by themselves, especially when they are counting on their parents and families to come to their aid and defense. Every day, beautiful daughters are sacrificed because families are afraid of what will happen it they come forward. Far better that they should be afraid of what will happen if they don't.
I have, after many years of trauma and self-destructive behavior, finally come to terms with not only what happened, but why people did what they did. I have learned to forgive my family, not for their sakes, but for my own. Hatred, bitterness, anger, and confusion eat away at you like a cancer.
Want proof?Victims of sexual assault are:
3 times more likely to suffer from depression
6 time more likely to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder
13 times more likely to abuse alcohol
26 times more likely to abuse drugs
4 times more likely to contemplate suicide.
I have experienced and suffered from all of those things. Broken people want desperately to be fixed and most of us spend a large majority of our lives trying to do that with drugs, alcohol and sex. Anything to fill the hole left by the person that took away our innocence and dignity. When we realize that drugs, alcohol, and sex don’t fill the hole, we begin to believe the lie that we’ll never be whole. We’ll never be helped. Enter depression and suicidal thoughts. Enter more drugs and alcohol.
I finally decided that, for me to get free and finally have my life back, I could not spend one more minute being eaten alive by the blackness and the cancer and the lie that I would never be whole and healthy again.
Forgiveness is not about the perpetrator. It’s about taking your life back. Forgiving someone does not mean that you’re saying, “what you did to me is ok”. It means that you’re saying, “I’m letting this go because you are a tragically sick person and I have given you enough of my life already. I am not giving you any more.”
The next step in taking back my life is taking back the tragedy. If I use what happened to me to help other people either avoid being assaulted, or help them find their way back to health and wholeness after being hurt, then what happened to me ceases to be a tragedy. It becomes a victory. Yes, it was awful and horrible that it happened. But as I say all the time, THAT IS NOT THE END OF THE STORY. Or at least, it doesn’t have to be.
What happened to me when I was 12 years old becomes just that--something that happened to me. It isn't me. It doesn’t define who I am. God designed and defined who I am, even before I was born. That is where I take my definition, my direction, my validation. And God says I’m not done yet. God says I am so much more than a victim.
I refuse to lay down and die slowly for the next 50 years just because another sick, twisted, broken person hurt me 27 years ago. He took my innocence. He took my family. I had no father to speak of and after that happened, I lost my mother. She’s always been in my life, but at that moment, I learned that she didn’t have my best interest at heart and that I could not trust her to take care of me. I learned that if someone was going to take care of me, it was going to have to be me. I wasted years thinking I had to rely on myself. I was just as broken and twisted and sick as the man who did this to me and I mistakenly believed that I was all I had. Talk about despair. Talk about from the frying pan into the fire.
I have learned that I am not all I have. I have learned that I have a heavenly father who does have my best interest at heart, who I can trust, who will take care of me, and who will come to my aid and defense against those who would seek to harm me. He has healed my broken heart, my broken mind, and my broken spirit. Like it says in the banner of this blog, "the sun of righteousness will rise with healing in its wings". Romans 8:31 says, "If God is for us, who can ever be against us?"
He can and will do that for you, too. It is my goal to use the experience of not just what happened to me, but more importantly, what happened after that, to help others.
If you have been assaulted, get help. If your family won’t listen to you or help you, tell a teacher, or a church member, or a friend, or get on the web and go to www.rainn.org. There is an online hotline or you can call 1-800-656-HOPE.
If someone in your family or one of your friends tells you that this has happened to them, HELP THEM. Don’t ignore them. If you read in the paper, or got onto msnbc.com and read about a 38 year old man sexually assaulting a child, you’d be outraged. Hell would not be hot enough for this person. Why would it be different if that man was in your family and married to your sister? It’s no less heinous a crime because you’ve known him all your life and never thought he’d do anything like this.
If you’re dealing with an assault that happened years ago and you’ve been trying to fill the hole and fix the brokenness with false solutions, please know that it can be better. I have been where you are and I know it can be better. It can even be amazing and glorious and fantastic. Not just for me, but for everybody. God is not just my heavenly father. He is desperately waiting and wanting to be there for you, too. We are his children and I believe he hurts when we hurt.
There is hope for the hopeless. There is healing for the broken. There is joy for the broken-hearted. There is help for the helpless.
The rest of your life can be different. Please, get help.
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