Crime stories: Interview with a 31-year-old woman who was a victim of child sexual abuse and sexual assault.
Many Experiences with Crime
“I have many experiences with crime. Most of them, I’ve never reported to the police. They are very serious things. I have a sexual abuse past, with incest, maltreatment, and sexual assault. Both within the family and outside.
When I was two, I was maltreated severely. I’m not entirely certain when the incest happened. I think I was 4, and then again when I was 6 or 8. And again when I was 15.
Of everything that I’ve experienced, what has affected me the most is the unsafety at home. I struggle with that on a daily basis. I’m still in therapy for it. It is and remains very impactful. It is unbelievable how far that goes and how many layers it has. I’ve been working on this for years now, but every time a new layer appears, with new emotions, new memories. It’s layer by layer. I think it’s almost becoming a filter.
Boundaries
The more I grow, the more I realize that this is about boundaries, about your physical integrity. People who have gone through things like this, and I think I can generalize, they have a lot of difficulty creating boundaries when it comes to physical interactions. But also more in general when it comes to indicating what they want and what they don’t want. All of that is so much harder for them.
What’s really impactful is that someone is doing something with you physically. They’re violating … your body. As a child, sexuality is not even a theme for you. It’s not even in your dictionary. And it’s just being forced on you.
I have friends who went through similar things, so I can examine what is driving this. I have a friend who was systematically abused. For me, I have been abused and harassed incidentally by many men. So I didn’t trust men at all. That has improved a lot. But there was a period, a long period when I was young, when I didn’t trust anyone. Anyone at all. You don’t let people near you. You have built a sort of protective wall around you. And behind that wall, you feel very lonely.
Multiple Incidents of Sexual Abuse and Assault
There was also a boy in my street who abused me. To me, our street was our street, but I couldn’t handle the part where he lived. I didn’t know whether I was supposed to look at his house or not, whether I should look at the other side of the street or not. It was almost spastic. I was trying to act very normally towards that boy after it happened, but on the inside I was feeling so blocked. I wasn’t able to handle it at all. Home wasn’t a safe place for me either. It wasn’t a place where I could go and be heard.
There was also this incident with someone who harassed me when I was 16. I was with the horses. I took care of these horses. They were my safe haven, that’s where I could be myself, that’s where I got the love that I didn’t get at home. It was my sanctuary, and when it happened there, too, I didn’t know where to go anymore. I thought to myself, “where can I go now? Where will I be safe?”
It happened even at my graduation ceremony. Someone grabbed my ass. He was married, his wife was standing ten feet away, unbelievable. The moment it happened, I felt so strongly that I could stop it, that I could just say, “Stop”. But on the inside, it was like I was fleeing. So I didn’t say anything. But it affected me for a long time. I sent him a letter a year later, telling him how much it had affected me. He never responded.
When I was 20, I was living in student accommodation. The landlord couldn’t keep his hands off of me. He was married, you know, but whenever his wife was home, well, then he focused on me. So I eventually left.
The last time that it happened was one or two years ago. That was with someone I knew well. I knew him from a hiking trip. It was a group traveling tour. We just got along really well, and so afterwards we went hiking together, just the two of us. In my previous experiences, my intuition is good enough that I know what’s going on. But the stupid thing is that in that moment, you’re caught completely off guard. I tried to be very clear, that I didn’t want anything to happen. For me, I liked the friendship, but that was all. And then someone still crosses that line.
That is what sticks with me, that these things happen suddenly. They happen so suddenly, that you’re caught completely off guard. It happens, and it hurts. I really feel like, the younger you are, the more impact it has. I don’t know if that can be proven, but that is really the feeling that I have. The younger you are, and your life will never be the same.
Those last couple of experiences, they are more in the category of sexual harassment. Those are not the worst experiences. The worst ones are the ones in my childhood.
Home
There were five of us at home. My parents, my two younger brothers, and me. I’m three years older than my eldest brother, and eight years older than my youngest brother. My eldest brother and I were raised the same way. Very strict. We were constantly afraid to be hit. I recognize that in him, and he recognizes that in me. We’ve talked about it. But the sexual abuse, he doesn’t recognize that, because it never happened to him.
My dad was always angry under the surface. I always felt like I needed to tiptoe around him. Being as sweet as possible, adapting, moving along with everything, and watching his every mood. When you become an adult, that becomes very awkward, also because you don’t really know who you are, because you’re always adapting to everything and everyone. So who are you?
My friend was scared to death around my dad. I always went to her house, she almost never came to mine. She didn’t like it at our house. And I didn’t either. We were never allowed to do anything at my house. But at my friend’s house, things were very different. You know, doing fun things, like going down the stairs on a mattress, that was allowed there. My friend and her brother, they were never hit at home.
My parents were very judgmental, also when it came to my friend’s parents. My parents said that they were raising their kids in a completely wrong way. But I just thought, “I don’t have to be afraid to be hit there.” At least they had more freedom there. There was a lot more opportunity to be a child there.
I remember that I had a classmate who was also being hit at home. My parents were outraged. Because those kids were being hit without reason. They would just sit somewhere and be hit. My parents couldn’t stop talking about it. They thought it was bizarre. For some people, self-reflection isn’t their best developed quality.
Can They See It?
I hated biology class, when they taught us about sex, and pregnancy, and conception. I didn’t want to hear about any of it. I was in complete denial. The whole being a woman thing… Being a person, fine, but being a man or a woman, I didn’t want to have anything to do with it. I remember clearly sitting in the classroom and being afraid that they could see it in my face, that I was being abused. “Please don’t let them see it, please don’t let them see it,” I thought to myself.
People seem to notice my past in some way, though. Those offenders, they have this very sharp sense of whom they attack and whom they don’t. I think they consider people’s self-esteem. Like, whom can I do this to, and whom can I not do this to. I also noticed that with the landlord.
Parental Interventions
One incident I did report to the police. That was the incident that happened when I was with the horses. It just strikes me as strange. The most serious things, I never reported those to the police. I couldn’t. It was too much. With things like that, you can’t report them to the police.
But with that one incident, I was forced to report it. My parents made me do it. So I sat there with my father, which was ridiculous, of course. I was so upset about it. I sat there with my father, which was very unsafe in and of itself, and then you have a male police officer who is there to record your story. And just, yeah, so cold. People who haven’t experienced it themselves, they don’t know what it means, what it does to you. It was done very properly, and very formally, but also detached and very cold. Those people don’t know any better. And then you have an ice cold father on top of that.
There was this boy at primary school who would kick me. I’m not sure why. I was not someone who would look for conflicts. Later on, I heard that things weren’t going well at that boy’s home either. He was probably letting off steam. Which wasn’t fun for me, of course. I was very upset about it. I already felt like there was something wrong with me, that I wasn’t good enough, that I wasn’t worth it. And then someone comes and starts kicking you and kind of confirms that feeling. That there’s something wrong with you and you’re just stupid. I wasn’t standing up for myself at all. I’m very much about trying to justify things, and about repressing things. It took a long time, but eventually, I told my parents about the boy. My mom went to school and then it stopped. I didn’t really realize it at the time, but looking back, it’s really weird, of course. You’re being hit at home and then your mom goes to school because a boy is kicking you there. I think she was trying to stand up for me. Like, if you have a reason to hurt someone, then fine, but if someone comes up to you for no reason and starts kicking you, then that’s unacceptable. It sounds weird, but I think that must have been it. Either way, I was very happy that it stopped, of course.
Self-Defense Courses
After the incident at the horses, a friend of mine started coming with me whenever I went to the horses. She said, “let’s take a self-defense course.” And so we did. And I took another one after that by myself. In a way, they helped me. I was surprised that I could defend myself so fiercely, that there was so much ferocity in me. That was a reassurance. But that’s just physically defending oneself. The real art is not in physical defense, but in how one feels. I mean, the feeling that you’re powerless in that situation. I haven’t been able to lose that feeling. And when I feel like that, my whole system shuts down. So there’s not much to defend in the first place. When I feel good about myself, then nobody will attack me. I believe that that’s the way it works. But when I’m completely withdrawn, then I feel vulnerable. I feel like nothing should happen to me in that state, because there’s nothing I can do. So it’s really about finding balance. Maybe I’ll struggle with that for the rest of my life. I don’t know.
Is It Normal?
I’m not sure when I started realizing that it wasn’t normal that I was being abused. It’s something that I still struggle with to this day. It was normal to me. That’s how I grew up. So in a way that was normal for me. I repressed those memories for years. So when you start to realize it, that’s when you start processing it. At some point, you notice strange things inside of you. Like that I was not afraid of the neighbor. And that it’s kind of strange that I did feel very unsafe around my own father.
I still feel like I don’t have a complete picture of how much impact it had. I’m still developing that. For a long time, I didn’t want to acknowledge it at all. So you’re starting to bury things. Before I acknowledged to myself that something was very wrong, you’re in it so deeply. You learn to recognize these processes in yourself, and the unsafety that comes with it, and your survival mechanism. It is so well ingrained, it’s unbelievable.
Relationships With Men
But speaking of unsafety … that has changed in the past few years. I even have a male therapist now. That’s big for me. But until I was 20 or so, I was terrified of men. Except for my own brothers, they were very close to me. I always kept men at a distance. Falling in love, but not letting anyone near. The first time that I dated someone, I was so terrified. I built a roof over my head. It was a disaster. At least for me. So tense. Not being able to enjoy it. It wasn’t fun for me at all. Constantly being terrified of being rejected, that that person doesn’t want you, doesn’t like you.
It affects your entire world view – having the feeling that you always have to be on the alert, always have to watch your back. I still don’t like it when someone sits behind me, in terms of energy, you know. I want to see people in front of me, not behind me. Sometimes, I totally panic when something happens, knowing that it’s the old part of me, but still being completely absorbed by it.
Feeling Dead Inside
At one point, I felt dead inside. I felt like everybody was out to hurt me. And so I didn’t let anyone in. All that time, you know that there’s something underneath the carpet. But I never felt the need to look what was under the carpet. So I kept it there until it exploded. That happened seven years ago. I had a nightmare. I was on sick leave for three months. I couldn’t do anything anymore. I cried all day. It was bizarre.
Things went fast after that. In my experience, you suffer more when you hide it then when you look at it. Because then you can start to do something about it. When you don’t acknowledge it, you’re constantly in survival mode.
After that nightmare, I broke off all contact with my parents for a while. I was too messed up. And then at one point, I thought, “We have so much more than that part alone. We have other things that we share, we love each other.” And so I initiated contact with them again. I had a good bond with them for a while.
Relationship With Mother
There’s not much that I can expect from my dad, I know that. I’ve tried to talk to my mom, though, several times. But people just don’t want to believe it, they don’t. She can’t handle it. She doesn’t buy it at all. That was a big blow. It felt like she was leaving me out in the cold all alone. That was suddenly very clear to me.
And I realized that I never really saw my mom’s role in any of this clearly. Like, you failed me, too. You weren’t there when all kinds of stuff had happened. When my dad was with me enjoying himself, you weren’t there. She knew that he abused me, and she didn’t do a thing.
You see, sometimes, my mom hit me too. But I could talk to her about it, and she’d say, “Sorry, I didn’t mean to.” But my dad was like a walking time bomb. When kids love their dad, they sit on his lap and stuff, they connect with him. I was never around my dad. How can my mom not have seen that? I don’t understand her and still feel frustrated.
When I realized that, something broke inside of me. I was done. I actually felt it in my body. Something broke. That was 2,5 years ago. I broke off all contact with them. They are having a really hard time accepting it. And, well, I’ve had a hard time too, but it feels like a good decision to me.
Double Punishment
My brothers, they know, but they have difficulty believing it, too. I don’t know why, but everyone has difficulty believing it. To me, it feels like double punishment.
The only person I have contact with in my family is an aunt. That was one of the biggest acknowledgements that I’ve gotten. When I finally shared it with her, she said, “If I’d known, I’d taken you out of there. Immediately.”
But if you think about it, my dad has 13 siblings, and my mom ten. I have lost contact with all of them. I sent my mom’s family an email. I didn’t tell them what happened, that’s nobody’s business. But I explained that I love my parents very much, but that this is my decision, and that if they want to contact me, that they can, and that I’d like that. Only one aunt responded. So that was another blow. Making my decisions was difficult enough, but then on top of that, you lose everyone you know: your family, your parents’ acquaintances and friends, the whole neighborhood. On the other hand, the people that you do get to keep, those are the ones who really care about you. They are worth gold.
Choosing Yourself
I love my parents too much to want to destroy them. It’s been a process, with lots of therapy, but I wish them only the best. The way I see it, they’ve made mistakes. And that’s very painful for me. I’m choosing myself now. I can’t be in contact with them anymore. I have had to face the painful reality and have started to work on it. Especially my mom’s response was a big blow. But there’s no need to destroy them. That’s why I didn’t tell my family.
My parents are not capable of acknowledging it. They just can’t. You know, my parents have had a hard life. My mom is disabled, my dad is disabled. So I can see where they’re coming from and in a certain way, I understand. But the only thing I want is for it to be acknowledged. That is the only thing I want. But they can’t.
I got an email from another aunt two weeks ago. She said that my mom is in so much pain, if we can’t make it up, whatever it is that happened between us. My first reaction was that I felt guilty. Like, what have I done to them, this is so bad, shouldn’t I maybe contact them? But then I ask myself, how do I feel? The thing is that I’m doing really well the way things are. And my parents still don’t acknowledge what happened. So, in a way, that’s done.
Contact with Parents
My parents know that I live here. They called me once, but I wasn’t there. They left me a message. I’ve told them that I don’t want to see them anymore, but that if they want to, they can write me a letter. They did that. Letters from my mom, and cards. It didn’t feel good to stop that form of contact. I’m not sure why.
I saw my mom once, when my grandma was dying. I wanted to say goodbye to my grandma, but I had the very strong feeling that I might run into them. And that was the case. My mom hugged me. But I came for my grandma. I can see how much my mom suffers. It’s very difficult for me, because I’m hurting her. But that’s the way things are sometimes. It is not an option for me to be seeing them anymore.
I’ve thought about reporting my dad to the police, but I wouldn’t. Plus, there’s a statute of limitations, so it doesn’t make sense. But even though I wouldn’t report him to the police, I feel like cases like these shouldn’t have a statute of limitations. I see people around me who were abused as a child and who are still in therapy when they’re 50. So the timeline is very different for things like this.
Shutting Down
The abuse and the way I grew up still affect me to this day. I was on holiday with a friend last year. And we got lost. We had tried different routes and we came out wrong every time. And I completely panicked. In situations like that, I feel totally detached, I can’t be reached. My throat is closing up, everything is tense. I talked to my friend about it afterwards. I wouldn’t have done that when I was younger. Everything inside of me was locked down back then. And she understood why I reacted the way that I did. Because I just reacted in a very strange way. I notice it in things like that.
Or when I’m faced with someone who is really angry. I shut down, I can’t respond. My reaction is like the primary reaction of the child, saying “don’t say anything, because you’ll get hit.” It’s very difficult to turn that into something else. It’s a very primary reaction focused on safety. Like yesterday, I was stuck in traffic and late for an appointment. The person I had an appointment was very angry with me, and I completely shut down. Those are survival mechanisms that still work within you, that you don’t really need anymore. As an adult, you could simply say, “I notice that you’re angry, what are you feeling,” so that you can open it up. But the child in you is just trying to protect itself. I don’t always recognize it, though.
Rebelling
There’s a part of me that doesn’t want to be influenced by my experiences. Like, I used to love going out, going dancing. But at the same time, I always had the feeling that people want to touch you and stuff when you go out. I didn’t want that to happen, it frightened me. But I didn’t go out any less because of it.
Even with my horses, I’d go out on the street to check on them, especially at night. I was so scared, but at the same time I had the feeling that I should be able to do that. It’s a kind of resistance, that one should be able to do that, and so I’m doing it.
I’m trying to not let myself be stopped. Last year, I travelled to the US all by myself. I climbed a mountain alone. I met a lot of women there who said that I had a lot of guts, doing that all by myself. There’s a part of me that wants that, that is actively looking for it. Of course, there was also fear. But I don’t feel like I’m letting myself be stopped by the fears that are still there.
The Adult and The Child in You
My deepest fear is that it happens again. The weird thing, and that occupies me constantly, is the difference between the adult consciousness and the child consciousness. I mean, as an adult, I know that I’m a grown-up now. There are so many things I can do. I did two self-defense courses. I mean, I know that. But in the child consciousness, there is still that feeling of being caught completely off guard, and feeling completely powerless, and not understanding what is happening at all, not knowing what to do, and totally panicking. That side is also still there, and I think that will always be there.
It really depends on what side is coming up, you see. It really depends on where my attention is. When I’m trying to process things, I’m really vulnerable. I can feel that. And then I’m afraid, because I know how vulnerable I am, and that I’m shut down and can’t respond properly. I remember an incident. There was this guy who really liked long hair, and he would start touching my hair. You know, he’d say “I’m a hairdresser,” which, looking back, I felt wasn’t true. He’d say, “I’m a hairdresser, can I please cut your hair?” The first two times that happened, I felt completely overwhelmed. I thought to myself, “Oh, no, no, I need to get out of here, I need to get out.” And the third time, I had just come back from a night in college. I had had a fantastic night, and I saw him coming up to me, and he started touching my hair again. And I put my hand on his shoulder and I said, “Not today, friend.” I never saw him again. Now I can laugh about it.
Light and Darkness
My lifestyle isn’t very common. I do a lot with energy, with healing. So I feel a lot at the chakra and aura level. And the good thing is that I’ve developed myself in a way that I feel a lot of light around me. But when I look around, at my backside, then it’s still very dark. When I connect with that part, then I see a little girl in a corner in a dark room, crying. A girl that feels so alone and isn’t being seen or heard, a girl that feels a very large sense of responsibility. I used to have this huge drive for competition. I always had to get A’s and A plusses to get approval and appreciation.
Taking Responsibility
I work for an organization that supports victims now. Like all of my major life decisions, the decision to start working there was based on intuition. I’ve told my colleagues about my past. There are good days at work when I can take any phone calls that come in, but there are also days that I can’t handle talking to victims. I’ve noticed that my experiences at work are also a catalyst for my own process. One of the biggest eye-openers for me was that victim-offender mediation can’t take place when an offender doesn’t take responsibility for what he or she did. My dad doesn’t take any responsibility, so it doesn’t make sense at all to try to talk to him about it. It’s pointless.
The End of This
I still can’t see the end of this, the depth of how far this goes. I’m still exploring that. The feedback that I get from my therapist makes me realize that the things that I’m feeling aren’t normal. A friend of mine is a psychologist, and she told me about insecure attachment, so not having a secure relationship with your parents. She made me realize that I have difficulty building up attachments with people, to show myself. I was building walls around myself.
I’m working on integrating all of my experiences. On how to give that space, how to give that shape. What I have to do when I’m panicking. And it happens regularly that I go back into that old part of myself, that I don’t know what’s going on. And now I’m starting to feel clearly that this is me, and that that is my childhood. That is the child that is terrified. I’m starting to recognize it. Like, this is not right, this is another part of me that I’m feeling right now. And then there’s also the issue that I don’t want other people to see it. Very much trying to hide it.
Survival and Intuition
I’ve thought about whether or not to do this interview for a long time. And it feels good to do this, I wanted to do this, I chose this. And sitting here, it feels good. I can feel my throat, but you know, that’s just a part of it. And this process will continue. It’s not like when you leave my house, I’ll fall apart. I feel like, it’s getting better. You’re a stranger to me, but it helps me to put this out there. It’s been hidden for so long.
Hard as this thing is, in some way it also gave me a lot. I am so aware of the value of physical boundaries, and the value of respect and honesty. I treasure that. And also my intuition about people. It developed out of a sense of survival, that you’re always trying to feel, you know, how is my dad feeling today, what can I do, what can’t I do. I’m grateful to know that I have my practice, that I’m really happy with. Of course, I’m not happy that I have these experiences, but it also brought me a lot.
You couldn’t have had this conversation with me two years ago. So I’m developing. I’m making progress. The sharp edges are gone. My studies, intuitive development, helped. And different types of therapy did, too. But some things remain difficult. I have a partner now, which is really special. I can talk to him about anything. I can see now that not everybody is like that. Things are falling into place.”
This real crime story is part of the “Real Crime Stories” series. These real crime stories show how crimes like child sexual abuse can affect lives. They were recorded as part of the author’s criminological research.
